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Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation in the 60's. 80% of black families lived under the national poverty line. Mississippi 45% blacks..of that percent onll 5% of legal voters regestiered.
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In 1955 Afircan Americans were still required, in Montgomery Alabama, to sit in the back of the bus. Rosa Parks was on her way home and sitting in the front row of the "colored-section" when all the white seats were full. When the driver asked her and three others to get up they refused.
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Organized by the CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) May 4th 1961 13 Freedom Riders left D.C. Their plan was to reach New Orleans to celebrate th e 7th anniversary of the Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision. Which ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. The bus was going to make a stop in Alabama, when an angry mob followed them and when the tires blew they threw a bomb in the bus. The freedom riders did escape the bus, but the mob beat them when they came out.
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On August 28 more than 200,000 Americans gathered in D.C. for a political rally called the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. This event was designed to shed light on political and socail challenges African Americans faced across the country.
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Many of the Civil Rights protest marches where held in Bitmingham. It began on the sleps of the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, it was a religious center for the black population. The KKK members calle din bomb threats to disrubt the civil rights meetings. September 15 1963 about 200 church members were inside the church when a bomb on the east side of the church went off. Most of them were able to make it out but the bodies of four little girls were found in the rubble.
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Martin Luther King Jr's Southern Christian Leadership Conference made Selma, Alabama the focus of its effort to register black voters in the south. As the protesters tried to march from Selma to the state capital they were meet by state and local authorities, But the world got to watch the protesters reach their goal. Walking around the clock to make it to Montgomery.
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The voting rights bill was passed by the U.S. senate, after debating it for a month. The act banned the use literacy test, and also provided federal oversight of voter registration in areas where less than 50% of nonwhites had not registered to vote.
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On April 3 King gave a speech at the Mason Temple Church, The following day he was on the second-floor balcony at his motel. Where he and his assoicates were staying when a sniper bullet hit him in the back of the neck. He was then rushed to the hospital and pronouced dead an hour later.
