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Dorothy Dandrige
Dandridge was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first African-American nominated for a leading role. The 27th Academy Awards were held on March 30, 1955, and although Grace Kelly won the award, Dandridge became an overnight sensation.Dandridge's performance as the seductive leading actress in the 1954 musical film "Carmen Jones" made her one of Hollywood's first African-American sex symbols. -
Attack to Sergeant Isaac Woodard Jr.
U.S. Army Sergeant Isaac Woodard Jr. was on a bus traveling from Georgia to rejoin his family in North Carolina. When the bus reached a rest stop just outside Woodard asked the bus driver to stop for him to use the bathroom. The driver contacted the local police, who forcibly removed Woodard from the bus, demanded to see his discharge papers, and took him to an alleyway where they beat him with nightsticks. He was taken to the town jail and arrested for disorderly conduct. -
Jackie Robinson - MLB
Jack Roosevelt Robinson was a professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. Robinson's character, use of nonviolence, and unquestionable talent challenged the traditional basis of segregation which then marked many other aspects of American life. -
Mother Station of the Negroes
Nat Williams started Tan Town Jubilee in October 1948. WDIA was the first radio program in the United States to appeal to black listeners, and WDIA soon became the number-2 station in Memphis. After a switch to all-black programming, WDIA became the city's top station. It was called the "Mother Station of the Negroes" and inspired a sense of pride, involvement, and community. -
Berry Gordy founds Motown
Motown Record Corporation was originally founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit. Motown played an important role in the racial integration of popular music as an African American-owned label that achieved significant crossover success. Gordy sold the recorded version of an MLK speech in Detroit, the prototype for his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Paul Robeson - UN
Paul Robeson was an American bass baritone concert artist and stage and film actor who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his political activism. On 1951, Robeson presented to the United Nations an anti-lynching petition. The document asserted that the United States federal government, by its failure to act against lynching in the United States, was "guilty of genocide" under Article II of the UN Genocide Convention. -
Brown v. Board of Education
In Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that American state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools were otherwise equal in quality. Was a major victory of the Civil Rights Movement, in the South where racial segregation was deeply entrenched, the reaction to Brown was angry and stubborn, with many white Southerners refusing to integrate. -
Rosa Parks
In Alabama, Parks refused to relinquish her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled. Parks was not the first person to resist bus segregation, but the NAACP believed that she was the best candidate for seeing through a court challenge for civil disobedience. Parks inspired the black community to boycott the Montgomery buses for over a year, a major campaign of the post-war civil rights movement. -
Martin Luther King Jr. popularity
Martin Luther King Jr. became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement. He led a 1962 struggle against segregation in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize the nonviolent 1963 protests in Birmingham, Alabama. He also helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Bus segregation ends in Montgomery
In 1956 the Supreme Court ruled against bus segregation and the Montgomery bus company, which was losing money, tried to comply, but was overruled by the local police chief. The federal district court in Montgomery ruled that the city’s segregation ordinances were unconstitutional. The ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court and the following month the city announced its compliance. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm advocated the separation of African Americans from whites. His speeches had a strong effect on his audiences, who were mainly African Americans in northern and western cities, who were tired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect. He rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence, stating the opinion that black people should defend and advance themselves "by any means necessary". -
Greensboro sit-ins
The Greensboro sit-ins were a series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation. They acted as a catalyst to the sit-in movement that spread to more than 55 cities in 13 U.S. states within three months. The sit-ins received significant media and government attention, and by 1960, more than 60,000 student sit-ins were organized all over the southern United States. -
Ella Baker founds Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Ella Baker criticized professionalized leadership, she promoted grassroots organizing, radical democracy, and the ability of the oppressed to understand their worlds and advocate for themselves. She was an influential leader with youth at a time when there was no place for female leadership in the Civil Rights Movements. -
Ruby Bridges - New Orleans school
Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to desegregate the all white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis in 1960. She was one of six black children in New Orleans to pass the test that determined whether they could go to the all white school. -
University of Georgia
Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes became the first two African-American students to enroll in the University of Georgia. Holmes was the first African American student to attend the Emory University School of Medicine, and Hunter was among the first African American women to graduate from the university. -
Lunch counter sit-ins
Diane Nash, with John Lewis, led student protesters in a policy of refusing to pay bail. Nash served jail time in solidarity with other nine students imprisoned after a lunch counter sit-in. Nash said to the judge, "We feel that if we pay these fines we would be contributing to and supporting the injustice and immoral practices that have been performed in the arrest and conviction of the defendants." -
Detroit Walk to Freedom
The Walk to Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement on 1963 in Detroit. It drew crowds of an estimated 125,000 or more. Various ministers and leaders of local and national organizations including the Mayor of Detroit were in attendance and gave speeches. They united on that day to protest racial discrimination in downtown Detroit, racial violence continued after the march. -
March for Jobs and Freedom
The Great March on Washington was held in Washington, D.C. on 1963, with the purpose of advocating for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. The march was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and is credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act. At the march Martin Luther King Jr, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech calling for an end to racism. -
Bloody Sunday
On 1965, around 525-600 civil rights marchers headed southeast out of Selma on Highway 80. The protest went according to plan until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they encountered a wall of state troopers and county posse waiting for them on the other side, who then began shoving the demonstrators, knocking many to the ground and beating them with nightsticks. Another detachment of troopers fired tear gas, and mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback. -
Bloody Sunday march is televised
The brutal attacks on the marchers from Selma to Montgomery were broadcast on national TV, presenting more than 480 million Americans and international audiences with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured. They roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Campaign, appealing to clergy leaders and citizens who joined them in over 280 subsequent marches throughout the U.S. on "Turnaround Tuesday". -
Lyndon Johnson's speech on voting rights
A week after the attacks on voting-rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, in the event that has come to be known as “Bloody Sunday”, President Lyndon Johnson stood before Congress and demanded a voting-rights bill to sign, borrowing for the occasion the civil-rights movement’s anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act was a landmark piece of federal legislation in the U.S. that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Voter registration remained difficult for citizens of color in the South during the following years, as white officials were reluctant to integrate blacks in the voting process. -
Shooting of James Meredith
James Meredith launched a demonstration intending to make a solitary walk from Tennessee to Mississippi to counter the continuing racism in the Mississippi Delta after passage of federal civil rights legislation in the previous two years and to encourage African Americans in the state to register to vote. On the second day of his walk, Meredith was shot and wounded and had to be hospitalized. -
Black Power movement
Stokely Carmichael the new chairman of SNCC, introduced the idea of Black Power to a broad audience. In Greenwood, Mississippi, Stokely Carmichael gave a speech introducing the idea as a means of solidarity between individuals within the Civil Rights movement. -
March Against Fear
Major civil rights organizations rallied to the cause, vowing to carry on the march in Meredith's name through the Mississippi Delta and to the state capital. The different groups and leaders struggled over tactics and goals, but also cooperated in community organizing and voter registration. They registered more than 4,000 African Americans for voting in counties along the way. -
Kwanzaa
Maulana Karenga a Black Power activist, created Kwanzaa as an African American holiday with the purpose of helping other black people reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Tennessee, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil-rights advances for African Americans.
There was anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning. -
Holy Week Uprising
The Holy Week Uprising was a wave of civil disturbance which swept the United States following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on 1968. His death led to anger, disillusionment and violent sentiment, leading to a wave of vandalism and arson. -
Rights in College
American College´s were letting African Americans study in their college´s as their students. In Universities such as Harvard, Yale, Howard University between others. The Black Panther leaders were killed by the police in Chicago. -
Black is beautiful
Black is beautiful is a cultural movement that was started in the United States in the 1960s by African Americans. The Black is Beautiful movement became the most prominent in the writings of author Steve Biko in his book, the “Black Consciousness Movement” in South Africa. The book and the movement aimed to dispel the notion in many world cultures that black people’s natural features such as skin color, facial features and hair are inherently ugly. -
National Black Political Convention
The National Black Political Convention was held on March 10–12, 1972 in Gary, India. The convention gathered around ten thousand African Americans to discuss and advocate for black communities that undergo significant economic and social crisis. Part of their goal was to raise the number of black politicians elected to office, increase representation, and create an agenda for fundamental change. -
Hip-hop rises
Hip-hop culture rose in the Bronx as a reaction to injustice, poor education, the drug epidemic, and other issues affecting African Americans. It was a movement of music, dance, visual arts, and urban culture. Cultural elements included rap music, DJing, breakdancing, fashion, and graffiti, all of which focused on criticizing the status quo of society for black people. Hip-hop culture spread in cities throughout the US, increasing political awareness in black communities. -
"The Message"
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released "The Message" on 1982. The song provided a social commentary on the status quo of society in African American communities. It became extremely popular and catapulted hip-hop music to the forefront of pop culture in the United States. It was one of the first songs to comment on racial injustice, and its prominence increased awareness of the situation for black people in the US. -
The Cosby Show
"The Cosby Show" aired from 1984 to 1992 and focused on the Huxtable family, an upper middle-class black family living in Brooklyn. It helped in the normalization of the affluent and educated African American family, showing unapologetically black behavior in its characters and featuring an appreciation for black traditions, art, and culture. It also boosted black celebrities' fame. However, it separated its content from the reality fo poverty and drug dependance in ghettos and inner cities. -
Police attack on Rodney King
Rodney King a construction worker, was violently beaten by LAPD officers during his arrest for fleeing and evading on California State Route 210. The incident was filmed and after being sent to a local news station, it received widespread international coverage. Three officers were acquitted of their charges, and the fourth failed to reach a verdict, sparking indignation both in the African American community and internationally. -
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina hit Florida and Louisiana in August 2005, causing catastrophic damage and around 1500 deaths, hundreds of thousands being displaced. The government response to the hurricane was criticized for providing inadequate relief, especially for African Americans, many people claimed racism as a factor for the slow government response. -
Obama presidency
Barack Obama, a former senator who visited the victims of hurricane Katrina, ran for presidency in the 2008 elections and won, becoming president and serving from 2009 to 2017. During his campaign and presidency, the media often forced a racial narrative on his actions, which he avoided raising at first. His presidency generally improved American attitudes on race and many blacks saw it as the definite catalyst for change; however, institutionalized racism prevented this change from happening.
