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Jim Crow laws began to pass
Segregation was often called the Jim Crow system, after a minstrel show character from the 1830s who was an African American slave who embodied negative stereotypes of African Americans. Segregation became common in Southern states following the end of Reconstruction in 1877. These states began to pass local and state laws that specified certain places “For Whites Only” and others for “Colored.” -
States Passed Laws Imposing Requirements For Voting
Between 1890 and 1910, all Southern states passed laws imposing requirements for voting. These were used to prevent African Americans from voting, in spite of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which had been designed to protect African American voting rights. These gave the African Americans a goal with both education because they would need the education to break barriers with not only these laws but a push to break other barriers as well. -
Emmett Till's Funeral
On August 24 Till, went into a Grocery store and was accused of hitting on a white woman when he entered. On the 28th, Emmett Till was kidnapped. Three days later Till's body was found in a River; the 14yr old boy had been badly beaten and killed by a gunshot. Photos of Till went across the country, gaining support for racial reform in the South. On September 23, an all-white jury decided the white killers were not guilty, following in big cities staged rallies and for racial justice -
Rosa Parks refuses to give up bus seat
In December 1955, Rosa Parks, a member of the Montgomery, Alabama, branch of the NAACP, was told to give up her seat on a city bus to a white person. When Parks refused to move, she was arrested. It was actions like these that needed to be done in order to spread the talk about the protest. It is very important to have people like Parks in these protest because Parks was a person that was willing to sacrifice herself to make a difference for others. -
Montgomery Boycott ended
To protest Parks' arrest and the continued segregation of Montgomery's bus lines, and launched a community wide boycott to compel the system's integration. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., black commuters and a small number of white suffered harassment, and personal inconvenience for more than a year while the matter made its way in the federal courts. On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the segregated system unconstitutional. -
Martin Luther King Became President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
King became the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) when it was founded in 1957.The SCLC complemented the NAACP’s legal strategy by encouraging the use of nonviolent, direct action to protest segregation. These activities included marches, demonstrations, and boycotts. The harsh white response to African Americans’ direct action eventually forced the federal government to confront the issue of racism in the South. -
Little Rock Nine
In Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard in an effort to prevent nine students from integrating the high school. President Eisenhower took action against the defiant governor by simultaneously federalizing the Arkansas National Guard, removing the Guard from Faubus' control, and ordering one thousand troops to oversee the integration. Eight of the nine students completed the school year at Central High School. -
Sit-Ins
This was not a new form of protest, but the response to the sit-ins spread throughout North Carolina, and within weeks sit-ins were taking place in cities across the South. Many restaurants were desegregated in response to the sit-ins. This form of protest demonstrated clearly to African Americans and whites alike that young African Americans were determined to reject segregation. -
NAACP convention in Atlanta
In July 1962, the NAACP held its annual convention in Atlanta. Although "the city too busy to hate" had recently integrated its lunch counters, the majority of public accommodations throughout Atlanta remained segregated and delegates were turned away from several downtown hotels. Delegates called for an increased federal commitment to Civil Rights reform, and approved plans to intensify civil rights campaigns in large cities outside the South. -
Dr. King's Assassination
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by a sniper's (James Earl Ray) bullet while in a Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. As news of King's death spread, violent riots began in African American neighborhoods in over a hundred cities across the United States. A few months later King's family led a crowd with about 40,000 people in a silent march through the streets of Memphis to honor the fallen leader and support the cause of the city's black sanitation workers.
