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The 14th Amendment is ratified
This is the day where the 14th amendment was ratified which forbids any state from depriving citizens of their rights and privileges and defines citizenship. This is technically the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement -
Period: to
Overall Timespan
Between these years are all the important events of the civil rights movement -
Plessy Vs. Ferguson
This was a supreme court case, deciding whether it was constitutional to be "separate but equal", if being segregated at all. It was when Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, this case went to the supreme court. It was decided that a state law that “implies merely a legal distinction” between whites and blacks did not conflict with the 13th and14th Amendments. -
The GrandFather Clause outlawed
The Grandfather Clause let African Americans vote if their ancestors were able to vote before the Civil War. The supreme court outlawed this because they were ruled unconstitutional. -
Race Riots occur
Over 25 race riots occur in the summer of 1919 with 38 killed in Chicago. 70 blacks, including 10 veterans, are lynched in the South. The great Chicago riot was caused because of a black teenager drowning in a lake after a white man stoned him. Police refused to arrest the white man. -
Jackie Robinson joins the Brookly Dodgers
Pasadena resident and UCLA alum Robinson breaks the color barrier by being the first black to play major league baseball in modern times. -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision
Brown v. Board of Education, was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. -
Montgomery bus boycott
Rosa Parks ignites 381-day bus boycott organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. They boycotted by staying off the bus for 381 days, until their demands of being treated like whites were on the bus were met. -
The Twenty Fourth Amendment was ratified
Section one goes as follows: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. " -
Civil Rights act passed
Overcoming Senate filibuster, Congress passes law forbidding racial discrimination in many areas of life, including hotels, voting, employment, and schools. -
Martin Luther King Jr gets assassinated
While supporting sanitation workers' strike which had been marred by violence in Memphis, King is shot by James Earl Ray. Riots result in 125 cities.
