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Plessy v. Ferguson case
Victims were to seek help from the states according to 14th Amendment, saying people were to settle it within their state not the Federal government. Criminal District Court for Parish of Orleans Rougee argued law of "separate but equal" was unconstitutional, Plessy made rebuttal that State court uphold law for a writ of prohibition & certiorari. This case proved people were separate but they were not equal in anyway, more like biased against.
https://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=52 -
Brown vs. Board of Education case
The main issues involved in these cases were segregation issues in public school sponsored by the state. Delivered opinion in court "separate but equal" had no place because facilities for colored were worse than the whites. This event was to fix education systems from segregating students as if they aren't part of the nation and taking away their right to free education. http://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/history-brown-v-board-education-re-enactment -
Murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till was a 14 kidnapped, murdered and dumped into Tallahatchie river, this devastated people. This event drew thousands and Cleveland Sellers used Emmett Till to build a stand on equal rights due to such a tragedy. The importance of this though was that a young black boy was killed by white men exemplifying the racial violence and injustice in Mississippi. https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-rights-history-project/articles-and-essays/murder-of-emmett-till/ -
Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Park sat in first row of color section and was told to move out the seat by the driver. Parks eventually arrested for not complying to the bus driver. Her actions allowed King to start a bus boycott across the nation and it made bus company loose thousands, provoking them to treat passengers on a first come first serve basis. http://www.ushistory.org/us/54b.asp -
Founding of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) & Martin Luther King
60 black ministers/civil right leaders met to converse on the abolition of segregation in the nation. Multiple anti-violent protests began such as sit-in movement of 1960 and Freedom rides of 1961. This event was to show white people that blacks are not at fault, they did nothing wrong but want to be treated fairly and not be pushed around. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/southern-christian-leadership-conference-1957 -
Little Rock Nine & Central High School
Governer Orval Faubus, mobilized Arkansas National Guard to prevent 9 blacks from entering a white school. Eisenhower threatened Arkansas governor to let them integrate or else he will send in the army to deal with it. This shows the president was against segregation and wanted assimilation and equal rights or else he would have not helped the black students enroll to that school. http://crdl.usg.edu/events/little_rock_integration/?Welcome -
Greensboro Sit-in
4 gutsy African-Americans sit at white-only lunch table and later caused a wave of nonviolent protest against private-sector segregation. These men sat at lunch counters in diners and waited to be served, but they eventually got abused by whites and these actions inspired others to eventually do sit-ins to protest. These sit-ins caused chaos and caught the attention of America as it had planned to de-segregate diners and etc. http://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/greensboro-sit-in/ -
Freedom Ride/Freedom Riders
7 blacks 6 whites took a challenge to leave on 2 public buses from D.C. to the south to test the Supreme courts decision in Boynton v. Virginia. Later they were beaten, a bus burned, but they continued to persist the anti-violence travel and got more volunteers to support the trip. The significance was that people wanted to inspire people to go everywhere to prove they are just as equal as all. http://www.core-online.org/History/freedom%20rides.htm -
Civil Rights act
Lyndon Johnson signed into presidency after murder of Kennedy, approved Civil rights act of 1964 outlawing segregation from businesses, theaters, restaurants and hotels. Johnson fought hard in House Rules Committee, but with the help of Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the bill was passed. This was to guarantee nondiscrimination for blacks or any other race in the U.S, or to decrease segregation in the U.S. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=97 -
March on Washington
250,000 people led a march on Washington for jobs and freedom, this showed unity among civil rights organizations. NAACP, SCLC, CORE, and SNCC are major civil rights associations that contributed to the March, they were nicknamed the "Big Six". Due to so many people and organizations combining together to protest, they got the attention of the President as intended. https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=96 -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) & Freedom Summer
SNC and CORE recruited many students to try and vote altogether for a new political party. The parallel "Freedom Election" that the black Mississippi residents held challenged whites and was met with deadly violence from the Whites. This public outrage caught national attention leading to better events set in motion, such as Congress passing Civil Rights Act of 1964. http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Content.aspx?dsNav=N:4294963828-4294963805&dsRecordDetails=R:CS3707 -
Assassination of Malcolm X
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Voting Rights Act
African Americans had the right to vote, but it will risk total harassment, intimidation, and physical violence. The voting rights had changed the relations between the Federal and State because it was so significant in providing rights for all individuals. This act let the African Americans finally partake in elections, but they needed support from being potentially killed and thus the bong between gov't and state came to be and supported them. https://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=100 -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
King was killed while leading a peaceful march to support sanitation workers. King was killed by James Earl Ray because Ray acted out of purely racial hatred, and racism. King was a very important man who led an extreme pacifist movement and allowed his people to stand up and earn their rights. https://www.maryferrell.org/pages/Martin_Luther_King_Assassination.html
