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Brown V. Board of Education
• National Guard Called to Force Desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas (1957) - After the court case Brown v. Board of Education ordered that schools be desegregated, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus would not enforce this ruling. He called out the Arkansas National Guard to stop African-Americans from attending "all-white" schools. President Dwight Eisenhower took control of the National Guard and forced the admission of the students. -
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Key Events in the Civil Rights Movement
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Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955) - This began with Rosa Parks refusing to sit in the back of the bus. The boycott's goal was to protest segregation in public buses. It lasted more than a year. It also led to the rise of King as the foremost leader in the civil rights movement. -
Woolworth's Sit In
• Sit-Ins - Throughout the South groups of individuals would request services that were denied to them because of their race. This was a popular form of protest. One of the first and most famous occurred at Greensboro, North Carolina where a group of college students, both white and black, asked to be served at a Woolworth's lunch counter that was supposed to be segregated. -
Freedom Rides
Freedom Rides --Groups of college students would ride on interstate carriers in protest to segregation on interstate buses. President John F. Kennedy actually provided federal marshals to help protect the freedom riders in the south. -
March on Washington
March on Washington - On August 28, 1963, 250,000 individuals both black and white gathered together at the Lincoln Memorial to protest segregation. It was here that King delivered his famous and stirring "I have a dream..." speech. -
Freedom Summer
Freedom Summer- This was a combination of drives to help get blacks registered to vote. Many areas of the South were denying African-Americans the basic right to vote by not allowing them to register. They used various means including literacy tests and more overt means like intimidation through groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Three volunteers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, were murdered and seven KKK members were convicted of their murder. -
Voter Registration March
Selma, Alabama - Selma was the beginning point of three marches intended to go to the capitol of Alabama, Montgomery, in protest to discrimination in voter registration. Two times the marchers were turned back, the first with a lot of violence and the second at the request of King. The third march had its intended effect and helped with the passage of the Voting Rights of 1965 in Congress.
