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Niagara Movements
W.E.B. DuBois demands immediate racial equality and opposes all laws that treats blacks as different from others. Leads to creation of NAACP in 1909 -
Grandfather clause outlawed by Supreme Court
NAACP successfully challenges state laws that restricted black voting registration -
Race riots and lynchings claim hundreds of lives
Over 25 race riots occur in the summer of 1919 with 38 killed in Chicago. 70 blacks, including 10 veterans, are lynched in the South -
Executive Order 8802 forbids race discrimination in hiring
FDR sets up Fair Employment Practices Commission to assure non-discrimination policies in federal hiring -
Montgomery bus boycott
Rosa Parks ignites 381-day bus boycott organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. -
Little Rock Central High School desegregated
After Little Rock school board votes to integrate schools, National Guard troops prevent black children from attending school. 1000 federal paratroopers are needed to escort black students and preserve peace. Arkansas Gov. Faubus responds by closing schools for 1958-59 school year -
"Letter from Birmingham jail"
In response to white ministers who urge him to stop causing disturbances, King issues articulate statement of nonviolent resistance to wrongs of American society -
Medgar Evers murdered
Head of Mississippi NAACP is shot outside his home on the same night that Pres. Kennedy addresses the nation on race, asking "Are we to say to the world...that this is a land of the free except for Negroes" -
Voting Rights Act approved
After passage, southern black voter registration grows by over 50% and black officials are elected to various positions. In Mississippi, black voter registration grew from 7% to 67% -
Civil rights leaders
Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall are some mail leaders of the civil rights movement.
