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Jackie Robinson enters Major League Baseball
On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson made his MLB debut in front of 26,623 fans at Ebbets field. Robinson started at first base and went hitless, but reached base on an error in the seventh and scored the eventual go-ahead run in a victory against the Boston Braves. -
Rosa Parks Arrest
Rosa Parks was an African American woman who was arrested on December 1st, 1955. Rosa was arrested for improper conduct for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. -
Little Rock Nine Intervention
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Greensboro Sit-In Protest
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. -
Integration of Ole Miss Riots
In 1962, a federal appeals court ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, an African-American student. Upon his arrival, a mob of more than 2,000 white people rioted; two people were killed. -
George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”
The stand in the schoolhouse door was a symbolic protest by Alabama Governor George Wallace against the integration of Alabama public universities. He blocked two Black students from registering for classes before he was commanded aside by the Alabama National Guard. -
Medgar Evers shooting
About half past midnight, a shot rang out. It was June 12, 1963, in a suburban neighborhood of Jackson, Mississippi. A 37-year-old civil rights activist named Medgar Evers had just come home after a meeting of the NAACP. As he began the short walk up to his single-story rambler, the bullet struck Evers in the back -
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The violent blast ripped through the wall, killing four African-American girls on the other side and injuring more than 20 inside the church. It was a clear act of racial hatred: the church was a key civil rights meeting place and had been a frequent target of bomb threats. -
Malcolm X is murdered
Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, was shot multiple times and died from his wounds in Manhattan, New York City on February 21, 1965, at age 39 -
Black Panther Party is formed
It was in this context, and the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, that Merritt Junior College students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense on October 15, 1966, in West Oakland California. -
Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling
Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) A unanimous Court struck down state laws banning marriage between individuals of different races, holding that these anti-miscegenation statutes violated both the Due Process and the Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated
Shortly after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and mortally wounded as he stood on the second-floor balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. He was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m. at St. Joseph Hospital.