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Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States -
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. B. Du Bois, Mary White Ovington, Moorfield Storey and Ida B. Wells. -
Malcom X
Malcolm X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the black community. -
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr is born. King fought for justice through peaceful protest—and delivered some of the 20th century's most iconic speeches. Martin Luther King, Jr., is a civil rights legend. In the mid-1950s, Dr. King led the movement to end segregation and counter prejudice in the United States through the means of peaceful protest. -
CORE
Founded in 1942 by an interracial group of students in Chicago, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pioneered the use of nonviolent direct action in America's civil rights struggle. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The SCLC played a major part in the civil rights march on Washington, D.C., in 1963 and in notable antidiscrimination and voter-registration efforts in Albany, Georgia, and Birmingham and Selma, Alabama, in the early 1960s—campaigns that spurred passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They were the first African American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. -
Greensboro Woolworth
Greensboro sit-in, act of nonviolent protest against a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, that began on February 1, 1960. Its success led to a wider sit-in movement, organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), that spread throughout the South. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
SNCC sought to coordinate youth-led nonviolent, direct-action campaigns against segregation and other forms of racism. SNCC members played an integral role in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, and such voter education projects as the Mississippi Freedom Summer. -
James Meredith and Ole Miss
The first African-American to attend the University of Mississippi, Meredith is noted for leading the 1966 “March Against Fear” from Memphis to Jackson in protest of the physical violence that African-Americans faced while exercising their right to vote. He was shot by a sniper shortly after beginning a lone civil rights march through the South. -
24th Amendment
The 24th Amendment outlawed the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections, by a vote of 295 to 86. At the time, five states maintained poll taxes that disproportionately affected African-American voters: Virginia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas. -
John F. Kennedy's Role in the Civil Rights Movement
President Kennedy defined civil rights as not just a constitutional issue, but also a “moral issue.” He also proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1963, which would provide protection of every American's right to vote under the United States Constitution, end segregation in public facilities and public schools, etc. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Lyndon B. Johnson's Role in the Civil Rights Movement
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs into law the historic Civil Rights Act in a nationally televised ceremony at the White House. In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Black Panthers and Huey Newton
The Black Panthers were involved in numerous violent encounters with police. In 1967, founder Huey Newton allegedly killed Oakland police officer John Frey. Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in 1968 and was sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. An appellate court decision later reversed the conviction.
The Black Panthers were part of the larger Black Power movement, which emphasized Black pride, community control, and unification for civil rights. -
Black Power and Stokely Carmichael
Stokely Carmichael was a U.S. civil-rights activist who in the 1960s originated the Black nationalism rallying slogan, “Black Power.”It is a call for Black people in this country to unite, recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for Black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.” -
Kerner Commission
The purpose of the Kerner Commission was to stop riots. recommended creating 2 million inner-city jobs, 6 million new units of public housing, and commitment to fight de facto segregation. -
Assassination of MLK, Jr.
His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era