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Plessy V. Ferguson
landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that came to be known as separate but equal -
The Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of primarily African American military pilots and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 33rd Expeditionary Operations Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the United States Army Air Forces -
Integration of Major League Baseball
In 1945, when Rickey approached Jackie Robinson, baseball was being proposed as one of the first areas of American society to integrate. Not until 1948 did a presidential order desegregate the armed forces; the Supreme Court forbid segregated public schools in 1954. -
Integration of Armed Forces
Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces 1948 Citation: Executive Order 9981, July 26, 1948; General Records of the United States Government; Record Group 11; National Archives. On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order banning segregation in the Armed Forces. -
Executive Order 9981
Executive order abolished discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin in the United States Armed Forces, and led to the re-integration of the services during the Korean War -
Sweatt v. Painter
U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the separate but equal doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education four years later. -
Brown V. Board of Education
landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Emitt Till
Emmett Till, a 14-year old African American boy, was murdered in August 1955 in a racist attack that shocked the nation and provided a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement. A Chicago native, Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he was accused of harassing a local white woman. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States.Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. -
Rosa Parks
the mother of the civil rights movement,Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955 launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 black citizens.The United States Congress has honored her as "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom -
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
sixty black ministers and civil rights leaders met in Atlanta, Georgia in an effort to replicate the successful strategy and tactics of the recently concluded Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Integration of Little Rock High School
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote was intended to strengthen voting rights and expand the enforcement powers of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. It included provisions for federal inspection of local voter registration rolls and authorized court-appointed referees to help African Americans register and vote. -
Sit-Ins Start Across America
sit-in movement, nonviolent movement of the U.S. civil rights era that began in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960. The sit-in, an act of civil disobedience, was a tactic that aroused sympathy for the demonstrators among moderates and uninvolved individuals. -
Greensboro Sit-In
The Greensboro Sit-Ins were non-violent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, which lasted from February 1, 1960 to July 25, 1960. The protests led to the Woolworth Department Store chain ending its policy of racial segregation in its stores in the southern United States -
Ruby Bridges
At the tender age of six, Ruby Bridges advanced the cause of civil rights in November 1960 when she became the first African American student to integrate an elementary school in the South.She was the first African-American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960 -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. -
Twenty-Fourth Amendment
citizens in some states had to pay a fee to vote in a national election. This fee was called a poll tax. On January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials. -
Integration of the University of Mississippi
On September 30, 1962, riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where locals, students, and committed segregationists had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the civil rights movement. Inspired by President John F. -
Vivian Malone and James Hood
the university's first African American graduate in 1965. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, in a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever and stop the desegregation of schools, stood at the door of the auditorium as if to block the entry of two African American students: Vivian Malone and James Hood -
Integration of the University of Alabama
On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation. The next day, Governor Wallace yielded to the federal pressure, and two African American students Navian Malone and James A. Hood successfully enrolled. -
March on Washington
250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities.The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. -
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders.Four members of a local Ku Klux Klan chapter planted 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps located on the east side of the church -
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Malcolm X is assassinated
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement.He was gunned down and killed at Audubon Ballroom during a rally by members of the Nation of Islam. -
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday, or the Bogside Massacre, was a massacre on 30 January 1972 when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr., an African-American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m
His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era. -
Voting Rights Act of 1968
An expansion of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, popularly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental, or financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots
