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Greensboro Four
Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond, four black freshmen from North Carolina A&T State University sat at a segragated lunch counter and were refused service at the F. W. Woolworth's in Greensboro, N.C. They sat there and did not move until closing time. They came back the next day with 25 other students and were refused service again. They inspired other sit-ins across the state, which by the end of July made Woolsworth intergrate all of their stores. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
A few weeks after Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech, racial tension caused four young black girls (14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley and Carole Robertson and 11-year-old Denise McNair) to be killed in a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. Before the 11 a.m. services a bomb detonated on the east side of the 16th St. Baptist Church -
Same Sex Marriage in Massachusetts
On May 17th the courts opened and started issuing marriage licenses. Marcia Hams and Susan Shepherd were the first same sex couple to apply for and receive a marriage license. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled 4 to 3 on November 18, 2003, on the decision that it is unconstitutional under the Massachusetts constitution to allow only heterosexual couples to get married.
