Civil Rights Timeline

  • Plessy v Ferguson

    Plessy v Ferguson
    A case that stemmecd from an event occurring in 1892. The Jim-Crow seats were there for African Americans and Homer Plessy decided that he was going to refuse to sit there. This is what began the incident because doing this broke a Louisiana Law. This went to court because the incident went against the 13th and 14th amendment. The court ruled in favor of Plessy in a 7-1 vote. History
  • Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

    Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
    The Congress of Racial Equality was a committee started in Chicago by a group of people that were members of FOR or the Fellowship of Reconcialation. They began sit-ins and protests becaused they didn't believe in segregation. They started a nonviolent movement for civil rights. They decided that expanding nationally would be the next move.
  • Jackie Robinson

    Jackie Robinson
    In 1946, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier that changed baseball, and the culture and society of America itself. Jackie Robinson was a man with enormous amounts of courage and pride. Jackie took the baseball diamond during a time when prejudice and racial segregation were common in America, and nobody thought much of it. Jackie expanded the fanbase of the Brooklyn Dodgers, since most blacks looked to Robinson for courage, and as a hero. On March 17 he took the field for the first time.
  • Sweatt v Painter

    Sweatt v Painter
    Sweatt was a man who tried to apply to the University of Texas Law School and was denied right away. The reason was because he was an African American and they didn't let them attend this school under any circumstance. He was offered to go to their other facility for African Americans and they claimed it was equal to the other, but it was no where near. The court ruled in Sweatt's favor, nine to zero.
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/339/629
  • Medger Evers

    Medger Evers
    Medger Evers was a Civil Rights activist that believed in equality. He wanted to overturn segregation and make it so African Americans could vote. He was secretary of the NAACP and tried to changed the segregation ways of University of Mississippi. he worked to try and make it so that places like bathrooms, schools, and shops were not split between the whites and African Americans.
    http://www.biography.com/people/medgar-evers-9542324
  • Brown v Board of Education

    Brown v Board of Education
    The case was made up of 5 different hearing over the segregation laws. African American children feel like the white children are higher up then them because of the segration in school. This court decision ruled that segregation of schools was unconstitutional and all kids should be able to learn together.
  • Little Rock - Central High School

    Little Rock - Central High School
    Little Rock had started as a white school, until 9 African Americans applied. The 9 students were accepted and on the first day of school they came and were escorted by state troops. This was a result of the Brown v Board of Education case. These kids could finaly have an equal education witht the white kids and were able to feel like the school was actually "equal."
    http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott
    This boycott began on December 5th, 1955 and lasted until December 20th, 1956 and was a time where no African Americans would ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. This boycott began because of the situation with Rosa Parks where she refused to give up her seat to a white citizen. They were trying to protest the segrated seating on public buses.
    <a href='' >http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/montgomery-bus-boycott</a>
  • Period: to

    Montgomery Bus Boycott

    This bus boycoot lasted over a year because of Rosa Parks. They wanted to stand up for her and what she did because hit helped out the african Americans. They gained more civil rights because of her actions. history/montgomery-bus-boycott</a>
  • "The Southern Manifesto"

    "The Southern Manifesto"
    The Manifesto was document about a rebellious time for the south and all of the African Americans. It was formally called the Declaration of Constitutional Principles. They did not agree with what the Supreme Court had been doing in the case with Brown. Smith and a few senators were the ones to begin the Manifesto and wanted more rights to be developed by the Supreme Court. In the end 19 Senators signed the document along with 82 other Representatives that believed in the same ways.
  • Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

    Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
    The SCLC was established because of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was a formation of african Americans who wanted tog an mored civil rights. A metting was held and the group went through two prior names until the SCLC was created and made permanent. Martin Luther King was a big leader of this conference and wanted Segregation to end. ll members were elected and stood together to end segregation.
    <a href='' >http://www.blackpast.org/aah/southern-christian-leadership-conference-1957</a>
  • Greensboro Sit-ins

    Greensboro Sit-ins
    The Greensboro sit-ins were located in North Carolina and were non-violent. These sit-ins were protests against segregation. These were the most relevant sit-ins duringthe Civil Rights Movement and had a big impact on the situation. They did non-violent protest because they were inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and thought they had more of an affect on the movement. They sat in different stores an occupied the seats when they were denied service.
  • Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

    Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
    This was a very powerful movement that started from a meeting held at Shaw University. This became a large origanization that helped organize voting reigstration and participated in sit-ins. They began because of people who emergered from the freedom rides and wanted to be a part of thus movement. These movements began with only 4 students and soon led to thousands that wanted to be apart of thus.
  • Period: to

    Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Conference

    The Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Conference lasted over six years. This was a very powerful movement where people would do sit-ins to try and earn their civil rights.
  • "Freedom Rides"

    "Freedom Rides"
    Freedom rides began with a small groupe of many African American activists who travelled to bus trminals to protest segregation. These activists, organized by CORE, tried to use all of the services that were only allowed to be used by whites. They tried to stop segregation by doing the opposite of what others expected.
  • James Meredith

    James Meredith
    James Meredith is a very well-known man because he was the first African American to get accepted into the University of Mississippi. He wanted to apply to the segregated school to see what would happen with his rights. He was accpeted and was the first to attend, which was a major event in the Civil Rights Movement. When this happened he realized that some civil rights were actually being enforced.
  • Letter from Birmingham jail

    Letter from Birmingham jail
    On April 12, King was arrested for this violation and held for twenty-four hours. When he was allowed contact, he received a copy of the Birmingham Post Herald of April 13, which carried a public letter from eight local men. While the cmen opposed the idea of segregation, they wanted patience. Although King was not the addressed in the letter and the letter never mentioned his name, King began writing a reply in the margins of the newspaper.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    More than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march, which became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States, culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
  • Bombing at Birmingham Church

    Bombing at Birmingham Church
    This bombing occured before Sunday morning services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama–a church with a predominantly black congregation that served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders. Four young girls were killed in this incident and many other people injured; outrage over the incident and the violent clash between protesters and police that followed helped draw national attention to the hard fought, dangerous struggle for civil rights for African Americans.
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment
    The Twenty-fourth Amendment prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964.
    http://history.house.gov/HistoricalHighlight/Detail/37045
  • Mississippi Freedom Summer

    Mississippi Freedom Summer
    Freedom Summer was a 1964 voter registration project in Mississippi, which is part of a larger effort by civil rights groups, such as the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee to expand black voting in the South. Known as the Mississippi Summer Project, or Freedom Summer, aimed at dramatically increasing voter registration.The Freedom Summer, comprised of black Mississspians and more than 1,000 out-of-state, predominately white volunteers.
  • Civil Rights Act

    Civil Rights Act
    The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, is considered one of the crowning legislative achievements of the civil rights movement. First proposed by President John F. Kennedy, it survived strong opposition from southern members of Congress and was then signed into law by Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.
    Primary Picture
  • Malcolm X assassinated

    Malcolm X assassinated
    One week after his home was firebombed, Malcolm X was shot to death by Nation of Islam members while speaking in front of an audience. This happened to bew at a rally and occured in New York City. He had began his own pilgrimage in Mecca when he left the orginization and made himself into a Muslim. People began to follow Malcom X in 1964, which was less than a year before his assination.
  • Selma to Montgomery March

    Selma to Montgomery March
    In March of 65 some 500 demonstrators, led by SCLC leader Hosea Williams and SNCC leader John Lewis, began the 54-mile march to the state capital.It wasnt smooth sailing to the capital, the protestors had many bumbs in the literal road. It wasnt until 18 days later that they reached the capital and that August President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act.
    March
  • Voting Rights Act

    Voting Rights Act
    The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels. These prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The act is considered among the most far-reaching pieces of civil rights legislation in U.S. history to this day because people believed that everyone should ahve the rightr to vote no matter what race.
    Primary Picture
  • The Black Panthers

    The Black Panthers
    Started in Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The Panthers practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish socialism through a lot of organizing and community based programs. The party was one of the first organizations in U.S. history to militantly struggle for ethnic minority and working class emancipation.
  • Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination

    Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination
    Everyone arond the world went insane when they heard that U.S. civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. King had led the civil rights movement since the 1950s, using a combination of powerful words and protests without violence such as sit-ins, boycotts and protest marches to fight segregation and get significant civil and voting right advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among US African Americans.