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Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. The decision ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
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A mass boycott against the bus system of Montgomery, Alabama, by civil rights activists and their supporters that led to a 1956 U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring that Montgomery's segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. The boycott lasted 381 days and ended on December 20th, 1956. -
African-Americans in Tallahassee boycotted the bus system for nearly seven months after the arrest of two Florida A&M University (FAMU) students for sitting beside a white woman. Despite police intimidation, the boycott continued until on December 22, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on city buses was unconstitutional. -
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Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others, founded the SCLC in order to have a regional organization that could better coordinate civil rights protest activities across the South. They had the goal of redeeming "the soul of America" through nonviolent resistance. -
In 1959 the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors refused to appropriate money for the schools to protest court rulings that the county had to desegregate. With all the schools closed, African American students either had to attend schools out of the county or to forgo their education altogether. -
An act of nonviolent protest against a segregated lunch counter in North Carolina. It lead to many other sit-ins organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -
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Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern U.S to challenge the United State Supreme Court's precedent of non-enforcement. The buses were met with hostility and the riders were beaten and battered. -
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After a black Air Force veteran attempted to go to an all-white school riots broke out. Segregationists vehemently opposed the integration of the school and began rioting on campus. -
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A march of over 250000 people was held to protest racial discrimination and to support major civil rights legislation that congress hadn't approved. They also protested the unemployment rates of African Americans. -
Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded a Nobel peace prize in 1964. He received it for his leadership and his commitment to nonviolence. -
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Lyndon B. Johnson signed the voting rights act on August 6, 1965. The bill outlawed poll taxes and other discriminatory voting practices commonly used in the southern states.