Civil Rights

By PhanMi

  • APART: Apartheid Begins

  • Period: to

    American Civil Rights

  • Period: to

    Apartheid

  • Pres. Truman Ends Military Segregation

  • "Cry, the Beloved Country"

    "Cry, the Beloved Country"
    Publication

  • APART: Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act

  • APART: Population Registration Act

    This law classifies people into three racial groups: white, colored (mixed race or Asian), and native (African/black). Marriages between races are outlawed in order to maintain racial purity.

  • APART: Suppression of Communism Act

  • APART: Group Areas Act

    It sets aside specific communities for each of the races (white, colored (mixed race or Indian), and native (African/black)). The best areas and the majority of the land are reserved for whites. Non-whites are relocated into "reserves." Mixed-race families are forced to live separately.

  • APART: Bantu Homelands Act (Bantu Authorities Act)

    Through this law, the white government declares that the lands reserved for black Africans are independent nations. In this way, the government strips millions of blacks of their South African citizenship and forces them to become residents of their new "homelands." Blacks are now considered foreigners in white-controlled South Africa, and need passports to enter. Blacks only enter to serve whites in menial jobs.

  • APART: Separate Representation of Voters Act

  • APART: Defiance Campaign starts

  • APART: Abolition of Passes and Coordination of Documents Act

    This misleadingly-named law requires all Africans to carry identification booklets with their names, addresses, fingerprints, and other information. Africans are frequently stopped and harassed for their passes. Between 1948-1973, over ten million Africans were arrested because their passes were "not in order." Burning pass books becomes a common form of protest.

  • APART: Preservation of Separate Amenities Act

    This act establishes "separate but not necessarily equal" parks, beaches, post offices, and other public places for whites and non-whites.

  • APART: Bantu Education Act

    hrough this law, the white government supervises the education of all blacks. Schools condition blacks to accept white domination. Non-whites cannot attend white universities.

  • APART: Federation of South African Women formed

    A non-racial organisation which mobilised women in protest against Apartheid in general, and the introduction of passes for women in particular. It was formed in 1954 by women within the Congress Alliance, in particular Helen Joseph and Lilian Ngoyi. One of its main aims was to combat sexism within the various Congress Alliance organisations.

  • Brown v. Board of Education

  • APART: Congress of the People adopts the Freedom Charter

    A document ratified at the Congress of the People, held at Kliptown, Soweto, in June 1955, by the various member bodies of the Congress Alliance. The policies set out in the Charter included a demand for a multi-racial, democratically elected government, equal opportunities, the nationalisation of banks, mines and heavy industries, and a redistribution of land. Africanist members of the ANC rejected the Freedom Charter and broke away to form the Pan Africanist Congress.

  • Rosa Parks: Montgomery, AL Bus Boycott

  • African-American Civil Rights Movement Begins

  • MLK elected Pres. of Montgomery Improvement Ass.

  • APART: Treason Trial begins

    In response to the adoption of the Freedom Charter, the Apartheid government in South Africa arrested a total 156 people. This was almost the entire executive of the African National Congress (ANC), Congress of Democrats, South African Indian Congress, Coloured People's Congress, and the Congress Alliance. They were charged with "high treason (death) and a countrywide conspiracy to use violence to overthrow the present government and replace it with a communist state."

  • APART: Separate Representation of Voters Amendment Act

  • US Supreme Court Rules Segregated Busing Unconstitutional

  • Montgomery, AL Bus Boycott Ends

  • MLK: Co-Founder and Pres. of Southern Christian Leadership Conference

  • Congress Passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957

    Creates the Civil Rights Commission and authorizes the Justice Department to investigate cases of African Americans being denied voting rights in the South

  • Cooper v. Aaron

    The Supreme Court ruled that the state of Arkansas could not pass legislation undermining the Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. In establishing that the states were bound by its rulings, the Supreme Court affirmed that its interpretation of the Constitution was the "supreme law of the land."

  • APART: Pan African Congress (PAC) formed

  • APART: Promotion of Bantu Self-Government Act

    This law allowed for the transformation of reserves into "fully-fledged independent Bantustans" which would also divide Blacks into 'ethnically' discrete groups. It also resulted in the abolition of parliamentary representation for Blacks.

  • APART: Pass Boycott/Sharpville Massacre

    A large group of blacks in the town of Sharpeville refused to carry their passes. The government declares a state of emergency and responds with fines, imprisonment, and whippings. In all, 69 people die and 187 people are wounded. The African political organizations, the African National Congress and the Pan-African Congress, are banned.

  • Greensboro, NC Sit-In

    Four young African-American male students go to a Woolworth, and sit down at a whites-only lunch counter. They order coffee. Despite being denied service, they sit silently and politely at the lunch counter until closing time. This action started the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

  • Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee is created

    Origin: Greensboro Sit-In

  • Greensboro Sit-Ins are Successful

    After 6 months, the restaurant Woolsworth desegegrates its lunch counters.

  • Boynton v. Virginia

    The Supreme Court ruled that segregation on vehicles traveling between states is unlawful, because it violates the Interstate Commerce Act.

  • Albany Movement

    Civil rights activists participated in a series of protests, marches and meetings in Albany, Georgia.

  • APART: UN - Special Committee Against Apartheid

    The United Nations establishes the Special Committee Against Apartheid to support a political process of peaceful change. The Special Committee observes the International Day Against Racism to mark the anniversary of the people who died in the Sharpeville protest.

  • James Meredith: First African-American student at Ole' Miss

  • Nelson Mandela jailed

    Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress, is jailed.

  • APART: Nelson Mandela jailed

    Nelson Mandela, head of the African National Congress, is jailed.

  • MLK writes his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

    A letter in which King responds to eight white Alabama ministers who urged him to end the protests and be patient with the judicial process of overturning segregation.

  • John F. Kennedy's Civil Rights Speech

  • Byron De La Beckwith assassinates Medgar Evers

    Medgar Evers: the first field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi

  • James Meredith graduates from Ole' Miss

  • MLK delivers his "I have a dream" speech

    Delivered during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C.

  • March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

    held in D.C.; around 250,000 people participate

  • Pres. John F. Kennedy is assassinated

    His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, uses the nation's anger to push through civil rights legislation in Kennedy's memory.

  • Malcolm X co-finds Organization of Afro-American Unity

    Its aim is to unite all Americans of African descent against discrimination. John Henrik Clarke is the other founder.

  • Pres. L. Johnson Passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964

    bans discrimination in employment and in public places

  • Three missing civil rights workers found dead in a dam

    On June 21, three civil rights workers--Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman--disappeared. The bodies of Schwerner, Chaney and Goodman are found in a dam. All three had been shot, and the African-American activist, Chaney, had also been badly beaten.

  • Nobel Foundation awards MLK the Nobel Peace Prize

  • Malcolm X is assassinated

    in Harlem at the Audubon Ballroom

  • Lyndon B. Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” Speech

  • Pres. L. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act

    illegalizes discriminatory voting requirements, like requiring a literacy test before registering to vote, that white Southerners had used to deprive black Southerners of the vote

  • James Meredith embarks on a "March Against Fear"

    From Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, he encourages black Mississippians to register to vote. Near Hernando, Mississippi, Meredith is shot. Others take up the march, joined on occasion by King.

  • Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale found the Black Panther Party

    In Oakland, California, they want to create a new political organization to better the conditions of African Americans; their goals include better employment and educational opportunities as well as improved housing.

  • Loving v. Virginia

    The Supreme Court strike down laws against interracial marriage as unconstitutional.

  • Thurgood Marshall: First black Supreme Court judge

  • Cal Stokes is elected as the major of Cleveland

    the first African-American to be elected mayor of a major American city

  • Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated

    As he stands on the balcony outside his motel room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

  • President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968

    AKA Fair Housing Act; prohibits discrimination by sellers or renters of property

  • African-American Civil Rights Movement Ends

  • Fred Hampton is shot and killed by police during a raid

    Chairman of the Illinois Black Panther party at the time. A federal grand jury refutes the police's assertion that they fired upon Hampton only in self defense, but no one is ever indicted for Hampton's killing.

  • Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

    The Supreme Court upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently opposed) in local school districts, court-ordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continue until the late 1990s.

  • APART: Soweto Uprising

    People in Soweto riot and demonstrate against discrimination and instruction in Afrikaans, the language of whites descended from the Dutch. The police react with gunfire. 575 people are killed and thousands are injured and arrested. Steven Biko is beaten and left in jail to die from his injuries. Protesters against apartheid link arms in a show of resistance.

  • Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act

    Overriding President Reagan's veto, Congress passes this act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.

  • APART: S. Africa Pres. F.W. de Klerk repeals apartheid laws

    South Africa President F.W. de Klerk repeals the rest of the apartheid laws and calls for the drafting of a new constitution.

  • Pres. Bush signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991

    After two years of debates, vetoes, and threatened vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs the act, strengthening existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.

  • First race riots in decades erupt in LA, CA

    The first race riots in decades erupt in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King.

  • APART: Multiracial/Multiparty Transitional Government

    A multiracial, multiparty transitional government is approved.

  • APART: Nelson Mandela elected Pres. of S. Africa

    Elections are held. The United Nations sends 2,120 international observers to ensure the fairness of the elections. The African National Congress, representing South Africa's majority black population. Nelson Mandela, the African resistance leader who had been jailed for 27 years, is elected President.

  • APART: First Non-racial Elections/Apartheid Ends

  • APART: Constitution of South Africa

    The supreme law of the country of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the government. It will later repeal many Apartheid acts. It will also be amended sixteen times since then.

  • APART: Second Non-racial Elections

  • APART: Thabo Mbeki elected S. Africa's 2nd Pres.

  • Murderer of the 3 civil rights workers convincted

    The ringleader of the Mississippi civil rights murders (see Aug. 4, 1964), Edgar Ray Killen, is convicted of manslaughter on the 41st anniversary of the crimes.

  • Rosa Parks dies at age 92

  • Coretta Scott King dies of a stroke at age 78

  • Sen. Edward Kennedy introduces Civil Rights Act of 2008

    Some of the proposed provisions include ensuring that federal funds are not used to subsidize discrimination, holding employers accountable for age discrimination, and improving accountability for other violations of civil rights and workers' rights.

  • Ricci v. DeStefano

    A lawsuit brought against the city of New Haven, 18 plaintiffs—17 white people and one Hispanic—argued that results of the 2003 lieutenant and captain exams were thrown out when it was determined that few minority firefighters qualified for advancement. The Supreme Court ruled (5–4) in favor of the firefighters, saying New Haven's "action in discarding the tests was a violation of Title VII."