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1865- 13th amendment
The 13th amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. In Congress, it was passed by the Senate on April 8, 1864, and by the House on January 31, 1865. -
1868- 14th amendment
The 14th amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves. -
1870- 15th amendment
The 15th amendment stated that, 'The right of citizens...to vote shall not be denied or abridged...on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'' -
1948- Truman desegregates the military
When Truman desegregated the military, It abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
1954- Brown v. Board of Ed.
The Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. -
1955- Rosa park/ Montgomery bus boycott
A 42-year-old African American seamstress, seated in a segregated bus, refused to give up her seat to a white man. It sparked the 13-month Montgomery Bus Boycott and resulted in an early and significant victory for the Civil Rights movement. -
1957-Little Rock crisis
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
1960- sit-in movement
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. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South. -
1961-Freedom riders
The freedom riders was when seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional. -
1962- James Meredith and Ole Miss
The Ole Miss riot of 1962, or Battle of Oxford, was fought between Southern segregationists and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 30, 1962; segregationists were protesting the enrollment of James Meredith, a black US military veteran, at the University of Mississippi. -
1963- Letter from Birmingham jail
The Letter from Birmingham Jail, also known as the Letter from Birmingham City Jail and The Negro Is Your Brother, is an open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King Jr. The letter defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. -
1963- March on Washington/ "I have a dream speech"
The March on Washington was an interracial march by 250,000 blacks and whites on August 28, 1963 in Washington D.C., protesting segregation and job discrimination against blacks in the nation. -
1964- Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer was a 1964 voter registration project in Mississippi, part of a larger effort by civil rights groups such as the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to expand black voting in the South. -
1965- Voting rights act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, 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. -
1965-Selma March
On 25 March 1965, 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
