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Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case that ruled state-sponsored segregation in public schools unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson -
August 28, 1955 Milam, kidnap Emmett Till from Moses Wright's home. They will later describe brutally beating him, taking him to the edge of the Tallahatchie River, shooting him in the head, fastening a large metal fan used for ginning cotton to his neck with barbed wire, and pushing the body into the river. -
Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955, sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a 381-day mass protest led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that successfully challenged segregation, uniting the Black community and proving the power of nonviolent resistance, leading to the Supreme Court ruling bus segregation unconstitutional and making Parks a symbol of dignity and courage in the Civil Rights Movement. -
The Little Rock Nine were nine African American students who integrated Little Rock Central High School in 1957, becoming pivotal figures in the Civil Rights Movement, facing mob hostility and state resistance (Gov. Faubus used National Guard to block them) until President Eisenhower sent federal troops to escort them, enforcing the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board ruling against school segregation. Their brave attempt highlighted intense racial tensions -
a pivotal, peaceful protest led by four Black college freshmen (the "Greensboro Four") who sat at the segregated lunch counter, were denied service, and refused to leave -
a series of nonviolent protests in 1961 where interracial groups of activists rode buses through the American South to challenge the segregation of interstate bus terminals -
a powerful defense of nonviolent civil disobedience against racial injustice -
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a peaceful 1963 protest where an estimated 250,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to advocate for civil and economic rights for African Americans