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Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson made history in 1947 when he broke baseball’s color barrier to play for the Brooklyn Dodgershe was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962. Despite his skill, Robinson faced a barrage of insults and threats because of his race. The courage and grace with which Robinson handled the abuses inspired a generation of African Americans to question the doctrine of “separate but equal” and helped pave the way for the Civil Rights Movement. -
Committee on Civil Rights
The President's Committee on Civil Rights was established by Executive Order 9808 on December 5, 1946, to strengthen and safeguard the rights of the American people. The Government's policy, announced in the same order, was that civil rights were guaranteed by the Constitution and essential to domestic tranquility, national security, the general welfare, and the continued existence of our free institutions. -
Clyde Kennard
Born in Hattiesburg on June 12, 1927, into a farming family, Kennard was one of five children.In the late 1950's he attempted to desegregate higher education in Mississippi. Kennard, a little-known civil rights pioneer, tried to become the first African American to attend Mississippi Southern College, now the University of Southern Mississippi, in Hattiesburg. -
Brown v. Board of Education Topeka Kansas
On May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court’s unanimous decision overturned provisions of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which had allowed for “separate but equal” public facilities, including public schools in the United States. Declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the Brown v. Board decision helped break the back of state-sponsored segregation, -
Plessy v Ferguson
This 1896 U.S. Supreme Court case upheld the constitutionality of segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine. It stemmed from an 1892 incident in which African-American train passenger Homer Plessy refused to sit in a Jim Crow car, breaking a Louisiana law.Restrictive legislation based on race continued following the Plessy decision, its reasoning not overturned until Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott, in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating, took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. -
Governor Faubus
Orval Eugene Faubus was an American politician who served as 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967. He was famously known for his vigorous stand against the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957.In 1957, Governor Faubus deployed National Guardsmen to block Supreme Court-ordered school integration. Ultimately, President Dwight Eisenhower used federal authority to force Faubus to comply with the desegregation orders. -
Elizabeth Eckford
Elizabeth Eckford was one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of nine African-American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. -
Samuel O'Quinn
Samuel O’Quinn was a successful businessman and father of 11 children in Centreville MS. A graduate of Tuskegee Institute, he owned a large plantation, worked as assistant town engineer, and was engaged in several other business endeavors around Southwest Mississippi. In 1959 O’Quinn left the state to travel North. He was shot and killed after he returned. Local black residents stated that he was murdered because he had joined the NAACP and was preparing to engage in civil rights movement. -
The Ku Klux Klan
Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) extended into almost every southern state by 1870. The civil rights movement of the 1960s also saw a surge of Ku Klux Klan activity, including bombings of black schools and churches and violence against black and white activists in the South. -
James Meredith
James Howard Meredith is an American Civil Rights Movement figure, writer, political adviser and Air Force veteran. In 1962 became the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, is shot by a sniper shortly after beginning a lone civil rights march through the South. Known as the “March Against Fear,”. -
Arrest of Martin Luther King in Alabama
In 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and sent to jail because he and others were protesting the treatment of blacks In Birmingham, Alabama. A court had ordered that King could not hold protests in Birmingham. Birmingham in 1963 was a hard place for blacks to live in. Everything was segregated, from businesses to churches to libraries. Blacks faced constant discrimination and the constant threat of violence. -
A. Phillip Randolph
A. Philip Randolph In his cry for freedom and justice, Mr. Randolph was the most important civil rights leader to emerge from the labor movement. Throughout his long career, he consistently kept the interests of black workers at the forefront of the racial agenda. Whereas W. E. B. Du Bois argued that the problem of the twentieth century was “the color line,” Randolph concluded that it was the question of the “common man. -
Second Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Movement brought attention to their situation and in all parts of the country, people began to realize the unfairness that existed in the treatment of Black Americans. The March on Washington was a peaceful demonstration that finalized the meaning of freedom and opportunity. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed to try to end segregation for the Black American. -
First Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States -
Black Power Movement at its Peak
The progress made by African Americans in the 1950s and early 1960s at achieving their civil rights was compromised by violence. Frankly, many young blacks rejected the courage and patience displayed by Dr. Martin Luther King in his non-violent response to injustice in American society. -
Black Panthers
The Black Panthers were formed in California in 1966 and they played a short but important part in the civil rights movement. The Black Panthers believed that the non-violent campaign of Martin Luther King had failed and any promised changes to their lifestyle via the ‘traditional’ civil rights movement, would take too long to be implemented or simply not introduced. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King
In April 1968, shock waves reverberated around the world with the news that U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated at his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee. -
Anne Moody
Anne Moody was an African-American author who wrote about her experiences growing up poor and black in rural Mississippi, her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement through the NAACP, CORE and SNCC.she published her autobiography in 1968, Coming of Age in Mississippi, detailing her rural childhood, including very difficult times with her family, and subsequent activism.
