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Constitutional amendment forbids any state from depriving citizens of their rights and privileges and defines citizenship
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Supreme Court rules that separate but equal facilities for different races is legal. Gives legal approval to Jim Crow laws.
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Arguing that gradual progress is the best path for blacks, Washington focuses on job training and suggests that self-respect and self-help would bring opportunities
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Over 25 race riots occur in the summer of 1919 with 38 killed in Chicago. 70 blacks, including 10 veterans, are lynched in the South.
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FDR sets up Fair Employment Practices Commission to assure non-discrimination policies in federal hiring.
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Supreme Court reverses Plessy by stating that separate schools are by nature unequal. Schools are ordered to desegregate "with all deliberate speed"
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After Little Rock school board votes to integrate schools, National Guard troops prevent black children from attending school. 1000 federal paratroopers are needed to escort black students and preserve peace. Arkansas Gov. Faubus responds by closing schools for 1958-59 school year
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In response to white ministers who urge him to stop causing disturbances, King issues articulate statement of nonviolent resistance to wrongs of American society
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More than 200,000 blacks and whites gather before Lincoln Memorial to hear speeches (including King's "I Have a Dream") and protest racial injustice
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Overcoming Senate filibuster, Congress passes law forbidding racial discrimination in many areas of life, including hotels, voting, employment, and schools
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In first of more than 100 riots, Los Angeles black suburb erupts in riots, burning, looting, and 34 deaths
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While supporting sanitation workers' strike which had been marred by violence in Memphis, King is shot by James Earl Ray. Riots result in 125 cities