Civil Rights Movement

By riley55

  • Executive Order 9808

    President Truman issues Executive Order 9808 creating a Committee on Civil Rights to strengthen and protect the Civil Rights of the American people.

  • Brown v Board of Education

    The US Supreme Court rules an end to segregation in schools.

  • Emmett Till's murder

    14 year old Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

  • Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    An elderly African American civil rights activist refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man in Montgomery and was arrested. After word spread, a boycott started against public buses for over a year.

  • The Little Rock nine

    On the first day at Little Rock central high school nine African American students were harassed by a white mob. President Dwight D. Eisenhower discussed the situation to the world and made an order for U.S soldiers to escort from the students to and from the school.

  • The Freedom Riders

    A group of seven African Americans and six white people who boarded two buses bound for New Orleans to challenge state laws that enforced segregation in transportation and draw attention from federal government to cancel the Supreme Court Boynton v. Virginia ruling prohibiting the segregation of interstate travel.

  • Ole Miss' First Black Student

    James Meredith becomes the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots caused President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.

  • MLK Jr. Jailed

    Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama

  • Children's crusade

    Over 1,000 Black school children march through Birmingham, Alabama in a non-violent protest against segregation. Law enforcement brought out water hoses and police dogs while young protesters were getting arrested and hosed down by the police.

  • March on Washington

    The March on Washington was to protest civil rights abuses and employment discrimination. A crowd of about 250,000 people gathered peacefully on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to listen to speeches by civil rights leaders including Martin Luther King, Jr. as he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

  • Civil Rights Act

    President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. The act authorized the federal government to prevent racial discrimination in employment, voting, and the use of public facilities.

  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into a law, preventing employment discrimination due to race, color, sex, religion or national origin.

  • Assassination of Malcolm X

    Black leader Malcolm X was assassinated while lecturing at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem, New York. Malcolm X spoke about the civil rights movement, demanding it move beyond civil rights to human rights, and argued that the solution to racial problems was in orthodox Islam.

  • Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

    Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed by a sniper while standing on the second-floor balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He had been staying at the hotel after leading a nonviolent demonstration in support of striking sanitation workers in that city. His murder set off riots in hundreds of cities across the country pushing Congress to pass the stalled Fair Housing Act in his honor on April 11.

  • Fair housing act

    President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968 providing equal housing opportunity regardless of race, religion or national origin