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In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that segregated schools were unconstitutional. The move towards integration began. Years of violence and resistance from white people was to come. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/brown-v-board -
Emmett Till was murdered in Chicago. His mother, Mamie Till Bradley, had an open-casket funeral to show the world what had been done to her son. His killers were acquitted & people were outraged and grief-stricken. Till's murder propelled the urgency of the Civil Rights Movement forward. -
Rosa Parks is a well-known figure in the CRM for sparking the Montgomery bus boycotts. The Montgomery chapter of the NAACP planned the boycott & distributed thousands of leaflets to the 50,000 Black Americans who lived in the city. The boycott lasted for 381 days & led to the desegregation of public transportation. -
Following the Brown v. Board decision to end segregation in schools, Black children had to be escorted by the National Guard to class in their public schools. The "Little Rock Nine" were the first to attempt integration in Arkansas. They were met with protests and violence by white mobs. -
Six Civil Rights organizations, including Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Marched on Washington for jobs, freedom, an end to segregation, civil rights legislation, protection from police brutality, and so on. This is where King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smEqnnklfYs -
The terrorist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan planted dynamite at a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Four young girls were murdered and over a dozen others were injured. Four of the men known to be involved in the bombing were not criminally punished until years later. One man was convicted in 1977, two others in 2001, and the other man was never charged. -
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The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had been registering black voters for months in Alabama. A local judge tried to impede their work. King & others organized a nonviolent march from Selma to Montgomery. Along the way, marchers were attacked by the police & locals, putting the brutality of racism and police violence on display for the country & world to see. King delivered his "How Long, Not Long" speech upon completion of the march. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUlG13r1y1I -
King began to connect the evils of racism to economic injustice and war. He began to speak out against the war in Vietnam, and against economic inequalities for people of all colors. The campaign was organized by King & members of the SCLC. It made him that much more dangerous to the American government and the FBI. His involvement with the campaign is what ultimately led to his assassination by the FBI (later revealed in a court case put forward by his family). -
MLK was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while visiting to support black sanitary workers who were on strike as part of the Poor People's Campaign.
