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Emmett Till
A 14 year old boy, by the name of Emmett Till, was visiting family in Mississppi allegedly whislted to a white woman and was kidnapped, beaten, shot, and his body was dumped in the Tallahatchie River. J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant are arrested for murder and were acquitted by a white jury. Later they boasted about the murder in the Look magazine. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks refused to sit in the "colored section" of the bus. In response of her arrest, the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott. The boycott last for over a year, which ends December 21st, 1956. Martin Luther King leads the boycott. -
Little Rock Nine
Nine black students are blocked from entering an all-white school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students. -
Sit-ins
The Sit-in Movement started out with four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College who would be allowed to sit at the counters, but they were never served. They would be beaten and they could never fight back. More and more students joined in non-violent protest at counters, which was called the Sit-in Movement. -
Freedom Riders
Students volunteer themselves to take buses through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities. While on their way the Freedom Riders, as the group call themselves, the groups get attacked by angry mobs. -
Arrest of MLK
Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmigham, Alabama. He writes a seminal arguing that people have a right a moral duty to protest unjust laws. -
March on Washington
Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a Dream" speech. About 200,000 poeple joined in the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial. -
Bombing
Four young girl who were attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Many riots break out in Birmingham, causing two more death of the black youths. -
Neshoba Country, Mississippi
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been working to register black voters in Mississippiand they had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them. -
Freedom March
Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march was from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama and it was 8 miles long
