-
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
This event took place from December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956. What happened in this event was that after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, many African Americans thought this was the time to make a change. They started to not ride the buses while being led by Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott lasted 381 days. -
The Little Rocks 9
A group of 9 African American students that enrolled in Little Rock Central High School. The students were prevented from entering the racially segregated school. -
Civil Rights act of 1957
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Originally proposed by Attorney General Herbert Brownell, the Act marked the first occasion since Reconstruction that the federal government undertook significant legislative action to protect civil rights. -
The Sit-in Movement
Four African American college students walked up to a white-only lunch counter in North Carolina, and asked for coffee. Despite being threatened and indimidated, they sat there quietly and waited to be served. -
The Freedom Riders
The Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode on interstate buses into segregated southern U.S. The group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the way. -
James Meredith and the Desegregation of the University of Mississippi
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. Despite the presence of more than 120 federal marshals who were on hand to protect Meredith from harm, the crowd turned violent after nightfall, and authorities struggled to maintain order. -
Protests in Birmingham
Activists in Birmingham, Alabama launched one of the most influential campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement: Project C, better known as The Birmingham Campaign. It would be the beginning of a series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation laws in the city. -
The March on Washington
More than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. -
The Selma March
Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights. -
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.
Shortly after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and mortally wounded as he stood on the second-floor balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn.
