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First Step
President Roosevelt defined Four Freedoms; the freedom of speech and expression, the freedom to worship God in his own way, freedom from want and freedom from fear. This came as an immediate response to the post-war world. -
Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by the US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill following a meeting of the two heads of state in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of the US and British war aims. -
United Nations
The United Nation officially comes into existence. Representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference on International Organisation to draw up the United Nations Charter. Once the Charter had been ratified by CHINA, FRANCE, THE SOVIET UNION, THE UNITED KINGDOM, THE UNITED STATES and b a majority of other signatories the UNITED NATIONS OFFICIALLY CAME INTO EXISTENCE. -
United Nations adopts UDHR
Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages. Adopted as a response to the atrocities of both world wars. AUS was one of eight nations involved in drafting the UDHR. Dr HV Evatt, head of Australia's delegation to the UN, in 1948 became the Pres. of UN General Assembly. -
US Supreme Court : RACIAL SEGREGATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOL IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL
In Brown (Oliver Brown) v. Education (Board of Education of Topeka), the NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall successfully argued that school segregation was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. -
ROSA PARKS
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery to a white man. She was arrested and fined. The boycott of public buses by blacks in Montgomery began on Parks' court hearing and lasted 381 days. US Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate bus system. Martin Luther King Jr. was leader of the boycotts. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery. -
US Army becomes involved
US Army protects African American students entering Central High School, Little Rock.
President Eisenhower initiates 1957 Civil Rights Act -
'Freedom', 'Equality' fighters gain influence
Growing influence of Malcolm X, Black Power and Black Panthers. -
Campaign of 'sit-in' against segregation - Nashville
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change.
The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a nonviolent direct action campaign to end racial -
Protest marches
Protest marches in Birmingham, Alabama. The Birmingham campaign, or Birmingham movement, was a movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. August - March on Washington -
Civil Rights bill becomes law
The law’s provisions created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to address race and sex discrimination in employment and a Community Relations Service to help local communities solve racial disputes; authorized federal intervention to ensure the desegregation of schools, parks, swimming pools, and other public facilities; and restricted the use of literacy tests as a requirement for voter registration. -
'Bloody Sunday' and Selma to Montgomery march
Six hundred marchers assembled in Selma on Sunday, March 7, and, led by John Lewis. Just short of the bridge, they found their way blocked by Alabama State troopers and local police who ordered them to turn around. When the protesters refused, the officers shot teargas and waded into the crowd, beating the nonviolent protesters with billy clubs and ultimately hospitalizing over fifty people. -
'Freedom Summer'
'Freedom Summer' volunteers are murdered
Freedom Summer, or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
President Johnson signs Voting Rights Act
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. -
Martin Luther King assassinated
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.
