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14th Amendment:
This amendment says that all people born or living in the United States are citizen and should be treated equally under the law. The majority of Southern states rejected this amendment, but it was still ratified in the end. Three-fourths of the states agreed to pass it. It offered equality for all people no matter skin color and forbade any state to deny someone the right to receive a fair chance with issues of life, liberty, property and due process regardless of how they looked. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson:
This upheld state racial segregation laws for public facilities. They stated that it was "separate but equal". The decision was a vote of 7 to 1. The majority opinion was written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent was written by Justice John Marshall Harlan. -
Race Riots in Chicago:
An African-American teenager drowned in Lake Michigan after being hit with rocks by whites. This was because he didn't stay on the "black" area of the beach and drifted to the "white" side. The police refused to arrest the white person whom people said caused it. This caused a week of rioting between black and white people of Chicago. When the riots ended 15 whites and 23 blacks had been killed. 500+ people injured and aabout 1,000 black families had lost their homes when torched by rioters. -
Executive Order 9981:
This was an executive order issued on July 26, 1948. This was by President Harry S. Truman. This executive order abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces. This also eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
Brown vs. Board of Ed:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) decided to challenge school segregation. The Court required “tangible” aspects of segregated schools to be equivalent. This ruling caused several school districts to improve the black students’ schools. The Court’s unanimous decision overturned the provisions of the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. They also declared that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." -
Emmet Till:
14-year old Emmet Till, an African American from Chicago was visiting family in Money, Mississippi. He is murdered brutally for flirting with a white woman. The woman’s husband and her brother beat him, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body, tied to a cotton-gin fan they forced him to carry with barbed wire, into the river. Milam and Bryant went on trial in Sumner, Mississippi. The all-white jury deliberated for less than an hour before issuing a "not guilty". -
Montgomery Bus Boycott:
This is when African-Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. This was to protest segregated seating and it took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956. Four days before this boycott, Rosa Parks, an African-American woman, refused to give her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus and was arrested and fined. The boycott of public buses by blacks in Montgomery lasted 381 days. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system. -
SCLC:
With the goal of redeeming ‘‘the soul of America’’ through nonviolent resistance, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established. It was made to coordinate the action of local protest groups throughout the South. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the organization drew on the independence and power of black churches to support its activities. -
Little Rock Central H.S.:
9 black students enrolled at a formerly all-white Central High School testing the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation of public schools unconstitutional. On the first day of classes, Gov. Orval Faubus called in the state National Guard to stop the black students’ entry into the school. Later in the month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in federal troops to escort the “Little Rock Nine” into the school. They started their first full day of classes on September 25. -
N.C.-Sit-in by four black students:
Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain and Joseph McNeil staged this. They got the help of a local white businessman, Ralph Johns. They sat down at the lunch counter where the people refused service to non-whites. They refused to give up their seats. Police arrived on the scene, but were unable do anything. Johns alerted the local media. The “Greensboro Four” stayed until store closing. They returned the next day with more students.This sparked a movement of sit-in protests. -
Freedom Rides:
A group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides (a series of bus trips through the South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals). Freedom Riders, were recruited by the Congress of Racial Equality. Black Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa. The group faced violence from white protestors along the route, but drew attention to their cause. Several hundred Freedom Riders started doing the same. -
James Meredith:
After a legal battle, an African-American man named James Meredith attempted to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Chaos briefly broke out on the campus and had riots ending in two dead, hundreds wounded and many others arrested.The Kennedy administration called out about 31,000 National Guardsmen and other federal forces to enforce order in the area. -
Letters from Birmingham Jail:
This was an open letter written by Martin Luther King Jr. The letter defends the strategy of having nonviolent resistance to racism. It says that as a people we have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws. We need to take direct action rather than waiting for justice to come through the courts. Responding to being referred to as an "outsider," King writes, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". -
University of Alabama:
African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama. Alabama’s new governor, with state troopers, physically blocked the door of the enrollment office. President John F. Kennedy sent National Guard troops to stop the governor. Governpr Wallace yielded and two African American students successfully enrolled. In September, Wallace tried to do this at a Alabama public school, but President Kennedy once again sent National Guard troops and Wallace had to yield. -
I have a Dream Speech:
Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks to about 250,000 people attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The crowd of black, white, poor, and rich came together in the nation’s capital to demand voting rights and equal opportunity for African Americans. They also wanted to appeal for an end to racial segregation and discrimination
He told of the struggle ahead and talked of the importance of continued action and nonviolent protest. -
Birmingham Bombing:
A bomb exploded at the Church in Birmingham, Alabama. This church was mostly back and was a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Most were able to evacuate; four young girls were killed. Others were injured. Afterwords, thousands of angry black protesters gathered at the scene. Gov. Wallace sent people to break the protests up. Violence broke out in the city. Some were arrested, and two African American men were killed (one by police) before the National Guard was called in to restore order. -
Freedom Summer:
(CORE) and (SNCC) organized a voter registration drive. It was aimed at increasing voter registration in Mississippi. This comprised of black Mississippians and more than 1,000 out-of-state, predominately white volunteers. Mississippi’s whites were abusive. The KKK, police and even state/local authorities carried out a series of violent attacks. Michael Schwerner Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, were killed. In Mississippi, this shook the project profoundly and caused resentment and distrust. -
Civil Rights Act:
This was a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States. It outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It also ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. The Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. -
Selma to Montgomery:
The (SCLC) made Selma, Alabama, the focus of its efforts to register black voters in the South. Protesters march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery were met with violent resistance by authorities. The protesters (under the protection of federalized National Guard troops) walked around the clock for three days to reach Montgomery.
Nearly 50,000 supporters–black and white–met the marchers in Montgomery, where they gathered in front of the state capitol to hear King and other speakers. -
Watts Riot:
Two white policemen scuffle with a black motorist suspected of drunken driving. A crowd of spectators gathered to watch the arrest and soon grew angry by what they believed to be an incident of racially motivated abuse. A riot soon began and they looted stores, torched buildings, and beat whites as snipers fired at police and firefighters. Order was restored on August 16. This left 34 dead, 1,032 injured, nearly 4,000 arrested, and $40 million worth of property destroyed -
E. order, 11246:
This established requirements for non-discriminatory practices in hiring and employment. Today, Executive Order 11246, as amended and further strengthened over the year, protects the rights of workers employed by federal contractors to remain free from discrimination on the basis of their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. This reinforced the requirement to ensure equal opportunity based on race, color, religion, and national origin -
Black Panthers:
This was a black nationalist and socialist organization active in the United States 1966-1982. At its start, the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrol to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity. The FBI tried to discredit/criminalize the Party, and drain the organization of resources/ manpower through many means. -
Det. Race Riots:
This was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. Before this, police raided an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States. It lasted five days adn the result was 43 dead, 1,189 injured, over 7,200 arrests, and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed. -
MLK assassination:
King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel,when a sniper’s bullet struck him in the neck. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, at the age of 39. James Earl Ray was the killer. This sparked a wave of rioting in the black communities of several cities around the country. On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to King’s murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. -
1968- Civil Rights Act:
The Civil Rights Act signed into law in April 1968. It was popularly known as the Fair Housing Act. It prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin and sex. It was intended as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The bill was the subject of debate in the Senate, but was passed quickly by the House of Representatives in the days after the assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
