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American Civil War
The American Civil War (also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States from 1861 to 1865, fought between the northern United States (loyal to the Union) and the southern United States (that had seceded from the Union and formed the Confederacy). -
13th Amendment
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. -
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Reconstruction
The rebuilding of the South after the Civil War is called the Reconstruction. The Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877. The purpose of the Reconstruction was to help the South become a part of the Union again. -
14th Amendment
14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. ... The 14th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on July 9, 1868, and granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment granted voting rights to African American men, providing the most important key to participation in the American democratic process to millions of formerly enslaved, and politically excluded, people. -
Jim Crow Laws Start in South
Jim Crow laws were any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the American South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. In its Plessy v. Ferguson decision (1896), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “separate but equal” facilities for African Americans did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment, ignoring evidence that the facilities for blacks were inferior to those intended for whites. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, was 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". -
Rosa Parks Arrested
she sat down and refused to give up her seat to a white passenger, she was arrested for disobeying an Alabama law requiring black people to relinquish seats to white people when the bus was full. (Blacks also had to sit at the back of the bus.) Her arrest sparked a 381-day boycott of the Montgomery bus system. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was 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 -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. The bill was passed by the 85th United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957 -
Little Rock Nine
These nine students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957 and were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. ... The Nine created the Little Rock Nine Foundation to promote the ideals of justice and educational equality. -
Chicano Mural Movement Begins
The Chicano mural movement began in the 1960s in Mexican-American barrios throughout the Southwest. Artists began using the walls of city buildings, housing projects, schools, and churches to depict Mexican-American culture. -
Affirmative Action
Kennedy's Executive Order (E.O.) 10925 used affirmative action for the first time by instructing federal contractors to take "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are treated equally without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." Created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. -
George Wallace Blocks University of Alabama Entrance
Known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door," Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963, to stop the enrollment of African-American students Vivan Malone and James Hood. -
The Feminine Mystique
The phrase "feminine mystique" was created by Friedan to show the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. It was said that women, who were actually feminine, should not have wanted to work, get an education, or have political opinions. -
March on Washington
March on Washington, in full March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, political demonstration held in Washington, D.C., in 1963 by civil rights leaders 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, which 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. -
24th Amendment
Not long ago, citizens in some states had to pay a fee to vote in a national election. This fee was called a poll tax. On January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
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. -
Malcom X Assassinated
February 21, 1965: In New York City, 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. -
United Farm Worker’s California Delano Grape Strike
On September 8, 1965, Filipino American grape workers, members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, walked out on strike against Delano-area table and wine grape growers protesting years of poor pay and conditions. The Filipinos asked Cesar Chavez, who led a mostly Latino farm workers union, the National Farm Workers Association, to join their strike. -
Thurgood Marshall Appointed to Supreme Court
President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court of the United States on August 30, 1967. The Senate confirmed the appointment on October 2, 1967. Marshall served twenty-three years on the Supreme Court, retiring on October 1, 1991. He died on January 24, 1993 at the age of eighty-four. -
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated
Though blacks and whites alike mourned King's passing, the killing in some ways served to widen the rift between black and white Americans, as many blacks saw King's assassination as a rejection of their vigorous pursuit of equality through the nonviolent resistance he had championed -
Title IX
Title IX enacted. On this day in 1972, Title IX of the education amendments of 1972 is enacted into law. Title IX prohibits federally funded educational institutions from discriminating against students or employees based on sex. -
Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a 1973 landmark decision by the US Supreme Court. The court ruled that a state law that banned abortions (except to save the life of the mother) was unconstitutional. ... In the view of the court, during the first trimester an abortion was no more dangerous than carrying the fetus/child full term.
