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Reconstruction Begins
Reconstruction
During Radical Reconstruction, which began in 1867, newly enfranchised blacks gained a voice in government for the first time in American history, winning election to southern state legislatures and even to the U.S. Congress. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the S -
14th Amendment
14th Amendment
an amendment to the U.S. constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons -
15th Amendment
15th Amendment
an amendment to the U.S. constitution, ratified in 1870, prohibiting the restriction of voting rights “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
Plessy vs. Ferguson
On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad. Plessy could easily pass for white but under Louisiana law, he was considered black despite his light complexion and therefore required to sit in the "Colored" car. He was a Creole of Color, a term used to refer to black persons in New Orleans who traced some of their ancestors to the Fren -
Scottsboro Boys
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The case included a frameup, an all-white jury, rushed trials, an attempted lynching, an angry mob, and is an example of an overall miscarriage of justice. -
Brown vs. Board Education
Brown vs. BOE
Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment -- even though the physical facilities and other "tangible" factors of white and Negro schools may be equal. -
Emmett Till
Emmett Till
Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi on August 24, 1955 when he reportedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, two white men kidnapped Till, beat him, and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them. Till's murder and open casket funeral galvanized the emerging civil rights movement. -
Little Rock Nine
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were the nine African-American students involved in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School. -
The Greensboro Four
The Greensboro Four
On Feb. 1, 1960 four black freshmen at North Carolina A&T State University, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond, took seats at the segregated lunch counter of F. W. Woolworth's in Greensboro, N.C. They were refused service and sat peacefully until the store closed. They returned the next day, along with about 25 other students, and their requests were again denied. The Greensboro Four -
James Meredith
James Meredith
He joined the military after high school and attended an all-black college before becoming the first black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962. -
Letter from Birmingham
The Letter of Birmingham
On Good Friday in 1963, 53 blacks, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., marched into downtown Birmingham to protest the existing segregation laws. -
Martin Luther King: I Have A Dream
MLK I Have A Dream
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech by American activist Martin Luther King, Jr.. It was delivered by King on August 28, 1963, in which he called for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. -
24th Amendment
24th AmendmentOn January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Voting Rights Act
This “act to enforce the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution” was signed into law 95 years after the amendment was ratified. In those years,
