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Plessy v Ferguson
Plessy v FergusonIn 1892, Homer Plessy who was only partially black sat in a railcar that was reserved for whites only in New Orleans. The law stated he was black even though his heritage found him to be 1/8 black and he was put in jail for breaking the law. When the case was tried in the Supreme Court, the Court upheld the Lousiana law as Constitutional because the court said it met the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. It was overturned later in 1954. -
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
CORE
CORE was a non-violent group created to end racial discrimination and improve relations between blacks and whites in America. They initially supported protests such as sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations which started in the Northern states. The group was a major force behind the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights act. The group is still active today but focuses on worker training, equal employment opportunities, cr -
Sweatt v Painter
<ahref='http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwoway/2012/10/10/162650487/sweatt-vs-texas-nearly-forgotten-but-landmark-integration-case' >Sweatt v Painter</a>
Heman Sweatt was an African-American that wanted to be admitted to the University of Texas law school. The president of the university, Theophilus Painter, denied him admission only because he was black. Sweatt filed a case against Painter and the university. On June 5, 1950 the Supreme Court stated Sweatt must be admitted to the school. -
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player who started his career with the Montreal Royals in 1946 but was promoted to the Brooklyn Dodgers the following year. He endured verbal insults, hate mail and even death threats which we handled with courage and grace. He went on to become an advocate of racial desegregation until he died in 1972. -
Brown v Board of Education
Brown v Board of Education
This was the landmark case that overturned previous decisions supporting “separate but equal” public facilities. The decision found that state-supported segregation in the form of separate public schools for whites and blacks were unconstitutional per the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery Bus Boycott
After the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus to a white rider, a group of black citizens organized a one day boycott of the Montgomery Bus system. The one day boycott went so well the black community decided to keep it going until the city stopped its segregation policy on the buses. Black riders made up 75% of the riders for the city bus system. The boycott lasted 3 -
The Southern Manifesto
<ahref='http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/sources_document2.html' >The Southern Manifesto</a>
A document signed by 19 Senators and 77 Representatives that condemned the 1954 decision in the case of Brown v Board of Education. The manifesto stated that the Supreme Court abused their judicial power in making the decision for the case and the states were encouraged not to comply with the mandates of racial integration. -
Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC)
<ahref='http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_southern_christian_leadership_conference_sclc/' >Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC)</a>
The SCLC was formed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and some other fellow ministers out of the Montgomery Bus Boycott effort. It was created to coordinate the action of local protest groups in the South by supporting non-violent resistance. They coordinated mass protest campaigns and voter registration drives in the South. -
Little Rock – Central High School
<ahref='http://crdl.usg.edu/events/little_rock_integration/?Welcome' >Little Rock – Central High School</a>
Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas called on the Arkansas National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending the all-white public high school. President Eisenhower took action against the governor and sent 1,000 troops from Fort Campbell Kentucky to oversee the integration that was required by federal law. The nine students were able to enter the school on September 25, 1957. -
Greensboro Sit-in
Greensboro Sit-in
Four black students at a local technical school in Greensboro North Carolina, planned to do a sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter. They requested service at the counter and were refused. So they sat at the counter until they were asked to leave by a store manager. The sit-ins expanded in other North Carolina cities and were mostly non-violent. The sit-ins worked and soon most stores were desegregating -
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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
The SNCC was created to continue the desegregation of lunch counters but turned to increasing black voter registrations and desegregating public accommodations after its first year. The group began to turn more radical and was becoming more anti-white. After a brief alliance with the Black Panthers they shut down in 1973. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Rides
Desegregation activist traveling from Washington D.C. to New Orleans were testing the recent ban on interstate transportation segregation. They were violently attacked in Alabama and put in prison in Mississippi. They never reached New Orleans but were successful in getting the segregation in interstate travel to end. -
James Meredith
James Meredith
James Meredith became the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi. The school tried to prevent him from attending but after his case was heard in the Supreme Court he was admitted to the school which caused rioting. -
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Considered the first written document from the civil rights era that shows the struggles and obstacles faced by those that only wanted to be treated as equals. It was a 21 page typed essay written by Martin Luther King when he was imprisoned in the Birmingham, Alabama jail for taking part in sit-in and pickets. -
Medger Evers
Medger Evers
He was a civil rights activist that was killed outside his home. Before his death, he organized demonstations, voter registration drives and boycotts of companies that openly practiced discrimination and was a high profile member of the NAACP. -
March on Washington
March on Washington
The largest demonstration for civil rights to happen in Washington D.C. and the first to receive extensive television coverage. Multiple civil rights organizations organized and gathered about 250,000 people to march from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial to demand more meaningful civil rights legislation. This is where King gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech. -
Bombing of Birmingham Church
Bombing of Birmingham Church
Just after 10am while the church had over 200 people there for services, a bomb exploded killing four young black girls and injuring many others. No one was convicted for the bombing until 1977 when Klan leader Robert E. Chambliss was tried for murder. -
Twenty-fourth Amendment
24 Amendment
An amendment added to the Constitution that prohibited the Federal Government or the states from forcing voters to pay a tax at the polls to vote in a national election. -
Mississippi Freedom Summer
Mississippi Freedom Summer
A voter registration project conducted in Mississippi to expand black voting in the South. Due to threats and violence only 1,200 black voters were registered. During the event, two white students and one local black student came up missing and were found later dead. -
Civil Rights Act passed
Civil Rights Act passed
The law that prohibited racial and ethnic discrimination in the workplace, public facilities and agencies that were federally funded. It further strengthened public school desegregation and voter registration discrimination. -
Malcolm X assassinated
Malcolm X assassinated
Murdered by Black Muslims while giving a speech in New York. Members of the Nation of Islam did not like the fact that Malcolm supported the civil rights movement. Because many blacks believed in his message the Nation of Islam thought he was gaining too much power so they assassinated him. -
Selma to Montgomery March
Selma to Montgomery March
600 non-violent protestors set out to march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the needless killing of a civil rights activist. After crossing the bridge in Selma they were attacked by local sheriffs and State Troopers. After a second march failed a third march was successful on March 25th and included 25,000 people. -
Voting Rights Act approved
Voting Rights Act approved
The legislation that made discriminatory voting practices illegal. Practices such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and any obstruction tactic were prohibited. -
Black Panthers
Black Panthers
A group that supported violent revolutions as a means to gaining liberation for blacks. They had many violent confrontations with police some resulting in deaths from direct shoot outs. The group lost much of its influence in the late 1970s. -
King assassinated
King assassinated
King was shot by James Earl Ray as he stood on a second floor balcony of a Memphis, TN hotel. He died at a local hospital a few hours later at the age of 39. Looting and rioting followed the news of his death in 100 cities around the country.
