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Founding of NAACP
Scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, the first to receive a PhD from Harvard University urged blacks to fight discrimination rather than patiently submit to it. He formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People with Jane Addams in response to Booker T. Washington willing to accept segregation. -
Jackie Robinson integrates baseball
Professional baseball was segregated into the white Major Leagues and Negro League. Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson into their major league team as the first African-American to be part of a major league team. -
The Military Integrates
In 1948, Harry Truman ordered integration of all units in the armed forces. This led to African American and white soldiers fighting side-by-side in the Korean War. -
The murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African-American boy who was visiting Mississippi to see some relatives. He bragged to his friends and cousins outside a country store that he had a white girlfriend. They dared him to ask the white woman in the store for a date, and he wolf-whistled on the way out after he bought candy. The woman claimed he had made lewd advances. He was kidnapped from his cousins' home by the woman's husband and other racists and was brutally murdered. -
Little Rock Nine
In 1955, the court ordered schools to desegregate "with all deliberate speed." Many white southerners did not approve.. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the school board decided on gradual desegregation, but the governor said they would not be forced to mix races. The national guard was sent to keep the 9 African Americans out of the school. 8 students walked together, and one student faced the mob alone (Elizabeth Eckford). Eisenhower stepped in weeks later and they were allowed to go to the school. -
Greensboro Sit-In
Four African American college students sat down at a "whites only" lunch table in Greensboro, NC and ordered coffee. They would refuse to leave unless served. It spread "sit-ins" all around the country to protest segregation. -
Freedom Rides
Civil rights leaders organized Freedom Rides of black and white races to ride on buses together. Thirteen set out on two bus rides through the deep south and were able to integrate multiple bus stations before in Alabama, they were violently attacked. -
Birmingham Children's March
The SCLC had thousands of African Americans, which included lots of children, had a peaceful march in Birmingham, Alabama, and were attacked by police dog, fire houses, and electric cattle prods live on television. Americans watching from home were horrified. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Lyndon Johnson pushed Congress to pass a Civil Rights Act. It banned discrimination in public facilities, such as restaurants or bathrooms, and fully outlawed discrimination in employment. Also provided for faster school desegregation and further protected non-white voting rights. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
After the Selma March in 1965 where Martin Luther King Jr. demanded for passage of a voting rights act. After that, President Johnson went on national TV to show his support of the act, and it was passed in the summer. It banned literacy tests and other barriers to African American voting. -
Malcolm X assassinated
Malcolm X, a militant civil rights leader who said, "An integrated cup of coffee isn't enough to pay for 400 years of slave labor," and called for a total separation of black and white society. Later, he changed his opinion and was no longer Islamic. He wanted a black and white brotherhood, but was shot to death in 1965, and 3 black Muslims were convicted of the crime. -
Watts Riots
Among urban discontent in 1965, a terrible incident occurred in Watts, an area in Los Angeles, where an act of police brutality was spotted. Residents burned cars and looted stores, and over 1,000 people were killed or injured.
