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The Emancipation Proclamation is issued by President Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves in the rebellious Confederate states.
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The Thirteenth Amendment is passed abolishing slavery in the United States.
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The Fourteenth Amendment is passed guaranteeing all African-Americans the rights of full U.S. citizens.
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The Fifteenth Amendment is passed guaranteeing the right to vote for all citizens regardless of race.
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Jim Crow laws become common in many southern states segregating blacks from whites.
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Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American to play major league baseball.
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The Supreme Court rules that segregation in the schools is unconstitutional in the Brown v. Board of Education case, overturning the earlier ruling in the Plessy v. Ferguson case.
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Rosa Parks is arrested for not giving up her seat on the bus. This sparks the Montgomery Bus Boycott which lasts for over a year. Eventually, segregation on the buses in Montgomery comes to an end.
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The Civil Rights Act is signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlaws discrimination based on race, national origin, and gender. It also outlaws segregation and the Jim Crow laws.
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The Voting Rights Act is signed into law making it illegal to prevent any citizen from voting regardless of race.
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Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
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