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Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court ruling meant to end segregation in public schools. However, some schools stayed segregated.
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This fingerprint file was taken of Rosa Parks after she refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery to a white passenger. This shows that her relatively minor crime was viewed as serious. -
Black Pastors and Civil Rights leaders plan out protests by meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.
Note: This was actually the tenth and the eleventh. -
President Eisenhower signed this bill which ensured the right of everyone to vote. Anyone who blocked someone else from voting could be prosecuted.
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One memorable exchange was,
Interviewer: “Why can’t you wait til 1969?”
Wilkins: “Because it is too long, because there are two-million negro children, each one of which, at the end of each segregated school year, is being denied and opportunity to prepare properly for life.”
School integration was urgent and the effects if it was not done right away were long-lasting. -
Black and White protesters banded together to use segregated bus terminals, restrooms, and lunch counters. There was a lot of violence against these Freedom Riders, which just gave them more publicity. And led to awareness about the Civil Rights Movement.
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In Birmingham, Alabama, over 1,000 black children marched in hopes of desegregation. Eventually, violent measures were used against the children. However, news coverage of these violent acts led to a desegregation agreement.
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250,000 plus people took place in this protest. It closed with Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" Speech.
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One quote that stands out from this iconic speech is, “...but one-hundred years later [after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation], the negro still is not free. One-hundred years later, the life of the negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination.”
Doctor King and his fellow protesters felt that freedom from slavery was not enough to make up for the injustice of segregation. -
This bill prevented employers from denying employment based on the race, color, sex, religion, or what country someone was from. This bill showed progress in the rights of all minorities, not just African Americans.
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Protesters against black voter suppression were stopped by violent police. The protesters were eventually granted the right to march and arrived safely at their destination on March 25. The attached map from the US National Park Service shows the route that the protesters followed until they were stopped by police. -
This chart shows that the Voters Rights Act of 1965 increased black voter registration. -
Martin Luther King Jr. was tragically assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray was later convicted.
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This law prevented the denial of housing based on one's race, religion, or what country they were from.
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Roy Wilkins resigned from his head position in the NAACP in 1976. He organized and participated in many marches and school equality events.
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Guion Bluford became the first black man in space. He was a member of the crew of the Challenger Space Shuttle.
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Ella Baker was an important, but relatively unknown part of the civil rights movement. She led from behind the scenes and organized several parties and led different groups to fight for Civil Rights. She worked both before and after the 60's. She died in 1986.
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Rosa Parks' iconic impact went far beyond the Civil Rights era. She founded a Self-Development center for youth in Detroit in 1987. Rosa Parks continued to fight for Civil Rights and was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1999.
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Jesse Jackson was leading in the Democratic presidential nomination, but he eventually lost.
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This remarkable black engineer and physician was the first black woman who flew in space.
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Carol Moseley Braun is elected the first black woman senator.
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Condoleezza Rice became the first black woman to hold this office.
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Barrack Obama is elected as the first black president of the United States.
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This national museum from the Smithsonian Institution was created to commemorate the culture and struggles of the African American community.