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Morgan v Virginia
the NAACP won the Morgan v Virginia case where the Supreme Court banned states from having segregated facilities on busses and trains that crossed state borders. -
Truman signs Executive Order 9981
Truman signs Executive Order 9981, which states, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." -
Thurgood Marshall
the head of the NAACP’s legal department, Thurgood Marshall, won his case in the Supreme Court for state universities to provide equal facilities for all students -
Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. -
Emmett Till
Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman -
rosa parks
NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time -
bus boycott
black community launches a bus boycott, which will last for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated Dec. 21, 1956. As newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is instrumental in leading the boycott. -
little rock nine
(Little Rock, Ark.) Formerly all-white Central High School learns that integration is easier said than done. Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students, who become known as the "Little Rock Nine." -
North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College
Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, swimming pools, the -
Greensboro, NC Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
In protest of local restaurants that refuse to serve African-American customers, a series of sit-ins is staged at lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina.