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The U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the racist policy of segregation by legalizing “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites
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The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by a group of activists in New York
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The U.S. Supreme Court unanimous decision that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in public schools.
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Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi.
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Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery City Bus and was arrested.
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The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins
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The Little Rock 9 enter Central High School as federal troops oversee the situation sent by President Eisenhower.
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4 black college students sat at an all-white lunch counter and started a sit-in protest at a Woolworth’s store.
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Six year old Ruby Bridges was escorted to her first day at the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans by four armed federal marshals
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Freedom riders begin a bus ride through the South to protest segregation.
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James Meredith becomes the first African American to enroll in the University of Mississippi
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A march from Selma to Montgomery to fight for voting rights begins.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham protesting in the “most segregated city in America.”
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More than 250,000 people, march on Washington to demand immediate passage of the civil rights bill.
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A bomb planted in a church kills 4 little girls and fuels angry protesting.
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John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas
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The 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax that made it difficult for blacks to vote.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the premier legislation for Civil Rights into law.
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Civil Rights activist Malcolm X was assassinated while speaking in Manhattan.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law outlawing literacy tests.
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Huey Newton & Bobby Seale founded the “Black Power” political group known as the Black Panthers.
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Robert Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles while on his Campaign Trail
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Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis.
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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act.
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The lynching of Michael Donald in Mobile, Alabama in 1981 was one of the last lynchings in the United States