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Major Civil Rights Protests
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Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court struck down the "separate but equal" doctrine for public education, ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, and required the desegregation of schools across America The Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision did not abolish segregation in other public areas, such as restaurants and restrooms, nor did it require desegregation of public schools by a specific time. It did, however, declare the permissive or mandatory segregation that existed in 21 states unconstitutional. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign that started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its public transit system. Many historically significant figures of the civil rights movement were involved in the boycott, including Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and others. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because -
Woolworth's Sit-In
1960 - In 1960, workers at a lunch counter in a Woolworths department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, refused to serve four black college students. Each day the students sat at the counter, waiting to be served. The Greensboro sit-in lasted for nearly six months ...In 1960, workers at a lunch counter in a Woolworths department store in Greensboro, North Carolina, refused to serve four black college students. Each day the students sat at the counter, waiting to be served. -
First Freedom Ride
Seven Blacks and six Whites traveled south on two buses. The Freedom Ride met little resistance in the upper south unlike the first "Journey of Reconciliation." They first met trouble at Rock Hill, South Carolina, where twenty white Southerners hurt two people before the police arrived. The Freedom Riders continued their journey and encountered similar trouble, but did not attract national attention until ten days after they began their journey. -
Birmingham Children's March and Boycott
The name bestowed upon a march by hundreds of school students in Birmingham, Alabama, on May 2, May 3, and May 4, 1963, during the American Civil Rights Movement's Birmingham Campaign. Initiated and organized by Rev. James Bevel, the purpose of the march was to walk downtown to talk to the mayor about segregation in their city. Many children left their schools in order to be arrested, set free, and then to get arrested again the next day. -
March on Washington
Organizers hoped to draw a crowd of 100,000, but instead over 250,000 people from around the nation, arriving in more than thirty special trains and 2,000 chartered buses, descended on Washington, D.C. There, they heard speeches and songs from numerous activists, artists, and civil rights leaders. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered the closing address, his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Selma to Montgomery March
Some 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Route 80. They got only as far as the Edmund Pettus Bridge six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a "symbolic" march to the bridge. Then civil rights leaders sought court protection for a third, full-scale march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. Federal
