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Dred Scott
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision to deny citizenship and constitutional rights to all black people, legally establishing the race as "subordinate, inferior beings -- whether slave or freedmen." -
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Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln freed slaves in the Confederacy. -
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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, comprised of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Charles K. Steele and Fred L. Shuttlesworth, was established. King was the organization's first president. The SCLC proved to be a major force in organizing the civil rights movement with a principle base of nonviolence and civil disobedience. King believed it was essential for the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hate mongers who opposed them. -
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A&T University
Four black university students from N.C. A&T University began a sit-in at a segregated F.W. Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. Although they were refused service, they were allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggered similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later, the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. -
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Birmingham, Ala.
Four young girls, Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins, attending Sunday school were killed when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupted in Birmingham, Ala., leading to the deaths of two more black youth. -
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civil-rights workers
The bodies of three civil-rights workers - two white, one black - were found in an earthen dam. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and on June 21, went to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them. -
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Civil Rights Act of 1968
President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing. -
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Philadelphia Order
President Nixon's "Philadelphia Order" presented "goals and timetables" for reaching equal employment opportunity in construction trades. It was extended in 1970 to non-construction federal contractors. -
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Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education upheld busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently opposed) in local school districts, court-ordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continued until the late 1990s. -
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Overriding President Ronald Reagan's veto
Overriding President Ronald Reagan's veto, Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expanded the reach of nondiscrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.