-
Melba Pattillo is born on Pearl Harbor.
-
Jackie Robinson is the first African American to play in the MLB. The MLB had been around for 78 years before they took the first steps to integration.
-
The integration of the United States military. President Truman ended racial discrimination and segregation in the services.
-
Brown v. Board of Education is passed and the Supreme Court declared that separate schools for black and white children was unconstitutional and that schools should be integrated. Melba signs her name on a paper to attend Central High School. A white man attempts to rape her on her walk home from school that day.
-
Emmett Till’s murder. After being accused of whistling at a white women, the 14 year old African American was brutally murdered by the woman’s husband and his brother.
-
After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, she inspired African Americans to boycott the bus to protest segregated seating. (12/1/55-11/13/56)
-
Melba and her family visit Cincinnati, Ohio. This trip shows her how terrible life is back in Little Rock because of how nice everyone was to her in the north. (Early August)
-
The Little Rock 9’s first day of school at CHS gets ruined by troops blocking the school, and a large protest has segregationists harassing and chasing the Pattillo's to their car.
-
The nine students were catcalled and harassed all day on the first day of what was an all white school.
-
Several years after Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock Nine (Nine African American teens) integrated an all white public school in the south. (9/24/57)
-
101st Airborne Division soldiers take position at CHS to protect the Little Rock 9. A soldier named Danny gets assigned to walk with Melba all day.
-
101st troops sent back to Kentucky, no longer protecting Melba or the other 8 students at school. The Arkansas National Guard takes their place, but they don't do as good of a job as the soldiers did. (This was around the Thanksgiving of 1957, the date shown)
-
Minnijean, one of the Little Rock 9, gets suspended for fighting back against harassers and dumping her chili from lunch on them.
-
Andy, a school harasser, along with his friends, try to attack Melba but a boy named Link lets her drive his car away to safety.
-
Minnijean gets expelled for talking back to white students. Segregationists get harsher in attempts to get rid of the rest of what remains of the Little Rock Nine.
-
Melba’s mom’s teaching job is threatened to be taken away by the school district in attempt to get Melba to not finish the school year. She tells the press about it and the school district offers Mother Lois her job for the next school year back. (Late April, Early May)
-
Melba has the last day of school of her first year at Central, surviving the year of harassment and discrimination.
-
Melba starts her sophomore year at Central High School, surviving yet another year.
-
Melba’s grandmother and one of her biggest supporters, Grandma India, dies of leukemia.
-
These sit-ins went on for months as an attempt to end segregation, often taken place at lunch counters.
-
Melba Pattillo marries John Beals (but they later divorce 10 years later).
-
Melba attends San Francisco State, a mostly all white college, for two years. (1962-1964)
-
Thousands of peaceful, non-violent protesters gathered in Birmingham, Alabama to fight for racial equality. (5/2/63-5/5/63)
-
Thousands of people, black and white, marched in Washington D.C. to protest segregation and discrimination. MLK Jr. gave his famous “I have a dream” speech.
-
This act ended segregation in public places, and banned employment discrimination.
-
Malcolm X, an African American religious leader that was a leader of the Civil Rights movement, is assassinated by Thomas Hagan.
-
This act gave African Americans the opportunity to finally exercise their right to vote without legal barriers.
-
The Black Panthers, an African American party whose original purpose as to protect African American neighborhoods from police brutality, is founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.
-
Martin Luther King Jr., a leader in the Civil Rights movement, is assassinated at the age of 39 in Memphis, Tennessee by James Earl Ray.
-
The Fair Housing Act provides equal housing opportunities to everyone no matter your race, religion, or national origin. (4/11/68)
