-
The 14th amendment came into play
The 14th Amendment granted due process and equal protection under the law to African Americans. -
Period: to
AA Civil rights
-
15th Amendment came into play
The 15th Amendment granted blacks the right to vote, including former slav -
3rd civil rights act
Congress passed a third Civil Rights Act in response to many white business owners and merchants who refused to make their facilities and establishments equally available to black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 prohibited such cases of racial discrimination and guaranteed equal access to public accommodations regardless of race or color. White supremacist groups, however, embarked upon a campaign against blacks and their white supporters -
NNACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a multi-racial group of activists in New York, N.Y. Initially, the group called themselves the National Negro Committee. Founders Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard and William English Walling led the call to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty. -
NNACP Victory
The U.S. Supreme Court's unanimously ruled in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that public school segregation was unconstitutional and paved the way for desegregation. The decision overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that said "separate educational facilities were inherently unequal." It was a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, who argued the case and later returned to the Supreme Court as the nation's first African-American Sc justice -
Black being beaten
While visiting family in Mississippi, fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till was kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boasted about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview. The case became a cause célèbre of the civil rights movement. -
Rosa parks
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest, the Montgomery black community launched a bus boycott that lasted over a year until the buses desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), was instrumental in leading the boycott. -
SCLC
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, comprised of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Charles K. Steele and Fred L. Shuttlesworth, was established. King was the organization's first president. The SCLC proved to be a major force in organizing the civil rights movement with a principle base of nonviolence and civil disobedience. King believed it was essential for the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hate mongers who opposed them. -
NAACP led self defense
NAACP Branch President Robert F. Williams successfully led an armed self-defense of the home of the branch vice president and Monroe, N.C.'s black community from an armed attack by a Ku Klux Klan motorcade. At a time of high racial tension, massive Klan presence and official rampant abuses of the black citizenry, Williams was recognized as a dynamic leader and key figure in the American South where he promoted a combination of nonviolence with armed self-defense -
Black cop escort
Little Rock policemen surrounded Central High where more than 1,000 people gathered in front of the school. The police escorted the nine black students to a side door where they quietly entered the building to begin classes. When the mob learned the blacks were inside, they began to challenge the police with shouts and threats. Fearful the police would be unable to control the crowd, the school administration moved the black students out a side door before noon. -
John f Kennedy
President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, prohibiting discrimination in federal government hiring on the basis of race, religion or national origin and establishing The President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity , the EEOC. They were immediately directed to scrutinize and study employment practices of the United States government and to consider and recommend additional affirmative steps for executive departments and agencies. -
First black enrollment in college
James Meredith became the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. President Kennedy sent 5,000 federal troops to contain the violence and riots surrounding the incident. -
Mlk movement
More than 250,000 people join in the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listened as Martin Luther King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -
24th amendment abolished
The 24th Amendment abolished the poll tax, which had originally been instituted in 11 southern states. The poll tax made it difficult for blacks to vote. -
Civil Rights act signed of 1964
President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion or national origin and transform American society. The law allowed the federal government to enforce desegregation and prohibits discrimination in public facilities, in government and in employment
