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During the period of 1954 over 65% of blacks had migrated to urban areas. This was the culmination of the Great Migration with the first time in history where the majority of blacks resided outside of the south.
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A landmark case which reversed Plessy v. Ferguson declaring "separate but equal" in the public schools as unconstituional.
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Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white passenger this marks the beginning of a year long boycott of the Montgomery Alabama buses. This event thrusts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from relative obsucrity to national prominence.
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Reverend Dr, Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele and Fred L. Shuttlesworth found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Dr. King as its president. The organization became a major force in the civil rights movment and in the area of non violence resistance and civil disobedience.
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Nine black students are barred from entering the all white Central High School. President Eisnehower utilized the National Guard and federal troops to force integration. The group of students are known as the "Little Rock Nine".
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Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College participated in a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. This initiated similar protests throughout the South.
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During the spring and summer of 1961 students ride buses to challenge and test the laws that prohibit segregation in interstate bus and railway stations. This movment was sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
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In the midst of civil rights protests in BIrmingham, Alabama, Commisioner of Public Safety Eugene CConner releases fire hoses and police dogs on the protesters. This drew international media attention to the civil rights movment.
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NAACP Mississippi's Field Secretary is murdered .
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Greater than 200,00 blacks and whites arrive at the Lincoln Memorial for the MArch on Washington. A highlight of the event was Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech".
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Four young girls were killed during Sunday School at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church when a bomb exploded. The church had been a popular meeting place for the civil rights movement.
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The Civil Right Act of 1964 was one of the most comprehensive civil rights legislature since the Reconstruction. It prohibited any discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. It also granted the federal government the right to enforce desegregation.
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Black nationalist and the founder fo the organization of Afro- American Unity is murdered.
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Dr. King led a 54 mile march in support of voter registration but police stopped them at the Pettus Bridge. The media names the event "Bloody Sunday" because of the police brutality which led to the hospitilization of fifty marcher due to the use of whips, gas and clubs. This was the spark that led to President Johnson's address to the nation in support of the marchers and the catalyst for the passage of the voting rights bill.
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Literacy tests, poll taxes and several other restrictions were deemed illegal allowing blacks to vote.
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While in Memphis, Tenn. in support of the sanitation workers strike Dr. King is shot and killed by James Earl Ray. This led to mass riots throughout the nation.
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President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. This abolishes discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.
