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Brown v. Board of Education
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is one of the most pivotal opinions ever rendered by that body. This landmark decision highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in affecting changes in national and social policy. Often when people think of the case, they remember a little girl whose parents sued so that she could attend an all-white school in her neighborhood. In reality, the story of Brown v. Board of Education is far more complex. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Arrested in Birmingham, AL
Dr. King and others were arrested for violating a preliminary injunction issued to prevent Dr. King and others from participating, organizing or promoting any marches or protests in Birmingham without a permit. While in jail, Dr. King composed his famous letter from the Birmingham jail -
Murder Emmett Till
In 1955, a 14-year-old African American teenager was brutally murdered by white men while visiting relatives in Mississippi. His name was Emmett Till. His murder and the subsequent trial of his accused killers became a lightning rod for moral outrage, both at the time and to this day. The case was not just about the murder of a teenage boy. It was also about a new generation of young people committing their lives to social change. As historian Robin Kelley states, The Emmett Till case was a spar -
Rosa Parks' Bus Protest
Rosa Parks , a 42 year old African american woman who worked as a seamstress boarded a Montgomery City bus on her way home from work she was near the middle of the bus ten seats back from the seats reserved for white's. A white man entered the bus and insisted that all four blacks sitting just behind the white section give up their seats so that the man could sit there. -
"Little Rock Nine" enroll at Central High School
On September 20, 1957, Federal Judge Ronald Davies ordered Governor Faubus to remove the National Guard from the Central High School’s entrance and to allow integration to take its course in Little Rock. When Faubus defied the court order, President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched nearly 1,000 paratroopers and federalized the 10,000 Arkansas National Guard troops who were to insure that the school would be open to the nine students. On September 23, 1957, the “Little Rock Nine” returned to Central -
Freedom Riders Test Bus Desegregated
At that point, however, a group of Nashville sit-in students decided to go to Birmingham and continue the Freedom Ride. Diane Nash, who helped organize the group, later explained, "If the Freedom Riders had been stopped as a result of violence, I strongly felt that the future of the movement was going to be cut short. The impression would have been that whenever a movement starts, all you have to do is attack it with massive violence and the blacks will stop." -
University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) is desegregated
This section presents you with three different perspectives: James Meredith writes to the United States Justice Department for help; Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett speaks to fellow Mississippians about maintaining an all-white Ole Miss; Attorney General Robert Kennedy expresses the position of the U.S. Justice Department. -
March on Washington , D.C.
attracted a estimated 250,000 people for a peaceful demonstration to promote Civil Rights and economic equality for African Americans -
President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1964
In early 1964, House supporters overcame the Rules Committee obstacle by threatening to send the bill to the floor without committee approval. The Senate filibuster was overcome through the floor leadership of Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the considerable support of President Lyndon Johnson, and the efforts of Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois, who convinced Republicans to support the bill. -
Malcom X is shot Dead
He ultimately rose to become a world renowned African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights activist.
A year before his death Malcolm became an orthodox Sunni Muslim following a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam in Washington Heights on the first day of National Brotherhood Week.
Assassination -
Selma to Montgomery March
They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL). In 1963, the DCVL and organizers from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) began voter-registration work. When white resistance to Black voter registration proved intractable, the DCVL requested the assistance of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who brought many prominent civil rights. -
Black Panthers are founded
In October of 1966, in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. The party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation -
Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot while he and a group of friends were out on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, TN, at 6:01pm
