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Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of EducationOn May 17, 1954, Earl Warren led the Supreme Court into the ruling of desegregating high schools. The Supreme Court decided that “separate, but equal” facilities for high schools were unconstitutional. -
Murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till's Death Emmett Till, while leaving a store said bye to a white woman. When her father heard of this, he went out to go find Till and took him away from his house at night. Days later, Till’s body was found mutilated in the Tallahatchie river. A public funeral was organized and the story was heard all across the nation. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Montgomery Bus Boycott In Montgomery, December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white person. Because of this, she got sent to jail, so Martin Luther King Jr. and the NAACP organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott that boycotted riding the Montgomery buses for 11 months. -
Little Rock Nine
Little Rock 9 On September 23, 1957, a group of nine African American children named the Little Rock Nine attempted to attend a desegregated high school. The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, prevented entry for the Little Rock Nine by sending in the Arkansas National Guard. President Eisenhower responded by sending in federal troops to escort them in. -
The Greensboro Four
Greensboro Four On February 1, 1960, four college students in Greensboro led a sit-in at a Woolsworth lunch counter. When asked to move or leave, the students would refuse and ignore them. Due to this, other southern cities also had sit-ins. The group SNCC was formed from the leaders of this movement. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom RidesOn May 4, 1961, a group of African Americans rode interstate busses into segregated southern United States in order to use the segregated facilities. These people were known as the freedom riders and it lead to a violent reaction. The southerners were furious that they used their facilities and stop some of the freedom rider’s buses in order to pull out the African Americans and brutally beat them. One group of southerners went as far as slashing out the bus tires in order to hurt the riders. -
Assassination of Medgar Evers
Assassination of Medgar EversMedgar Evers was a NAACP leader who, while getting out of his car while on his driveway, was shot in the back by Byron De La Beckwith. On the first two trials, De La Beckwith had no verdict reached on his case in court. On the third trial in 1994, De La Beckwith was found guilty of killing Evers nearly 30 years ago to the verdict date. -
March on Washington
March on WashingtonThe March on Washington was a demonstration in Washington D.C. for jobs and freedom. Of the 200,000-300,000 people present, around 75%-80% of the attendees were black. The march started at the Washington Monument and ended at the Lincoln Memorial, which was where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. This march was credited for helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Bombing at 16th Street Baptist Church
Bombing at 16th Street Baptist ChurchOn September 15, 1963, a group of hateful Southerners drove by Birmingham, down at the 16th street Baptist church and bombed the church. The explosion killed four African American girls, which caused the civil rights activists to become motivated to eliminate segregation. It motivated the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
Birmingham Campaign
Birmingham Campaign In Birmingham, September 20, 1963, Martin Luther King led the Birmingham Campaign, which was a non-violent march that got him arrested. After that, some African Americans did not want to risk losing their jobs and going to jail, so King urged African American children to help protest. Police chief “Bull” Conners used police dogs and fire hoses to attack the protesters. -
The 24th Amendment
24th AmendmentThe 24th amendment was passed by Congress, which gave all citizens the right to vote and stated that all citizens could vote even if they could not pay the poll tax or any other tax that came along with voting. This helped the Civil Rights movement even more because now anyone could vote despite any of the remaining Jim Crow laws in place to stop blacks from voting. -
Freedom Summer
Freedom SummerOn June 20th, 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Summer was launched. The purpose of the Freedom Summer was to educate and register as many African-American voters as possible in order to prepare them for the 22-question questionnaire which was implemented to try and stop as many blacks from voting as it could. On June 21st, 3 voting rights activists, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in a Ku Klux Klan conspiracy for being involved in this. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964 President Lyndon B. Johnson, with many important Civil Rights leaders behind him, signed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibited discrimination in employment as well as in public facilities. When the act was signed by Johnson, significant progress was made in the in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X's Assassination As Malcolm X was preparing to give his speech in front of an audience, a man in the front row of the audience rushed forward and shot him with a shotgun. As this happened, 2 other men came up to him and shot him with a handgun. Malcolm X died minutes later. He was shot by people from his own religion, people that belonged to the nation of Islam. -
MLK Assassination
MLK Jr.'s AssassinationKing led many demonstrations in the name of equal rights and desegregation. However, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 39. He was quickly rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 7:05PM in that evening. The culprit accused of the crime was James Earl Ray, a fugitive from the Missouri State Penitentiary.
