Civil Rights Timeline Camille Kahra

By camillekahra
  • Brown V. Board of Education

    Brown V. Board of Education

    1. Plessy V. Ferguson
    2. Linda Brown, a young African American girl, was denied admission to her neighborhood school, due to her race.
    3. Segregation of public schools was ruled unconstitutional in result of Brown V. Board.
  • Emmett Louis Till Murdered

    Emmett Louis Till Murdered

    1. Location: Money, Mississippi
    2. Emmett was murdered brutally by two men at age 14 for flirting with a white woman. The men were found guilty after trial.
  • Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat

    Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat

    1. Rosa Parks challenged public segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
    2. Rosa Parks was arrested for actions. But it also inspired the African Americans dramatic boycott on busses, eventually bringing an end to bus segregation in Alabama.
  • Events at Little Rock, Arkansas

    Events at Little Rock, Arkansas

    1. Mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas ordered troops from the national guard to prevent nine African American students from entering their local high school to which they had recently been admitted to. An angry white mob also joined the troops.
    2. U.S army troops were sent to guard the high school and escort the students around school.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1957

    Civil Rights Act of 1957

    1. President Eisenhower passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
    2. The law protected the right of African Americans to vote.
  • James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss

    James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss

    1. When Meredith tried to enroll at Ole Miss, he was greeted at the admissions office by governor of Mississippi, Ross Barrett, who denied him entrance.
    2. 500 federal marshals were sent to escort Meredith to the campus. Later due to more conflict, Kennedy sent several thousand troops to the school and helped Meredith attend classes under federal guard.
  • Medgar Evers Assassinated

    Medgar Evers Assassinated

    1. Medgar Evans was an African American civil rights activist and field secretary for the NAACP.
    2. Medgar was shot in the back while in the driveway of his house by Byron de la Beckwith, a white supremacist.
  • The March on Washington

    The March on Washington

    1. The purpose of the March on Washington was to gain more public support for the civil rights movement because Kennedy would have a hard time pushing his civil rights bill through congress.
    2. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech".
  • Young African American Girls Killed

    Young African American Girls Killed

    1. Location: Birmingham, Alabama
    2. Four young schoolgirls were killed in the bombing of their Baptist church. This attack was intended to injure African Americans, like it did.
  • Civil Rights Workers Slain

    Civil Rights Workers Slain

    1. Location: Philadelphia, Mississippi
    2. Civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were abducted and shot dead by Klansmen.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964

    1. President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
    2. The law banned segregation in public places and discrimination in the workplace.
  • March to Selma

    March to Selma

    1. March to Selma was organized as a responsive protest to the fact that despite African Americans making up a majority of Selma's population, they composed only 3% of the registered voters. This was because a sheriff was violently terrorizing them to prevent them from voting.
    2. As the protestors approached the outskirts of Selma, the sheriff ordered them to disperse. 200 state troopers and deputized citizens brutally beat the protestors.
    3. President Johnson proposed a new voting rights law.
  • Voting Rights Act

    Voting Rights Act

    1. Location: Washington D.C
    2. Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It eliminated things that had previously restricted African Americans from voting, like literacy tests.
  • Thurgood Marshall first black Supreme Court Justice

    Thurgood Marshall first black Supreme Court Justice

    1. Thurgood Marshall was the NAACP's chief counsel and director of its Legal Defense and Education Fund before becoming a justice.
    2. This was such a monumental event because Thurgood could help the Civil Rights movement a lot in his new position.
  • Student Protestors Killed

    Student Protestors Killed

    1. Location: Orangeburg, North Carolina
    2. Students Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano MIddleton, and Henry Smith are killed when highway patrolmen fire on protestors. 27 others were injured.
  • The Assassination of Dr. Mr Luther King

    The Assassination of Dr. Mr Luther King

    1. Dr. Martin Luther King was standing on his hotel balcony, when he was assassinated by a sniper.
    2. His death marked the end of an era in African American history. The movement continued on but lacked the unity of purpose and vision that Dr. King had given it.
  • Attack of the Freedom Riders

    Attack of the Freedom Riders

    1. Freedom Riders were teams of African Americans and whites attempting to desegregate interstate busses, by riding the busses into the South. They were often attacked violently, sometimes even killed.
    2. CORE helped organize freedom riders.
    3. Both African Americans and whites joined the Freedom Riders.