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Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
Secretary of State William Seward verified the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution eight months after the Civil War, making slavery illegal. However, this by no means ended the still-present issue of racism.
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/end-of-slavery-anniversary_n_4466330.html] -
Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment
The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment granted African American men the right to vote with no regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude. However, all women were still denied the right to vote at this time and it was made difficult for African American men to vote due to poll taxes and discriminatory literary tests.
[https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/15thamendment.html] -
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Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow Laws were a set of extremely strict anti-black laws that outlined exactly where African Americans stood in the ranks of society, how they should act, how they should treat white people, and how white people should treat them. Jim Crow Laws plagued primarily the South until President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act.
[http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/what.htm] -
Brown vs Board of Education
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in educational facilities was unconstitutional. While this was a major victory for civil rights activists, many people still met this decision with violence and inhumanity.
[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/central-high-school-integrated] -
Emmett Till Murder
Emmett Till is kidnapped, who then brutally beat him, kill him, and push his body in a river. Till's death sparked a Civil Rights Revolution.
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/timeline/timeline2.html] -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks, by simply refusing to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus, sparked the beginning a movement known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott where African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to peacefully protest segregated seating.
[http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott] -
Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
The Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington for Freedom took place when a crowd of over thirty thousand nonviolent demonstrators, from more than thirty states, gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the third anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
[http://crdl.usg.edu/events/?Welcome] -
Little Rock Nine
Nine African American students were escorted by the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division into the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, despite its governor previously attempting to prevent this racial integration by surrounding the school with National Guard troops. Not only were people more than willing to expose children to these horrific inequalities, these children were willing to fight back for their rights.
[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/central-high-school-integrated] -
Temple Bombing
White supremacists known as the "Confederate Underground" placed a bomb made of fifty sticks of dynamite near the Temple’s north entrance. The explosion caused almost $100,000 worth of damage .
[http://the-temple.org/AboutUs/History/TheTempleBombing.aspx] -
Greensboro Lunch Counter
In North Carolina, four African American college students entered the Greensboro Woolworth’s and sat down at the stools that were specifically for white people. After being asked to leave, they instead stood their ground and remained seated which was the beginning of a six-month-long protest that changed America.
[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/courage-at-the-greensboro-lunch-counter-4507661/?no-ist] -
Nashville Sit-Ins
Students in Nashville entered Kress, Woolworth, and McClellan stores at 12:40 pm. After making purchases, the students sat at the lunch counters; two hours later, the owners closed the counters without serving any of the students. Storeowners claimed that it was a “moral right” to decide whom they would or would not serve to. During the next three months the sit-ins continued.
[http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/nashville-students-sit-us-civil-rights-1960] -
Atlanta Sit-Ins
Atlanta University's All-University Student Leadership Group initiated a series of carefully orchestrated sit-ins at ten lunch counters and cafeterias throughout the city. Although police arrested 77 of the nearly 200 students who participated, no violence occurred, and the organizers declared the protests a success.
[http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/atlanta-sit-ins] -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders did their part to address racial discrimination by risking their lives, enduring savage beatings and imprisonment. They simply traveled together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/about] -
I Have a Dream
Civil rights activists gathered around the Lincoln Memorial in Washing DC at The March on Washington to hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s inspirational "I Have a Dream" speech outlining his hopes for the future.
[https://www.archives.gov/nyc/exhibit/mlk.html] -
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Frustration in Black Communities
Beginning 1964, growing frustrations in black communities over urban decay and lack of opportunities erupts into a wave of race riots through U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Newark (NJ) and Detroit Michigan. The years 1964 to 1971 see more than 750 riots, killing 228 people and injuring 12,741 others. Additionally, more than 15,000 separate incidents of arson leave many black urban neighborhoods in ruins.
[http://www.ushistory.org/more/timeline.htm] -
The Ballot or the Bullet
At a meeting sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, Malcom X gave his speech, "The Ballot or the Bullet." He urged all African American men to recognize their common struggles: political oppression, economic exploitation, and social degradation at the hands of the white man. He urged them to push for change by utilizing their right to vote and tried to convince them that blacks could be the swing vote.
[https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/content/malcolmx-ballot-speech.html] -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law thereby banning racial discrimination in some areas such as hotels, restaurants, education, and other public accommodations and guaranteeing equal job opportunities, which was a major objective of the March on Washington. The law almost immediately came under legal challenge, but remained law.
[http://www.crf-usa.org/black-history-month/the-civil-rights-act-of-1964] -
Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X was giving a speech to the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Thomas Hagan, Norman Butler and Thomas Johnson rushed the ballroom stage and fired several gunshots at Malcolm X and he was later pronounced dead.
[http://www.ibtimes.com/malcolm-x-assassination-death-facts-about-civil-rights-icons-murder-more-50-years-2315982] -
Voting Rights Act
President Lyndon B Johnson prohibited the discriminatory voting practices that many Southern states adopted as a reaction to the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment such as poll taxes and literary tests. This made it realistically possible for African-American men to participate in voting.
[https://ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=100] -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
James Earl Ray shot Martin Luther King Jr as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, killing him and sending people across America flooding into the streets in outrage and riots.
[http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr-assassination] -
Election of Barack Obama
On November 4, 2008, President Barack Obama made history when he was elected the first African American President. While racism still occurs, Barack Obama's victory in the presidential race offers an undeniable example of the fact that people's view regarding race is changing and becoming more accepting.
[https://www.solidarity-us.org/node/2026] -
#BlackLivesMatter
The Black Lives Matter movement began after Trayvon Martin was placed on trial for his own murder after dying. It centers those that have been marginalized within Black liberation movements. It is a call to action for America to recognize that racism is very much alive and is an issue that needs to be addressed. President Obama described the movement as highlighting "a particular burden that is being placed on a group of our fellow citizens."
[http://blacklivesmatter.com/about/]
