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President Truman issues an executive order outlawing segregation in the U.S. military
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Truman signs Executive Order 9981, which states, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin."
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Dwight D Eisenhower came into office
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The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
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Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded a nobel peace prize.
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At the age of 15 colvin was an african american woman from Alabama who refused to give up her seat on a montgomery bus to a white person.
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Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus as required, she is then arrested and a boycott follows and bus segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional.
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colvin testified in a montgromery federal court hearing about her actions on the bus. the same year she gave nirth to a son raymond who was so fair-skinned.
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Arkansas Gov. Orval Rubus desides to use National Guard to block nine black students from attending a Little Rock High School, following a court order, President Eisenhower sends in federal troops to ensure safety in the schools.
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Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.
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Four black college students begin sit-ins at lunch counter of a Greensboro, North Carolina, restaurant where black patrons are not served.
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The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement
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Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern States
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he was an african american man who was the first person to ever score 100 points in a single basketball game. his record still stands
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President Kennedy sends federal troops to the University of Mississippi to quell riots so that James Meredith, the school's first black student, can attend. The Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities
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Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham,
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Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is killed by a sniper's bullet.
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Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech to hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington.
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Four young girls attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meeting
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The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax, which originally had been instituted in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to make it difficult for poor blacks to vote.