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Plessey vs. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson was an 1896 decision by the US Supreme Court that confirmed the principle of "Separate but Equal"
The case began in Louisiana in 1892. Although he was 1/8 black and 7/8 white, he was still legally required to sit in the "colored" car of the train.
The judge found Plessy guilty of refusing to leave the white car. -
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination" -
Woodrow Wilson orders physical re-segregation of federal workplaces
During Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 presidential campaign, he promised African Americans advancement. He did not, however, fulfill the promises he made during the campaign to the African American community during his presidency. -
Buchanan v. Warley
United States Supreme Court case in which the Court addressed civil government instituted racial segregation in residential areas.
Buchanan ruled that the motive for the Louisville ordinance, race, was an insufficient purpose to make the prohibition constitutional. -
Rosewood Massacre
The Rosewood massacre was a violent, racially motivated conflict that took place during the first week of January 1923 in rural Levy County, Florida, United States. At least six blacks and two whites were killed -
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized
First labor organization led by blacks to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). It merged in 1978 with the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks (BRAC), now known as the Transportation Communications International Union. -
Corrigan v Buckley
This case involved a restrictive covenant formed by white property owners in the District of Columbia in 1921 to prevent the sale of property to black citizens. Subsequently a white owner made a contract to sell her property to a black person, provoking a suit to enforce the covenant and stop the sale.
Justice Sanford furthermore denied that judicial enforcement of the restrictive covenant was tantamount to government action depriving persons of liberty and property without due process of law -
League of Struggle for Negro Rights is founded
The League was particularly active in organizing support for the "Scottsboro Boys", nine black men sentenced to death in 1931 for crimes they had not committed. It also campaigned for a separate black nation in the South, one of the CPUSA's principal tenets in the early 1930s, and against police brutality, the Italian occupation of Ethiopia and Jim Crow laws, while also advocating a more general policy of opposition to fascism and support for the Soviet Union. -
Hocutt v. Wilson
First attempt to desegregate higher education in the United States. It was initiated by two African American lawyers from Durham, North Carolina, Conrad O. Pearson and Cecil McCoy, with the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The case was ultimately dismissed for lack of standing, but it served as a test case for challenging the “separate but equal” doctrine in education. -
Southern Negro Youth Congress founded
The Southern Negro Youth Congress performed such studies as taking items being purchased in a black community and then comparing the prices to those same items being purchased in a white community. They felt that the major threat to the role of democracy was not communism or socialism but rather fascism was the biggest threat, not only to the black population but also a major threat to the white population as well. -
Chambers v. Florida
Chambers v. Florida was an important United States Supreme Court case that dealt with the extent that police pressure resulting in a criminal defendant's confession violates the Due Process clause. -
United Negro College Fund is incorporated
American philanthropic organization that funds scholarships for black students and general scholarship funds for 39 private historically black colleges and universities. -
Shelley v. Kraemer
Shelley v. Kraemer is a landmark United States Supreme Court case which held that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate. -
Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka
Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. -
Emmett Till
African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. -
Rosa Parks
On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Parks refused to give up her seat in the colored section to a white passenger, after the white section was filled. She was arrested, and she started a major civil rights movement -
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
A seminal event in the U.S. civil rights movement, was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. -
Robert Williams self-defense
Robert Williams led efforts to integrate the public swimming pools. He had followers form picket lines around the pool. The NAACP members organized peaceful demonstrations, but some drew gunfire. No one was arrested or punished, although law enforcement officers were present. -
SCLC
Dr. King invited about 60 black ministers and leaders to Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. Their goal was to form an organization to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of desegregating bus systems across the South. -
“Little Rock Nine”
The nine students set off for the high school. They knew there would be violence so they went in the rear entrance. White mobs were there to protest because they didn’t want any Blacks in their school and the reporters were there in support of the Blacks. When the mob heard the nine students had entered the school they went crazy. The black students left out the rear exit so they wouldn't get hurt. -
Woolworth Sit-in
At 4:30pm four students from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University sat down at the lunch counter inside the Woolworth store at 132 South Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina. -
SNCC
Independent student-led groups began direct-action protests against segregation in dozens of southern communities. In addition to sitting in at lunch counters, the groups also organized and carried out protests at segregated White public libraries, public parks, public swimming pools, and movie theaters. -
Executive Order 10925
Signed by President John F. Kennedy required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." -
James Meredith
After being barred from entering on September 20, on October 1, 1962, he became the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi. -
Medgar Evers Murder
Medgar Wiley Evers was a field secretary for the NAACP. Evers was assassinated by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens' Council. -
"I have A Dream"
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963, in which he called for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of racially motivated terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
MFDP
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was an American political party created in the state of Mississippi in 1964, during the civil rights movement. It was organized by black and white Mississippians, with assistance from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), to challenge the legitimacy of the white-only US Democratic Party. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the U.S. that outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women. -
Three Civil Rights Workers Murder
Three American civil rights' workers, James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael "Mickey" Schwerner, were shot at close range on the night of June 21–22, 1964 by members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the Neshoba County's Sheriff Office and the Philadelphia Police Department located in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The three had been working on the "Freedom Summer" campaign, attempting to register African Americans to vote. -
Malcolm X Born
February 21, 1965- Malcolm X was born. African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. -
"Bloody Sunday"
The Selma to Montgomery marches, also known as Bloody Sunday and the two marches that followed, were marches and protests held in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. All three were attempts to march from Selma to Montgomery where the Alabama capitol is located. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Act prohibits states and local governments from imposing any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure ... to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color." -
Executive Order 11246
Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson established requirements for non-discriminatory practices in hiring and employment on the part of U.S. government contractors. It "prohibits federal contractors and federally assisted construction contractors and subcontractors, who do over $10,000 in Government business in one year from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." -
Loving vs. Virginia
A landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. -
Thurgood Marshall
On June 13, 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69–11 on August 30, 1967. -
MLK assassination
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader of the African-American civil rights movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who became known for his advancement of civil rights by using civil disobedience. He was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. King was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05PM that evening. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
landmark piece of legislation in the United States that provided for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed, or national origin and made it a federal crime to “by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone … by reason of their race, color, religion, or national origin.” -
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
n important United States Supreme Court case dealing with the busing of students to promote integration in public schools. After a first trial going to the Board of Education, the Court held that busing was an appropriate remedy for the problem of racial imbalance in schools, even when the imbalance resulted from the selection of students based on geographic proximity to the school rather than from deliberate assignment based on race. -
Tuskegee syphilis experiment ends
The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government. -
Wounded Knee Incident
The Wounded Knee incident began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Oglala and AIM activists controlled the town for 71 days. -
Milliken v. Bradley
significant United States Supreme Court case dealing with the planned desegregation busing of public school students across district lines among 53 school districts in metropolitan Detroit. The ruling clarified the distinction between de jure and de facto segregation, confirming that segregation was allowed if it was not considered an explicit policy of the school district. -
Combahee River Collective is established
The Combahee River Collective was a Black feminist Lesbian organization active in Boston from 1974 to 1980 -
Black history month was founded
Black History Month, also known as African-American History Month in America, is an annual observance in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom for remembrance of important people and events in the history of the African diaspora. It is celebrated annually in the United States -
Mumia Abu-Jamal arrested
American radical convicted for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal became involved in black nationalism in his youth, and was a member of the Black Panther Party until October 1970. Alongside his political activism, he became a radio journalist, eventually becoming president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. -
Bombing of MOVE house
MOVE Organization is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa. MOVE was described by CNN as "a loose-knit, mostly black group whose members all adopted the surname Africa, advocated a 'back-to-nature' lifestyle and preached against technology". In addition, MOVE members were vegans and passionate supporters of animal rights. The group lived communally and frequently engaged in public demonstrations related to issues they deemed important. -
Civil Rights Restoration Act
The Civil Rights Restoration Act was a U.S. legislative act which specified that recipients of federal funds must comply with civil rights laws in all areas, not just in the particular program or activity that received federal funding. This Act, also known as the Grove City Bill, was first passed by the House in June 1984 (375-32), but failed to pass in either chamber after divisions occurred within the civil rights coalition over the issue of abortion. -
Gays Allowed In Military
Gays are allowed in the military with the don't ask don't tell policy. -
Miller v. Johnson
United States Supreme Court case concerning "affirmative gerrymandering/racial gerrymandering", where racial minority-majority electoral districts are created during redistricting to increase minority Congressional representation. Ruling against the district, the Court declared the district unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment -
Million Man March
The Million Man March was a gathering en masse of African-Americans in Washington, D.C. on October 16, 1995. Called by Louis Farrakhan, it was held on and around the National Mall in the city. -
Million Woman March
The Million Woman March was a protest march organized on October 25, 1997, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The march was envisioned and intended to help bring social, political, and economic development and power throughout the Black communities of the United States, as well as to bring hope, empowerment, unity and sisterhood to women, men and children of African descent globally regardless of nationality, religion, economic status, etc. -
Amadou Diallo shooting
Amadou Bailo Diallo was a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea who was shot and killed in New York City by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers. Diallo was unarmed at the time of the shooting, so issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, and contagious shooting were central to the ensuing controversy. -
Millions More Movement
The Millions More Movement was launched by a broad coalition of African American leaders to mark the commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the Million Man March. A mass march on Washington, DC, was held. The movement only rallied a few thousand and was seen as a disappointment. -
United States Congress apologizes for slavery and Jim Crow
U.S. House of Representatives issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the institution of slavery, and the subsequent Jim Crow laws that for years discriminated against blacks as second-class citizens in American society. -
Barack Obama elected
44th and current President of the United States, the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii -
Shooting of Trayvon Martin
The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman took place on the night of February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida, United States. Martin was a 17-year-old African American high school student. George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old mixed-race Hispanic -
Barack Obama is sworn in for his second term
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Malcolm Shabazz killed
Civil Rights leader Malcolm X is assassinated -
George Zimmerman acquitted
George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, igniting a national debate on racial profiling and civil rights, was found not guilty late Saturday night of second-degree murder. He was also acquitted of manslaughter, a lesser charge.
