-
Emmett Till Killing
A 14-year-old African-American boy, Emmett Till, was kidnapped and brutally beaten, and mutilated in Mississippi before being shot and dumped into a river for flirting with a white woman at a grocery store. The white men who beat and killed the boy were put on trial and found not guilty by a jury of white men. His mother decided to have an open-casket funeral to show the world what they did to him. This was one of the sparks of the Civil Rights Movement. -
Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Her Seat
Rosa Parks, a seamstress and future Civil Rights activist, refused to give up her seat for a white passenger on a public bus. The law required that she did, and she was taken to jail for her actions. This sparked a bus boycott for African-Americans, which made up a large majority of those traveling. This indefinite boycott led to increased tension and protests which resulted in a federal district court declaring segregated seating on buses to be unconstitutional. -
Greensboro Sit-In
Four African American college students in Greensboro, North Carolina (Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil) refuse to leave a Woolworth’s “whites only” lunch counter without being served. They were protesting the segregation laws that required them to sit in different areas in support of the civil rights movement. They were inspired by Gandhi's nonviolent protests, sparking similar sit-ins around the country. -
March on Washington
Over 250,000 people joined in marching to protest racial description and to show support for pending civil rights legislation. Key speakers included Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and John Lewis. This was the event where MLK gave his world-famous "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
After years of protesting and racial violence, along with discrimination against people of color throughout the history of the United States, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, including on the basis of job candidacy, with Title VII of the Act establishing the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to help prevent workplace discrimination.