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Plessy V. Ferguson
Court case in which the Supreme Court ruled that "separate but equal" facilities were constitutional. -
Founding of NAACP
Du Bois urged blocks to fight discrimination rather than patiently submitting to it. In 1909, he joined Jane Addams and other reformers in forming the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP. Blacks and Whites in NAACP worked for equal rights for African Americans. -
Jackie Robinson Integrates Baseball
Jackie Robinson was the first black man on a baseball team. -
Military Integrates
African Americans were allowed to fight in the Army to fight against discrimination. -
Brown V. Board of Edu.
Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. -
Murder of Emmett Till
14 y/o black boy was lynched for flirting with a white girl. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
When Rosa Parks and other influential black activists boycotted a segregated bus. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. -
Greensboro Sit-In
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960 which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. -
Birmingham Children's March
A march where children walked downtown to talk to the mayor about segregation in their city. Many children left their schools and were arrested, set free, and then arrested again the next day. -
March On Washington
On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
Malcolm X Assasinated
In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. -
Selma March
On Sunday, March 21, 1965, nearly 8,000 people began the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
On this day in 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs The Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote. The bill made it illegal to impose restrictions on federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to blacks. -
Watts Riot
Racial tension reaches a breaking point after two white policemen scuffle with a black motorist suspected of drunken driving. A riot soon began, spurred on by residents of Watts who were embittered after years of economic and political isolation.
