Civil Rights Movement Timeline

  • Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education
    Case from Kansas that ended segregation in public schools. They argued that segregation violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott
    Rosa Parks was an african american woman who was arrested for not giving up her seat on a bus for a white person. the Montgomery Bus Boycott was a movement where african americans refused to use the city buses.
  • Emmett Till Murder

    Emmett Till Murder
    Emmett Till was a 14 year-old boy who was beaten and murdered for talking to a white woman. His death angered both african americans and white people.
  • The Little Rock Nine and Integration

    The Little Rock Nine and Integration
    Integration in public schools allowed by the Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board. The Little Rock Nine were nine african american students chosen to be the first to attend an all white school in Little Rock. The towns governor tried to keep them out of the school but failed in the end.
  • Greensboro Woolworth's Sit-ins

    Greensboro Woolworth's Sit-ins
    A group of college age african americans would sit in at all white lunch counters as a form of peaceful protest against segregation.
  • Freedom Rides

    Freedom Rides
    Participants would ride buses through the south to protest and challenge segregation. They often faced harsh opposition and their buses were set on fire.
  • MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail

    MLK’s Letter From Birmingham Jail
    The Letter from Birmingham Jail was a letter written Martin Luther King Jr. that said people have a moral responsibility to take action against segregation instead of waiting around.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    The March on Washing for Jobs and Freedom was an event that challenged inequality in race. Around 250,000 people gathered together in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
  • Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing

    Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing
    16th Street Baptist Church was bombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. The attack was motivated by racism and killed four young girls.
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment
    The 24th Amendment prohibits any poll tax in elections for federal officials.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964
    This act prohibits discrimination based on color, religion, race, sex, or origin.
  • “Bloody Sunday”/Selma to Montgomery March

    “Bloody Sunday”/Selma to Montgomery March
    Civil rights advocates marched out of Selma. Seventeen people were hospitalized and many more injured when the march was broken up by police officers. John Lewis, who led the march, suffered a fractured skull.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Voting Rights Act of 1965
    This act outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War.
  • Loving v. Virginia

    Loving v. Virginia
    A landmark case in which the Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits governments from banning interracial marriage.