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Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock 9
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. -
Greensboro sit-ins
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which was one of the sit-ins that later led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
1961 Freedom Rides
Seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when some 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. -
24th Amendment
The 24th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America abolished the poll tax for all federal elections. A poll tax was a tax of anywhere from one to a few dollars that had to be paid annually by each voter in order to be able to cast a vote. -
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. -
Malcolm X assassination
On February 19, 1965, Malcolm X told interviewer Gordon Parks that the Nation of Islam was actively trying to kill him. On February 21, 1965, he was preparing to address the OAAU in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person audience yelled, "Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!" As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance,[L] a man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun -
Selma Campain
The African-American group known as the Dallas County Voters League launched a voter registration campaign in Selma in 1965. Joined by organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, they began working that year in a renewed effort to register black voters. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Voting Rights Act is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. -
MLK’s assassination
King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where he and his associates were staying, when a sniper’s bullet struck him in the neck. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, at the age of 39.
Shock and distress over the news of King’s death sparked rioting in more than 100 cities around the country, including burning and looting. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
The Civil Rights Act of 1968, enacted April 11, 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, is a landmark part of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, religion, or national origin and made it a federal crime to “by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.
