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On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson made his MLB debut in front of 26,623 fans at Ebbets field. Robinson started at first base and went hitless, but reached base on an error in the seventh and scored the eventual go-ahead run in a victory against the Boston Braves. -
Executive Order 9981, signed by President Harry S. Truman on July 26, 1948, was a landmark order that effectively desegregated the United States Armed Forces, abolishing discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin within the military, marking a significant step forward in the Civil Rights Movement; it established a committee to oversee the implementation of this policy within the armed forces -
Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to surrender her seat on a bus to a white passenger. The incident sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which, led by the young Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., brought a renewed urgency to the civil rights struggle. -
On September 9, 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.