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Brown vs Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. This fits into the category of education. -
Murder of Emmett Till
14 year-old Emmett Till was in Mississippi visiting his cousins. When he went out he was accused of whistling at a white woman (Carolyn Bryant). When her husband (Roy) found out, his brother(J.W. Milam) and him when to go look for Till. They kidnapped him and beat him brutally, shot him in the head, and then threw him in a river. This is racial violence. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
When Rosa Parks was arrested, the leaders in Montgomery 's black community saw the incident as an opportunity for staging a protest against the city's segregation laws. Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King met with Jo Ann Robinson and E. D. Nixon.The purpose of their meeting was to plan a large scale boycott against the Montgomery city bus lines. The boycott was important because it caught the attention of the entire nation. The event showed that the nonviolent method of protest was effective. -
Formation of the SCLC
Founded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., while reacting to end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the SCLC was an organization primarily comprised of southern African American church leaders, dedicated to combating racism through nonviolent group protests. Lack of voting rights, equal access to housing and education, and access to public facilities and services. From these problems cam the civil rights movement which led to the creation of the SCLC. This is Protest and resistance. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas and Carlotta Walls had been recruited by Daisy Gaston Bates, president of the Arkansas NAACP. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. Board of Education. -
Founding of SNCC
The SNCC, or Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee played a big part in the freedom rides aimed at desegregating buses, organized by Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC. Under the leadership of James Forman, Bob Moses, and Marion Barry, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee also directed much of the black voter registration drives in the South. It was also a civil-rights group formed to give younger blacks more of a voice in the civil rights movement. -
Woolworth's counter sit-ins in Greensboro
The event started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The Greensboro Four were four young black men who staged the first sit-in at Greensboro: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. -
Freedom Rides
The original freedom rides took place in 1947 and were part of the Journey of Reconciliation. It consisted of George Houser and Bayard Rustin and originally, only included men. Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. -
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”
King's letter is a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen on April 12, 1963, titled "A Call For Unity". The clergymen agreed that social injustices existed but argued that the battle against racial segregation should be fought solely in the courts, not in the streets. King responded that without nonviolent forceful direct actions such as his, true civil rights could never be achieved. -
Assassination of Medgar Evers
Civil rights activist Medgar Evers served as the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi until his assassination in 1963. He organized voter-registration efforts and economic boycotts, and investigated crimes perpetrated against blacks. Evers was also drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943. Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, shortly after midnight on June 12, 1963. He died less than an hour later at a nearby hospital. -
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
The march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. 200,000+ demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation’s capital. Martin Luther King delivered his memorable “I Have a Dream” speech. In the summer of 1941 A. Philip Randolph, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, called for a march on Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the exclusion of African Americans from positions in the national defense industry. -
Birmingham Church bombing
A bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a church with a predominantly black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured. KKK members had routinely called in bomb threats intended to disrupt civil rights meetings as well as services at the church. This event helped build increased support behind the continuing struggle to end segregation. -
March on Selma
In March, an effort to register black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups.The historic march, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s participation in it, raised awareness of the difficulties faced by black voters, and the need for a national Voting Rights Act. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
He was assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. Malcolm X advocated self-defense and the liberation of African Americans “by any means necessary.” A fiery orator, Malcolm was admired by the African American community in New York and around the country. He is best known for his staunch and controversial black racial advocacy, and for his time spent as the vocal spokesperson of the Nation of Islam. -
Assassination of MLK
MLK's assassination took place in Memphis, Tennessee and was an event that shocked everyone. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. His assassination would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era.
