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Plessy vs. Ferguson
The U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the racist policy of segregation by legalizing “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites. -
Executive Order 8802
created to prohibit ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation's defense industry. -
Brown vs Board of Education
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimous decision that overturned the “separate but equal” doctrine in public schools. -
Lyndon B. Johnson
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law outlawing literacy tests. -
Emmett Till
Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi. -
Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins. -
The Little Rock 9
The Little Rock 9 enter Central High School as federal troops oversee the situation sent by President Eisenhower. -
Greensboro Sit-in
4 black college students sat at an all-white lunch counter and started a sit-in protest at a Woolworth’s store. -
SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was founded at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., providing young blacks with a more prominent place in the civil rights movement. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom riders begin a bus ride through the South to protest segregation. -
Albany Movement
This movement protested the segregation policies in Albany, Ga. Many groups took part in the Albany movement, including the SNCC, the NAACP, local activist and the SCLC. -
Ole Miss
Riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi, in Oxford where locals, students, and committed segregationists had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, an African American veteran attempting to integrate the all white school. -
Medger Evers
Ever's, a civil rights activist in Mississippi and the states field secretary for the NAACP, was assassinated in Jackson, MS. -
March On Washington
More than 250,000 people, march on Washington to demand immediate passage of the civil rights bill. -
Birmingham Bombing
A bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young girls and injures several other people prior to Sunday services. The bombing fuels angry protests. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the premier legislation for Civil Rights into law. -
Vietnam War Opposition
Many groups and individuals vehemently opposed the Vietnam War in the massive peace movement of the 1960s and '70s. King compared the antiwar movement to the civil rights movement and denounced U.S. involvement in a series of speeches, rallies and demonstrations. -
Assassination of Malcom X
Black religious leader Malcolm X is assassinated during a rally by members of the Nation of Islam. -
Selma to Montgomery March
A march from Selma to Montgomery to fight for voting rights begins. -
Bloody Sunday
Blacks began a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights, but were stopped at the Edmund Pettus Bridge by a police blockade in Selma, Ala. State troopers and the Dallas County Sheriff's Department, some mounted on horseback, awaited them. In the presence of the news media, the lawmen attacked the peaceful demonstrators with billy clubs, tear gas and bull whips, driving them back into Selma. -
Voting Rights
it outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the war. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery City Bus and was arrested -
MLK Arrested
Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham protesting in the “most segregated city in America.” -
Black Panthers
Huey Newton & Bobby Seale founded the “Black Power” political group known as the Black Panthers. -
Assassination of MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis.
