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Emancipation Proclamation
Issued by President Lincoln; freed all slaves in the Confederate territories captured by the Union Army -
Re-election
Abraham Lincoln is re-elected for the second term of President -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was to abolish slavery. This law was approved by the United States Congress -
KKK
The Ku Klux Klan, as known as the KKK, has a long history of violence and is one of the most infamous and oldest American hate (racist) groups. Black Americans have typically been the Klan's primary target but they've also attacked Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted equal protection under the law to African Americans. -
15th Amendment
The 15th Amendment granted blacks the right to vote, including former slaves. -
Jim Crow Laws
Around 1880-1960
Jim Crow Laws were a series of anti-black laws. They included restrictive signs all over the country, and restrictive real-estate contracts. (Here are some examples:)
Nurses (Alabama): White nurses were not allowed to treat and take care of black men.
Buses: All passenger stations in this state had to have seperate waiting rooms and ticket stands, blacks and whites seperated.
Restaurants: Whites and blacks could not be served in the same room. -
Plessy V. Ferguson
The phrase "seperated but equal" came into place. On June 7, 1892, 30-year-old Homer Plessy was jailed for sitting in the "White" car of the East Louisiana Railroad.Plessy's lawyer argued that the Separate Car Act violated the Thirteenth and Fourteenth
Amendments to the Constitution. -
The Great Depression
This was an economic slump in North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas of the world that began in 1929 and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression ever experienced by the industrialized Western world. -
Congress of Racial Equality
The founder of CORE, an interracial American organization, was James Farmer in 1942. This organization strives to improve race relations and end discriminatory policies through direct-action projects. -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kensas
The Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Emmett Till
August 28th was the day of Emmett Till's death. Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American boy from Chicago, and was brutally murdered for flirting with a white woman four days earlier (before his death). -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus for a white man. This sets off a successful, year-long African American boycott of the bus system. -
Little Rock Nine
Little Rock Nine consists of nine African American students of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas (Minnijean Brown, Terrance Roberts, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Patillo, Gloria Ray, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls) and attempted to combine the school. -
I Have A Dream
American Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King delivers his speech "I Have A Dream" in Washington D.C. -
March on Washington
More than 200,000 demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation’s capital. The march was successful in pressuring the administration of John F. Kennedy to initiate a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress. -
Dr. Martin Luther King
After the Civil Rights Act, Martin Luther King recieves a Noble Peace Prize -
Civil Rights Acts
President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Acts
