Civil Rights Movement

Brown v. Board of Education

May 17, 1954

1. The case that allowed separate but equal facilities was Plessy v. Ferguson.
2. Linda Brown was going to attend her neighborhood school but was denied access because of her race.
3. The result was the supreme court ruled it unconstitutional to have segregated schools.

Emmett Louis Till

Aug 28, 1955

Emmet was murdered for going into a store and talking to a white women. They found Till's body in a river. The court case ruled that the husband didn't kill Till, the justices were trying to find a way to make the white husband of the women innocent. They did by saying that the body could not be identified as Emmett because the body was so messed up.

Rosa Parks

Dec 1, 1955

1. Rosa Parks didn't want to give up her seat on the bus because she was challenging the segregation of public transportation.
2. She refused to give up her seat so she was arrested and this started the Montgomery bus boycott.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Dec 5, 1955

African Americans in Montgomery were still forced to sit in the back of the bus or give up their seat for a white person. So, 4 days after Rosa Parks was arrested the African Americans decided to walk so the boycott could go on. The MIA decided to elected MLK Jr. as the president and he continued the boycott. The Montgomery federal court ruled that it was against the 14th Amendment to have segregations on the buses. The boycott ended on December 21, 1956, lasting for 381 days.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Aug 29, 1957

1. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was passed by President Eisenhower.
2. The Act gave protection to African Americans for the right to vote.

Little Rock, Arkensas

Sep 24, 1957

1. Nine African American students were going to school but the mayor, Orval ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the nine from entering the school. Eisenhower had to get involved because the 9 African American students were being mobbed. So, he sent in the U.S. Army to protect the nine students from being hurt and had to stay the whole year.
2. President Eisenhower send the U.S. Army to go and protect the little rock 9 from mobs and threats, the army stayed for the entire school year.

Jesse Jackson

Feb 1, 1960

Jesse Jackson was a student leader at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical. He took part of sit-ins, such as the one where over 300 students took part of the Woolworth's store sit-in. The students were determined to be served at Woolworth's. Jesse really wanted to see things change for African Americans so they could have equal rights with whites.

Freedom Riders

May 14, 1961

1. The Freedom Riders traveled into the South to catch the attention of the Souths refusal to integrate bus terminals.
2. The organization that helped to organize the Freedom Riders was CORE.
3. Freedom Riders were African Americans and whites.

James Meredith

Sep 30, 1962

1. When James Meredith tried to enroll at Ole Miss he was stopped by Ross Barnett, the governor of Mississippi.
2. The government got involved when President Kennedy sent 500 federal marshals to escort James to the campus. After the mob had attacked Kennedy sent several thousand troops to the campus to protect James for the rest of the year.

Medgar Evers

Jun 12, 1963

1. Medgar Evers was a Civil Rights activist who organized lots of things like voter registration efforts. He was the first state field secretary of the NAACP.
2. Because he was so high in the NAACP he was a target for many people, they made threats and firebombed his house. But, one day he was on his driveway and was shot in the back, he died an hour later.

March on Washington

Aug 28, 1963

1. The purpose of the march on Washington was MLK Jr. was having a hard time trying to the Civil Rights bill, and needed a way to have more public support. A. Phillip Rudolph made the suggestion of a march MLK Jr. agreed for it to be done.
2. The famous speech that was delivered at Washington was from MLK Jr. "I Have a Dream".

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

Jul 2, 1964

1. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed by President Johnson.
2. The act stated that segregation was illegal and gave every person of every race the freedom to have equal access to public places.

Malcom X

Feb 21, 1965

Malcolm X was a black nationalist leader. He was a symbol of the black power movement. He changed his name because it stood as a symbol for the family name of his African ancestors who had been enslaved. He was killed on February 21, 1965 when he was preparing for a speech.

March to Selma

Mar 7, 1965

1. The march to Selma was organized because it was going to be a focal point in the Civil Rights campaign.
2. The marchers were opposed by the Sheriff Clark during their march. He wanted to keep African Americans from voting. When the marchers were kneeling in prayer the Sheriff ordered troops to go and terrorize and beat the marchers.
3. The outcome of the march was that the nation was stunned by the violence of what they saw, President Johnson was furious and proposed a new voting right law.

Samuel Younge Jr.

Dec 3, 1966

Samuel was a Civil Rights activist, who was murdered in a dispute. He was enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Samuel was shot when he was at a gas station, trying to use an all white bathroom.

Thurgood Marshall

Oct 2, 1967

1. Before Marshall was a Supreme Court Justice he was a counsel to the NAACP and he helped decide the ruling for Brown vs. Board of Education.
2. This was a monumental event because he was the first black Supreme Court Justice which was a very high job, especially for blacks to have.

Assassination of MLK Jr.

Apr 4, 1968

1. Martin was in Memphis to support the strike of African Americans sanitation workers, trying to promote the "Poor People's Campaign". When he was just standing on his hotel balcony someone shot him.
2. The death of MLK Jr. had a big impact on people because now that he was gone the Civil Rights movement started to lack its purpose and the vision he gave it, he had transformed American society. Gave African Americans opportunities that would have never existed before.