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Brown vs. Board 1954
State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. -
Murder of Emmet Till
Emmet Till was a boy that was murdered by two white men for interacting with one of their wife’s. He was tortured brutally and dumped into a river with a weight attached to him so no one could find him. -
Rosa Parks
Called "the mother of the civil rights movement," Rosa Parks invigorated the struggle for racial equality when she refused to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama. -
SCLC 1957
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is a civil rights organization founded in 1957, as an offshoot of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which successfully staged a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery Alabama's segregated bus system. -
Little Rock Nine
In 1957, nine ordinary teenagers walked out of their homes and stepped up to the front lines in the battle for civil rights for all Americans. The media coined the name “Little Rock Nine" to identify the first African American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. -
Greensboro Sit-ins
Greensboro sit-in, act of nonviolent protest against a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, that began on February 1, 1960. Its success led to a wider sit-in movement, organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee -
Freedom Rides 1961
During the spring of 1961, student activists from the Congress of Racial Equality launched the Freedom Rides to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. -
March on Washington 1963
March on Washington, political demonstration held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, that was attended by an estimated 250,000 people to protest racial discrimination and to show support for major civil rights legislation that was pending in Congress. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing. -
Malcom X
Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964, he was a vocal advocate for Black empowerment and the promotion of Islam within the Black community. -
Selma 1965
Fifty years ago, on March 7, 1965, hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., is known for his contributions to the American civil rights movement in the 1960s. His most famous work is his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in 1963, in which he spoke of his dream of a United States that is void of segregation and racism.