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Brown vs. Board of Education
Supreme Court outlaws school segregation, which began when the Plessy v. Ferguson case occured. Brown filed against the school board of Topeka, Kansas, when he discovered that the schools were not equal, but the white schools were much better. The result of this case was the beginning of desegregation, the Constitution being on the side of racial equality, and the change from a Civil rights movement to a full revolution. -
Reverend George Lee
George Lee was killed for leading a voter-registration drive in Belzoni, Mississippi -
Lamar Smith
Lamar Smith was killed for organizing black voters in Brookhaven, Mississippi -
Emmett Louis Till
Emmett Louis Till was killed because he spoke to a white woman in Money, Mississippi -
John Earl Reese
John Earl Reese was killed by nightriders who were against school improvements in Mayflower, Texas -
Rosa Parks Bus
Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give her seat to a white person and move to the back. When this happened, she was arrested and the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. After over a year of boycotting, Congress finally voted bus segregation unconstitutional. -
Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins -
Bus Boycott Ends
The Supreme Court bans segregated bus seating in Mongomery buses -
Willie Edwards, Jr.
Willie Edwards, Jr., is killed by KKK members -
Civil Rights Act
Congress passed the first act to improve Civil Rights since Reconstruction. This act established a Civil Rights section of the Justice Department as well as a federal Civil Rights commission. It also empowered federal prosecutors to get court injunctions against any interference with the right to vote. -
School Desegregation Enforced
Eisenhower ordered federal troops to enforce the desegregation of schools and protect the black students in Little Rock, Arkansas. -
Mack Charles Parker
Mack Charles Parker is taken out of jail to be lynched in Poplarville, Mississippi -
Sit-In
Black students in Greeroboro, North Carolina stage a sit in at an all-white lunch bar -
Bus Terminal Desegregation
The Supreme Court outlaws segregation in bus terminals -
Freedom Riders
In Alabama, Freedom Riders were attacked after riding around the country spreading the idea of their cause of desegregation. They used whites-only bathrooms and lunch counters, and showed that they should be treated equal. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized these rides. Not only blacks participated in these rides, but whites as well. After many freedom rides, bus terminals became desegregated. -
Herbert Lee
Herbert Lee, a voter registration worker, is killed by a white legislator in Liberty, Mississippi -
Voter Registration Drive
Civil rights groups join together to launch the drive for voter registration -
Cpl. Roman Ducksworth Jr.
Roman Ducksworth, Jr., is taken from a bus and killed in Taylorsville, Mississippi -
Paul Guinard
Paul Guinard, a French reporter, is killed during the Ole Miss riots in Oxford, Mississippi -
Enrollment at Ole Miss
Riots erupted when black student James Menedith enrolled at the college Ole Miss. He was attacked and threatened by the white students who attended this college. After these riots, where two people were killed and many more were injured, the Kennedy administration sent in around 31,000 troops to end them. -
William Lewis Woore
William Lewis Woore is killed during a solo march against segregation in Artalla, Alabama -
Children Attacked
Burmingham police attack marching kids with fire hoses and police dogs -
George Wallace
Alabama Governor George Wallace stands in the way of a schoolhouse door to stop integration -
Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers, a Civil rights activist who served in the army, was shot in the back just hours after Kennedy made a speech in support of Civil Rights. -
March on Washington
250,000 Americans marched on Washington to protest segregation and shed light on the struggle black people went through. To culminate this march, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Bombing of 16th Street
Four schoolgirls, Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley are killed in the bombing of a church on Sixteenth Street in Birmingham, Alabama -
Virgil Lamar Ware
Killed during outbreak in violence in Birmingham, Alabama -
Poll Tax
Poll tax outlawed in public elections -
Louis Allen
Louis Allen, a witness to the murder of a civil rights worker, was assassinated in Liberty, Mississippi -
The Rev. Bruce Klunder
Bruce Klunder was killed protesting the building of a segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio -
Henry Hezekia Dee and Charles Eddie Moore
Two men were killed my KKK Klansmen in Meadville, Mississippi -
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer brought 1,000 young civil rights volunteers into Mississippi -
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner
Three men were abducted and killed by KKK members in Philadelphia, Mississippi -
Civil Rights Act
Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned the segregation of public places as well as job segregaton based on race, gender, religion, or national origin. -
Lt, Col. Lemuel Penn
Lemuel Penn was killed by Klansmen while driving northward in Colbert, Georgia -
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Marcher Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed by a state trooper in Marian, Alabama -
Edmund Pettus Bridge
State troopers beat back marchers at this bridge in Selma, Alabama -
Rev, James Reeb
James Reeb, a march volunteer, was beaten to death in Selma, Alabama -
Selma to Montgomery
Thousands of people successfully march from Selma to Montgomery to get better voter registration. Many people protested to this and only 300 of about 15,000 were able to vote. The result was the passing of the Voting Rights Act. -
Viola Gregg Luizzo
Viola Gregg Luizzo was killed by Klansmen while moving marchers on the Selma Highway in Alabama -
Oneal Moore
Black deputy Oneal Moore was killed by nightriders in Varnado, Lousisiana -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is passed by Congress -
Willie Brewster
Willie Brewster is killed by nightriders in Anniston, Alabama -
Jonathan Daniels
Jonathan Daniels, a seminary student, was killed by a deputy in Hayneville, Alabama -
Samuel Younge Jr.
Samuel Younge, Jr., a student civil rights activist, is killed in a dispute in Tuskegee, Alabama -
Vernon Dahmer
Black community leader Vernon Dahmer was killed in a Klan bombing in Hattiesburg, Mississippi -
Ben Chester White
Ben Chester White was killed by a KKK member in Natchez, Mississippi -
Clarence Triggs
Clarence Triggs is murdered by nightriders in Bogalusa, Louisiana -
Wharlest Jackson
Civil rights leader Wharlest Jackson was slain after his promotion to a "white" job in Natchez, Mississippi -
Benjamin Brown
Civil rights worker Benjamin Brown was killed when the police fired on protesters in Jackson, Mississippi -
First Black Supreme Court Justice
Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first ever black Supreme Court justice after being a circuit judge and solicitor general. This was monumental because it showed that African-American people were being trusted in important roles. -
Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith
Three students were killed when highway patrol men fired on protesters in Orangeberg, South Carolina -
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He was shot when talking to the SCLC from his balcony before going to talk to the Memphis minister Kyles. This was important to African Americans because their leader had died and to whites because it showed how bad the racial problem truly was.
