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Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy was kicked off a train car in Lousiana because he was sitting in a white only car. The Supreme Court ruled that African Americans were "seperate but equal." This leads to the Jim Crow laws. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Linda Brown didn't like the idea of having her daughter walk more than 20 blocks to the African American school, when their was a white school less than 3 blockes away. Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer of the NAACP and took on this case. Linda Brown won and this began the desegration of public schools. -
Emmit Till
Emmit Till was an African American teenager who was visiting relatives down in Mississippi. He was buying candy on a Sunday morning at a general store and was reportally flirting with a white woman. He was then kidnapped by the woman's husband and brother-in-law. Till was harrassed, beated and thrown into the local river. -
Rosa Parks Gets Arrested
Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Her arrest began the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott lasted for 11 months before blacks and whites were able to sit where ever on a public bus. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were 9 African America students who enrolled in Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governer Faubus put the Arkansas National Gaurd at the front of the school to keep the nine students from entering. The next day, President Eisenhower sent the U.S. National Guard to escourt these students fron class to class. During the school year, these African American students were bullied, stalked and harrassed by white studenets. -
Cooper vs. Aaron
This was a huge landmark decision in the Supreme Court of the United States. This held the states are bound by the Courts decisions. They must enforce them even if the states disagree with them. -
North Carolia Sit-Ins
Four African American students walked into a diner and sat at a whites only section in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students asked for coffee but they employees refused their service. The students then sat patiently and peacefully. These students were threatened but still didn't fight back. -
Ole Miss Riots
In Oxford, Mississippi, an African American male, James Meredith was escorted by U.S. Marshalls onto the Ole Miss campus. This sets off a deadly riot on the campus. Two men were killed because of these riots and many others were injured.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F8K6p651v8 -
MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech
200,000 people came to Washington D.C. to have a peaceful protest on the Lincoln Memorial's steps. His "I Have a Dream" speech is about racism and civil rights. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vDWWy4CMhE -
Birmingham, Alabama Bombings
Also known as the 16th Street Basptist Chrch bombings, 4 KKK men put 15 sticks of dynamite with timers under the front steps of the baptist church. This bombings cause 4 deaths and 22 injuries. MLK said the bombings were "One of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity." -
Malcolm X Assassinated
Malcolm X was an African American nationalist and religious leader. In NYC, Malcolm X was assassinated while giving his Organization of Afro-American Unity in Washington Heights. His assassin was a rival Muslim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfuZoJ7jopo -
Bloody Sunday
The Selma to Montgomery marches were a part of the voting rights movement in Alabama. Activists marched 54 miles 3 times from Selma to the states capital, Montgomery. These African American individuals were marching to excersize their constitutional right to vote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XghJMZbJL6s -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson. This was aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African American from their right to vote under the 15th Amendment. 27,000 African Americans were registered to vote within 3 weeks of this passed act. The eligiblity of voters from Mississippi rised from 7% to 59%. -
MLK Assassination
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray, the assassin was arrested 3 months later in London, England then extracted back to the United States. He was sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary, but died in 1998 at the age of 70.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbOV1xKFOmw -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
This act provided equal housing opprotunities regardless of race, religion or national orgin. It made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin." This act was signed in during the MLK assassination riots by LBJ.
