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This case upheld that state mandated segregation laws did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. In this case Mr. Plessy, a mixed race man, boarded a "white only" train car in New Orleans. This continued the "separate but equal" segregation laws. -
1900 - 1920 full segregation in every state in the South. -
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was created after a deadly race riot in Springfield. There was much anti-black violence, especially lynchings, prior to Springfield. A group of white liberals including Mary W. Ovington and Oswald Garrison Villard (both descendants of abolitionists) had a meeting to discuss racial justice. Seven of those who attended the first meeting were African American and included W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Mary Church -
Congress of Racial Equality was recognized as a serious civil rights organization. It was founded in Chicago by students. -
Morgan v. Virginia was heard by the Supreme Court in 1946 which outlawed segregation on public transportation after Irene Morgan was arrested and found guilty of not giving up her seat to a white person on a Greyhound Bus. Unfortunately the southern states did not comply with this ruling. -
It was a precursor to the Freedom Rides also called "the first Freedom Ride" and was led by Bayard Rustin and 18 other men and women. It was a two week non-violent trip to test the interstate discrimination laws in the upper South. -
This case ended the "separate but equal" laws and ended desegregation on all public interstate transportation in a historic Civil Rights ruling. This ended the "Plessy" interpretation of the laws. -
This organization was formed by black ministers and community leaders in Montgomery Alabama with Martin Luther king, Jr. being its leader. He led the Montgomery bus boycott that gained national attention on racial segregation in the South. This protest made Dr. King a national figure in fighting segregation. -
This civil rights organization was founded as a byproduct of the Montgomery Improvement Association. It was founded by Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others in order to have a regional group that could do a better job coordinating civil rights protests and activities across the South. -
This was an organization of college students that was formed to organize sit-ins, boycotts and other nonviolent protests against segregation and other forms of racial discrimination. They joined CORE to desegregate interstate bus transportation even though the Supreme Court had ruled it was unconstitutional. Diane Nash was one of the founding members who organized the Freedom Riders. -
In this case Mr. Boynton filed a suit against the state of Virginia because he was denied service at a restaurant in a bus station. Because he was an interstate bus traveler he claimed his civil rights were denied by refusing him service in the "white" section of the restaurant. He was found guilty and his appeal was denied and affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court. -
Civil Rights activists and students continued boycotts and sit-ins of segregated businesses and transportation companies in the South. -
May 4 - December 10, 1961, Freedom Riders rode interstate buses into the segregated South to challenge the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.