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Keys v. Carolina Coach
At just 22 years old, on Aug. 1, 1952, Sarah Keys Evans refused to give up her seat on a state-to-state charter bus, prompting the landmark court case, Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, in which the Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed the segregation of Black passengers in buses traveling across state lines. -
Hank Aaron’s Home Run Record
Aaron hit 755 home runs from 1954-76, a mark that stood until Barry Bonds hit 762 from 1986-2007, a feat assisted by performance-enhancing drugs. Baseball's Hall of Fame will unveil a bronze statue of Hank Aaron on May 23 on the first floor of its museum in Cooperstown, New York. Aaron was elected to the hall in 1982. -
Emmett Till’s Murder
In August 1955 two Mississippians bludgeon and kill Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, for whistling at a white woman; their acquittal and boasting of the atrocity spur the civil rights cause. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Description. This legislation established a Commission on Civil Rights to investigate civil rights violations and also established a Civil Rights Division within the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 authorized the prosecution for those who violated the right to vote for United States citizens. -
Little Rock Nine Crisis
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine Black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. -
Greensboro Sit-In
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, young African American students sat in a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The movement soon spread throughout the South. Many of the protesters were arrested for trespassing but their actions made an immediate and lasting impact, forcing Woolworth’s and other establishments to change their segregationist policies. -
Freedom Rides
During the spring of 1961, student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. Traveling on buses from Washington, D.C., to Jackson, Mississippi, the riders met violent opposition in the Deep South, garnering extensive media attention and eventually forcing federal intervention from John F. Kennedy’s administration. -
Albany Campaign
The Albany Movement was a desegregation and voters' rights coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, in November 1961. -
Birmingham Movement
The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. -
Assassination of Medgar Evers
On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers was murdered by a white supremacist in the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. Evers was inducted into the United States Army in 1942. -
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
It was the largest gathering for civil rights of its time. An estimated 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, arriving in Washington, D.C. by planes, trains, cars, and buses from all over the country. -
Mississippi Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
Assasination on Malcolm X
February 21, 1965: In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. He was 39. -
Assasination on Martin Luther King Jr
At 6:05 P.M. on Thursday, 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. News of King’s assassination prompted major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage in over 100 American cities.