Civil Rights Timeline

  • Brown vs. Board of education

    Brown vs. Board of education
    In this case, African American children couldn't attend certain schools based on laws allowing public education to be segregated by race. They argued that segregation violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. They were denied relief because of the earlier case Plessy v. Ferguson, which established the "separate but equal" doctrine that stated segregation is okay as long as they're equal. The Supreme Court ruled that the schools were to be integrated because they weren't equal.
  • Emmett Till Murder

    Emmett Till Murder
    Emmett Till was 14 years old. He was murdered in August 1955 in a racist attack that shocked the nation. Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi when he was accused of harassing a local white woman. 2 white men went to Emmett's uncle's house and took Emmett. He was later found in the Tallahassee River. He was brutally beaten to death and his face was unrecognizable, he was identified because of a ring.
  • Rosa Parks Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Rosa Parks Montgomery Bus Boycott
    Rosa Parks was an African American woman who rode the city bus. She refused to give her seat up to a white man so she was arrested. Days later the Montgomery Bus Boycott which was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating.
  • The Little Rock 9 & Integration

    The Little Rock 9 & Integration
    The supreme court made a decision to desegregate the school board of Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Federal troops had to escort them inside because of the angry white people who didn't like the desegregation rule.
  • Greensboro Woolworth's Sit-ins

    Greensboro Woolworth's Sit-ins
    Four young African-American students that attended NCA&T staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter and refused to leave after being denied service.
  • Freedom Rides

    Freedom Rides
    The Freedom Rides of 1961 was a revolutionary movement where black and white people refused to sit in their designated areas of buses to protest segregation.
  • MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail

    MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail
    Birmingham was addressed to have so many violent protests because of the fact that it is the most segregated city in the nation. MLK addresses that if there is no social justice in that city, there won't be social justice in any city.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    In August 1963, civil rights leaders organized a rally in Washington for a peaceful demonstration to promote Civil Rights and economic equality for African Americans.
  • Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing

    Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing
    The KKK put a bomb in the back stairwell of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The bombing killed four African-American girls on the other side and injuring more than 20 inside the church.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964
    This act banned racial discrimination in places such as hospitals and restaurants, it also banned segregation in schools.
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment
    The 24th Amendment prohibited states from requiring payment of a poll tax as a condition for voting in federal elections.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Voting Rights Act of 1965
    The Voting Rights Act stated that discrimination against any person based on race, ethnicity, and religion is not allowed.
  • “Bloody Sunday”/Selma to Montgomery March

    “Bloody Sunday”/Selma to Montgomery March
    Selma to Montgomery March was a March that was begun because of the segregation and all of the bad things that were going on in the area, people marched to prove how upset they were. This was called bloody Sunday because of the many injuries were unable to reheal or were left with disabilities
  • Loving v. Virginia

    Loving v. Virginia
    In 1958 Mildred Jeter, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, were married in the District of Columbia. When they returned back to Virginia the couple was charged with violating the state's antimiscegenation statute, which banned interracial marriages. The Lovings were found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail.