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The Sit-In Movement
The four friends entered the nearby Woolworth’s department store. They purchased school supplies and then sat at the whites-only lunch counter and ordered coffee. When they were refused service. News of the daring sit-in spread quickly. The following day, 29 African American students arrived at Woolworth’s determined to sit at the counter until served. By the end of the week, more than 300 students were taking part. A new mass movement for civil rights had begun. -
The Freedom Riders
Teams of African American and white volunteers who became known as Freedom Riders boarded several southbound interstate buses. Buses were met by angry white mobs in Anniston, Birmingham, and Montgomery, Alabama. The mobs slit bus tires and threw rocks at the windows. In Anniston, someone threw a firebomb into one bus. Fortunately, no one was killed. -
The March on Washington
Civil rights leaders kept the pressure on legislators and the president by planning a large-scale march on Washington. More than 250,000 demonstrators, African American and white, gathered near the Lincoln Memorial. They heard speeches and sang songs. Dr. King then delivered a powerful speech calling for freedom and equality for all Americans. -
The Watts Riot
Riots erupted in Watts, an African American neighborhood in Los Angeles. Allegations of police brutality served as the catalyst for this uprising. It lasted for six days and required more than 14,000 members of the National Guard and 1,500 law officers to restore order. Riots broke out in dozens of other American cities between 1964 and 1968. In Detroit, burning, looting, and conflicts with police and the National Guard resulted in 43 deaths and more than 1,000 wounded in 1967. Property loss was -
Dr. King's Death
On April 4, 1968, as he stood on his hotel balcony in Memphis, Dr. King was assassinated by a sniper. Dr. King’s death touched off both national mourning and riots in more than 100 cities, including Washington, D.C. The Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who had served as a trusted assistant to Dr. King for many years, led the Poor People’s Campaign in King’s absence. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The House of Representatives passed the voting rights bill by a wide margin. The following day, the Senate also passed the bill. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorized the U.S. attorney general to send federal examiners to register qualified voters, bypassing local officials who often refused to register African Americans. The law also suspended discriminatory devices, such as literacy tests, in counties where less than half of all adults had been registered to vote.