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Brown v. Board of Education
The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was formed in 1909 to improve the legal rights of African Americans and the integration in public schools. The NAACP worked with a case involving Linda Brown in Topeka, Kansas and several other cases of school segration all as a single case. Nine justices agreed that segregating schools violated the constitutions gurantee of equal protection of the law. -
Montgomerey Bus Boycott
The Montgomerey, Alabama bus system required African Americans to pay their fare in front of the bus, but leave and then enter through the rear door. African Americans were forbidden from front row seats and if they were filled, they'd have to give up their seats to whites. A local NAACP leader named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white rider and was arrested. This incident resulted in a bus boycott that lasted about a year with Martin Luther King Jr as the leader. -
Birth of SCLC
Out of inspiration in communities across the South, black groups organized boycotts of their own after the Montgomery Bus boycott. Representatives of the Montgomery Improvement Association and other groups formed a new group called SCLC that would organize protest activities taking place all across the region; SCLC stood for Southern Christian Leadership Conference. -
Sit-in Movement
During the Sit-in movement, Protestors in Greensboro North Carolina started to challenge racial segregation of public facilities when four college students were denied restaurant service because of their race. They remained at the lunch counter until the store closed and came back with more protestors. The Greensboro protest won important white support because it was a peaceful protest. The sit-in leaders later formed the SNCC to conduct other nonviolent protests. -
Little Rock Nine
A crowd of angry whites harassed the black students as they arrived for the first day of school. The Guards, now known as, the Little Rock Nine, prevented the black students from integrating Central High School for nearly three weeks. It was then that President Eisenhower sent federal troops to end the standoff and the Little Rock Nine was able to study in a white school. -
Freedom Rides
The Congress of Racial Equality planned its own nonviolent action and sent a group of freedom riders on a bus trip through the South and at each stop, the African American riders went into the whites only waiting rooms and attempted to use their facilities. This was done only to compell the governor to enforce the law. A trip to Birmingham, Alabama was the worst incident of the ride. The people were beaten by bats and metal pipes by mobs and this disbanded the CORE sponsored freedom ride. -
The Albany Movement
The SNCC began sit-ins in Albany's bus station because local officials ignored interstate commerce commissions new integration rules. More than 500 protestores were jailed and they brought national attention by inviting Martin Luther King Jr. to lead demonstrations. He was arrested but released by police chief Laruie Prichett. Seeing no change, King called off demonstrations and left Albany in August of 1962. -
Voter Education Project
SNCC, CORE, and other groups founded the Voter Education Project (VEP) to register southern African Americans to vote. The leaders of this Project came to realize that the opposition to blacks’ suffrage was as great as opposition to ending segregation. Marches to register voters were attacked by mobs or broken up by the police. VEP was a success: In 1962, fewer than 1.4 million of the South’s five million black adults were registered to vote. -
Birmingham Campaign Launched
Birmingham was known for its strict enforcement of segregation. Martin Luther King raised several hundred dollars to fund a campaign against Birmingham’s segregation laws. Volunteers taught local African Americans the techniques of nonviolence in the city’s African American churches. Demonstrators were attacked by police dogs and swept away by high pressure fire hoses in Birmingham as they gathered for another march. This attack was arranged by police chief Eugene “Bull” Connor. -
The March on Washington
African American leaders planned a march for jobs and freedom on the nation's capital to build support for the civil rights movement. After President Kennedy called for a civil rights law, leaders felt the need to include demands for its passage as one of the march's goal. More than 200,000 people were there including major civil rights figures including Mahalia Jackson and Joan Baez. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech here. -
Freedom Summer
College students at Ohio college volunteered and were trained for a summer project that contained mainly SNCC members and white, northern, upper mid-class people. The students were trained to register voters to teach at summer school. By the end of June, there were 200 volunteers in Mississippi including CORE workers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman who were said to have escaped jail and were later found dead in an earthan dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in public accommodations, outlawed unequal voting requirements, barred discrimination in employment based on race, gender, religion, or national origin, established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and applied federal power to speed integration of schools and other public facilities. -
The Selma Campaign
In Selma, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. began a campaign to gain voting rights by organzing a march. He used the same tactics used in Birmingham to demonstrate his nonviolent act and he along with 2,000 others were arrested. About 600 African Americans began a 54-mile march on March 7 to Montgomerey. While crossing the Edmund Pettus bridge, state police blocked the way and attacked marchers. They resumed the march on March 9 and had federal protection until reaching Montgomerey on March 25. -
Black Power
Stokely Charmichael replaced head John Lewis and abandoned the philosophy of nonviolence. He and about 3,000 protestors were arrested in Greenwood, Mississippi. Stokely announced the saying "Black Power" as African American dependence on themselves to solve problems. This inspired Huey Newton and Bobby Seale whom founded a group in Oakland, CA in October of 1966 and called for a violent revolution as means of African American liberation. -
The Assassination of King
Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis, Tennessee in March to aid African American sanitation workers whoe were on strike against discrimination in the city's work and pay policies. He led a march to city hall on March 28 and remained in Memphis to speak on April 3. On April 4, he was assassinated on the balcony of his hotel by James Earl Ray. Major outrage erupted and nearly 55,0000 troops had to restore order.
