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Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, KS
Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which allowed state-sponsored segregation. -
Emmett Till
Emmett Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Emmett Till was from Chicago, Illinois, visiting his relatives in Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region, when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there. -
Rosa Parks
She was an African-American civil rights activist, whom the U.S. Congress called "the first lady of civil rights" and "the mother of the freedom movement". On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake's order that she give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott, AL
A protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. The campaign lasted from December 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person, to December 20, 1956, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. -
SCLC
An African-American civil rights organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The SCLC had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock 9
a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower. -
SNCC
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was one of the organizations of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. It emerged from a series of student meetings led by Ella Baker held at Shaw University in April 1960. SNCC grew into a large organization with many supporters in the North who helped raise funds to support SNCC's work in the South, allowing full-time SNCC workers to have a $10 per week salary. -
Great Society
A set of domestic programs in the United States announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson at Ohio University and subsequently promoted by him and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period. -
Freedom Riders
Civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and following years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia, which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional -
James Meredith
An American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. In 1962, he was the first African American student admitted to the segregated University of Mississippi, an event that was a flashpoint in the American civil rights movement. Motivated by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to pressure the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for blacks. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony during the march. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and also women. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. -
Selma to Montgomery marches
Also known as Bloody Sunday and the two marches that followed, were marches and protests held in 1965, that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. All three marches were attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery where the Alabama capitol is located. They grew out of the voting rights movement in Selma, launched by local African-Americans who formed the Dallas County Voters League. -
Malcolm X
An African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. He was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. Non-supporters accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, and violence. -
Kerner Commission
Originally know as the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, was an 11-member commission established by President Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the causes of the 1967 race riots in the United States and to provide recommendations for the future. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
A landmark piece of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin
