Civil Rights Timeline

  • Brown vs. Board of education

    Brown vs. Board of education
    The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
  • Emmett Till Murder

    Emmett Till Murder
    Emmett Till was a 14 year old African American kid, who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store.
  • Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
    Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus, which caused the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement
  • The Little Rock Nine and Integration

    The Little Rock Nine and Integration
    Nine African American students were escorted into the school by federal troops after Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus initially blocked their entry with the National Guard.
  • Greensboro Woolworth's Sit-ins

    Greensboro Woolworth's Sit-ins
    African American students staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and refused to leave after being denied service.
  • Freedom Rides

    Freedom Rides
    where civil rights activists rode interstate buses into the segregated South, challenging Jim Crow laws and the non-enforcement of Supreme Court rulings against segregation on public transportation.
  • MLK's Letter From Birmingham Jail

    MLK's Letter From Birmingham Jail
    This was MLK's response to a public statement of concern and caution issued by eight white religious leaders of the South.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    The march, attended by an estimated 250,000 people, aimed to advocate for the civil and economic rights of African Americans, including demands for an end to segregation, fair wages, and voting rights.
  • Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing

    Birmingham Baptist Church Bombing
    A terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group.
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment
    The 24th amendment was ratified on January 23, 1964. It abolished and forbids the federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections.
  • Civil Rights Act

    Civil Rights Act
    This act outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
  • "Bloody Sunday" / Selma to Montgomery March

    "Bloody Sunday" / Selma to Montgomery March
    "Bloody Sunday" was the violent attack on peaceful Civil Rights marchers on March 7, 1965, in Selma, Alabama.
  • 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.
  • Loving vs. Virginia

    Loving vs. Virginia
    The US Supreme Court ruled in 1967 that Virginia's anti-miscegenation law, which prohibited interracial marriage, violated the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.