Civil rights

By thomasstory

  • Plessy vs. Fergusion

    Plessy attempted to sit in an all-white railroad car. After refusing to sit in the black railway carriage car, Plessy was arrested for violating an 1890 Louisiana statute that provided for segregated “separate but equal” railroad accommodations. At trial with John H. Ferguson, Plessy was found guilty on the grounds that the law was of the state’s police powers based upon custom, and tradition in the state. Plessy wrote a petition for prohobition stating it violated the 13th and 14th amendment.

  • WIlminngton riots

    In 1898, Wilmington, North Carolina, was a prosperous port town. Almost two-thirds of its population was black, with a small but significant middle class. Black businessmen dominated the restaurant and barbershop trade and owned tailor shops and drug stores. Many black people held jobs as firemen, policemen and civil servants.The Whites began to gun down blacks on the streets. By the next day, the killing ended. Officially, twenty-five blacks died.

  • Brown vs.board of education of Topeka, Kansas

    The story of Brown v. Board of Education, which ended legal segregation in public schools, is of hope and courage. When the people agreed to be plaintiffs in the case, they never knew they would change history. The people who make up this story were ordinary people. They were teachers, secretaries, welders, ministers and students who simply wanted to be treated equally.

  • Little Rock Nine

    Little Rock Nine were the nine African-American students involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. Their entrance into the school in 1957 sparked a nationwide crisis when Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, in defiance of a federal court order, called out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the Nine from entering. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by federalizing the National Guard and sent in units of the U.S. Army to escort the Nine into the school.

  • Greensboro Sit-In

    On February 1, 1960, four African-American students of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat at a white-only lunch counter inside a Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth’s store. While sit-ins had been held elsewhere in the United States, the Greensboro sit-in created a wave of nonviolent protest against private-sector segregation in the United States.