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The plessy v. Ferguson is the U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. The case from an 1892 incident where a African American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a car for Black people. -
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps. They flew more than 15,000 individual sorties in Europe and North Africa during World War II. They earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. -
Integration in the 1940's was sparked by several factors likethe increasing economic and political influence of urban Blacks, the success of Black ballplayers in exhibition games with major leaguers, and especially the participation of African Americans in World War ll. In 1947 Jackie Robinson was the first black player in the major leagues. -
During World War II, President Roosevelt had responded to complaints about discrimination at home against African Americans by issuing Executive order 9981.It directed that Black Americans be accepted into job-training programs.Executive Order 9981 stated that "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." -
Heman Marion Sweatt, a black man, applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School. Sweatt's application was automatically rejected because of his race. When Sweatt asked the state courts to order his admission, the university tried to provide separate but equal facilities for black law students. -
Supreme court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Thurgood Marshall was the head of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund -
Emmit Till, 14 year old was brutally beaten and murdered for allegedly flirting with a white women. The woman's husband and brother made him carry a 75 pound cotton gin. They later told him to take off his clothes and beat him to death. -
The Montgomery bus boycott was the civil rights protest that started the civil rights movement. A women by the name of Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat when being told the seats for colored people where in the back. -
After several failed attempts to negotiate with Faubus, President Dwight D. Eisenhower took action against the defiant governor by simultaneously federalizing the Arkansas National Guard.On September 25, 1957, student known as the Little Rock Nine, entered Central High School. -
The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. It did not create new rights, but it increased protection of voting rights and laid the foundation for federal enforcement of civil rights law. -
Four Black college freshmen sat down at a "whites-only" Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. The white waiter refused and told them they could order a take-out meal from the "stand-up" counter.They also did not give up their seats when a police officer arrived and menacingly slapped his nightstick against his hand directly behind them -
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists. Who took bus trips through the American South to protest segregated bus terminals. The groups were confronted by police officers as well as horrific violence from white protesters. -
The twenty-fourth amendment is the prohibition of federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes before a citizen participates in the federal election. It was proposed by congress on August 17, 1962. -
In January 1961, James Howard Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi, receiving a letter of rejection. After, eighteen months of legal battles, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Meredith on 10 September 1962, permitting his admission. -
On June 11, 1963, two black students were admitted to the University of Alabama. This happened after an unsuccessful attempt by Governor George Wallace to block their admission. President Kennedy ordered the national guard federalized to insure their admittance. -
On August 28, 1963, more than a quarter million people participated in the historic March on Washington, gathering near the Lincoln Memorial. Where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered the exalted "I Have a Dream" speech.The March on Washington evolved into a collaborative effort among major civil rights groups and icons of the day. -
On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.Bullets struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The governor was shot in his back. -
The passage of the Act ended the application of "Jim Crow" laws, , in which the Court held that racial segregation purported to be "separate but equal" was constitutional. -
On February 21, 1965 in New York City, Malcolm X, was an African American nationalist and religious leader.Malcolm X was gunned down as his pregnant wife and four daughters took cover in the front row. -
On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent protesters to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African had been campaigning for voting rights -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most statutory change in the relationship between the federal and state governments in the area of voting since the Reconstruction era. The Voting Rights Act had an immediate impact. By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new Black voters had been registered -
On Thursday, 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage in over 100 American cities -
The Civil Rights Act of 1968, popularly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental, or financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex.