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Truman becomes the first President to address the NAACP, also marking the first time a president addresses a Civil Rights organization. He delivered the strongest statements heard on Civil Rights since Abraham Lincoln.
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Truman signed Executive Order 9981, which desegregates the U.S. Armed Forces, and Executive Order 9980, which prohibits race-based employment discrimination in the federal government. -
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional -
African American civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. Her subsequent arrest initiated a sustained bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. -
African American children were allowed to go to an all-white school but the state didn't want them to even though the government allowed it. -
African Americans were often poor because of the belief that Americans were superior -
4 African American men walked into a restaurant and sat an all-white bar countertop as a form of protest and white Americans abused them for hours -
six-year-old Ruby Bridges was escorted to her first day at the previously all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans by four armed federal marshals. They were met with angry mobs shouting their disapproval, and, throughout the day, parents marched in to remove their children from the school as a protest to desegregation.
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He quotes" My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world." He wanted everyone to work together to fix America after the war. -
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The Freedom Rides began on May 4, 1961, with a group of seven African Americans and six white people who boarded two buses bound for New Orleans. The freedom riders protested the laws against segregated seating in busses restrooms and drinking fountains. in retaliation, some white Americans firebombed the bus and beat up the riders. -
A crowd of about 250,000 individuals gathered peacefully on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to listen to speeches by civil rights leaders, notably Martin Luther King, Jr and he gave his famous speech "I Have A Dream" speech -
"And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood." -
On April 12 King was arrested for violating an anti-protest injunction and placed in solitary confinement. The demonstrations continued, but, after a month, King was convinced to launch the Children’s Crusade. Beginning on May 2, 1963, school-aged volunteers skipped school and began to march. -
The act authorized the federal government to prevent racial discrimination in employment, voting, and the use of public facilities. Although controversial, the legislation was a victory for the civil rights movement. -
An African American man was killed due to excessive force by the police because he was drinking and driving. this caused riots and looting in Los Angeles -
Malcolm X was assassinated while lecturing at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York. -
President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.
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Since the Voting Act was signed more African American were able to vote. This caused many African Americans' voices to be heard -
A series of violent confrontations between residents of predominantly Black neighborhoods and city police in Detroit began after a raid at an illegal drinking club where police arrested everyone inside, including 82 African Americans. Nearby residents protested, and some began to vandalize property, loot businesses, and start fires for the next five days
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His murder set off riots in hundreds of cities across the country, and it also pushed Congress to pass the stalled Fair Housing Act in King’s honor on April 11. The legislation made it unlawful for sellers, landlords, and financial institutions to refuse to rent, sell, or provide financing for a dwelling based on factors other than an individual’s financial resources. -
The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King’s assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.
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The killing of George Floyd, 46, of St. Louis Park — who repeatedly told a Minneapolis police officer he couldn’t breathe as the officer knelt on his neck on May 25, 2020 — sparked days of unrest in Minneapolis and St. Paul and mass protests across the globe over the treatment of Black people by police. -
The Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd are the strongest example of the continued relevance of protest action to voice frustration and attempt to influence policy action among Americans. With as many as 26 million people estimated to have participated, it is the largest protest movement in American history.