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Plessy v. Ferguson
A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality – a doctrine that came to be known as "separate but equal". -
The Integration of Major League Baseball
Jackie Robinson's first season with the Dodgers, bringing an end to a sixty-year ban on black players in the major leagues. -
The Integration of the Armed Forces
President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrating the segregated military. -
Sweatt v. Painter
Was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
The Bus Boycott of Montgomery, Alabama
A civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. -
The Integration of Little Rock High School
Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, gained national attention on September 3, 1957, when Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating the high school. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1957.It established the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, and empowered federal officials to prosecute individuals that conspired to deny or abridge another citizen's right to vote. -
The Freedom Rides of 1960
civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. ... Virginia -
The Greensboro Four
All four were students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. ... The Greensboro Four, as they became known, had also been spurred to action by the brutal murder in 1955 of a young black boy, Emmett Till, who had allegedly whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi store. -
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment
The United States Constitution prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. -
The Integration of the University of Mississippi
Riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where locals, students, and committed segregationists had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. -
The Integration of the University of Alabama
President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation. The next day, Governor Wallace yielded to the federal pressure, and two African American students—Vivian Malone and James A. Hood—successfully enrolled. -
The March on Washington
An interracial march by 250,000 blacks and whites on August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C., protesting segregation and job discrimination against blacks in the nation. ... Marchers were protesting against segregation in public accommodations and widespread job discrimination against blacks. -
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Sitting in a Lincoln convertible, the Kennedys and Connallys waved at the large and enthusiastic crowds gathered along the parade route. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building at 12:30 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly fired three shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy and seriously injuring Governor Connally. Kennedy was pronounced dead 30 minutes later at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. He was 46. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
The Assassination of Malcolm X
An African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. -
The March on Selma, Alabama
Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. is shot to death at a hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. A single shot fired by James Earl Ray from over 200 feet away at a nearby motel struck King in the neck. ... The death of America's leading civil rights advocate sparked a wave of rioting in the black communities of several cities around the country. -
The Passage of Title IX
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. -
The Appointment of the First Woman Justice of the Supreme Court
Sandra Day O'Connor was elected to two terms in the Arizona state senate. In 1981, Ronald Reagan nominated her to the U.S. Supreme Court. She received unanimous Senate approval and made history as the first woman justice to serve on the nation's highest court. -
The Presidential Inauguration of Barack Obama
The first inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. ... In his speeches to the crowds, Obama referred to ideals expressed by Lincoln about renewal, continuity and national unity. -
The Elimination of Combat Restriction for Women
The groundbreaking decision overturns a longstanding rule that had restricted women from combat roles, even though women have often found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 14 years. -
The Democratic Party Nomination of Hillary Clinton
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was chosen as the party's nominee for president by a 54% majority of delegates present at the convention roll call, defeating primary rival Senator Bernie Sanders, who received 46% of votes from delegates, and becoming the first female candidate to be formally nominated .