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Brown vs. Board of Education Topeka
A landmark United States Supreme Court case where seperate public schools for black and white children was established unconstitutional. This allowed children of both races to attend the same schools and receive the same education. -
Emmett Till
Emmett was accused of flirting with a white women and later kidnapped by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam. He was brutally beaten by the two and taken to the Tallahatchie River where they then shot him in the head. This tradgedy sparked a movement against racism. -
Rosa Parks and the bus boycott
Rosa Park refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order to give up her seat in the colored section for a white passenger when the white section of the bus was full. She became an international icon of resistance to racial segregation -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Following the victory of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the SCLC was created to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. The organization challenged the white-dominated status-quo by fighting segregation through the court system to avoid extreme hostility and violence from whites. -
Central High School integration
Nine African-American students, known as the Little Rock Nine, were denied entrance to the school in defiance of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling ordering integration of public schools. This provoked a showdown between the Governor Orval Faubus and President Dwight D. Eisenhower that gained international attention. -
North Carolina Woolworth's sit-in
A nonviolent protest which led to the reversing of Woolworth's department store chain's policy of racial segregation. While there were many sit-in's the Greensboro cause a lot of action, leading to increased national sentiment at a cruicial period in US history. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. -
Letter from Birmingham Jail
After being arrested for taking part in the Birmingham Campaign protest, Martin Luther King wrote 'The Letter From Birmingham Jail." King's letter was a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen titled, "A Call for Unity". The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets. -
James Meredith
James Howard Meredith was an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. After trying to get into University of Mississippi, and was denied twice, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed suit in the U.S. District Court, alleging that the university had rejected Meredith only because of the color of his skin. After being barred from entering on September 20, on October 1, 1962, he became the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi. -
Birmingham Protests
Because of the unequal treatment that black Americans endured in Birmingham, Alabama, the Birmingham Campain was started by Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A campaing of nonviolent direct actions between black youth and white civic authorities, it eventually led the municipal government to change the city's discrimination laws.
During the protest children and adults would walk the street chanting in protest. The White officials turned on fire hoses to blast the chanting children. -
March On Washington
"March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom" was one of the largest political rallies in United States history, which called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. It was here that Martin Luther King delivered his "I have a Dream" speech. The march helped pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. -
The 24th Amendment
The United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax can not deny all citizens of the United States the right to vote for all primary elections. This helped African American's to gaint he rigt to vote. -
Civil Rights Act 1964
The Civil Rights act outlawed alot of the discrimination against racial, ethnic, national, religious minorities, and women. It helped end the unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools and at the workplace. -
Malcom X Shot
Malcom X was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. In Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan, Malcom X had prepared to address the audience when a man in the audience yelled out at him. Malcom and security tried to quiet the disturbance, a man seated in the fron row show Malcom, along with others. By the end he'd had 21 gun shot wounds. The assassination helped bring African Americans together, and helped them realize that there is an opposing belief. -
Bloody Sunday
Also known as Selma to Montgomery marches marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. All three marches were an attempt to march from Selma to Montgomery. Potesting the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson, protesters were attacked by stake police with clubs and tear gast. Televised images of the brutal attack presented people with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and aroused support for the U.S. civil rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act
Made it illegal for discrimination against blacks voting rights. Act prohibits states from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting. -
Watts Riots
An African American man, Frye, was pulled over by a white man, Minikus, for driving while intoxicated. Police officers arrived at the scene and tried to arrest Frye by using physicial force. As growing crowds of local residents watching the exchange began yelling and throwing objects at the police officers. 29 people were arresed. -
The Black Panthers
The Black Panther party was an African-American revolutionary socialist organization. It was used to protect African american neighborhoods from police brutality. -
Black Power - Stockely Carmichael
Black power was African Americans coming together to form a political force. Everywhere that Black Power spread credit was given to Charmichael. Stockely Carmichael had given a speech that brought it into the spotlight and it became a rallying cry for young African Americans across the country. -
Martin Luther King Assassination
While standing in a motel's second floor balcony Kind was shot. People disagreed on the use of violence or nonviolence to carry out the justice. Many dedicated themselves to carry on his work. -
Civil Rights Act 1968
The Civil Rights act of 1968 provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race.
