-
Brown vs. Board of Education
In 1950, Oliver Brown tried to enroll his 8-year-old daughter Linda at the neighborhood white elementary school, rather than at the black school over a mile away. When the school refused to enroll Linda, Brown and other African-American parents sued the Topeka school district with the help ofthe NAACP. In 1952 and 1953, Thurgood Marshall argued before the Supreme Court that segregated public schools violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The unanimous decision of the Court -
Emmett Till Murder
An African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The 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. -
Little Rock Segregation
The Little Rock Nine were a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. -
Sit-In Capaigns
Throughout the South, a generation that had grown up with segregation was about to demand a change -- to stand up, by sitting down.A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people nonviolently occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. -
Freedom Rides
Seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. -
Birmingham Protest
The Birmingham campaign was a movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the unequal treatment that black Americans endured in Birmingham, Alabama led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. -
March On Washington
one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. Martin Luther King, Jr., standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, delivered his historic "I Have a Dream" speech advocating racial harmony during the march.The march was organized by a group of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations,under the theme "jobs, and freedom".Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000. -
Assassination of JFK
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time (18:30 UTC) on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. Kennedy was fatally shot while traveling with his wife Jacqueline, Texas Governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, in a presidential motorcade.Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald. -
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize 1964 was awarded to Martin Luther King Jr. -
Civil Rights Act
It outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women. -
Assasinasion of Malcom X
Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. -
Bloody Sunday
An estimated 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed east out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80. The march was led by John Lewis of SNCC and the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC. The protest went smoothly until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they found a wall of state troopers waiting for them on the other side.Many were knocked to the ground and beaten with nightsticks. Another detachment of troopers fired tear gas, and mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback. -
Voting Rights Act
The Act prohibits states 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. -
Assasination of MLK
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.
