The American Civil Rights Movement

By jorga.2

  • Brown v. Board of Education

    The U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896).

  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott begins after Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat to a white passenger. Martin Luther King Jr. emerges as a prominent leader during the boycott.

  • President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act

    President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first federal civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It establishes the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and authorizes the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute civil rights violations.

  • Greensboro Sit-Ins

    Four African American college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, stage a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter, sparking a wave of sit-ins across the South.

  • Freedom Rides begin

    Activists challenge segregation on interstate buses by traveling through the South. The rides are met with violence and arrests.

  • March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

    Over 250,000 people gather in Washington, D.C., where Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

  • 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

    Four African American girls are killed when a bomb explodes at the church in Birmingham, Alabama, a tragedy that galvanizes support for the civil rights movement.

  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and desegregates public accommodations.

  • Bloody Sunday

    Civil rights marchers, led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams, are brutally attacked by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, while attempting to march to Montgomery for voting rights.

  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    Signed into law, the act prohibits racial discrimination in voting, eliminating literacy tests and other barriers to voting.

  • Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr

    Martin Luther King Jr is shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, sparking riots in cities across the United States.

  • Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act)

    Passed by Congress, the act prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.