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Heman Sweatt applied to the School of Law at the University of Texas and met every standard to be accepted except for the fact that he wasn't white. The Sweatt case gave "equality through segregation" meaning that they were still mostly separate but they were closer to being equal than ever before. -
With African Americans finally starting to get more rights, white people didn't want to treat them like they should have been treated. Transportation and education movements were the main movements during the 1950s. Schools were starting to integrate, leading to violence and hesitation.
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22-year-old Sarah Keys refused to give up her seat for a white man on the bus while crossing state lines to visit family. All the people were told to move to a different bus and Sarah Keys was arrested. -
While 14-year-old Emmett Till was visiting family in Mississippi, he was said to have whistled at a white woman. The boy was kidnapped that night by the woman's husband and brother-in-law who beat him to death. The woman came out years later and wrote a book about how he didn't actually whistle at her. -
The Montgomery Improvement Association was created to fight for the rights of black people in Montgomery, Alabama. They mostly focused on desegregating busses in the city. -
Black people in Montgomery, Alabama refused to ride the bus as a protest after the arrest of Rosa Parks. The transportation company was then making less money since the protesters were walking and carpooling and finally let them sit wherever they wanted so they could get business back. -
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was a branch off of the Montgomery Improvement Association. They started a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama that lasted 381 days to protest segregation on the busses. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 formed the United States Commission on Civil Rights for two years, created a civil rights branch inside the United States Justice Department, and enabled the United States Attorney General to pursue federal court orders that would secure African Americans' voting rights. -
In 1957, 9 black students started attending a previously all white school in Little Rock, Arkansas. The National Guard had to step in to help the students even be able to walk into the school. -
This supreme court case decided that Arkansas couldn't go against the court's decision in Brown v Board of Education. Arkansas was required to integrate their public schools, if they refused to, it would be considered unconstitutional. The Little Rock Federal Court approved postponing the integration plan, but the Supreme Court reviewed the case and decided against it. The schools were required to integrate with the original integration plan. -
The 1960s had lots of protests and violence, but with these came acts that helped African Americans gain more rights. White people started seeing how African Americans were being treated. They saw them getting beaten, blasted by fire hoses, killed, etc. MLK, Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and James Meredith were 4 main civil rights activists who got killed in the 1960s. African Americans started getting voting and housing equality, and they were starting to have less discrimination towards them.
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Black students at a Greensboro school went into a segregated restaurant and sat at the lunch counter to be served. The waiters would not serve them but they sat there anyways to non-violently protest. The white people in the restaurant poured their food on the students, called them names, and hit them. The protest was eventually successful because they were later able to sit at the lunch counter and be served. -
Freedom Riders were groups of civil rights activists who rode in buses through the South to protest bus segregation. Some whites and African Americans were doing these protests together, but they were being met with violence by protestors of the Freedom Rides. The civil rights activists were beaten at bus stops and one of the buses was bombed. News reports showing the Freedom Riders getting beaten and arrested and the bus bombing brought attention to what they were doing and helped them. -
This movement focused on ending all forms of racial segregation in Albany, Georgia. Their original focus was on desegregating transportation methods, forming a biracial desegregation committee, and releasing jailed protestors, but they ended up fighting for the end of all racial segregation. According to Martin Luther King Jr., the movement wasn't successful because its focus was too wide. MLK Jr learned from this movement and was then able to be successful in a later movement in Birmingham. -
James Meredith was the first African American to be enrolled at the University of Mississippi. Several other all-white colleges in the South had slowly started integrating their campuses after Brown v Board was decided, but Ole Miss had not yet started that process. Meredith's enrolment at the school was not warmly welcomed. He had to be escorted by federal forces because there was so much hatred toward him. -
In a movement in Birmingham, Alabama, African Americans nonviolently protested their rights by engaging in sit-ins at restaurant lunch counters, boycotts, marches, etc. Children and adults were blasted by fire hoses, attacked by police dogs, and clubbed by police officers. Segregationists made several attacks on the protestors and their friends and families after there were some agreements made between the protestors and the authorities, including the bombing of a church, killing 4 young girls. -
Medgar Evers was shot and killed in the driveway outside his house in Jackson, Mississippi by a white supremacist. Evers was a key player in finding witnesses for Emmett Till's murder case. -
In the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, over 250,000 people gathered near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to protest African Americans not being able to get jobs because of the color of their skin, and their lack of freedom. It was during the march that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -
During Freedom Summer, hundreds of volunteers went to Mississippi to help African Americans register to vote. A small percent of the African Americans in Mississippi were registered to vote, and the ones who were didn't vote because there was so much discrimination at voting polls. The volunteers faced much violence including 3 of the volunteers being taken by the KKK and beaten to death, their bodies were found 6 weeks after the incident. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 said that discrimination was not allowed based on the color of someone's skin, their religion, sex, or national origin. These things were banned in all public places, including restaurants, parks, courthouses, water fountains, and bathrooms. -
The Heart of Atlanta Motel was discriminating against African Americans coming into the motel to get a room for the night. The US decided that they had to stop discriminating because it was affecting interstate commerce since the motel was right off of I-75 and I-85. -
While speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in New York, Malcolm X was shot dead by Mujahid Abdul Halim. Halim and Malcolm X were both members of the Islamic Nation. -
Even after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, only 2% of African Americans in Selma, Alabama were registered to vote. MLK Jr. and other civil rights activists marched from Selma to Montgomery after being turned around twice. This march led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which secured the right to vote for everyone, no matter the color of their skin, and banned voting literacy tests. -
Lyndon B. Johnson signed this act into place after the March from Selma to Montgomery when it became known to him that Alabama still had literacy tests in place to prevent African Americans from voting. This act prevented literacy tests and stopped other voting practices that were discriminating. -
James Meredith was the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He began a protest walking from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi but was shot and killed along the way. He was protesting to show the continued racism and ongoing voter discrimination in the South. After he was killed, multiple organizations continued the protest by finishing the walk to Jackson, Mississippi. -
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead from the balcony of his motel room while visiting Memphis, TN. He was killed by a guy who had some smaller crimes in his past named James Earl Ray. King's death led to the passing of the Equal Housing Act a few days later. -
Before this act was passed, African Americans were being discriminated against while they were trying to buy and rent houses. This act was passed to prevent that and would later encompass discrimination with religion, sex, disabilities, national origin, etc. -
The 1970s had much resistance toward equality. African American women were being heard and records were made. Racial segregation in schools still existed but there was much less.
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In North Carolinas Charlotte public schools, over 17 years after Brown v Board had been decided had still not fully desegregated their schools. Busing was a good way to desegregate the schools according to the Supreme Court, so Charlotte was ordered to put together a busing plan to desegregate their schools quicker. -
Shirley Chisholm ran for president during the 1972 election. She was the first African American lady to run for president, so she was hoping she would have been able to get the votes of other women and other African Americans. Several times she was told to back out but she was confident in what she was doing and she didn't see anything changing unless she stepped in. -
Even after Brown v Board was decided on, there was much violence and resistance to school desegregation. Over 13 years after it was decided, violence was a major role in why the schools were still segregated. -
Hank Aaron, an African American baseball player hit his 715th home run, breaking the world record. He had received lots of death threats and other racially hateful mail, so the moment wasn't as amazing to him as it was to others. He went on to get 755 home runs before he hung up his cleats. -
Barbara Jordan was the first African American woman to deliver a keynote speech at a major party convention. She told Americans to devote themselves to a "national community", meaning that she wanted them all to see each other equally and be in harmony. -
The University of California had only 16 seats open for minority students in its medical school while 84 seats were open to white students. Bakke was fighting for all 100 seats to be open to minorities and white students so that everyone had equal opportunity to get into the school.