Civil Rights Timeline

  • 13th Amendment

    13th Amendment
    It freed all slaves and abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States
  • 14th Amendment

    14th Amendment
    Granted citizenship and equal civil rights to African Americans
  • 15th Amendment

    15th Amendment
    Granted African Americans the right to vote
  • Tuskegee Institute

    Tuskegee Institute
    Trained young black students on agriculture and trade and helped them receive economic independence
  • Plessy v. Ferguson

    Plessy v. Ferguson
    Established that racial segregation was constitutional
  • NAACP

    NAACP
    Advocated for the abolition of segregation and disrimination
  • 19th Amendment

    19th Amendment
    Granted women the right to vote
  • Executive Order 9981

    Executive Order 9981
    Desegregated the military
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education
    The Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, reversed the Plessy vs. Ferguson case, ruling that "separate but equal" schools for blacks were unequal and thus unconstitutional. In the 1950s and 1960s, the ruling re-energized the Civil Rights Movement.
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott
    Dr. Martin L. King JR led a bus boycott after Rosa Parks was jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus in 1955. After 11 months, the Supreme Court found that mass transit segregation was unconstitutional.
  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference

    Southern Christian Leadership Conference
    The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is a civil rights movement founded by African-Americans. The SCLC played a significant part in the American Civil Rights Movement, thanks to its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Little Rock 9

    Little Rock 9
    A group of African American students in Little Rock, Arkansas, who enrolled in a mostly all-white high school.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1957

    Civil Rights Act of 1957
    This bill was signed by Eisenhower to establish a new commission on civil rights with disciplinary authority, but it did not give blacks a voice. It was the first post-Reconstruction civil-rights bill that gained broad approval from non-southern whites.
  • Greensboro, NC Sit-ins

    Greensboro, NC Sit-ins
    Young African American students held a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave despite being denied service.
  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

    Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
    It was one of the most important groups in the American Civil Rights Movement. Ella Baker organized a series of student meetings at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In the North, SNCC developed into a large organization with many supporters.
  • Chicano Movement

    Chicano Movement
    For Mexican Americans, this was the equivalent of the civil rights movement. Student marches pushed for bilingual education, the employment of more Chicano teachers, and the establishment of Chicano studies programs as part of this campaign. Hundreds of such programs were available at universities throughout the region by the 1970s.
  • Freedom Riders

    Freedom Riders
    A group of African-Americans and civil rights activists who tried to desegregate bus stations across the United States. African Americans all over the world were influenced by the Freedom Riders. Furthermore, whites in the North turned against segregationists in the South after seeing the brutality used against the Freedom Riders. The federal government was also placed under a lot of scrutiny as a result of this.
  • March on Washington: “I have a dream” speech

    March on Washington: “I have a dream” speech
    Civil rights activists held a huge demonstration in Washington to demand President John F. Kennedy's civil rights bill to be passed. MLK Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of over 200,000 marchers in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which was a high point.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Civil Rights Act of 1964
    This act, signed under the Johnson administration, prohibited segregation of public places and gave the federal government authority to combat black oppression. The act also established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to combat workplace discrimination. The Southern Caste System was declared unconstitutional by this act, which was the most important civil rights law since Reconstruction.
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment
    The law made it illegal for states to impose a poll tax as a condition of voting in federal elections.
  • Equal Rights Amendment

    Equal Rights Amendment
    Designed to guarantee equal legal rights to all american citizens regardless of sex