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Brown v Board of Education of Topeka
A Supreme court case which the justices ruled hat racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. It helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services were not, in fact, equal at all. -
Emmett Till Murder
While visting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
A mass prtest against the bus system of Montgomery, Alabama, by civil rights activists and their supporters that led to a 1956 Supreme Court decision declaring that Montgomery’s segregation laws on buses were unconstitutional. -
Little Rock 9
A group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was to test the Brown v. Board of Education, Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the black students’ entry into the high school. A couple months later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school. -
Greensboro Sit-In Protest
Is when young African-American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. -
Greensboro Sit-In Movement
The Greensboro Four were four young black men who staged the first sit-in at Greensboro: Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil. They were influenced by the non-violent protest technique. -
Ruby Bridges Attends School in New Orleans
Ruby Bridges was the first African-American child to attend an all-white public elementary school in the American South. She was escorted to class by her mother and U.S. marshals due to violent mobs. -
Freedom Riders
The Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. They tried to use the "whites only" restrooms and lunch counters but soon confronted by the police. -
James Meredith Enrolls at University of Mississippi
He became the first African-American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. His admission is regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of civil rights in the United States. -
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. -
University of Alabama Desegregated
Alabama Governor George Wallace ends his blockade of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and allows two African American students to enroll. -
Medgar Evers Assassinated
In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot to death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. President John F. Kennedy and many other leaders publicly condemned the killing. -
March on Washington
Was an interracial march by 250,000 blacks and whites that protested protesting segregation and job discrimination against blacks in the nation. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. -
24 Amendment
The United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay poll tax or other tax. -
Freedom Summer Project
A nonviolent effort by civil rights activists to integrate Mississippi's segregated political system during 1964. On the project's first day, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were kidnapped and murdered by the Ku Klux Klan -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. This was first proposed by John F. Kennedy. -
Martin Luther King wins Nobel Peace Prize
African American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America. -
March on Selma
A march that was part of a series of civil-rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
The Watts Riot
Was a series of violent confrontations between Los Angles police and residents of Watts.The cause of the disturbances was the arrest of an African American man, Marquette Frye, by a white California Highway Patrol officer on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. -
Thurgood Marshall Named Supreme Court Justice
President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. -
Martin Luther King Assassinated
He was was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. An this event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. He was shot by James Earl Ray.
