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Brown v Board of Education
On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. -
Emmett Till murder
Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American youth, who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. -
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Montgomery Bus Boycotts
It was a foundational event in the civil rights movement in the United States. The campaign lasted from December 5, 1955—the Monday after Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, was arrested for her refusal to surrender her seat to a white person -
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Selma Marches
The Selma to Montgomery marches were a series of three protests in 1965 organized by civil rights activists to demand voting rights for African Americans in Alabama. The marches, which began in Selma and marched to the state capital in Montgomery, were met with violence and resistance, particularly on "Bloody Sunday," where marchers were attacked by law enforcement. -
Little Rock 9
On September 4, 1957 nine African American students arrived at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They made their way through a crowd shouting obscenities and even throwing objects. Once the students reached the front door the National Guard prevented them from entering the school and were forced to go home. -
Lunch Counter sit-ins
The Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins officially began on February 1, 1960. Four African American students, Ezell Blair Jr, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond, from North Carolina AT State University, sat down at a whites-only lunch counter at the F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were denied service but refused to leave, sparking a larger movement against segregation. -
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Freedom Bus Rides
The first Freedom Rides, organized by CORE, began on May 4, 1961 and concluded in late 1961. The original group, led by James Farmer, traveled from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, facing violent opposition in the South. -
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Birmingham protests
The Birmingham Campaign, a significant event in the Civil Rights Movement, took place in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama. Led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and featuring Martin Luther King Jr., the campaign aimed to desegregate public facilities and gain fair employment for African Americans. -
March on Washington
It was the largest gathering for civil rights of its time. An estimated 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, arriving in Washington, D.C. by planes, trains, cars, and buses from all over the country. -
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Freedom (Mississippi) Summer
The Freedom Summer Project resulted in various meetings, protests, freedom schools, freedom housing, freedom libraries, and a collective rise in awareness of voting rights and disenfranchisement experienced by African Americans in Mississippi. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This landmark legislation prohibited discrimination in public places, integrated schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act was enacted on August 6, 1965, and it prohibited states from imposing qualifications or practices to deny the right to vote on account of race; permitted direct federal intervention in the electoral process in certain places, based on a “coverage formula”; and required preclearance of new laws