civil rights timeline

  • Emancipation Proclamation

    Emancipation Proclamation
    Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln freed slaves in the Confederacy.
  • 13th Amendment passes

    13th Amendment passes
    The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery.
  • 14th Admendement Passes

    14th Admendement Passes
    The 14th Amendment granted due process
  • 15th Amendment Passes

    15th Amendment Passes
    The 15th Amendment granted blacks the right to vote, including former slaves.
  • Civil Rights act passes

    Civil Rights act passes
    Congress passed a third Civil Rights Act in response to many white business owners and merchants who refused to make their facilities and establishments equally available to black people.
  • Plessy vs Ferguson

    Plessy vs Ferguson
    The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad cars.
  • National Association for the Advancement of Coloed People founded

    National Association for the Advancement of Coloed People founded
    The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was founded by a multi-racial group of activists in New York, N.Y.
  • Brown vs Board of Educztion of Topeka, Kansas

    Brown vs Board of Educztion of Topeka, Kansas
    The U.S. Supreme Court's ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that public school segregation.
  • Montogomery Boyscott

    Montogomery Boyscott
    African-American woman Rosa Parks's arrest after her refusal to move to the back of a bus (as required under city law in Montgomery.
  • Greensboro NC Lunch Counter Sit-Ins

    Greensboro NC Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
    Four black university students from N.C. A&T University began a sit-in at a segregated F.W. Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C.
  • Martin Luther KIng Jr "I have a dream..."

    Martin Luther KIng Jr "I have a dream..."
    250,000 people join in the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listened as Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
  • Civil Right Act

    Civil Right Act
    President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964