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Brown v. Board of Education
A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Emmett Till
Emmett Till was 14 when he was accused of insulting a white woman inside her family store. He was abducted, tortured, and thrown into the river. His body was not found until 10-15 days later. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist, who was sitting in a seat on the front of the bus. A white man told her to move and she said no. She was arrested and many African Americans began to boycott the public buses. -
Little Rock Nine
Nine African Americans students enrolled in Little Rock Central Highschool. The students experinced verbal and physical abuse throughout the school year, and only three students stayed at the school until graduation. -
Sit-In Movement
The sit-in movement was a wave of sit-ins that followed the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina. The sit-in movement employed the tactic of nonviolent direct action and was a pivotal event during the Civil Rights Movement. -
Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court. -
Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches along the 54-mile highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. -
"I have a Dream" Speech
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech during the March on Washington. He called for civil rights and an end to racism in the United States -
Birmingham campaign
The Birmingham campaign was an American movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. -
Watts Riots
The Watts riots took place in the Watts neighborhood and its surrounding areas of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965. On August 11, 1965, Marquette Frye, a 21-year-old African-American man, was pulled over for drunken driving. 34 people died. -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. -
Malcolm X
Malcolm X was a former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder. He was assassinated at a rally. -
Loving v. Virginia
Loving v. Virginia 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. -
Poor People's Campaign
Poor People's Campaign, in which participants demanded that the government formulate a plan to help redress the employment and housing problems of the poor throughout the United States. -
Assassination of MLK
At 6:05 P.M. on Thursday, 4 April 1968, Martin Luther King was shot dead while standing on a balcony outside his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.