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Executive Order 9981
In 1948, President Harry Truman made the executive decision to end segregation in the armed forces and civil service through an executive order rather then legislation. This was not agreed with at first but it was very successful. By October 1953 the United States Army announced 95% of African American soldiers were serving in integrated units. -
Brown vs. The Board of Education
In Topeka, Kansas Linda Brown, a black 3rd grader had to walk a mile to get to her designated black school. Her father didn't agree with his daughter walking a mile to get and education when there was a perfectly acceptable white school only a few blocks away. Her father, Oliver Brown tried numerous times to enroll his daughter in an all white school but the pricipal would have none of it. In 1951 the NAACP requested that an injunction forbidding segregation in Topeka’s public schools. -
Brown vs. Board of Education Con.
The Supreme Court heard Brown's case and ruled that blacks didn’t need to be admitted to public schools immediately, but the schools should eliminate segregation “with all deliberate speed”. This was troublesome especially down South. -
Murder of Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till
Emmett Till, an African American boy murdered at the young age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Several nights after supposedly flirting with Carolyn Bryant, her husband and half brother went kidnapped him, transported him to a barn, beat and gouged out one of his eyes, all before shooting him in the head and disposing of his body in the Tallahatchie River with a cotton gin fan tied to his neck with barbed wire, later found three days later. His mother was so disgusted by his -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a campaign that was started in 1955 in Alabama. In an effort to stand up again racial segregation blacks refused to ride the buses to and from. They organized carpools to get to where they were going, forcing the public transportation to practically close. -
Rosa Parks, First Lady of the Civil Rights Movement
Rose Parks, the symbolic woman of the Civil Rights Movement, known as the “first lady of civil rights” changed history forever. It began on December 1st, 1955 when she refused to obey bus driver, James Blake's order that she give up her seat to make room for a white passenger. Parks radical action became the symbol for the civil rights movement and also sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were nine of the bravest children America has ever seen. A group of African American student enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. On their first day they weren’t allowed to enter the school because Governor Orval Faubus had called the National Guard to keep them out. Enough was enough and President Eisenhower ordered the U.S Army to go and protect these students through their first day and throughout the year. -
Supreme Court Ruling
On November 13th, 1956 after much deliberation declared bus segregation as unconstitutional. The Montgomery Bus Boycott had succeeded. -
Greensboro Sit-ins
In Greensboro, NC four African American college students went to get served at an all- white restaurant. The shop was open to all costumers regardless of color but the restaurant only served whites. They were asked to leave but they had sone some research in a handout on tactics of resistance by CORE. This action led to many of what would soon be called “Sit-ins”.
