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US Civil Rights Movements

By jmccoy
  • Murder of Emmett till

    Murder of Emmett till
    Emmett Till, a 14-year old African American boy, was murdered in August 1955 in a racist attack that shocked the nation and provided a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement. A Chicago native, Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, when he was accused of harassing a local white woman.
  • Brown vs Board of Education

    Brown vs Board of Education
    Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality.
  • Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Rosa Parks and Montgomery Bus Boycott
    The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. ... Four days before the boycott began, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested and fined for refusing to yield her bus seat to a white man.
  • Martin Luther-King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Martin Luther-King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
    The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956, and is regarded as the first large-scale U.S. demonstration against segregation.
  • Little Rock Nine

    Little Rock Nine
    The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine black students who enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in September 1957. Their attendance at the school was a test of Brown v. ... Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine into the school.
  • Greensborough Sit-In

    Greensborough Sit-In
    The Greensboro sit-in was a civil rights protest that started in 1960, when young African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service. The sit-in movement soon spread to college towns throughout the South.
  • James Meredith, University of Mississippi

    James Meredith, University of Mississippi
    James Howard Meredith is the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississippi. He is also an American civil rights movement figure, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also known as simply the March on Washington or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans.
  • Birmingham Riots

    Birmingham Riots
    The Birmingham riot of 1963 was a civil disorder and riot in Birmingham, Alabama, that was provoked by bombings on the night of May 11, 1963. The bombings targeted African-American leaders of the Birmingham campaign, a mass protest for civil rights.
  • Mississippi Civil Rights Workers' Murders

    Mississippi Civil Rights Workers' Murders
    The murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner, also known as the Freedom Summer murders, the Mississippi civil rights workers' murders or the Mississippi Burning murders, refers to three activists who were abducted and murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in June 1964 during the Civil Rights Movement.
  • Civil Rights Act

    Civil Rights Act
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin. Provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex, as well as, race in hiring, promoting, and firing.