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Brown vs. Board of Education
The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. -
Rosa Parks
NAACP member Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest, the Montgomery black community launched a bus boycott. -
Freedom Riders
Over the spring and summer, student volunteers begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations. Several of the groups were attacked by angry mobs along the way. -
I Have A Dream
About 200,000 people join the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. -
MLK Death
Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime.
