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Norris vs. Alabama
Supreme Court ruled in Norris v. Alabama that exclusion of African Americans from juries violated their rights to equal protection under the law. -
CORE
James Farmer and George Houser founded the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Chicago. CORE began using sit-ins, a form of protest popularized by union workers in the 1930s, to desegregate restaurants that refused to serve African Americans. -
Birmingham, Alabama
Martin Luther King, Jr., decided in the spring of 1963 to launch demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama. He knew there would be a violent response, but he believed it was the only way to get the president to actively support civil rights. Eight days after the protests began, King was arrested. While in jail, he began writing the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most comprehensive civil rights law Congress had ever enacted. The law made segregation illegal in most places of public accommodation, and it gave citizens of all races and nationalities equal access to public facilities. The law gave the U.S. attorney general more power to bring lawsuits to force school desegregation and required private employers to end discrimination in the workplace. -
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
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. -
The Selma March
Dr. King joined with SNCC activists and organized a “march for freedom” from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery, a distance of about 50 miles (80 km). On Sunday, March 7, 1965, the march began.
