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Beginning of the Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforced in the Southern United States from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, mandating racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans in various aspects of life. -
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Jim Crow laws
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforced in the Southern United States from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries, mandating racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans in various aspects of life. -
Brown v. Board of Education
In the landmark 1954 case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, overturning the "separate but equal" doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson. The case, formally Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, involved five separate cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia, and Delaware, all challenging the constitutionality of state-sponsored segregation in public schools. -
Montgomery bus boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a pivotal civil rights protest in 1955-1956 where African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to ride city buses to protest segregated seating, sparked by Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger. -
Lynching of Emmet Till
In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till, a Black boy from Chicago visiting family in Mississippi, was brutally murdered by white supremacists after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store, an event that became a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Little Rock school integration crisis
The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. -
Civil rights act
The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and ended segregation in public places and employment. -
Senators votes for civil rights
This is a map of the US showing how each state chose to vote for civil rights. -
Freedom Riders
The Freedom Riders were groups of civil rights activists, both white and Black, who rode buses into the segregated South in 1961 to challenge segregation in public transportation and test Supreme Court rulings, facing violence and arrests along the way. -
Birmingham campaign
The Birmingham Campaign, a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, was a series of nonviolent direct action protests in 1963 aimed at desegregating Birmingham, Alabama, and brought national attention to racial segregation, ultimately contributing to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a massive protest in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. It was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement that drew attention to racial discrimination and economic inequality. -
16th street Baptist church bombing
On September 15, 1963, a dynamite bomb exploded in the back stairwell of the downtown Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The violent blast ripped through the wall, killing four African-American girls on the other side and injuring more than 20 inside the church. It was a clear act of racial hatred: the church was a key civil rights meeting place and had been a frequent target of bomb threats. -
Freedom summer
Freedom Summer, also known as the Mississippi Summer Project, was a 1964 voter registration drive in Mississippi aimed at increasing the number of registered African American voters and challenging systemic racism. -
Nashville Sit-ins
The Nashville sit-ins, a pivotal event in the Civil Rights Movement, saw students and community members peacefully protest racial segregation at lunch counters in 1960, leading to Nashville becoming the first major Southern city to desegregate public facilities. -
View on civil rights by different races
This graph tells how each race feels about civil rights. It shows how some of the white population agrees that African Americans need the governments help to be equal, and white people very much agree that African Americans have gained a lot more rights in their lifetime. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
On stage at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down as his pregnant wife and four daughters took cover in the front row. Three members of the Nation of Islam—Mujahid Abdul Halim, Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam—were soon after charged with first-degree murder. -
Selma March
The Selma to Montgomery marches, a pivotal event in the American Civil Rights Movement, occurred in 1965, with the goal of securing voting rights for African Americans in the South, culminating in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
Bloody Sunday
On March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, what became known as "Bloody Sunday" saw civil rights activists brutally attacked by police while attempting to march to Montgomery for voting rights, a pivotal event that galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act. -
Voting rights act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. -
Watts riots
The Watts Riots, also known as the Watts Rebellion or Watts Uprising, were a series of civil disturbances that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 16, 1965, sparked by a traffic stop and ensuing arrest of a young African American man, Marquette Frye. The riots resulted in 34 deaths, over 1,000 injuries, nearly 4,000 arrests, and $40 million in property damage. -
Assassination of MLK Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights activist, was fatally shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at 6:01 p.m. CST. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m at age 39. -
Fair housing act
The Fair Housing Act, enacted in 1968, makes it illegal to discriminate in housing based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability. It protects individuals from discrimination in renting, buying, or obtaining mortgages, and other housing-related activities. -
Black vs White unemployment rates
This chart reveals the similarities and differences between white and black unemployment rates, where both are about the same shape but the unemployment rates for African Americans were double the amount of white unemployment rates but it gradually became better. -
Barack Obama is elected president
On November 4, 2008, Obama became the first African-American to be elected President. He resigned his seat in the U.S. Senate on November 16, 2008. Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States on January 20, 2009.