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Sweatt v. Painter
Herman Sweatt was denied entry into the Texas Law School because of his race, university attempted to provide a seperate but equal law school. This is an important case as it challenged the seperate but equal doctrine, as the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Sweatt -
Keys v. Carolina Coach
Sarah Keys refused to give up her seat on the bus for a white man. The court ruled that segregation of interstate travel was illegal. -
Emmett Till's Murder
Emmett TIll was murdered brutally by two white men for talking to a white women. The men were not found guilty, and this fanned the flame of the civil rights movement. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was arrested for not moving for a white man on a bus. A bus boycott was organized, and the company ended up getting rid of the segregation law. -
Greensboro Sit-ins
African American college students at a lunch counter and refused to move without being served because of their race. Many sit in protestors were arrested, but it was effective at moving forward desegregation. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
This was started by JFK and pushed by LBJ through congress. This law prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, religion, color, and sex in public work places as well as in hiring, promoting, and firing. This pushed against the segregation of schools, and the separate but equal ruling. -
March from Selma to Montgomery
This was a nonviolent protest organized by civil rights activists. They marched from Selma, Alabama to the capital Montgomery. There were three different marches there, this one being the first -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
As MLK Jr. was standing on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel, he was shot by James Earl Ray. He was shot just before 6 and died after 7. His death acted as fuel for the civil rights movement. -
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
It had already been determined that schools should be integrated, but they were not getting integrated. In this court case the busing programs that helped to integrate school were upheld by the Supreme Court, ruling in favor of Swann. This led to quicker desegregation. -
Shirley Chisholm's Presidential Campaign
Shirley Chisholm announced that she would be running for president in January of 1972 as a Democratic candidate. This was the first time an African-American woman had ran for a presidential nomination of a major political party. By doing this she challenged the social norms of the time. -
Hank Aaron's Home Run Record
On this day, Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record for home runs in the MLB. Hank Aaron was African-American, and this challenged the belief that he could not compete on the same level. He became a symbol of overcoming society. -
University of California Regents vs. Bakke
Bakke, a white applicant to medical school, had been denied admission twice, despite having better test scores than some minority applicants who made it in. He sued the University claiming that reserving some spots for minorities violated the equal protection clause. The Supreme Court ruled a split decision. They ruled that strict racial quotas were unconstitutional, but having race as a factor in the decisions was allowed because it grew diversity.