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Plessy V. Ferguson
This landmark by the Supreme Court was so significant because it made "legal segregation" which means "separate but not equal." -
The Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen was important to the Civil Rights Movement because it helped set the pattern for direct action protest popularized by civil rights activist in later decades. -
Integration of Major League Baseball
The Integration of Major Baseball was important to American history because black players were proving their talent and readiness to play with white players. -
Integration of the Armed Forces
This executive order abolished discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin in the "United States Armed Forces." This led to the re-integration of the service during the Korean War. -
Sweatt v. Painter
The U.S. Supreme Court decision supported the Brown v. Board decision because it helped inspire the American civil rights movement of the late 1950's and 60's. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson because it made segregation illegal thus overruling Plessy versus Ferguson. -
Death of Emmitt Till
Emmitt Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement. -
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks helped initiate the civil rights movement in the United States when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. -
Integration of Little Rock High School
Governor Faubus closed all of Little Rock's high schools for the entire year, pending a public vote, to prevent African American attendance. This played an important role in the civil rights movement because it declared state laws establishing separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
The Civil Rights Movement Act of 1957
The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. -
Greensboro Four Lunch Counter Sit-In
Influenced by the nonviolent protest techniques of Mohandas Ganghi and the Journey of Reconciliation organized by the Congress of Racial Equality, the four man executed a plan to draw attention to racial segregation in the private sector. -
The Freedom Rides by Freedom Riders of 1961
The 1961 Freedom Rides sought to test a 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton V. Virginia that segregation of interstate transportation facilities, including bus terminals, was unconstitutional as well. -
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment
On January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials. -
Integration of the University of Mississippi
The Integration of the University of Mississippi was important to history because some historians say the integration of Ole Miss was the last battle of the civil war. -
Integration of the University of Alabama
On a scorching June day in 1963, James Hood and Vivian Malone became the first two black students to enroll successfully at the University of Alabama. -
The March on Washington and "I Have a Dream" Speech by MLK
I have a Dream, speech by Martin Luther King, Jr that was delivered on August 28, 1963, during the March on Washington. A call for equality and freedom, it became one of the defining moments of the civil rights movement and one of the most ironic speeches in American history. -
The Assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas
I have chosen the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy as it proved to be a real turning point in the history of Vietnam. Kennedy, who had initially delivered 400 special advisors to Vietnam in order to train the Vietnamese soldiers against counter-insurgence, was eliminated in Dallas, Texas on 26th November 1963. -
The Civil Right Act of 1964 signed by President Johnson
This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
He was assassinated in the Audubon Ballroom, which was a theater located at the 3940 Broadway at West 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.
Malcolm was shot a total 21 times, and was shot by Thomas Hagan. -
Selma to Montgomery March: "Bloody Sunday"
On March 7, 1965 around 600 people crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in an attempted to begin the Selma to Montgomery march. State troopers violently attached the peaceful demonstrators in an attempt to stop the march for voting rights. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisites to voting. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee
The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1968
An expansion of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, popularly known as the Fair Housing Act, prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental, or financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, and sex.