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Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Ruling
State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional -
Rosa Parks arrest
Rosa Parks was arrested after a bus driver ordered her to give up her bus seat to another passenger, and she refused. This led to a big civil rights movement. -
Little Rock Nine Intervention
Nine ordinary kids/teenagers became the first African American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School (An All-white school). -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Marked the first occasion since Reconstruction that the federal government undertook significant legislative action to protect civil rights. -
Greensboro Sit-In Protest
Four friends sat down at a lunch counter in Greensboro. They sat where African Americans weren't allowed to sit. They did this to take a stand against segregation. -
Integration of Ole Miss Riots
Riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford. People had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. -
The Birmingham Children's March
A march by over 5,000 school students in Birmingham, Alabama. The purpose of the march was to walk downtown to talk to the mayor about segregation in their city. -
George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”
George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, in a symbolic attempt to keep his inaugural promise of "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" and stop the desegregation of schools, stood at the door of the auditorium as if to block the entry of two African American students: Vivian Malone and James Hood. -
March on Washington/ I have a dream speech
It was the largest gathering for civil rights of its time. An estimated 250,000 people attended the March on Washington. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. -
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. -
Freedom Summer
A volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
Malcolm X is murdered
Malcolm X was shot multiple times and died from his wounds in Manhattan, New York City on February 21, 1965, at age 39. -
Black Panther Party is formed
It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality, -
Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling
Supreme Court ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated
Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.