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President Harry Truman issues Executive Oder 9981 to end segregation in the Armed Services -
When fives cases related to school segregation first came before the supreme court in 1952, the court combined them into a single case under the name Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka. -
A 14 year old boy from Chicago is brutally murdered in Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman. The case brought international attention to the civil rights movement after jet magazine publishes a photo of Till's beaten body at his open casket funeral. -
A black woman named Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. These actions made the local black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott. -
sixty black pastors and civil rights leaders from several southern states. Martin Luther King Jr. , The other pastors, and the civil rights leaders coordinated a nonviolent protests again racial discrimination and segregation. -
Nine black students known as the "Little Rock Nine" are blocked from entering into little rock high school in little Rock, Arkansas. President Dwight D. Eisenhower eventually send federal troops to escort the students. However, they continue to be harassed. -
Four African American collage students in Greensboro, North Carolina refuse to leave a Woolworth's "whites only" lunch counter. The four students were inspired by the nonviolent protest of Gandhi. -
Eisenhower signs the civil rights Act f 1957 into law to help protect voter rights. The law allows federal prosecution of those who suppress another's right to vote. -
A six year old girl name Ruby Bridges is escorted by four armed federal marshals as she becomes the first student to integrate Willian Frantz Elementary school in new Orleans. Her actions inspired Norman Rockwell's painting "The problem we all live with". -
Throughout 1961, Black and White activists, known as freedom riders took bus trips through American south to protest segregated bus terminals and attempted to use "whites only" restrooms and lunch counters. The freedom Riders were marked by horrific violence from white protestors, they drew interanion attention to their cause. -
More than 1,000 Black children marched through, Alabama in a demonstration in a demonstration against segregation. The goal of the non-violent demonstration, which became known as the "children's Crusade", was to provoke the city's leaders to desegregate. -
Governor George C. Wallace stand in a doorway at the university of Alabama to block two black students from registering. The stand off continues until President John F. Kennedy sends the National Guard to the campus. -
Approximately 250,00 people take part in the march on Washington for jobs and freedom. This is when Martin Luther king Jr. gives his "I Have A Dream" speech. -
A bomb was thrown at 16th street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama Kills four young girls and injures several other people prior to Sunday services. The bombing fuels angry protests.