Civil Rights Timeline

  • Jackie Robinson enters Major League Baseball

    Jackie Robinson enters Major League Baseball
    Jackie Robinson, an African American, broke the norms and joined the Major Leagues for baseball, this opened the MLB to welcoming different ethnicities to the league.
  • Executive Order 9981 signed by President Truman

    Executive Order 9981 signed by President Truman
    This order was signed by President Truman, it provided significant change to the U.S. by desegregating the Army allowing different cultures to participate in enlisting.
  • Emmett Till Murder

    Emmett Till Murder
    Emmett TIll was a young black child who spoke to a white woman, she vouched he was being disrespectful. He disappeared and was found to have been beaten and tortured to death and dumped in a lake. This was an act of racism and pure evil by white men.
  • Little Rock Nine Intervention

    Little Rock Nine Intervention
    The Little Rock Nine were nine African American students who were harassed simply for walking to school. President Eisenhower had sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas to protect these students.
  • Greensboro Sit-In Protest

    Greensboro Sit-In Protest
    This was a nonviolent protest in the Woolworth store, it made them change their rules and make it so there was no segregation in their chain of stores.
  • Integration of Ole Miss Riots

    Integration of Ole Miss Riots
    In Mississippi, white college students from Ole Miss came together to protest the college, a black Air Force veteran was denied enrollment. They had attempted to get him enrolled, and finally got the school integrated, it was also the first integrated school in Mississippi.
  • The Birmingham Children’s March

    The Birmingham Children’s March
    In Birmingham, Alabama, 1000 children protested for civil rights, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. They were nonviolent and the police responded by unleashing dogs on them, fire hoses, and even arresting them.
  • George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”

    George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”
    The governor of Alabama stood in the University of Alabama's doors to try and prevent it from being integrated.
  • 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

    16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
    The 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing was a terrorist attack by the KKK on a black church, they had exploded the church during a Sunday school. This act of racism had injured many and killed 4 little girls, it is disgusting to think about and highlights how evil people truly can be.
  • Freedom Summer

    Freedom Summer
    College students all came together in Mississippi for the entire summer to protest voter registration for black people in Mississippi.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed

    Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed
    After Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson carried out his act and sent it to Congress, it was signed and passed a short time later. It prevented segregation from happening in businesses.
  • Malcolm X is murdered

    Malcolm X is murdered
    On this day Malcolm X was shot in Harlem's Audubon Ballroom in New York. He had recently left the Nation of Islam religion and had been killed by three member of them.
  • The Selma Marches / Bloody Sunday

    The Selma Marches / Bloody Sunday
    In Selma, Alabama on a Sunday, hundreds of African Americans came together to protest voting rights, they were met with state troopers attacking them and brutally beating them.
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott
    On the day Rosa Parks was intended to go on trial, African Americans protested and refused to ride buses in Montgomery for 381 days. This changed the law in order to ensure there was no segregation in the bus.
  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated
    In the evening Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a Lee Harvey Oswald, at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, he was shot and died in the hospital.