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Plessy vs. Ferguson
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson
Under the "Separate but Equal" doctrine, it stemmed from an 1892 incident in which an African American passenger ( Homer Plessy ) refused to sit in a Jim Crow car. The Court avoided discussion of the issue because of the clause in the 14th Amendment that forbids the states to make laws depriving citizens of their “privileges or immunities". The purpose of the 14th Amendment was to enforce the equality of the two races. -
Medgar Evers
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/medgar-evers
Medgar Evers was an African-American civil rights activist whose murder drew national attention. He was threatened as the most visible civil rights leader in the state, then he was shot to death in June of 1963. Before he died, he became the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. -
James Meredith
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/james-meredith-shot
He became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi. He was a former serviceman in the U.S. Air Force. James Meredith was a transfer student from an all-black Jackson State College and he graduated with a degree in political science. Three years later, he began his March Against Fear. He got shot and other leaders had to take over the march. -
Congress of Racial Equality ( CORE )
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/congress-of-racial-equality
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) became one of the leading activist organizations in the early years of the American Civil Rights Movement. CORE organized the first Freedom Ride to desegregate interstate transportation facilities. Voter registration became the new civil rights priority in 1961. -
Jackie Robinson
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/jackie-robinson
Jackie Robinson made history in 1947 when he broke baseball’s color barrier to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1949, Robinson won the league MVP award, and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.Robinson faced a barrage of insults and threats because of his race. -
Sweatt vs. Painter
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/10/10/162650487/sweatt-vs-texas-nearly-forgotten-but-landmark-integration-case
It was a Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation. Heman Marion Sweatt was an African-American mail carrier from Houston. Theophilus Shickel Painter was the University of Texas' president at the time. Sweatt vs. Painter is one of the most important constitutional law cases -
Brown vs. Board of Education
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/brown-v-board-of-education-of-topeka
The decision overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” law in public facilities and public schools in the United States. The Brown vs. Board of Education decision helped break the back of segregation and started the American Civil Rights Movement. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott
This was the first large-scale boycott against segregation in the U.S. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus so she was arrested and fined. One of the leaders of the boycott was Martin Luther King Jr. -
The Southern Manifesto
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/sources_document2.html
Since the original Constitutional and the Fourteenth Amendment does not mention education, no person was denied any of their rights if the states provided separate but equal public facilities. States that had any substantial racial differences among its people approved the operation of segregated schools already in existence. -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference ( SCLC )
http://www.blackpast.org/aah/southern-christian-leadership-conference-1957
The SCLC struggled during its beginning with only one full time staff member. The SCLC received a foundation grant to take over the Highlander Folk School’s Citizenship Education Project and foundation money to finance voter registration work in the South. -
Little Rock - Central High School
http://bit.ly/2nyjdfc
Little Rock Central High School is located at 1500 S Park St, Little Rock, AR 72202. On September 23, 1957, 9 African-American teenagers created a mob protesting integration in front of Little Rock Central High School. Students met their new colored classmates for the first time inside the school; outside violence got worse and the Little Rock Police removed the 9 from the school for their safety. This made the nation enforce African-American civil rights. -
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Greensboro Sit-In
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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee ( SNCC )
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/sncc
It formed to give young black adults more of a voice in the civil rights movement. The SNCC to looked past integration to open more social change and view Martin Luther King Junior's principle of nonviolence as a political thing. The SNCC aimed at desegregating buses and directed much of the black voter registration drives in the South. -
"Freedom Rides"
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-rides
Freedom Rides were series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in bus terminals. Freedom Riders attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way to the South. They tried to use the “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters. The group came across violence from white protesters along the way, but they drew attention to their cause. -
"Letter from Birmingham Jail"
http://www.history.com/news/kings-letter-from-birmingham-jail-50-years-later
Without notes or research materials, King drafted an impassioned defense of his use of nonviolent, but direct, actions. Over the course of the letter’s 7,000 words, he turned the criticism back upon both the nation’s religious leaders and more moderate-minded white Americans, castigating them for sitting passively on the sidelines while King and others risked everything agitating for change. -
March on Washington
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/march-on-washington
More than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, DC, for the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. The event was made to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States. -
Bombing of Burmingham Church
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/birmingham-church-bombing
The bomb exploded before a Sunday morning service at the Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama which had a predominantly black congregation that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed and many other people were injured. The Baptist Church had been a significant religious center for the city’s black population and a routine meeting place. -
Twenty-Fourth Amendment
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twenty-fourth-Amendment
The 24th Amendment prohibited the federal and state governments from imposing poll taxes before a citizen can participate in a federal election. The Twenty-Fourth Amendment was made as a response to policies in Southern states after the ending of post-Civil War Reconstruction. -
Mississippi Freedom Summer
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/freedom-summer
The Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organized a voter registration drive aimed at dramatically increasing voter registration in Mississippi. The events of Freedom Summer deepened the division between those in the civil rights movement who still believed in integration and nonviolence and others. -
Civil Rights Act Passed
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act
Ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Under the Civil Rights Act, segregation on the grounds of race, religion or national origin was banned at all places of public accommodation, including courthouses, parks, restaurants, theaters, sports arenas and hotels. -
Malcolm X Assassinated
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/malcolm-x-assassinated
Malcolm X was an African American nationalist and religious leader. He was assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity. Malcolm’s new movement steadily gained followers, and his philosophy became influential in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Selma to Montgomery March
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/selma-montgomery-march
Protesters attempted to march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. They were met with violent resistance by state and local authorities. They finally achieved their goal, it only took walking around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery. The march greatly helped raise awareness of the difficulty faced by black voters in the South. -
Voting Rights Act Approved
http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/voting-rights-act
It was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. The Voting Rights were aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. -
Black Panthers
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party
The original purpose was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect people from police brutality. The Black Panther Party believed that African American capitalists and elites exploited and oppress others, particularly the African American working class. -
King Assassinated
Martin Luther King Junior had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s. He used a combination of powerful words and non-violent tactics like sit-ins, boycotts and protest marches to fight segregation and achieve significant civil and voting rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to anger among African Americans, as well as national mourning that sped the equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the Civil Rights Era.
