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The Supreme Court Decision of Plessy V. Ferguson
In the landmark 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, the Court upheld the constitutionality of state-imposed racial segregation, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine -
The Tuskegee Airmen
the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps -
The Integration of Major League Baseball
a pivotal moment in American history, began on April 15, 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, becoming the first Black player to play in the modern era. -
The Integration of the Armed Forces
President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 -
The Supreme Court Decision of Sweatt v. Painter
the University of Texas School of Law must admit Heman Sweatt, a black applicant, because the separate law school established for Black students was inherently unequal and violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. -
The Supreme Court Decision of Brown v. Board of Education
The Court unanimously ruled that state-sponsored segregation in public schools was unconstitutional -
The Death of Emmitt Till
a Black boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago, was brutally murdered after being accused of whistling at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. His killers, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were acquitted by an all-white jury, and the case sparked national outrage and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. -
The Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a nonviolent protest that took place from December 1955 to December 1956. -
The Integration of Little Rock High School
Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine African American students from integrating the high school. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1957
the first federal civil rights legislation passed since 1875, focusing on protecting voting rights and establishing mechanisms for investigating and prosecuting voter discrimination. -
The Greensboro Four Lunch Counter Sit-In
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 Freedom Rides by Freedom Riders of 1961
A series of bus trips through the segregated American South. -
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment
prohibits the denial or abridgment of the right to vote in federal elections due to failure to pay a poll tax or any other tax.