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Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy versus Ferguson was a supreme court case. Homer Plessy disobeyed the "separate but equal accommodations for white and colored people." Plessy disobeyed it by refusing to sit in his designated train car. The case was brought before Supreme court judge John H. Ferguson to challenge the laws constitutionality but Ferguson upheld the law and said it did not go against the thirteenth or fourteenth amendment.http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/plessy-v-ferguson -
congress of racial equality (core)
The congress of racial equality was one of the original civil rights groups. They collaborated with other groups and non-violently protested many racial segregation issues. at first it"s members were mainly middle class whites. they helped organize the Montgomery bus boycott -
Sweatt v Painter
[http://bit.ly/2nfUytg]
Heman Sweatt applied to go to school at the University of Texas, however the school denied him on the grounds of the "seperate but equal doctrine." While schools were allowed to have racial integration, both facilities for whites and blacks had to be equal. The Texas State University for Negroes was definitely not equal to its white counterpart. The supreme court ruled in favor of Sweatt saying the University went against the "seperate but equal doctrine." -
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Jackie Robinson
[http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/jackie-robinson]
When Jackie Robinson accepted the offer to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers he became the first African American to every play major league baseball. Over his baseball career he faced a lot of discrimination and at first he took it all without fighting back, however after 2 years on the team he began to speak out against racial discrimination and helped immensely to desegregate different areas of life -
Brown v. Board of Education
http://bit.ly/1nzUME6
In this case the supreme court ruled to end legal segregation in public schools ruling against the separate but equal doctrine saying segregation by law violated the 14th amendment to the constitution. The case contained 5 different cases of African American children being barred from entering all white schools and was named after Oliver Brown, whose daughter was one of those children. Thurgood Marshall argued the case to the supreme court for the plaintiffs. -
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Montgomery bus boycott
http://bit.ly/1ymBgQq
On Dec. 1, 1955 in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman refused to give up her seat to a white man on the city bus, she was arrested and fined. this is what started the Montgomery bus boycott, led by Martin Luther King Jr. African-Americans refused to ride the city bus in order to protest segregation. In the end the supreme court ordered the Montgomery bus system be integrated -
Southern Manifesto
http://bit.ly/2ngf3WC
The southern Manifesto, signed by about a fifth of the house of representatives and 19 southern senators, condemned the Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v. Board of Education case saying it was an obvious abuse of the supreme courts power and called for it to be revisited. -
Little Rock Central High School
http://bit.ly/1ufa8Cs
Testing the Brown v. Board of Education verdict that schools should be integrated, 9 African American students enrolled at the all white school of Little Rock Central. On the first day of class the governor of Arkansas called the national guard to stop the 9 students from entering the school. President Eisenhower then sent Federal troops to escort the students to school. Although these 9 faced much discrimination they became the first black students to graduate from there. -
Greensboro sit-in
http://bit.ly/1MP3Fql
The Greensboro sit-in was a non violent protest where four African American college students went to Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. When the four students were refused service because they were black they stayed at the lunch counter till it closed and came back the next day with more students. The protest sparked sit-ins across the country and helped bring light to the issue of segregation and forced many businesses to get rid of segregation. -
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
http://bit.ly/2g8KEXt
This organization was founded by the young leaders that emerged from the sit-in protests that started in Greensboro, North Carolina. The SNCC gave young blacks a voice in the movement. The SCLC had hoped the SNCC would be a branch of their organization, however the two groups were completely independent of each other. They staged separate projects and plans. The SNCC helped desegregate buses and strongly encouraged blacks in the south to register to vote. -
Freedom Rides
The freedom rides organized by CORE were inspired by the 1947 Journey of reconciliation. Freedom riders rode buses into the south and attempted to use whites-only facilities to test the supreme court ruling that segregation of interstate transportation facilities was unconstitutional. Violence was continuously caused by angry whites. The rides made the front page of the news, and eventually the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in bus and train stations. -
Letter from a Birmingham jail
http://bit.ly/1YSpCQ8
During Martin Luther King's thirteenth arrest he wrote a 7,000 word letter criticizing those who agreed with King but would not outwardly support his efforts. In his letter he quoted many famous philosophers. Four days after writing his letter he was released from jail and continued his protests in Birmingham that had originally gotten him arrested, which were eventually successful. -
Medger Evers
http://bit.ly/2iQuaXC
Medger Evers was in the army in World War II. When he returned to his home of Mississippi he became the first state field secretary of the NAACP in the state. Working for the NAACP he organized different protests and demonstrations to lessen discrimination practices. Due to his important seat in the NAACP Evers was a target of those who opposed racial desegregation. In 1963 Evers was shot and killed. -
March on Washington
http://bit.ly/1i6tu7Z
250,000 demonstrators took part in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in the nation’s capital organized by multiple civil rights groups. The March included performances from many famous musicians of the time and speeches from influential speakers, ending with Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech. The march caused the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 to be passed -
Bombing of Birmingham church
http://bit.ly/1CwahtD
The Birmingham church's congregation was mainly African-American and held meetings with many civil right leaders. The bomb went off before the church service that Sunday killing 4 young girls and injuring many more. The attack was obviously racially motivated -
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Black Panther party
http://bit.ly/2keqUUA
The Black Panther Party at its peak had over 2,000 members. The party wanted to protect African-Americans from wrongful conviction, and police brutality and wanted African-Americans to be exempt from registering for the draft. -
James Meredith
http://bit.ly/1oA25xm
In 1962 James Meredith became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi causing riots that killed 2 students. Three years after graduating from the University of Mississippi Meredith began his March Against Fear to encourage African-Americans in the south to register to vote. After a day of his march he was shot and taken to the hospital. Other civil rights leaders took over the march on his behalf and later Meredith recovered and rejoined the march
