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Brown vs. Board of Education
In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court issued perhaps the most important decision in its history. In Brown v. Board of Education, the Court struck down segregated schools as unconstitutional. At the heart of this decision was a powerful idea: students of different races will thrive together when they learn together. -
The Murder of Emmet Till
14-year-old African American boy who was abducted, tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. Attention focused on Montgomery. The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed. In Stride Toward Freedom -
Little Rock Nine
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. -
Freedom Riders
On Sunday, May 14, 1961—Mother's Day—scores of angry white people blocked a Greyhound bus carrying black and white passengers through rural Alabama. The attackers pelted the vehicle with rocks and bricks, slashed tires, smashed windows with pipes and axes and lobbed a firebomb through a broken window. As smoke and flames filled the bus, the mob barricaded the door. -
Equal Pay Act
The Equal Pay Act is a labor law that prohibits gender-based wage discrimination in the United States. Signed by President Kennedy in 1963 as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the law mandates equal pay for equal work by forbidding employers from paying men and women different wages or benefits for doing jobs that require the same skills and responsibilities. The bill was among the first laws in American history aimed at reducing gender discrimination in the workplace. -
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. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly Black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. Committed by the Klu-Klu-Klux. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson. -
March of Selma
Fifty years ago, on March 7, 1965, hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote — even in the face of a segregationist system that wanted to make it impossible. -
The Founding of NOW
Since the founding in 1966, NOW's purpose is to take action through intersectional grassroots activism to promote feminist ideals, lead societal change, eliminate discrimination, and achieve and protect the equal rights of all women and girls in all aspects of social, political, and economic life. -
The assassination of Martin Luther King. JR
Reactions to his death varied across the globe at the time, and have fluctuated considerably across the half century since – a period of huge and widespread change. As news of the murder spread, African-American rage erupted in violence in more than 100 cities. -
Fair Housing Act
The Fair Housing Amendments Act (FHAA) was signed into law on September 13, 1988 and became effective on March 12, 1989. The Act amended Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin in housing sales, rentals or financing. -
Stonewall Riots
The Stonewall Riots, also called the Stonewall Uprising, began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The raid sparked a riot among bar patrons and neighborhood residents as police roughly hauled employees and patrons out of the bar, leading to six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement outside the bar on Christopher Street, in neighboring streets. -
Title IX
Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a Federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive federal funding. Under Title IX, sexual discrimination includes harassment on the basis of sex. This can take many forms including: Verbal or written harassment.