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Brown v. Topeka Board of Education
Plessy determined that schools could be separate if they were equal. Instead they were out of date low level books and materials, smaller with fewer services, and less qualified teachers.
Linda Brown had to walk past a public school to get to the black school which was lower quality. Thurgood Marshall represents Linda Brown in her case to the Supreme Court they would win the case overturning Plessy. -
Emmitt Till
Visiting family in Mississippi, 14 year old Emmitt Till is kidnapped, beaten, and shot for allegedly whistling at a white woman. 2 men were arrested for the crime but were then acquitted by an all white jury. -
Rosa Parks
In Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks challenges the Jim Crow laws by refusing to give up her seat she is arrested, and black leaders organize a boycott. 40,000 blacks in Montgomery participate in the boycott which lasts 382 days.
The bus companies eventually join in fighting the law in order to end the boycott and regain black customers which make up 75% of their business. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
King, a pastor, gets his start as a civil rights leader in the Montgomery bus boycotts (1955). In 1957 he helps found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference(SCLC) with other black Christian leaders. King and the SCLC employ civil disobedience tactics of Gandhi which gets television coverage and leads to public sympathy. -
Little Rock Arkansas
Integration was still being blocked by local state governments in the south. 9 students in Little Rock were the first to attempt integration
When the Little Rock 9 enrolled in the high school Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to deny their entrance.
Whites picketed and protested, threatened lynchings and threatened not to let their kids to school. Eisenhower ordered the school open and ordered the troops of the 101st Airborne division into Little Rock. -
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Bridges is the first black student to attend an all white elementary school in the south.
She is escorted to and from school by armed federal marshals while community members, parents, and students shout insults, protest, and throw food. -
Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
In Greensboro North Carolina, four black college students sit down at a segregated lunch counter in a Woolworths department store and ask to be served
When they are denied, they refuse to leave and begin a sit-in at the restaurant. The event inspires similar sit-in protests at lunch counters throughout the south.
Six months after the four N.C. students were denied service, they are served lunch at the same Woolworths lunch counter. -
James Meredith
James Meredith applies and is denied admittance to the University of Mississippi. He appeals the decision all the way to the Supreme Court and wins.
The Governor of Mississippi tries to block his entrance. Students riot in response to Meredith’s arrival so 500 U.S. Marshals and National Guard troops are called in to enforce the ruling and keep peace on the campus. -
Freedom Rides
Summer of 1962, over 1,000 student volunteers both black and white, organized by CORE and SNCC begin taking rides through the south to test new laws outlawing segregation in bus and railway stations.
Several groups of riders are viciously attacked and buses are bombed by mobs of angry white racists. Eugene Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety knows the mobs are waiting and intentionally arrives with the police 15 minutes late, giving the mobs more than enough time to do lots of damage. -
Children’s Crusade
Hundreds of school kids stage a school walk-out to participate in a march in downtown Birmingham.
Many are arrested, only to be set free and repeat the process again the next day.
Connor stops the marches by ordering the crowds to be sprayed with fire hoses and releasing dogs on them. The march is televised and causes JFK to publicly support the civil rights and new civil rights legislation. -
March on Washington
The SCLC plan a march and rally on Washington D.C. with support from the NAACP, SNCC, CORE. Over 250,000 people are in attendance. People are bused in from all over the country.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I have a dream” speech. -
Church Bombing
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, a popular meeting spot for Civil Rights meetings, is bombed.
Four young black girls are killed sparking off riots in Birmingham which results in two more black youths deaths. -
President Johnson
President Johnson signs into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that was created by JFK.
Prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. -
Selma to Montgomery
Protesting the lack of voting rights, 600 marchers attempt to march from Selma to Alabama’s capital in Montgomery. Marchers were brutally attacked in what becomes known as Bloody Sunday.
A second attempt with 2,500 marchers were turned back by police at the Pettus Bridge.
A third march with 25,000 protesters protected by over 2,000 troops successfully marches into the capitol. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law bans discrimination in local, state, and national elections and polling places. Bans literacy tests, intimidation, and physical violence.
If a state doesn’t follow the law, all their senators and stuff kicked out.