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Brown –vs- Board of Education case verdict is handed down
In 1952 the NAACP supported a group of legal challenges to segregation in public schools that came before the Supreme Court. The main case was Brown vs. Board of Education. In involved Linda Brown, an African American student from Topeka, Kansas. Segregation in Topeka’s schools prevented her from attending an all-white elementary school a short walk from her home. Instead, she had to travel a long distance and cross-dangerous railroad tracks to attend an African American school. -
Rosa Parks is arrested
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person and was arrested. -
SCLC is formed
Following the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, civil rights leaders, met in 1957 in Atlanta to discuss future strategy. They expanded the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) into the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an alliance of church-based African American organizations dedicated to ending discrimination. Martin Luther King Jr. led the new organization. The SCLC pledged to use nonviolent resistance in its protests. -
Little Rock Nine able to enter Central High School
On September 25, 1957, under the protection of the soldiers’ fixed bayonets, the Little Rock Nine finally entered Central High. -
SNCC is Formed
The leaders of these demonstrations founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a loose association of student activists from throughout the South. -
James Meredith admitted into the University of Mississippi
In 1962 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People obtained a court order. It required the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, an African American applicant. “It was a major breakthrough. It said, indeed, that there is hope, and that we are moving forward and that perhaps the sacrifices that had been made had been worth it.” -
"Letter From Birmingham Jail" is written by Martin Luther King, JR.
King wrote the letter from the city jail in Birmingham, Alabama, where he was confined after being arrested for his part in the Birmingham campaign, a planned non-violent protest conducted by the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference against racial segregation by Birmingham's city government and downtown retailers. -
I Have a Dream Speech
Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington rally in 1963 has become one of the most famous addresses in U.S. history. King spoke of his vision of what the United States could and should be. -
John F. Kennedy is Assassinated
President John F. Kennedy was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. -
24th Amendment is passed
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which banned the payment of poll taxes as a condition for voting in federal elections, was ratified in January 1964. The amendment did not apply to state elections but offered some hope to civil rights activists. That spring, SNCC decided to implement Moses’s plan, known as Freedom Summer. -
Freedom Summer
That spring, SNCC decided to implement Moses’s plan, known as Freedom Summer. SNCC recruited volunteers attended training classes in Ohio before heading to Mississippi. Lawyers and health-care professionals also took part in the project, offering legal and medical assistance to the civil rights workers. -
Three CORE members disappear in Mississippi
Andrew Goodman, a college student from New York, arrived in Mississippi on June 20. The following day Goodman and two CORE workers, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, disappeared. Their bodies were discovered six weeks later, buried in an earthern dam. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is Passed
It banned discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The act also outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and gave the Justice Department the authority to bring lawsuits to enforce school desegregation. To allow for equal voting rights, the act also removed some registration restrictions. -
Malcolm X is assassinated
Turning away from separatism, he converted to orthodox Islam and began calling for unity among all people. However, Malcolm X had little time to act on his new ideas. In February 1965, he was gunned down by three Black Muslim assassins. -
March on Selma
In early 1965, civil rights workers launched a registration drive in Selma, Alabama. Of Selma’s 15,000 eligible African Americans, just 383 were registered voters.African Americans who attempted to register at election commission offices in the Selma area were beaten and arrested. Civil rights leaders responded by calling for a protest march from Selma to Montgomery Governor George Wallace immediately banned the protest. Despite the governor’s opposition, some 600 people began the 54-mile trek. -
Watts Riot
In August 1965, frustration turned to violence. A routine arrest by Los Angeles police in the African American neighborhood of Watts triggered a riot that raged for six days. When the National Guard finally restored order, 34 people had been killed, hundreds injured, and almost 4,000 had been arrested. -
Black Panthers are Formed
Bobby Seale and Huey Newton created a political organization called the Black Panther Party. The party platform declared, “Black people will not be free until we are free to determine our own destiny.” It called for “land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace” for African Americans. -
Detroit Riot
The worst riot came in Detroit, where 43 people died. President Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to investigate the violence. Its report charged that white racism was largely responsible for the tensions that led to the riots. “Our nation,” the report warned, “is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.” -
Martin Luther King is Assassinated
Before the march, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, to show his support for a sanitation workers’ strike. On the evening of April 4, 1968, the man who was the symbol of nonviolence met a violent end when he was shot by a sniper. Within hours of King’s death, African American neighborhoods across the country exploded in outrage. A week of rioting left 45 dead and thousands injured.
