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Plessy v. Ferguson
US Supreme Court case that ruled the constitutionality of segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine. This ruling resulted from an African American, Homer Plessy, refused to sit in a Jim Crow train car. -
Formation of NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was a civil rights organization founded in Baltimore, Maryland by W.E.B DuBois as a bi-racial organization to advance justice for African Americans in the United States. -
Brown v. BOE of Topeka
The Supreme Court unanimously decided to overturn provisions of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case, declaring that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal". This decision helped break the back of state-supported segregation and give a push to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The boycott began December 5, 1955 and ended December 20 1956 and consisted of the African American refusal to be seated in different section of public bus transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. The idea came from an event four days before when an African American woman, Rosa Parks, refused to yield her seat to a white male passenger. She was arrested and fined. The Supreme Court ordered an integrated bus system. Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as a prominent Civil Rights leader during this time. -
Formation of SCLC
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed just after the Montgomery Boycott ended. Founded by Martin Luther King Jr. with the goal to advance the cause of civil rights in American in a non-violent manner. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
Signed by President Eisenhower it was primarily a voting rights bill, this was the first civil rights legislation passed by Congress since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. -
Integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
Under escort from the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division, nine black students enter all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. When three weeks earlier, Arkansas Governor had the school surrounded with National Guard troops to prevent racial integration. President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent 1,000 army paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce the Brown v. BOE of Topeka court-order. -
Boynton v. Virginia
In 1946 the Supreme Court banned segregation on interstate buses. The Supreme Court ruling in 1960 on Boynton v. Virginia extended the earlier ruling to include bus terminals, restrooms, and other related facilities. -
Malcolm X leads the Nation of Islam
By the early 1960s, the articulate, passionate, and naturally gifted and inspired orator, Malcolm X exhorted blacks to cast of the shackles of racism "by any means necessary". He emerged as a leading voice of a radicalized wing of the Civil Rights Movement, presenting an alternative to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision of peaceful resolution. -
Greensboro Sit-In
Began February 1, 1960 and ending July 25 1960. Four young African American black men were rejected service at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Sit-ins usually resulted in arrest for trespassing, disorderly conduct, or disturbing the peace. But their actions had the lasting affect of forcing Woolworth's and other establishments to change their segregation policies. -
Formation of SNCC
The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed to give blacks more voice in the civil rights movement. -
First Freedom Ride
A group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists, recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals. -
James Meredith enrolls in Ole Miss
In late September 1962, after a legal battle, an African-American man named James Meredith attempted to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Riots sprung up on the campus ending in two dead, hundreds wounded and many others arrested, after President Kennedy called in the National Guard to enforce order. -
Birmingham Protests
The Birmingham campaign was a movement organized in early 1963 by the SCLC known as Project C. They would beginning of a series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation laws in Birmingham, Alabama. -
March on Washington
More than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech at this event. -
24th Amendment Passed
This prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. Poll taxes had effectively prevented African Americans from voting in federal elections in the South. -
Freedom Summer
The Freedom Summer was aimed to dramatically increase voter registration in Mississippi, comprised of black Mississippians and more than 1,000 out-of-state, predominately white volunteers, faced constant abuse and harassment from Mississippi’s white population.The Ku Klux Klan, police and even state and local authorities carried out a systematic series of violent attacks; including arson, beatings, false arrest and the murder of at least three civil rights activists. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A landmark civil rights and US labor law that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. -
Malcolm X assassinated
Malcolm X was shot before he was about to deliver a speech about his new organization called the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Reporters inspect the scene of the assassination, inside the Audobon Ballroom in New York. -
Selma March
From March 7, 1965 to March 21 the SCLC organized a march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama; the focus of their efforts was to register black voters in the south. They were met with violent resistance by state and local authorities. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson outlawing the discriminatory voting practices adopted by many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Black Panthers founded
The Black Panther Party (BPP) was a revolutionary black nationalist and socialist organization active from 1966 to 1982, founded by Huey Newton in California. Originally was to patrol African American neighborhoods to protect residents from police brutality. -
MLK Jr. assassinated
This Baptist minister and leader of the SCLCs assassination in Memphis, Tennessee led to an outpouring of anger among black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era. -
Civil Rights Act of 1968
This act defines housing discrimination as the "refusal to sell or rent a dwelling to any person because of his race, color, religion, or national origin". Also referred to as the Fair Housing Act of 1968. -
Robert F. Kennedy assassinated
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, shortly after winning the California presidential primaries in the 1968 election, and died the next day while hospitalized
