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Plessy v. Ferguson
Louisiana made a law that required separate railway cars for blacks and whites. In 1892, Homer Adolph Plessy, who was seven-eighths Caucasian, took a seat in a "whites only" car of the train. He refused to move to the car reserved for blacks and was arrested. The law was voted constitutional 7-1. The case temporarily proved that "separate but equal" was okay. The decision led to the increase of Jim Crow laws in the South and granted legislative immunity to states regarding race. -
Brown v. Board of Education
African-American children in Topeka, Kansas were denied access to all-white schools due to rules allowing for separate but equal facilities. The decision was truly significant because it overturned the separate but equal doctrine established by the Plessy decision. The idea, which rose from the 13th amendment, in which equally could be created from separate facilities was proven not true. -
Emmett Till is murdered
Emmett Till, a 14 year old African American boy, was brutally beaten and murdered by two white men in Mississippi for flirting with a white girl. This happened close to the start of the Civil Rights Movement and gained a mass amount of coverage on the news. The open casket funeral, along with the pictures of his beaten body, led many to believe that Mississippi's segregation was getting out of hand. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Blacks were, by law, suppose to sit on the back of the buses while the whites sat up in front. Some African Americans, like Rosa Parks, refused to get up and trade seats. Soon the large majority of blacks refused to ride the buses at all. The protest in Alabama led to the US Supreme Court decision that declared the state and city laws that requiried segregated buses to be unconstitutional. -
Little Rock School desegregation- September 4, 1957
A group of nine black kids were admitted into a previously all white high school until the Brown v. Board of Education case. The national guard did all they could do to stop the teens from entering the building. Only one ended up graduating. This moment proved that equally was not going to be easily obtained without opposition. -
Sit-ins in Greensboro/Nashville
African Americans participated in a series of nonviolent protests in 1960 which involved simply sitting down peacefully in a place where they are denied service.The first one took place at the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. These demonstrations eventually led to positive results. Sit-ins lead to desegregation in many lunch counters and other public environments. -
March on Birmingham
The Birmingham Campaign was a strategic effort to promote civil rights for African Americans. Police used fire hoses and and dogs to stop the black people from protesting. This was significant because the media drew the world's attention to racial segregation in the South and led to the Civil Rights Act. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C where over 250,000 people fought for civil and economic rights for African Americans. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech was orated here. The march is widely credited as helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the National Voting Rights Act (1965). The march was also significant because both blacks and whites marched together for civil rights. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. Employers could no longer discriminate against someone on the bases of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. This act was one step closeer to equal opportunity. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This piece of legislation guaranteed voting rights that African Americans should have had since the passing of amendments 13-15. This is significant because by the end of that same year, 1965, a quarter of a million new black voters had registered as voters. Now African Americans had the right to vote for their representatives. -
Martin Luther King Assassinated
Martin Luther King, a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. His death was one of the opening acts which plunged 1968 into a year of turmoil. Conspiracies that the government was behind the murder prevailed.
