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13th Amendment
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. -
14th Amendment
An amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons. -
15th Amendment
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. -
Plessey v. Ferguson
A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality. -
Truman Desegregates The Military
An executive order issued on July 26, 1948, by President Harry S. Truman that abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services -
Brown v. Board of Ed.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Rosa Parks/Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. -
Little Rock Crisis
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School, an all white school, in 1957. -
Sit-in Movement
Students from across the country came together to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and organize sit-ins at counters throughout the South. -
Freedom Riders
The Freedom Riders, who included both blacks and whites, rode buses into the South in the early 1960s in order to challenge racial segregation. -
James Meredith and Ole Miss
A riot fought between Southern segregationist civilians and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 30, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black US military veteran, at the University of Mississippi -
Letter From a Birmingham Jail
Martin Luther King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is the most important written document of the civil rights era. The letter served as a tangible, reproducible account of the long road to freedom in a movement that was largely centered around actions and spoken words. -
March on Washington/"I Have a Dream" Speech
250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C the event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech. -
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. -
Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery. -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting.
