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1865-13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment in United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
1868
granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. -
1870-15th Amendment
prohibits federal or state governments from infringing on a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
1896-Plessey V. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, case on May 18, 1896, by a seven-to-one majority (one justice did not participate), advanced the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws. -
1948-Truman desegregates the military
Executive Order 9981 was an executive order issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. It abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
1954-Brown V. Board of Ed.
the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
1955-Rosa Parks/Montgomery Bus Boycott
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man, a violation of the city's racial segregation laws. The successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, organized by a young Baptist minister named Martin Luther King, Jr., followed Park's historic act of civil disobedience. -
1957-Little Rock Crisis
Arkansas in the fall of 1957. Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent African American students from enrolling at Central High School. Central High was an all white school. -
1960-Sit-In Movement
The sit-in, an act of civil disobedience, was a tactic that aroused sympathy for the demonstrators among moderates and uninvolved individuals. African Americans (later joined by white activists) -
1962-James Meredith and 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, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. -
1961-Freedom Riders
The first freedom ride seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. -
1963-Letter from a Birmingham Jail
The letter served as a tangible, reproducible account of the long road to freedom in a movement that was largely centered around actions and spoken words. -
1963-March on Washington/"I Have a Dream" Speech
A protest that occurred in August 1963 when 250,000 gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.It was also known as the March for freedom and jobs. -
1964-Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Summer Project, was a 1964 voter registration drive sponsored by civil rights organizations including the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SN CC). Aimed at increasing black voter registration in Mississippi. -
1965-Selma March
Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SN CC), and the Southern Christian Leadership