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Brown v. Board of Education
People involved in this case were Oliver Brown who was the lead plaintiff and NAACP lawyers such as Thurgood Marshall who was the lead attorney.This case took place in Topeka Kansas. Other states involved were South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware.In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation overruling the “separate but equal” principle set in 1896. -
The Murder of Emmett Till
Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American youth who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till's body was returned to Chicago, where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket. -
Rosa Parks and the Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation. Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man. -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
The SCLC was an organization linked to the black churches 60 black ministers were pivotal in organizing civil rights activism. Martin Luther King Jr was elected president. They focused its non violent strategy on citizenship, schools and efforts to desegregate individual cities. It played key roles in the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma Voting Rights Campaign and march to Montgomery in 1965 -
Little Rock 9
On September 4, 1957, 9 African American students arrived at Central High School in Arkansas. They made their way through a crowd shouting obscenities and even throwing objects. Once the students reached the front door the National Guard prevented them from entering the school and were forced to go home. The students returned on September 29th. This time they were protected by federal troops. The students were able to enter the school.This group of students became known as the Little Rock Nine. -
Greensboro Sit-ins
On February 1, 1960, four North Carolina AT State University students sat at the 'whites-only' lunch counter at F.W. They refused to serve the four students which led to the Greensboro sit-in, an act of nonviolent protest against a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, that began on February 1, 1960. Its success led to a wider sit-in movement, organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), that spread throughout the South -
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall (born September 8, 1954) is an American civil rights activist. She was the first African American child to attend formerly whites-only William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960. Greeted by an angry mob and escorted by federal marshals, Ruby bravely crossed the threshold of this school and into history single-handedly initiating the desegregation of New Orleans’ public schools -
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 decisions. Following the infamous burning of the Greyhound bus on May 14, 1961, in Anniston, Alabama, a Trailways bus carrying Freedom Riders arrived in Birmingham, where a mob of Ku Klux Klan members attacked the Freedom Riders with baseball bats and other weapons -
March on Washington
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 decisions On August 28 1963 more than 200,000 people gathered in Washington DC to demand equal rights for all races. It was there that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and it was this peaceful protest that spurred the momentous civil rights laws of the mid-1960s -
Civil Rights Acts
The Act prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and federally funded programs. It also strengthened the enforcement of voting rights and the desegregation of schools. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the nation's benchmark civil rights legislation, and it continues to resonate in America. The march on Washington, political demonstration was held in Washington, D.C. -
Assassination of Malcom X
On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X, a religious and civil rights leader, was assassinated during a speech at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. Malcolm X was just 39 years old and left behind his wife, Betty Shabazz, and six young daughters—including twins born after his death.Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965 due to growing tensions with the Nation of Islam after he separated from the group and changed his views on racial cooperation -
Selma to Montgomery Marches (Bloody Sunday)
The Selma Marches were a series of three marches that took place in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. These marches were organized to protest the blocking of Black Americans' right to vote by the systematic racist structure of the Jim Crow South.On March 7, 1965, an estimated 525 to 600 civil rights marchers headed southeast out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80. The march was led by John Lewis of SNCC and the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC, followed by Bob Mants of SNCC and Albert Turner -
Voting rights Act
Regarded as the legislative crown jewel of the civil rights era, the Voting Rights Act was enacted as a comprehensive tool meant to undo the political hold of Jim Crow policies in the South and related discriminatory structures nationwide. Congress adopted the law to ensure that states followed the 15th Amendment’s guarantee that the right to vote not be denied because of race. The law fundamentally opened political opportunities for Black and brown communities. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
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Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
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. News of King’s assassination prompted major outbreaks of racial violence, resulting in more than 40 deaths nationwide and extensive property damage in over 100 American cities. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old escaped fugitive, later confessed to the crime and was sentenced to a 99-year prison term