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Brown vs. Board of Education verdict is handed down
In 1952 the NAACP supported a group of legal challenges to segregation in public schools that came before the Supreme Court. The main case was Brown vs. Board of Education. In involved Linda Brown, an African American student from Topeka, Kansas. Segregation in Topeka’s schools prevented her from attending an all-white elementary school a short walk from her home. Instead, she had to travel a long distance and cross-dangerous railroad tracks to attend an African American school. -
Rosa Parks is arrested
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American seamstress, refused to give up her bus seat to a white person and was arrested. -
SCLC is formed
Following the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, civil rights leaders, met in 1957 in Atlanta to discuss future strategy. They expanded the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) into the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an alliance of church-based African American organizations dedicated to ending discrimination. Martin Luther King Jr. led the new organization. The SCLC pledged to use nonviolent resistance in its protests. -
SNCC
A loose association of student activists from throughout the South -
Little Rock Nine able to enter Central High School
Little Rock Nine was the title given to the Central High School students who were turned away by the national guard. In 1957, governor Faubus ordered the national guard to turn them away. On September 25, 1957, under the protection of the soldiers’ fixed bayonets, the Little Rock Nine finally entered Central High but faced harassment. The school finally shut down. (Elizabeth Eckford faced crowd alone.) -
James Meredith admitted into the University of Mississippi
James Meredith was an African American applicant for the University of Mississippi. In 1962, the NAACP obtained a court order requiring the University of Mississippi to admit Meredith; this incident was considered as a major breakthrough. -
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail" is written by Martin Luther King Jr.
The Letter from Birmingham Jail or Letter from Birmingham City Jail, also known as The Negro Is Your Brother, is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil rights leader. -
I Have a Dream Speech
"I Have a Dream" is a public speech by American activist Martin Luther King, Jr.. It was delivered by King 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 for Jobs and Freedom, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. -
John F. Kennedy is assassinated
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time 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. A ten-month investigation in 1963-64 by the Warren Commission concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone. -
24th Amendment is passed
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, which banned the payment of poll taxes as a condition for voting in federal elections, was ratified in January 1964. The amendment did not apply to state elections but offered some hope to civil rights activists. -
Freedom Summer
SNCC decided to implement Moses’s plan, known as Freedom Summer. SNCC recruited volunteers attended training classes in Ohio before heading to Mississippi. Lawyers and health-care professionals also took part in the project, offering legal and medical assistance to the civil rights workers. -
Three CORE members disappear in Mississippi
Goodman was a college student from New York, Chaney and Schwerner were CORE workers. Their bodies were discovered six weeks after they were murdered. Goodman and Schwerner were white. -
Malcolm X is assassinated
Turning away from separatism, he converted to orthodox Islam and began calling for unity among all people. However, Malcolm X had little time to act on his new ideas. In February 1965, he was gunned down by three Black Muslim assassins. -
March on Selma
In early 1965, civil rights workers launched a registration drive in Selma, Alabama. Of Selma’s 15,000 eligible African Americans, just 383 were registered voters. The activists invited Martin Luther King Jr., who had won the Nobel Peace Prize the previous year, to lead them. African Americans who attempted to register at election commission offices in the Selma area were beaten and arrested. -
Watts Riots
In August 1965, frustration turned to violence. A routine arrest by Los Angeles police in the African American neighborhood of Watts triggered a riot that raged for six days. When the National Guard finally restored order, 34 people had been killed, hundreds injured, and almost 4,000 had been arrested. -
Black Panthers are formed
Bobby Seale and Huey Newton created a political organization called the Black Panther Party. The party platform declared, “Black people will not be free until we are free to determine our own destiny.” It called for “land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice, and peace” for African Americans. The platform also called for the creation of “black self defense groups that are dedicated to defending our black community from racist police oppression.” -
Detroit Riots
The worst riot came in Detroit, where 43 people died. President Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to investigate the violence. Its report charged that white racism was largely responsible for the tensions that led to the riots. “Our nation,” the report warned, “is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal.” -
Martin Luther King was Assassinated
Before the march, King went to Memphis, Tennessee, to show his support for a sanitation workers’ strike. On the evening of April 4, 1968, the man who was the symbol of nonviolence met a violent end when he was shot by a sniper. Within hours of King’s death, African American neighborhoods across the country exploded in outrage. A week of rioting left 45 dead and thousands injured.
