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13'th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States and was the first of three Reconstruction Amendments adopted in the five years following the American Civil War -
14'th Amendment
The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States—including former slaves—and guaranteed all citizens “equal protection of the laws.” -
15'th Amendment
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Plessey v. Ferguson
The case came from Louisiana, which in 1890 adopted a law providing for “equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races” on its railroads. -
Truman desegregates the military
An executive order issued by president Harry S. Truman that abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
Brown v. Board of Ed
United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
Rosa Parks/ Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks rode at the front of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus on the day the Supreme Court's ban on segregation of the city's buses took effect. A year earlier, she had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus. -
Little Rock Crisis
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students who enrolled in the Little Rock Central High School -
Sit-in Movement
organizers believed that if the violence were only on the part of the white community, the world would see the righteousness of their cause. Before the end of the school year, over 1500 black demonstrators were arrested. But their sacrifice brought results. -
Freedom Riders
Groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South to protest segregated bus terminals. -
James Meredith and Ole Miss
An African American man, attempted to enroll at the all-white University of Mississippi. Chaos soon broke out on the Ole Miss campus, with riots ending in two dead, hundreds wounded and many others arrested -
Letter From A Birmingham Jail
A letter that Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed to his fellow clergymen while he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama, after a nonviolent protest against racial segregation -
March On Washington/ "I Have a Dream" speech
More than 200,000 people participated in the march to focus attention on civil rights and the need to create a level playing field for American workers. -
Freedom Summer
a voter registration project in Mississippi, part of a larger effort by civil rights groups such as the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to expand black voting in the South. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. -
Selma March
Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama. -
Voting Rights Act
Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote as guaranteed under the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.