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President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981
This ends segregation in the Armed Services. -
Brown v. Board of Education Is decided by the Supreme Court, ending racial segregation in schools
This ended racial segregation in public schools. Many of them sill stayed segregated -
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old from Chicago is brutally murdered in Mississipp
He was allegedly flirting with a white woman. This caused national attention after photos of him at his funeral were published. -
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.
This prompted a year-long Montgomery bus boycott and remembered forever. -
Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law to help protect voter rights.
The law allows federal prosecution of those who suppress another’s right to vote. -
Six-year-old Ruby Bridges is escorted by four armed federal marshalls
She became the first african american student at the William Fratz Elementary School in New Orleans as her first day of school was met with protesting. -
Throughout 1961, Black and white activists, known as freedom riders, took bus trips through the American South to protest segregated bus terminals and attempted to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters
The Freedom Rides were marked by horrific violence from white protestors, they drew international attention to their cause. -
Approximately 250,000 people take part in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Martin Luther King gives his “I Have A Dream” speech as the closing address in front of the Lincoln Memorial
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A bomb at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young girls and injures several other people prior to Sunday services
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President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964
