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Brown v. Board of Education Topeka, Kansas
A Kansas law requiring segregated classrooms in the state's public schools was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court unanimously. The justices declared maintenance of "separate but equal" school facilities for African Americans was a denial of the 14th Amendment's guaranteed equal protection of the laws. In 1955, the Supreme court ordered that the desegregation of schools should begin "with all deliberate speed." School districts in border states such as MD, KY, OK desegregated quickly -
Rosa Parks Arrested
African-American seamstress refused to give up her seat to a white man on a local bus in Montgomery, AL. Her action is often viewed as spontaneous but it actually grew out of a long tradition of African protest against segregation in the South. Rosa Parks herself had been thrown out of a bus a decade earlier for refusing to obey the driver's command to move to the back. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
As news of Rosa Parks actions spread, the community went into action. The Women's Political Council, a group of college-educated African American women initiated a mass boycott of the privately owned bus company. Martin Luther King led the boycott. A car pool substituted for the buses despite police harassment. As the boycott survived months of pressure, the national media gave them attention. The Supreme Court declared in 1956 that bus segregation was unconstitutional -
Southern Manifesto
After the Brown v. Board of Education decision, states in the Deep South responded with massive resistance. Local white citizens' councils organized a fight for retention of racial separation; 101 representatives and senators signed this Manifesto that denounced the Brown decision as an "abuse of judicial power." -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference Founded
Martin Luther King founded this organization to fight segregation. Its weapon was passive resistance that stressed nonviolence and love, and its tactic was direct, peaceful confrontation. He instructed protestors, "if cursed, do not curse back. It struck, do not strike back, but evidence love and goodwill at all times." He visited various leaders in African and Asia and learned of India's Mohatma Gandhi, a practitioner of civil disobedience. -
Little Rock Nine
Little Rock Board of Education prepared 9 African American students to a white high school. Gov. Orval Faubus used the Arkansas national guard to bar them from the school building. Pres. Eisenhower stated that this violated national law, Faubus withdrew the national guard. But when a mob prevented the students from entering the school, Eisenhower ordered federal troops to Little Rock. During the entire academic year, soldiers protected the students. -
Civil Rights Act
Influenced by both the ruling of the Supreme Court for school desegregation and by the increasing activism of African Americans, Congress passed the first civil rights act since Reconstruction. It created a 6 member Civil Rights Commission to investigate the denial of voting rights and the violation of the equal protection of laws. It was also to make recommendations for new legislation as it saw the need. -
Sit-in at Woolworth's Lunch Counter in Greensboro, NC
Four students from N.C. Agricultural and Technical College sat down at a dime-store lunch counter and refused to move after being denied service. Within 2 days, 85 students joined them. Other students, both whites and blacks, joined in similar "sit-ins" across the South, as well as "kneel-ins" at churches and "wade-ins" at swimming pools. By the end of the year, about 50,000 young people had succeeded in desegregating public facilities in more than 100 southern cities. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Created
This African American civil rights organization drew heavily on younger activists and college students. -
Freedom Rides
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) began a campaign against the "whites only" bus terminals in the South. Freedom Riders set out by bus from Washington to New Orleans to test the observance of the existing federal integration orders. Two buses carrying black and white passengers met only minor problems in VA, the Carolinas and GA, but Alabamians burned one of the buses and attacked the riders in Birmingham, where they beat demonstrators senseless and clubbed a Justice Dept. observer. -
March on Washington
Pres. Kennedy submitted a civil rights bill to Congress in June 1963, which prohibited many common discriminatory practices and granted the civil rights division of the Dept of Justice increased authority to deal with instances of discrimination. While the bill was being debated the bill, civil rights leaders organized the March. Rally in D.C. that transformed African American civil rights into a national cause Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Freedom Summer
Organized by SNCC, the Mississippi Summer Freedom Project was a voter-registration drive that sent volunteers to the small towns and back roads of MS. In MS, only 7% of eligible African American citizens were registered voters. MS used literacy tests and intimidation to keep African Americans from voting. They gained 1,600 new voters. -
Civil Rights Act
JFK had introduced it but Johnson got enacted. The law prohibited segregation in public accommodations, such as hotels, restaurants, gas stations, theaters, and parks and outlawed employment discrimination on federally assisted projects. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and included gender in the list of categories protected against discrimination. -
Civil rights Act
Law outlawed literacy tests and provided for federal voting registrars in states where registration or turnout in 1964 was less than 50% of the eligible population. African American registration humped in these states jumped from 27% to 55% within the first year. It also required the federal government to withdraw financial assistance from any state or local program permitting discrimination in its operation.