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President Harry Truman issues the executive order 9981 to end segregation in the Armed Services.
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Brown v. Board of Education is decided by the Supreme Court and effectively ends racial segregation in public schools. Many schools still remained segregated in the south.
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Emmet Till a 14 year-old African American boy is beaten to death after reportedly flirting with a white woman. His murderers are acquitted and his death brings national attention to the Civil Rights movement.
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Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat in the black section of a Montgomery, Alabama bus for a white man. Her defiance starts a year long boycott of the buses in Montgomery by the African American population.
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Martin Luther King Jr. and 60 other black pastors and civil rights leaders from multiple southern states meet in Georgia to organize non-violent protests.
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The "Little Rock Nine" are barred from integrating into Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower eventually sends federal troops to escort the students, but that does not stop the harassment.
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President Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to help protect voters and allows for federal prosecution of anyone who tries to suppress another's voting rights.
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Four African American College students in Greensboro, SC refuse to leave a "whites only" lunch counter. This first sit-in sparked the idea all over the city and in other states too.
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Throughout 1961, black and white activists known as "freedom riders" took bus trips through the American South protesting segregated bus terminals. They also sat in at "white only" counters and attempted to protest.
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Over 250,000 people take part in the March on Washington for jobs and freedom where Martin Luther King Jr. gives his infamous "I Have a Dream" speech.
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A bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham Alabama kills four young girls and injures countless others. This fueled rageful protests.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. This act states that no one can discriminate employment based on race, color, sex, religion, or national origin.
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African American violent protest leader, Malcolm X is assassinated during a rally by members of the Nation of Islam.
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Nearly 600 civil rights marchers make a journey from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest against African American voter suppression. They are blocked and attacked by local police and do not get to Montgomery until March 25th after MLK takes their rights to protest to court.
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Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to prevent the use of literary tests as a voting requirement.
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Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated on the balcony of his hotel room.
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Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, which provided equal housing opportunity despite race, religion, or national origin.
