Civil RIghts

Plessy vs Ferguson

Apr 13, 1896

http://bit.ly/1uuLcJp This 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. In 1892 an African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. That broke a Louisiana law. Rejecting Plessy’s argument that his constitutional rights were violated, the Court ruled that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and 14th Amendments.

Congress of Racial Equality

Mar 1, 1942

http://bit.ly/2nCak4H Founded in 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality became one of the leading activist organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement. In the 1960s, CORE, working with other civil rights groups, launched a series of initiatives. CORE initially embraced a pacifist, non-violent approach to fighting racial segregation, but by the late 1960s the group’s leadership had shifted its focus towards the political ideology of black nationalism and separatism.

Jackie Robinson

Apr 15, 1947

http://bit.ly/1n14iFE Jackie Robinson made history in 1947 when he broke baseball’s color barrier to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Robinson won the National League Rookie of the Year award his first season, helped the Dodgers to the National League championship. In 1949 Robinson won the league MVP award, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. Robinson faced insults and threats because of his race. Robinson inspired a generation of African Americans.

Sweatt vs Painter

Apr 4, 1950

http://bit.ly/2nqJY3w In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt, a black man, applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School. State law restricted access to the university to whites, and Sweatt's application was automatically rejected because of his race. When Sweatt asked the state courts to order his admission, the university attempted to provide separate but equal facilities for black law students.

Brown vs Board of Education

Dec 9, 1952

http://bit.ly/1nzUME6 On May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court’s decision overturned supply of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which allowed a “separate but equal” public facilities, including public schools in the United States. Declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the Brown v. Board decision helped spark to the American civil rights movement.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Dec 1, 1953

http://bit.ly/1ymBgQq The Montgomery Bus Boycott started when African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The protest took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. Four days before on December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman refused to give her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus. She was arrested and fined. The boycott began on the day of Parks’ court hearing. The Supreme Court ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system.

"The Southern Manifesto"

Mar 12, 1956

http://to.pbs.org/1hc6YZt In 1956, 19 Senators and 77 members of the House of Representatives signed the "Southern Manifesto," a resolution condemning the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The resolution called the decision "a clear abuse of judicial power" and encouraged states to resist implementing its mandates.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Jan 10, 1957

http://bit.ly/2mNufPb The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was created on January 10, 1957, when sixty black ministers and civil rights leaders met in Atlanta, Georgia in an effort to try Marches and nonviolent protests from what happened when the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott started. Martin Luther King Jr, was chosen as the first president of this nonviolence group dedicated to change legalized segregation and ending segregation of black southerners in a non-violent manner.

Little Rock - Central High School

Sep 1, 1957

http://bit.ly/1ufa8Cs In a key event of the American Civil Rights Movement, nine black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. On September 4, 1957, the first day of classes at Central High. Later in the month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the “Little Rock Nine” into the school, and they started their first full day of classes on September 25.

Greensboro Sit-In

Feb 1, 1960

http://bit.ly/1MP3Fql On February 1, 1960, four students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth in downtown Greensboro, where the policy was to refuse service to anyone but whites. Denied service, the four young men refused to give up their seats. Police arrived on the scene, but were unable to take action. The local media, who had arrived in full force to cover the events on television. The “Greensboro Four” stayed until the store closed, then returned February 5, with 300 students.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

Apr 16, 1960

http://bit.ly/2oOVHMW The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, formed to give younger blacks more of a voice in the civil rights movement. In the early sit-ins closed to blacks, which started in February 1960, Ella Baker created Southern Christian Leadership Conference, helped set up the first meeting of what became SNCC. Baker encouraged those to look beyond integration and to view King’s principle of nonviolence more as a political tactic than as a way of life.

Freedom Rides

Period: May 4, 1961 to Dec 10, 1961

http://bit.ly/1vgaxE1 On May 4, 1961, a group of 13 African American and white civil rights activists started the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the South to protest segregation. The Freedom Riders departed from Washington, and tried to use “white only” restrooms and lunch counters. The group experience violence from white protestors along the route. In September 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulationsprohibiting segregation in bus and train station nationwide.

James Meredith

Sep 24, 1962

http://bit.ly/1kM5U5i James H. Meredith, who in 1962 became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, iin 1966 shot shortly after beginning a lone civil rights march through the South which wounded him and later went back and got him masters degree. The event know as the “March Against Fear,” Meredith had been walking from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, in an attempt to encourage voter registration by African Americans in the South.

Letters from Birmingham Jail

Apr 16, 1963

http://bit.ly/1YSpCQ8 After King’s arrest, a friend smuggled in a copy of an Birmingham newspaper which included an open letter, which criticized the demonstrations and King himself. Isolated in his cell, King drafted an impassioned defense of his use of nonviolent, but direct, actions. Over the course of the letter’s 7,000 words, he turned the criticism back upon more moderate minded white Americans for sitting on the sidelines while King and others risked everything for change.

Medger Evers

Jun 12, 1963

http://bit.ly/2nzi715 Medger Evers moved to Philadelphia, Mississippi, where he worked on behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, in Philadelphia. In 1955, Evers activism made him the most visible civil rights leader. As a result, he and his family received numerous threats over the years. On June 12, 1963, Evers was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in Jackson. He died less than a hour later at a hospital.

March On Washington

Aug 28, 1963

http://bit.ly/1i6tu7Z On August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. the event was designed to show the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march, created a movement to hear Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, a spirited call for racial justice and equality. That changed history and lives all over.

Bombing Of Birmingham Church

Sep 15, 1963

http://bit.ly/1CwahtD On September 15, a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, a African American church congregation that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people injured, outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police t helped draw national attention to the dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.

Mississippi Freedom Summer

Jun 13, 1964

http://bit.ly/1jCdm18 Freedom Summer was a 1964 registration project in Mississippi, part of a larger effort by civil rights groups such as the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to expand black voting in the South. The Mississippi project was run by the local Council of Federated Organizations (COFO). About a hundred white college students had helped register voters in November 1963.

Civil Rights Act Passed

Jul 2, 1964

http://bit.ly/1udSFsU 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. It was then signed into law by, Lyndon B. Johnson. Congress expanded the act and also passed additional legislation bringing equality to African Americans, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Selma To Montgomery March

Period: Mar 7, 1965 to Mar 21, 1965

http://bit.ly/1nGD5oz On February 18, white segregationists attacked a group of demonstrators in the town of Marion. An Alabama state trooper fatally shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young African-American demonstrator. In response to Jackson’s death, King planned a massive protest march from Selma to Montgomery. 600 people set out on Sunday, March 7, to march but Alabama state troopers waiting with nightsticks and tear gas rushed the group at the Edmund Pettis Bridge and beat them back to Selma.

Voting Rights Act Approved

Aug 6, 1965

http://bit.ly/1x2nE2e The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The act significantly widened the franchise and is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history.

King Assissinated

Apr 4, 1968

http://bit.ly/2oTY3tv April 4th marks the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader whose message of non-violence has inspired generations. King, 39 at the time of his death, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. King was in Memphis in a show of solidarity for striking sanitation workers, delivering one of his most famous speeches on April 3 at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis.