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Jackie Robinson enters Major League Baseball
Robinson became the first Black player in the majors when Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey signed him in 1947. -
Executive Order 9981 signed by President Truman
Executive Order 9981 stated that "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." It established the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services to recommend revisions to military regulations in order to implement this policy.This law had banned segregation in the army.At first it was resisted but by the end of the Korean War almost all armies integrated -
Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Ruling
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.This case outlawed segregated schooling. -
Rosa Parks Arrest
Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for disorderly conduct for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott was a 13-month mass protest that ended with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional.The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed. -
Little Rock Nine Intervention
Were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. -
Greensboro sit-in
Act of nonviolent protest against a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina success led to a wider sit-in movement, organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), that spread throughout the South.Within weeks, national media coverage of the protest led to sit-ins being staged in cities across the country. Soon dining facilities across the South were being integrated. -
Integration of Ole Miss Riots
Riots erupted on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford where locals, students, and committed segregationists had gathered to protest the enrollment of James Meredith, a black Air Force veteran attempting to integrate the all-white school. -
The Birmingham Children’s March
Was a march by over 5,000 school students in Birmingham, Alabama on May 2–10, 1963. Initiated and organized by Rev. James Bevel, the purpose of the march was to walk downtown to talk to the mayor about segregation in their city. -
March on Washington / I Have a Dream Speech
This is one of the most famous civil rights speeches that was given by Martin Luther King Jr. that was to help inspire and help reach the goal of equality for African American.Over 250,000 people had came and listen to the speeches that were given at the Lincoln Memorial his being the last speech given during the event. -
Freedom Summer
The Freedom Summer Project resulted in various meetings, protests, freedom schools, freedom housing, freedom libraries, and a collective rise in awareness of voting rights and disenfranchisement experienced by African Americans in Mississippi.The result of the Freedom Summer was increased awareness it brought to voter discrimination with eventually helped to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Civil Rights Acts of 1964
This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. -
The Selma Marches / Bloody Sunday
Hundreds of people gathered in Selma, Alabama to march to the capital city of Montgomery. They marched to ensure that African Americans could exercise their constitutional right to vote.This was caused by the activist protesting the denial of voting rights to African Americans as well as the murder of 26-year-old activist Jimmie Lee Jackson, who had been fatally shot in the stomach by police during a peaceful protest just days before. -
Black Panther Party is formed
It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality.It was in this context, and in the wake of the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965, that Merritt Junior College students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. -
Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court ruling
Was a landmark civil rights decision of the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Made interracial marriages legal.