History Timeline

  • The 14th Amendment is passed

    The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to all persons "born or naturalised in the United States," including formerly enslaved people, and provided all citizens with “equal protection under the laws
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    Jim Crow is in place

    Jim Crow law, in US history, any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the South.
  • Plessy vs Ferguson decision is handed down by the US Supreme Court

    The Court's “separate but equal” decision in Plessy v. Ferguson on that date upheld state-imposed Jim Crow laws. It became the legal basis for racial segregation in the United States for the next fifty years.
  • - Desegregation of the Armed Forces (Executive Order 9981)

    This event happened on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman. This executive order abolished discrimination "on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin" in the United States Armed Forces. The Order led to the re-integration of the services during the Korean War.
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    Brown vs Board of Education Topeka case

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional
  • The murder of Emmett Till

    The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till brought nationwide attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in Mississippi. Two of Emmett Till’s cousins, Wheeler Parker and Simeon Wright, witnessed Till’s kidnapping at the home of Moses Wright.
  • Rosa Parks sparks the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa was arrested launching the Montgomery Bus Boycott by 17,000 black citizens.
  • The Little Rock Nine

    The "Little Rock Nine," a group of nine teens came to be known, were to be the first African American students to enter Little Rock's Central High School. Three years earlier, following the Supreme Court ruling, the Little Rock school board pledged to voluntarily desegregate its schools.
  • Sit-in at a lunch counter by college students

    Four black students from North Carolina A & T College sat down at a Woolworth lunch counter in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, forcing partial integration and in increasing national awareness of the indignities suffered by African-Americans.
  • Freedom riders begin to test segregation laws

    Student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals.
  • James Meredith enrols at university

    Meredith became the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.
  • University of Alabama standoff – Governor Wallace and President Kennedy

    Attempting to block integration at the University of Alabama, Governor of Alabama George Wallace stands at the door of Foster Auditorium while being confronted by U.S. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach.
  • The leader of the Mississippi NAACP is murdered outside his home

    Medgar Evers had just come home after a meeting of the NAACP. As he began the short walk up to his single-story rambler, as a bullet struck Evers in the back.
  • Martin Luther King Jnr’s speech at the Lincoln Memorial

    Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. In the speech, he evoked the memory of Abraham Lincoln, the emancipation of the slaves, and the "shameful condition" of segregation in America 100 years after the American Civil War.
  • The 24th Amendment is passed

    It abolished and forbids the federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections.
  • The Grandfather Clause is repealed

    Lyndon B Johnson introduced the Voting Rights Act that was able to put an end to the discriminatory practice.
  • The March from Selma to Montgomery

    Hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote — even in the face of a segregationist system that wanted to make it impossible.
  • Interracial marriage is ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court

    The US Supreme Court ruled in Loving v. Virginia that bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional, extending the right to marry to interracial couples nationwide.
  • Interracial marriage is ruled unconstitutional by Supreme Court

    US courts have long recognised a constitutional right to marry. The US Supreme Court ruled that bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional, extending the right to marry to interracial couples nationwide.
  • Martin Luther King is murdered

    Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.