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Brown v. Board of Education
The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for a large-scale desegregation. -
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Civil Rights
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Emmett Till
A fourteen-year-old Chigagoan is visting his family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutey beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for murder and are aquitted by an alleged white jury. -
Bus Boycott
NAACP member Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" to a white passenger. In response to her arrest the Mountgomery community launches a bus boycott, which lasts for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated December 21, 1956. -
9 Brave ones!
Formally all-white Central High School learns that integration is easier said then done. Nine African American students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Govenor Orval Faubus. -
Dining Counter with the Fab Four
Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's luch counter. Although they refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. -
"I Have A Dream"
About 200,000 people join the March on Washington. Consegregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous "I Have A Dream" speech. -
Civil Rights Acts
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. -
X like Malcolm
Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is shot to death. It is believed that he was assainated by members of the Black Muslim faith, which Malcolm had recently abandoned in favor of orthodox Islam.
