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Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. -
Murder of Emmitt Till
a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Money, Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of flirting with a white woman in her family's grocery store 4 days prior. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycotts
Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, 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. -
Formation of the SCLC
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is an African-American civil rights organization. SCLC, which is closely associated with its first president, Martin Luther King Jr., had a large role in the American civil rights movement. -
Integration of Little Rock High School (Little Rock Nine)
The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Highschool. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the school board agreed to comply with the high court's ruling.. When integration began in September 4, 1957, the Arkansas National Guard was called in to "preserve the peace". -
Formation of the SNCC
SNCC was a United States political organization formed by Black college students dedicated to overturning segregation in the South and giving young Blacks a stronger voice in the civil rights movement in America. SNCC, as an organization, advanced the "sit-in" movement, protest technique. -
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Woolworth's counter sit-ins in Greensboro,
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. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Riders were groups of white and African American civil rights activists who participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals. -
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”
Written as a response to local clergy's “call for unity” during the protests of 1963, the letter's defense of nonviolent resistance and its insistence on justice for all have made it a foundational text of both the civil rights movement and history classrooms. -
Assassination of Medgar Evers
Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is assassinated. In the driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi, African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot to death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. During World War II, Evers volunteered for the U.S. Army and participated in the Normandy invasion. -
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On 28 August 1963, more than 200,000 demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation's capital. The march was successful in pressuring the administration of John F. Kennedy to initiate a strong federal civil rights bill in Congress. -
Birmingham Church Bombing
The Birmingham church bombing occurred on September 15, 1963, when a bomb exploded before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama—a church with a predominantly black congregation that also served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his staunch and controversial black racial advocacy, and for his time spent as the vocal spokesperson of the Nation of Islam. Throughout 1964, his conflict with the Nation of Islam intensified, and he was repeatedly sent death threats. On February 21, 1965, he was assassinated. Three Nation members were charged with the murder and given indeterminate life sentences. -
March On Selma
In response to Jackson's death, King and the SCLC planned a massive protest march from Selma to the state capitol of Montgomery, 54 miles away. A group of 600 people, including activists John Lewis and Hosea Williams, set out from Selma on Sunday, March 7, 1965 a day that would come to be known as “Bloody Sunday,” -
Assassination of MLK
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated. Just after 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Christian minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the Civil Rights Movement.
