civil rights timeline

  • 13th amendment

    13th amendment

    abolished slavery as an institution in all U.S. states and territories. In addition to banning slavery, the amendment outlawed the practice of involuntary servitude and peonage.
  • 14th amendment

    14th amendment

    granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including former enslaved people and guaranteed all citizens equal protection of the laws.
  • 15th amendment

    15th amendment

    “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The 15th Amendment guaranteed African-American men the right to vote.
  • Tuskegee Institute created

    Tuskegee Institute created

    founded by Booker T. Washington under a charter from the Alabama legislature for the purpose of training teachers in Alabama. Tuskegee's program provided students with both academic and vocational training.
  • Plessy vs Ferguson

    Plessy vs Ferguson

    Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. As a result, restrictive Jim Crow legislation and separate public accommodations based on race became commonplace.
  • NAACP created

    NAACP created

    National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. interracial American organization created to work for the abolition of segregation and discrimination in housing, education, employment, voting, and transportation, to oppose racism and to ensure African Americans their constitutional rights.
  • 19th amendment

    19th amendment

    The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
  • Equal Rights amendment

    Equal Rights amendment

    is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in matters of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.
  • Executive order 9981

    Executive order 9981

    stated that “there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” The order also established an advisory committee to examine the rules, practices, and procedures of the armed services.
  • Brown vs Board of education

    Brown vs Board of education

    In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States.
  • Montgomery bus boycott

    Montgomery bus boycott

    civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man.
  • SCLC formed

    SCLC formed

    The SCLC assisted black Americans in registering to vote, it opened citizenship schools, but above all it preached the use of non-violence in all campaigns associated with its name. It wanted to present civil rights to America and the world as a moral issue.
  • Little Rock 9

    Little Rock 9

    was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1957

    Civil Rights Act of 1957

    established a Commission on Civil Rights to investigate civil rights violations and also established a Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 authorized the prosecution for those who violated the right to vote for United States citizens.
  • SNCC formed

    SNCC formed

    civil-rights group formed to give younger Black people more of a voice in the civil rights movement.
  • Chicano Movement

    Chicano Movement

    The Chicano movement emerged during the civil rights era with three goals, restoration of land, rights for farmworkers, and education reforms. As a viable political entity, Latinos, particularly Mexican Americans, began demanding reforms in labor, education, and other sectors to meet their needs.
  • Greensboro, NC sit-ins

    Greensboro, NC sit-ins

    was a civil rights protest that started when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service.
  • Freedom Riders

    Freedom Riders

    The Freedom Rides brought together civil rights activists who rode interstate buses from DC into the segregated South in 1961 to challenge the non-enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.
  • Cesar Chavez

    Cesar Chavez

    he worked to gain better working conditions for the thousands of workers who labored on farms for low wages and under severe conditions. Chavez and his United Farm Workers union battled California grape growers by holding nonviolent protests.
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment

    prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax.