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Publishing of Cry, the Beloved Country
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Truman signs Executive Order
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The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
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Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on the bus
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Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter
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James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi
Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops. -
Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama
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Mississippi's NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home.
Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for murdering Evers. -
Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
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our young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings.
Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of two more black youths. -
The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax, which originally had been instituted in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to make it difficult for poor blacks to vote.
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President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation. -
The bodies of three civil-rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen dam, six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson.
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Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is shot to death
It is believed the assailants are members of the Black Muslim faith, which Malcolm had recently abandoned in favor of orthodox Islam. -
Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade.
Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later. -
Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote.
Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal. -
Race riots erupt in a black section of Los Angeles.
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Race riots erupt in a black section of Los Angeles.
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President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246