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Plessy v. Ferguson
A landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court issued in 1896. It 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
Marked the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's first season with the Dodgers, bringing an end to a sixty-year ban on black players in the major leagues. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
A federal voting rights bill, was the first federal civil rights legislation passed by the United States Congress since the Civil Rights Act of 1875. -
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
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. The case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education four years later. -
Brown v. Board of Education
A landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
The Bus Boycott of Montgomery, Alabama
A political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. It was a seminal event in the civil rights movement. -
The Integration of Little Rock High School
A group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
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 ... -
The Greensboro Four
A series of nonviolent protests in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960, which led to the Woolworth department store chain removing its policy of racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
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
The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. -
The March on Washington
The March on Washington, or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. -
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy
The 35th President of the United States, was assassinated on November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
A landmark civil rights and U.S. labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
The Assassination of Malcolm X
An American Muslim minister and human rights activist. Some saw him as a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; others accused him of preaching racism and violence. -
The March on Selma, Alabama
Three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama to the state capital of Montgomery. -
The Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
An American clergyman and civil rights leader, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968 at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he died at 7:05 p.m.
