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The Supreme Court’s Decision Of Plessy v. Ferguson
In the landmark 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation, establishing the "separate but equal" doctrine, which legitimized Jim Crow laws and enforced segregation in the South for decades -
The Tuskegee Airmen
The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black military pilot squadron. They are known not only for their wartime achievements during World War II but also for their impact on the eventual desegregation of the military. -
The integration of Major League Baseball
For nearly 60 years baseball was a segregated sport as the American and National Leagues that formed Major League Baseball unofficially banned African-Americans from their ranks. That all changed when Jackie Robinson stepped onto the field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947 -
The integration of the armed forces
On July 26, 1948, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, creating the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. The order mandated the desegregation of the U.S. military -
The Supreme Court decision of sweatt v painter
The Supreme Court ruled that in states where public graduate and professional schools existed for white students but not for black students, black students must be admitted to the all-white institutions, and that the equal protection clause required Sweatt's admission to the University of Texas School of Law -
The Supreme Court decision of brown v board of education
Citation: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Opinion; May 17, 1954; Records of the Supreme Court of the United States; Record Group 267; National Archives. In this milestone decision, the Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional -
The death of emmitt till
Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) 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 -
The Montgomery bus boycott
In 1955, after Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, African Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, boycotted the city's bus system for 381 days, leading to the desegregation of public buses and inspiring the civil rights movement -
The integration of Little Rock high school
In 1957, nine ordinary teenagers walked out of their homes and stepped up to the front lines in the battle for civil rights for all Americans. The media coined the name “Little Rock Nine" to identify the first African American students to desegregate Little Rock Central High School -
The civil rights act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first significant civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, established the Civil Rights Commission and Civil Rights Division within the Justice Department, and empowered federal prosecutors to seek court injunctions against interference with voting rights -
The Greensboro four lunch counter sit ins
On February 1, 1960, David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), and Joe McNeil, four African American students from North Carolina AT State University, staged a sit-in in Greensboro at Woolworth, a popular retail store that was known for refusing to serve African Americans at its lunch counter. -
The freedom riders by freedom riders of 1961
The Freedom Ride was a form of non-violent direct action taken by a politically disparate coalition of Aboriginal and non-Indigenous University students on a bus. Its purpose was to witness, publicise and challenge segregation and racial discrimination against Aboriginal people in regional towns in New South Wales -
The 24th amendment
Constitutional Amendments – Amendment 24 – “Elimination of Poll Taxes” Amendment Twenty-four to the Constitution It abolished and forbids the federal and state governments from imposing taxes on voters during federal elections -
The integration of the university of Mississippi
In 1962, a federal appeals court ordered the University of Mississippi to admit James Meredith, an African-American student. Upon his arrival, a mob of more than 2,000 white people rioted; two people were killed -
The integration of the University of Alabama
The successful integration of The University of Alabama that began on June 11, 1963, opened doors not only to two Black students, but for decades of progress toward becoming an inclusive campus -
The march on Washington and I have a dream speech by MLK
This March on Washington called for Americans to not only protest the Vietnam War, but to confront the issues of the civil rights and poverty within America. Dr. Benjamin Spock, co-chairman of SANE, discussed that a second protest was necessary because of the “virtual absence of debate in Congress.” -
The assassination of JFK in Dallas, Texas
John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Kennedy was in the vehicle with his wife Jacqueline, Texas governor John Connally, and Connally's wife Nellie, when he was fatally shot from the nearby Texas School Book Depository by Lee Harvey Oswald, a former U.S. Marine. -
The civil rights act of 1964 signed by President Johnson
This act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964, prohibited discrimination in public places, provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities, and made employment discrimination illegal. It was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction -
The assassination of Malcolm X
US black nationalist leader Malcolm X was assassinated on 21 February 1965, at the age of 39. The BBC reported on the reaction in his adopted home of Harlem, New York, as thousands of people queued to pay their last respects -
The Selma to Montgomery march bloody Sunday
The Selma to Montgomery march was part of a series of civil rights protests that occurred in 1965 in Alabama, a Southern state with deeply entrenched racist policies. In March of that year, in an effort to register Black voters in the South, protesters marching the 54-mile route from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were confronted with deadly violence from local authorities and white vigilante groups.As the world watched, the protesters under the protection of federalized National Guard -
The voting rights act of 1965
This act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting -
The assassination of Martin Luther King Junior, in Memphis, Tennessee
Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed while standing on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was in the city to speak on his growing Poor People's Campaign and to support an economic protest by Black sanitation workers -
The civil rights act of 1968
The Civil Rights Act of 1968 enacted April 11, 1968 is a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson during the King assassination riots.