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Brown V. Board
the Supreme Court overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) mandate that had served to enforce the second-class citizenship of black Americans for decades after emancipation, ruling in Brown v. Board (1954) that "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." -
Little Rock school board
In Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas, the Little Rock School Board agreed to comply with the high court's ruling. Virgil Blossom, the Superintendent of Schools, submitted a plan of gradual integration to the school board on May 24, 1955, which the board unanimously approved. -
Emmett Till Murdered
Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant kidnapped a 14 year old boy Emmett Till, beat him brutally, shot him and dumped his corpse in the Tallahatchie River, all just for whistling at a white woman. Emmett was visiting his family in Mississippi. The two men were arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School. Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. But President Eisenhower sends federal troops to intervene on behalf of the students. -
Virginia closes 9 schools
In 1958 Virginia closed nine schools in four counties rather than have them integrated, but Virginia and federal courts ruled these moves illegal. -
Four Black Students Protest.
Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, theaters and libraries. -
Desegregation in Louisiana
In 1960 desegregation began in Louisiana; whites boycotted the integrated New Orleans public schools at first triumphantly, later with diminishing effectiveness. -
First Black Students Register at the University of Georgia
Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter became the first two African American students admitted to the University, one of many segregated southern institutions. In 1961 two black students registered at the Univ. of Georgia but were suspended because of student disorders; they were later returned under a federal judge's order. -
Freedom Riders
Over the spring and summer, student volunteers begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations. Several of the groups of "freedom riders," as they are called, are attacked by angry mobs along the way. The program, sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), involves more than 1,000 volunteers, black and white. -
Violence in Mississippi
In 1962–63 violence erupted in Mississippi, precipitating a serious crisis in federal-state relations. Against the opposition of Gov. Ross R. Barnett, James H. Meredith, a black who was supported by federal court orders, registered at the Univ. of Mississippi in 1962. A mob gathered and attacked the force of several hundred federal marshals assigned to protect Meredith; two persons were killed. -
Combat Segregation
In 1963, South Carolina's Clemson College became the first integrated public school in that state. Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama was at the Univ. of Alabama attempting to block two black students from enrolling in 1963; the attempt failed. In the North attempts were also made to combat segregation. After a suit brought by black parents in 1960, the school system of New Rochelle, N.Y., was in 1961 ordered by a federal judge to be desegregated. Later, similar suits followed in other cities. -
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
Four 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. -
National Advisory Commission
The integration of southern school districts was progressing; by 1967, 22% of the black students in the 17 southern and border states were in integrated schools. However, the continued separation of blacks and whites in most areas was emphasized in 1968 when the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued a report that said, “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
