-
Brown v. Board
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white person, triggering a successful, year-long African American boycott of the bus system. -
Chuck Berry
Musician Chuck Berry begins recording; his music will help shape rock-and-roll. -
Althea Gibson
Althea Gibson becomes the first African American tennis player to win a major title by winning both the women's singles and doubles championships at Wimbledon. -
Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. -
Motown Records
Motown Records is founded in Detroit, Mich. Motown will go on to feature such legendary artists as Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight, Lionel Ritchie and Queen Latifah. -
sit-in
Four African American college students hold a sit-in to integrate a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., launching a wave of similar protests across the South. -
(CORE)
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins to organize Freedom Rides throughout the South to try to de-segregate interstate public bus travel. -
Malcolm X
African American radical Malcolm X becomes national minister of the Nation of Islam. He rejects the nonviolent civil-rights movement and integration, and becomes a champion of African American separatism and black pride. At one point he states that equal rights should be secured "by any means necessary," a position he later revises. -
4 little girls
Four African American girls are killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. -
"I Have a Dream"
More than 200,000 people march on Washington, D.C., in the largest civil rights demonstration ever; Martin Luther King, Jr., gives his "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier becomes the first black actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field. -
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail,"
Martin Luther King, Jr., writes his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," his famous statement about the civil rights movement. -
President Lyndon Johnson
President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, which gives the federal government far-reaching powers to prosecute discrimination in employment, voting, and education. -
Nobel Peace Prize.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
