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White Citizens Council
The White Citizens Council was formed in July of 1954, with roughly 15,000 members mostly in the southern states. The group was very infamous nationwide for its opposition on racial integration in the U.S.. It imposed economic and political pressure against those who favored compliance with the supreme court. -
Brown v Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education in Topeka was a landmark Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. Brown v. Board of Education was one of the breakthroughs of the civil rights movement, and helped establish the precedent that “separate-but-equal” education and other services actually weren't equal at all. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
In 1955, shortly after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a city bus for a white person, MLK Jr. led a boycott of city buses. After 11 moths of African Americans boycotting public transportation- rain or shine- the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public transportation was unconstitutional. -
Rosa Parks Arrested
On December 1st, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for breaking the city bus transportation law in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested when the bus began to fill up and she decided to sit in the section labeled "Whites Only." When she refused to give up her seat for a white man and was arrested for it, there was massive resistance among the African American community in the south. -
Lynching of Emmett Till
Emmett Till was an African American, Chicago born teenager visiting family in Money, Mississippi. While he was there he was brutally murdered by two white males for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Emmett's death with publicized nationwide because his mother wanted the world to know the horrors that go on in America involving African Americans. -
Martin Luther King House Bombing
A bomb exploded on the front porch of Martin Luther King Jr.'s front porch of his home while he was at an evening meeting with bus boycott members. MLK Jr. was told of the explosion and went to his family who were not harmed in the attack. A mob of African Americans along with White police officers met King to defend the leader. -
Bombing of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth
Klu Klux Klan members bombed the home of civil rights activist Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth in Birmingham, Alabama. Shuttles worth was one at the time of the attack along with his family and members of Bethel Baptist Church. This was not the only attempted murder against Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth that White Supremacists in the area inflicted, for he was a large target as a big leader in the Civil Rights Movement. -
SCLC Founded
'The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded in 1957 and lead by MLK Jr.. The SCLC taught that civil rights could be achieved through nonviolent protests. It was brought on to help eliminate segregation from American society and to encourage African Americans to register to vote. -
Eisenhower sends in Federal Troops
To uphold integration at Central High for the Little Rock Nine, Eisenhower had to send in federal troops in order to keep off white resistance mobs. Federal troops were to escort the African American students at Central High in order to keep the nine safe. -
Bailey v Patterson
This Supreme Court case- coming out of Jackson, Mississippi- brought more light to the direct institutional discrimination based on skin color in America. They sought to challenge segregated services in “interstate and intrastate transportation”. They held true that their constitutional rights had been infringed and applied for temporary and permanent actions to enforce their rights. -
Greensboro sit ins
Four local African American students entered Woolworth's Store and sat in seats labeled as "Whites Only," and refused to move until they were served. On the second day, 27 students came to participate, and by the fourth day there were 300 students supporting and participating in the sit ins. Around the United States, similar sit ins took place, and some stores had to close temporarily. -
SNCC Formed
The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee was a civil rights group formed to give younger African Americans a louder voice in the civil rights movement. The SNCC soon became one the movement's more radical parties. -
Albany Georgia “failure”
African Americans in Albany, Georgia protested racial segregation in bus and train stations. Many were arrested and jailed. It was said to have been a failure because police were able to defeat it because they trained men to deal with non-violence, and studied King's strategy and tactics. -
Freedom Rides
Civil Rights campaign members protested transportation segregation by traveling by bus through the southern states. White violence against them urged the Kennedy administration to protect them and become more involved in the process. -
White mob attacks federal marshals in Montgomery
In Washington D.C., the federal government dispatched 400 marshals and other armed officers to Alabama to restore areas that were torn by racial violence. The government acted after a mob of white people attacked a racially mixed group of bus riders in Montgomery Alabama. At least twenty of the riders were beaten. -
MLK goes to a Birmingham jail
In 1963, MLK Jr. was arrested and sent to jail because he and others were protesting the treatment of African Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. A court had ordered the MLK Jr. could not hold protests in Birmingham. -
March on Washington “I have a Dream”
In August of 1963, Civil Rights leaders organized a March and rally in Washington D.C. to urge the passage of JFK's civil rights bill. Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the Civil Rights leaders that organized the march and rally. He gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to over 200.000 people in front of the Lincoln Memorial. -
Kennedy sends in Federal Troops
A young African American Air Force veteran, James Meredith, tried to enroll in the University of Mississippi. A federal court ensured his right to attend. When federal marshals accompanied Meredith on campus to register for his classes, riots began against him. JFK had to send in 400 federal marshals and 3,000 troops to control the mobs and protect Meredith. -
Equal Pay Act
Signed by President Kennedy in 1963 as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Equal Pay Act prohibited gender-based wage discrimination in the United States. The law mandates equal pay for equal work by forbidding employers from paying men and women different wages or benefits for doing jobs that require the same skills and responsibilities. The bill was among the first laws in American history aimed at reducing gender discrimination in the workplace. -
Assassination of Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers was an African American Civil Rights leader living in Jackson Mississippi. He was shot in the driveway outside of his house by Byron De La Bethwith who was a known White Supremacist. Medgar Evers was a member of NAACP and traveled through his home state promoting and recruiting for the Civil Rights Movement. He was very involved in the Emmett Till case and worked to get witnesses and evidence to prove the two murderers guilty. -
Bombing of a church in Birmingham
A bomb was blasted at the Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on Sixteenth Street. The bomb killed 4 African American girls during church services, and at least 14 others were wounded/ injured in the explosion. 3 KKK members were eventually convicted for the bombing. -
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy was traveling through Dallas, Texas in an open convertible. He was driving and waving to large crowds surrounding his car. As their vehicle passed the Texas School Book Depository Building, Lee Harvey Oswald fired shots from the sixth floor, fatally wounding President Kennedy. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at age 46. His Vice President, Lyndon Johnson was later sworn into office about 2 hours later and became the 36th President of the United States. -
Freedom Summer
The Freedom Summer project in 1964 was designed to draw the nation's attention to the violent oppression experience by Mississippi African Americans who attempted to exercise their constitutional rights, and to develop a freedom movement that could be sustained after student activists left Mississippi. -
24th Amendment
In 1962, the House passed the 24th Amendment that outlawed the poll tax as a voting requirement in federal elections. During this time in history, five states still had poll taxes which affected African-American voters. Some critics of the legislation thought the amendment did not go far enough to protect black voting rights in state and local elections, but the amendment was still a major success as a whole. -
Killing of Goodman, Chaney, Schwerner
Three Civil Rights workers- Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner- were reported missing on June 21st, 1964. This national attention when the bodies were found buried in a dam near Philadelphia, Mississippi. Schwerner and Goodman had traveled to Mississippi to help organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Chaney had joined CORE in 1963. The disappearance of the three men led to a massive FBI investigation that was code-named MIBURN, for “Mississippi Burning.” -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of ethnicity is one of the biggest legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. It was proposed by President John F. Kennedy and survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress. It was signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Selma to Montgomery March
The Selma March was a political march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The march took place from March 21- March 25, 1965 and was led by Martin Luther King Jr.. The march took a violent turn when the marchers were stopped and beaten by local police. This March became a landmark in the Civil Rights movement because the nation saw how violent the police were acting towards regular human beings out of hate. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X was African American Nationalist and religious leader. His views differed from MLK because of their upbringings. Malcolm was faced with a more violent childhood with his father being brutally murdered by the white supremacist Black Legion, which made his views on Black Power more intense. He was assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was an act that worked to overcome legal barriers at state and local levels of government that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. Signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, it is considered one of the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history. -
Black Panthers Formed
The Black Panther Party was founded in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party was a black nationalist party that believed black people should govern themselves. The party originally started as a way of self defense in Oakland, CA against police brutality. The Black Panthers were successful in that children could now have breakfast at school and free health clinics became a thing. -
Minneapolis Riots
Racial tension in North Minneapolis erupted along Plymouth Ave in a series of assaults, vandalism. The violence, which lasted for three nights, is linked with other race related actions in cities across the nation during 1967. Poverty and economic hardships were affecting region as people moved out. -
Loving v. Virginia
Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter were a biracial married couple living in Virginia, where it was illegal for interracial marriages to exist. Loving v. Virginia was a Supreme Court case that diminished state laws that banned interracial marriage in the United States. After the case, the Lovings lived in their home in Virginia with their children. -
Detroit Riots
The riots began in the morning of Sunday, July 23rd, 1967. They took place in the city's Near West Side. The conflagration lasted four terrifying days and nights. It was rooted in a multitude of political. economic, an social factors including police brutality. lack of affordable housing, urban renewal projects, economic inequality, etc. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was on his balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where he was staying, when James Earl Ray shot him in the neck. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead soon after at the age of 39. King was a national leader of the Civil Rights movement and his death shocked America and hurt the movement moving forward. -
Assassination of Robert “Bobby” Kennedy
Kennedy was seen by many to be the only person in American politics capable of uniting the people. He was beloved by the minority community for his integrity and devotion to the civil rights cause. After winning California’s primary, Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Kennedy was shot several times by a 22-year-old Palestinian by the nam of Sirhan Sirhan. He died a day later.
