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Emmett Till's Murder
(Violence by Opposition)Emmett Till, a young African American boy was killed on August 28, 1955, at the age of 14. Till was headed to the store with some of his cousins, on the way there he reportedly whistled at a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, the woman's husband and brother-in-law abducted young Till and brutally murdered him. Till's Murder shed light on the brutal, racially-motivated violence in Mississippi. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
(Protest)The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a form of protest where African Americans boycotted the public transportation via bus to fight against the segregated policies in Montgomery, Alabama, this lasted from December 5, 1955 until December 20, 1956. This protest came into effect four days after Rosa Parks was arrested and fined for not giving up a seat in the front of the bus to a white man. -
Creation of the Montgomery Improvement Association
(Achievement/Protest)This association was formed by a group of black ministers in Montgomery, Alabama. This was designed specifically for the desegregation of busses in the south. -
Founding of the Southern Christian
(Achievement/Protest) The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. It's closely related with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr. This conference aimed at moving the national conscience and pushing the federal government to support civil rights initiatives. -
Little Rock Nine
(Achievement/legislation)On September 4, 1957, a group of nine African Americans attended the first day of class at a formerly all-white school called Central High. This happened after it segregated schools were deemed unconstitutional, and this served as a spotlight and brought attention to the civil rights movement. -
Greensboro Sit-In
(Protest) The Greensboro sit-in began at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC when a group of young black people staged a sit-in after being refused service. This form of protest slowly spread to other college towns and brought light and awareness to Woolworth's and other restaurants segregated policies, resulting in a change in the direction of desegregation. -
Albany Campaign
(Protest)The Albany Campaign was a mass movement with the goal of desegregating the entire community, however this movement resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 black people. Martin Luther King Jr. attended this movement and was arrested, he considered the movement to be a failure after he left eight months later. -
Freedom Summer
(Violence by Opposition)Freedom Summer was a voter drive, with the intent to increase the number of black voters and fight against voter intimidation in Mississippi in 1964. This movement resulted in many beatings, false arrests, and murder, which drew attention to voter discrimination and played a role in creating the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
(Legislation/Supreme Court Case)This was a civil rights act and labor law published on July 2, 1964. This act prohibited discrimination against hiring, promoting, and firing people based on their race, color, religion, sex, and/or national origin. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
(Violence by Opposition)Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He left behind a legacy as a prominent figure in the civil rights movement. His death provoked national mourning and rage in black Americans, which catalyzed the equal housing bill. -
Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools
(Supreme Court Case/Protest)The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, case in which, on April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously upheld busing programs with the intent to speed up the racial integration of public schools in the United States. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. -
Shirley Chisholm's Presidential Campaign
(Achievement)Shirley Chisholm started exploring her candidacy in July 1971 and announced her presidential bid on January 25, 1972, in a Baptist church in her district in Brooklyn. She called for a "bloodless revolution" at the forthcoming Democratic nominating convention for the 1972 U.S. presidential election. -
Hank Aaron's Home Run Record
(Achievement)Aaron hit 755 home runs from 1954-76, a mark that stood until Barry Bonds hit 762 from 1986-2007. Baseball's Hall of Fame will unveil a bronze statue of Hank Aaron on May 23 on the first floor of its museum in Cooperstown, New York. Aaron was elected to the hall in 1982. -
Barbra Jordan's Address at the Democratic National Convention
(Achievement)Jordan called for Americans to commit themselves to a “national community” and the “common good.” Jordan noted that she was the first black woman to ever deliver a keynote address at a major party convention and that such a thing would have been almost impossible a decade earlier. -
Regents of University of California v. Bakke
(Supreme Court Case)In this case, the Supreme Court decided that a university's use of racial "quotas" in its admissions process was unconstitutional. However, a school's use of "affirmative action" to accept more minority applicants was constitutional in some circumstances. This made admissions into college fairer for everyone.