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We Shall Overcome
The most famous song of the civil rights movement was "We Shall Overcome." It may have been created by African American textile workers in the 1940s at the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee. It expresses the singer's belief that someday he or she will overcome the obstacles to freedom. -
Truman signs Executive Order 9981
which states,"It is here by declared to be the policy of the president that there shall be equality of treatment and oppurtunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race,color, religion, or national orgin. (Support of Article 1) -
Brown vs. Board of Education
The supreme court on the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka,Kans. Unanimously that segregation in public schools is un constitutioned. The ruling pavos the way fro large scale desegregation. The decision over turns the 1896Plessy V. Ferguson ruling that sanctioned "seperate but equal" segregation of the rules that "seperate educational facilities are inherently unequal." It is a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall. (Violation of Article 1) -
Thurgood Marshall
Courageous civil rights lawyer during a period when racial segregation was the law of the land. At a time when a large portion of American society refused to extend equality to black people, Marshall astutely realized that one of the best ways to bring about change was through the legal system. Between 1938 and 1961, he presented more than 30 civil rights cases before the Supreme Court. He won 29 of them.
His most important case was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. -
Emmett Till murdered
14 year old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped,brutally beaten,shot and dumped in the Tallatchic River for alleged whistling at a white woman. (Violation of Article 3) -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was a African American and she did many good things for other African Americans and all Americans. She made sacrifices in her personal circumstances to take a stand against the injustices and denial of civil rights of African Americans. -
Refuses to give seat up
NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger,defying a southern custom of the time. Bus Boycott was launched soon after the incident. (Violation of Article 5) -
Establishment of the SCLC
establishes the Southern Chrisitan Leadership Conference, of which king is made the first president. According to the king,it is essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hatemongers who oppose them: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," (Support of Article 1) -
Little Rock Nine
group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. -
Black Nationlism - Elijah Muhammad
"The Negro wants to be everything but himself… He wants to integrate with the white man, but he cannot integrate with himself or with his own kind. The Negro wants to lose his identity because he does not know his own identity." -
We Don't Go For Segregation -Malcolm X
" We don’t go for segregation. We go for separation. Separation is when you have your own. You control your own economy; you control your own politics; you control your own society; you control your own everything. You have yours and you control yours; we have ours and we control ours." -
"Bull"
During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the civil rights movement around the world. (Violation of Article Article 5) -
Four Young Girls
(Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Chruch, a popular loaction for civil rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading the deaths of two more black youths. (Violation of Article 3) -
Civil Rights Act
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation. (Violation of Article 7) -
March in Montgomery
(Selma, Ala.) Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later. (Violation of Article 5) -
Address to Operation Breadbasket rally - Jesse Jackson
"I am - Somebody. I may be poor, but I am - Somebody! I may be on welfare, but I am - Somebody! I may be uneducated, but I am - Somebody! I must be, I’m God’s child. I must be respected and protected. I am black and I am beautiful! I am - Somebody! Soul Power!" -
Painted in 1967
An even greater departure from Rockwell’s usual sweet America paintings is Southern Justice, painted in 1963. Rockwell did a finished painting, but the editors published Rockwell’s color study instead, and I think his color study conveys the terror of the scene more successfully. It depicts the deaths of 3 Civil Rights workers who were killed for their efforts to register African American voters. It is done in a monochrome sienna color, and it is a horrifying vision of racism. -
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther king was black, confident man who grew up during the racial segregated period, he was separated from white people like all the other black people in the state so decided to prove his point by holding protests such as bus boycott and said a very famous speech "i have a dream..." and managed to encourage the government that black and white people have equal rights in the world. -
R.I.P Martin Luther King
(Memphis, Tenn.) Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime. (Support of Article 5) -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
7 days after Martin Luther King Jr died,
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. (Support of Article 6)
