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brown vs board of edu.
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. -
chuck berry
Musician Chuck Berry begins recording; his music will help shape rock-and-roll. -
rosa parks
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white person, triggering a successful, year-long African American boycott of the bus system. -
MLK
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., helps found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to work for full equality for African Americans. -
history
For the first time since Reconstruction, the federal government uses the military to uphold African Americans' civil rights, as soldiers escort nine African American students to desegregate a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Daisy Bates, an NAACP leader, advised and assisted the students and eventually had a state holiday dedicated to her. -
lorranine hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. -
motown records
Motown Records is founded in Detroit, Mich. Motown will go on to feature such legendary artists as Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight, Lionel Ritchie and Queen Latifah. -
sit in
Four African American college students hold a sit-in to integrate a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., launching a wave of similar protests across the South. -
Malcolm X
African American radical Malcolm X becomes national minister of the Nation of Islam. He rejects the nonviolent civil-rights movement and integration, and becomes a champion of African American separatism and black pride. At one point he states that equal rights should be secured "by any means necessary," a position he later revises. -
march on washington
More than 200,000 people march on Washington, D.C., in the largest civil rights demonstration ever; Martin Luther King, Jr., gives his "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Malcolm X dead
One year after splitting from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X is assassinated in New York by gunmen affiliated with the NOI. -
end of segeration
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended all state and local laws requiring segregation.