-
Jackie Robinson enters Major League Baseball
Jackie Robinson was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era. Playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers. -
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. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery bus boycott was a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. -
Emmett Till is murdered
On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. -
Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students who were enrolled in an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, after the Little Rock Crisis. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957 is passed
The new act established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and empowered federal prosecutors to obtain court injunctions against interference with the right to vote. -
Greensboro Sit-In Protest
The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. -
Integration of Ole Miss Riots
September 30, 1962, 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
The Birmingham Children’s March
In May of 1963, thousands of Black children ages 7-18, conducted peaceful protests around the city of Birmingham, Alabama. They were organized by activist James Bevel, and their purpose was to draw attention to the Civil Rights Movement. -
George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door”
It is an enduring stain on Alabama's education record and a sad testament to the treatment of its own people. It also served as a turning point for the state and its first steps toward racial equality. -
March on Washington
A massive protest march in Washington, D.C., to bring attention to inequalities being faced by African Americans. -
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a white supremacist terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. -
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the Freedom Summer Project or the Mississippi Summer Project, was a volunteer campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi. -
The Selma Marches
March 7, 1965, 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 — even in the face of a segregationist system that wanted to make it impossible. -
Black Panther Party is formed
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who met at Merritt College in Oakland. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality.