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Plessy vs. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the -
Formation of the NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in 1909 and is America’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. It was formed in New York City by white and black activists, partially in response to the ongoing violence against African Americans around the country. In the NAACP’s early decades, its anti-lynching campaign was central to its agenda. -
Malcolm X begins leading the Nation of Islam
WALLACE FARD founded the NATION OF ISLAM in the 1930s. Christianity was the white man's religion, declared Fard. It was forced on African Americans during the slave experience. Islam was closer to African roots and identity. Members of the Nation of Islam read the Koran, worship Allah as their God, and accept Mohammed as their chief prophet. Mixed with the religious tenets of Islam were BLACK PRIDE and BLACK NATIONALISM. The followers of Fard became known as BLACK MUSLIMS. -
The Congress of racial equality is formed
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), founded in 1942, became one of the leading activist organizations in the early years of the American civil rights movement. In the early 1960s, CORE, working with other civil rights groups, launched a series of initiatives: the Freedom Rides, aimed at desegregating public facilities, the Freedom Summer voter registration project and the historic 1963 March on Washington. -
Desegregation of the Military
On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrating the segregated military. -
Brown V Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
The murder of Emmett Till
The murder of Emmit till documentary film produced by Firelight Media that aired on the PBS program American Experience. The film chronicles the story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a seminal event in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. -
Southern Christian leadership conference is formed
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC, which is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., had a large role in the American civil rights movement. -
The strategy of Sit-Ins
Students from across the country came together to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and organize sit-ins at counters throughout the South. By 1960, the Civil Rights Movement had gained strong momentum. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is formed
The SNCC, or Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, was a civil-rights group formed to give younger blacks more of a voice in the civil rights movement. The SNCC soon became one of the movement’s more radical branches. In the wake of the Greensboro sit-in at a lunch counter closed to blacks, Ella Baker, then director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), helped set up the first meeting of what became the SNCC. -
The Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses -
Martin Luther King Jr's I Have a Dream speech
Have a Dream" is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
Race riots in Watts and other cities
The Watts riots, sometimes referred to as the Watts Rebellion, took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. ... The riots were blamed principally on police racism. It was the city's worst unrest until the Rodney King riots of 1992. -
Martin Luther King's assassination
Martin Luther King Jr., an American clergyman and civil rights leader, was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, and was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. CST. -
Rodney King trial
On April 29, 1992, the jury acquitted three of the officers but could not agree on one of the charges against Powell. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said, "The jury's verdict will not blind us to what we saw on that videotape. The men who beat Rodney King do not deserve to wear the uniform of the LAPD. -
Boston Busing
The desegregation of Boston public schools (1974–1988) was a period in which the Boston Public Schools were under court control to desegregate through a system of busing students.
