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Executive Order 9981
President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, it states, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." -
Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans.,. They agree that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. This ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. It is a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall. He will later return to the Supreme Court as the nation's first black justice. -
Emmett Till
Fourteen-year-old black Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. The reason was because he had allegedly whistled at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. “They later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview.” This case becomes a cause célèbre of the civil rights movement. -
Rosa Parks
(Montgomery, Ala.) NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger. It defied a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest, the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott. It lasted for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956. Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is a key in leading the boycott. -
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Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement; furthermore, it bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. -
Little Rock Nine
Nine black students attend and all white school, Central High School, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The students were blocked from entering the school by the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. They would later be known as “Little Rock Nine.” -
Greensboro Sit-ins
Four black students begin a sit in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. This event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina -
First Black Student
James Meredith becomes the first African American student enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots happened because of this, so President John F. Kennedy sends 5,000 troops. -
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Birmingham Campaign
During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Al, people were using police dogs and water hoses at the protesters. The brutality was televised and published widely; it gained sympathy for civil rights movements around the world. -
Jailed
Martin Luther King got arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He wrote the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” arguing that individuals have moral duty to disobey unjust laws. -
I Have a Dream
Martin Luther king delivers his famous “I Have a Dream“ speech from the Lincoln Memorial.
