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Executive order 9981
President Truman signed executive order 9981 which ended racial segregation in the armed forces. This eventually lead to desegregation across the services. Many people believe this to be the start of the movement. -
Brown vs. Board of education
The supreme Court overrides their decision in the "Plessy vs. Ferguson" trial. They ruled that most facilities could rarely stay equal and were considered unconstitutional. This comes into play later in the movement in places like Alabama and Arkansas. -
Rosa Parks
NAACP member Rosa parks is arrests arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. Her arrest lead to national attention by civil rights leaders and caused two future bus boycotts. This is important because the majority of people who rode the busses were black, so now the bus company is losing money and becoming desperate. They have to make changes to get back their profits. -
Woolworth
Four black students from North Carolina sit in at a all white lunch counter in Woolworth. Interesting enough, a compromise was made to where they could sit there but could not order anything. This caused that business to lose money because people were so occupied with the visitors, they couldn't order. This type of protest lead to much more like it later in the movement. -
Freedom Rides
In the summer of 1961 volunteers took bus rides into the deep south to spread a nonviolent protest to segregation in places such as restrooms and restaurants. Over the course of these "Freedom Rides" members were brutally beaten, arrested and some even died. These rides took place to instill a principle they called "nonviolent direct action." There were things such as sit ins and speeches to voice their ideas. They accepted being beat because it showed contrast between violent and nonviolence. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
Four young girls are killed in a bombing of a church in Birmingham. So now that's what it came to, most likely white Catholic or Christian man bombing a church in their city where other people worship the same God they do. That's morally disturbing on on all kinds of levels. Following these bombings, riots broke out and killed two more African Americans. -
Civil Rights 1964
President Johnson signed the civil rights act of 1964. This was the mist influential civil rights document since Reconstruction. It prohibited discrimination of all kinds. This law finally gave police a reason to enforce desegregation. -
Three bodies
Three civil rights workers are found dead in a dam after weeks of investigation. The three men were working together to give blacks the right to vote. They were put in jail, let out and murdered by the KKK. -
Voting in 1965
Congress passed a law that banned things like the literacy test that prevented blacks from voting. So blacks got a safe right to vote. -
Affirmative action
Seeing civil laws not being enough to stop discrimination, Johnson called for affirmative action in businesses. Blacks were allowed some of the same jobs as whites. These jobs were also available to all minorities. -
Executive order 11375
This executive order expands affirmative action to also cover gender. This made certain that everyone was open to things like equal jobs and education. -
Stonewall riots
Patrons in a gay bar in the Stonewall inn are attacked by police that were raiding the bar. News of the attacks made headlines that turned gay rights into a national cause. -
Title IX
This education amendment banned the discrimination of education because of gender. Due to this, women began getting better jobs for their education and the ability to play in school sports. -
Gay marches
Estimated 800,000 to one million people participate on a march to Washington for gay rights. This march was caused by the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy of the second amendment. Along with hate crimes and public discrimination against the LGBT community. -
Massachusetts on a roll
On May 17, 2004 Massachusetts legalizes same-sex marriage. Finally giving gay couples a right they didn't really have in most of other places. -
Works cited
Infoplease.com
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