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Abolition of the White Primary in Georgia
The White Primary in Georgia was a law that while black citizens could vote in most elections, they were not allowed to vote in the political primary. After a man named Primus E. King attempted to vote in the political primaries, and was turned away forcefully by a white police officer, he called the NAACP and had a lawyer come represent him in court. Soon after his case made it to the Supreme Court, the White Primary in Georgia was considered unconstitutional and made illegal. -
Integration of the Armed Forces
On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, ordering the US Military to integrate, officially ending segregation in the armed forces. The US Army had been unofficially segregated since the American Revolution, and after nearly 200 years of black men and women fighting for America valiantly, they were granted official integration into the armed forces. -
Brown vs. Board of Education Part I
In 1951, Oliver Brown and 13 other black parents in their area tried to enroll their children into a "White Only School" just 7 blocks from their houses. After all the families were turned down, Oliver Brown went to the NAACP and had lawyers represent him in a court case to fight to get his daughter into the school. The case failed at the state level, refering back to the Plessy Vs. Ferguson case, which said that schools could be segregated as long as there were seperate but equal schools for -
Brown vs. Board of Education Part III
and desegregating all schools in the USA. -
Brown vs. Board of Education Part II
black students in the same area. The state courts also ruled that the children in those schools were treated the way they were sp that they would be used to it when they were older. After losing at the state level, Brown and the lawyers from the NAACP decided to bring the case to the attention of the supreme courts. After going back and forth over the case, and even having one justice die in the middle of it, the Supreme Courts finally sided with the Browns, overturning Plessy vs. Ferguson case, -
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Part II
needed to be done, and decided the only thing they could do was boycott the Montgomery Bus public transportation. To protest the unfair treatment, blacks found alternate transportation. Most walked to their destinations, and refused to get on the buses, a few with cars arranged carpools with others, and some even rode mules from place to place. The whites fought back with terrorism and harassment, and on January 30, 1956, Martin Luther Kings' home was bombed. A mob gathered outside Kings ruined -
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
On December 1st, 1955, a black woman named Rosa Parks refued to stand to allow a white woman to take her seat on a bus. After refusing to do so and being asked a number of times, the bus driver called the police, and Parks was arrested. While this wasn't the first time a black had been arrested for this, it was the first time a black person who was well known in their community had been arrested. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other community leaders at the time felt that something should be -
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott Part III
home, expecting to return the favor and destroy some of their property. King refused though, and instead said, "We must learn meet hate with love." The boycott grueled on for another year, and finally, the Supreme Court stepped in and said that all local and state laws segregating buses were abolished. The next morning, King sat in the front seat on the bus next to a white minister named Glen Smiley. The boycott was a success. -
Change to Georgia's State Flag
In early 1955, John Sammons bill, an attorney and future judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals pushed a new flag into legislation that would delete the 3 stripes to the right of the Georgia State Seal, and replace it with the Confederate Battle Flag. The change was made to show Georgia's resistance to integration and desegregation, and was in use until 2001. -
Crisis at Central High School and the "Little Rock Nine"
Throughout September of 1957, a series of events occured changing the US Public School System forever. 9 black students, known as the Little Rock Nine after the crisis enrolled at the all-white Central Highschool in Arkansas, and were met by resistance from the students, then the state, and then granted protection from US Federal Troops to get into the highschool. The crisis was caused by the US Supreme Court System desegregating schools, and the South resisting the new laws. -
Hebrew Benevolent Congregation in Atlanta Bombed
On October 12, 1958, a United Press International Employee recieved a call from an unknown number claiming that there was going to be a bombing that night. Not taking the call seriously, the employee hung up and didn't report the phone call to anyone. That night at 3:45am, the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation in atlanta, otherwise known as The Temple, was bombed with what was predicted to be 50 sticks of dynamite, tearing a wall off the side of the building. Shortly after the explosion, another -
Hebrew Benevolent Congregation in Atlanta Bombed Part II
employee recieved a call from "General Gordon of the Confederate Underground claiming responsibility for the bombing, saying, "This is the last empty building in Atlanta we will bomb. All nightclubs refusing to fire their Negro employees will also be blown up. We are going to blow up all Communist organizations. Negroes and Jews are hereby declared aliens." The building was targeted due to the fact that the Confederate Underground had declared Jews and Blacks to be aliens. -
The Sibley Commission
In late 1959, U.S. District Court judge Frank Hooper declared Georgia's segregated public school system to be unconstitutional. Governor Ernest Vandiver Jr. was faced with a decision: Desegregate the Georgia Public School System, or shut simply shut it down. While the governor pondered his decision, a man named Griffin Bell was thinking of a compromise; he would ask the georgia citizens what should be done, essentially making it so that the governor didnt have to make the decision. The governor -
The Sibley Commission Part II
took Bell's advice, and put the commission into action with John A. Sibley, a well known business man, lawyer, and President of the UGA Alumni Association. While Sibley was strongly opposed to integration, he realized that fighting it would be a waste of time. He did what the commission was established for, and asked the people what they wanted, which resulted in 60% of the state voting against integration. -
Freedom Rides
On May 4, 1961, a group of 7 blacks and 6 whites boarded two public buses headed for New Orleans to test the desegregation laws on southern buses. During the first couple of days, the group encountered minor hostility, but over the next 2 weeks, they were beaten severly, and even had one of the buses they were riding in set on fire. After months of ridicule, violence, and harsh treatment from southern people, the Freedom Riders successfully ended segregation in southern bus and train stations. -
Integration of The University of Georgia
On January 6, 1961, a notice was delivered to UGA ordering the immediate admittance of 2 African American students by the names of Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes. The two students aspiring to be the first black students in the UGA were delayed, so in the meantime, both enrolled in different colleges. After fighting with the university and state for months, a judge called the university out by ruling that the only reason the students weren't being accepted into the college was because they -
Integration of The University of Georgia Part II
were black, which would be segregation, which was ruled unconstitutional by judge Frank Hooper only a year before. U.S. District Court Judge W. A. "Gus" Bootle issued a temporary injunction preventing Governor Vandiver from being able to enforce the law cutting off funding to desegregated schools. Finally, Holmes and Hunter were allowed into the school as transfer students. -
The Albany Movement
The Albany Movement was a calling for African Americans to end segregation in Albany, Georgia. The event started with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Ministerial Alliance, the Federation of Women’s Clubs, the Negro Voters League, and the NAACP sending 9 black students from Albany State College to a bus station to test if desegregation laws in the city were being enforced. When the students weren't arrested, the leaders of the movement took it a step further, with more -
The Albany Movement Part II
sit-ins, mass demonstrations, jail-ins, and boycotts. If it weren't for Laurie Pritchett, a police chief in the City of Albany at the time, things would have gone more smoothly. Pritchett knew all of the methods the protestors would use during the movement, and responded with mass arrests, which he knew the protestors wanted, so he made deals with surrounding counties to use their jails when his filled up, and when they ran out of space there, he started fortifying and filling empty buildings -
The Albany Movement Part IV
failed to uphold their end of the deal, and continued arresting protestors and not releasing other prisoners that had no reason to be in the local prisons. This was considered a failure for King, and he later said the reason for this was that the enemy they were fightnig was too vague, that trying to put an end to just segregation wasn't enough to stop it, that you have to attack it one aspect at a time. -
The Albany Movement Part III
with prisoners so as not to run out of space and have to start releasing people. After the movement leaders had lost huge amounts of people to the prisons Pritchett had set up, they went into one last desperate parade through the city. Martin Luther King was involved, drawing the attention of the media, and after he was arrested, He made a deal with the city government. The deal was that he leave, and they start releasing people, and stop arresting protestors. After he left the city, the police -
Birmingham Alabama Protests Part II
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Birmingham Alabama Protests
The Birmingham Alabama protests of 1963 was a campaign headed by Martin Luther King and the SCLC, on which black citizens from children as young as 8 years old to elderly men and women. The tactic would be to overcrowd Birmingham jails, then keep hitting the police with wave after wave of non-violent protestors. Fire hoses were soon turned on them, and when people tried to get into the church that was the headquarters to the operation, police turned attack dogs on them. Soon, the pictures -
All Georgia School Integrated
