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Executive order 9981
President Harry Truman wrote Executive order 9981 to end segregation in the military due to many black WWII veterans being discriminated. This was one of the first important desegregations of African Americans in the US. Source: https://www.trumanlibrary.org/9981.htm -
Emmett Till murdered
Emmett Till a 14 year old black boy was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman. This was a big change in the civil rights movement because it showed the public how far white people were willing to go. It generated more supporters, because people didn’t find it okay to hurt children. Source: https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/emmett-till -
Rosa parks refuses to give up bus seat
in protest of African American rights, Rosa parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man and was arrested later that day. Source: History.com/topics/black-rights -
Coordination of peaceful protests
60 black pastors meet to coordinate future peaceful protests for African American rights. This led to many protests that would lead to changes in civil rights history. Source: History.com/topics/black-rights -
Little Rock 9
Nine African American students are escorted into Little Rock central high school where they are yelled at and harassed by white individuals. Changed the course of mixed schools for history to come. Source: History.com/topics/black-rights -
Civil rights act of 1957
This law was created to protect African American voting rights, and increase the number of black voters. This allowed African Americans to more freely vote in the US. -
Greensboro sit ins
Black college students from North Carolina sat at a whites only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, leading to the desegregation of lunch counters in the US. Source: https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/6-legacy/freedom-struggle-2.html -
March on Washington
Protest of racial discrimination for jobs and freedom, one of the biggest protests in civil rights history. This is where MLK gave his famous “I have a dream speech” and it left an imprint on black history forever. Source: https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/1963-march-washington -
Bloody Sunday
600 marchers protest black voter suppression. They are brutally attacked by local police and citizens. In a direct result, literacy tests are banned and black people are able to freely vote. Source: History.com/topics/black-rights -
Martin Luther King jr assasinated
The man known as one of the biggest leaders of the civil rights movement is assasinated outside of his hotel room. MLK changed the movement forever and he gained many supporters along the way Source: History.com/topics/black-rights -
Map of important events
These events are important to African American civil rights because each of them added a unique change. The Little Rock 9 advocated for desegregation of schools which ended up happening. Woolworths lunch counter protesters advocated for the right to be desegregated at lunch counters which ended up happening in 1960. The march on washington got public support for the civil rights act. Bloody Sunday showed people how racism and violence was affecting society and how it was was being taken too far. -
before and after Rosa parks refused her seat
This is a graph showing civil rights advocacy before and after Rosa parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on the bus.