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Jackie Robinson joins professional baseball league
He is the first ever African Amernican to do this and inspires other African Amernicans who want to join professional sports. -
President Truman ends segregation in armed forces
This allowed black and white soldiers to reach one step closer to having equal rights within the army. -
Brown vs. Board of Education
Linda Brown’s parents sued the Topeka Board of Education for prohibiting her from attending theTopeka school. The Supreme Court ruled that separate schools are not equal. Schools are ordered to desegregate. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person in Montgomery, Alabama and she is arrested and jailed. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. a Baptist Minister, helps lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott and becomes a national Civil Rights leader. -
Crisis in Little Rock
1957 Govener refuses to follow court ruling (Brown v. Board of Ed.) to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Police and Arkansas National Guard enforced School Segregation. President Dwight Eisenhower orders 101st U.S. Army Airborne Division and the nationalized Arkansas National Guard to escort nine African American
students (Little Rock Nine) to school each day for the 1957-1958 school year. This gives hope for equal education of African Americans in the future. -
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit In
Because of a nonviolent protes, Woolworths lost 1/3 of its business and desegregated all of it’s restaurants (nationally) on July 26, 1960. Black employees were the 1st to be served. This accomplishment was checked off of the long list of places where African Americans were denied equal rights. -
Birmingham, Alabama
Civil rights activists (Southern Christian Leadership Conference - SCLC) organize nonviolent protests which lead to mass arrests, drawing media attention and forcing integration. -
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
More than 200,000 people of all races gather on “The Mall” in Washington, D.C. to protest police brutality, unequal pay, job discrimination, continued segregation in education and lack of rights. Dr. King delivers “I Have a Dream” speech. -
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing
Four girls were killed, 22 others were injured.Church was a meeting place for Civil Rights protests. KKK members Robert Chambliss (convicted 1977), Thomas Blanton and Bobby Cherry (convicted 2000), Herman Cash (never convicted/deceased) -
Civil Rights Act
This act outlawed descrimination in hiring, ended segregation in public places and gave the government athority to enforce integration. -
Malcolm X Assassanation
He was a member of the National Islam and favored separation from whites. He encouraged African Amernicans to defend themselves by any means necesarry. -
Voting Rights Act
This act ended literacy tests and allowed federal officials to register voters in states where local officails refused to. -
Dr. King's Assassanation
He was killed by James Earl Ray in Memphis. He influences change, even in death.
