US history B: week 3 timeline (Civil Rights)

  • 13th amendment

    it was adopted in Washington DC on December 18, 1865. it formally abolished slavery in the US. important because it was the end of slavery
  • 14th amendment

    it was adopted in Washington DC on july 9, 1868. it defined citizenship, due process of law, equal protection under the law, and privileges and immunities of citizens.
  • 15th amendment

    it was adopted in Washington DC on march 30, 1870. it said that the rights of citizens could not be denied based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. important because people could not be denied rights due to race.
  • Plessy vs Feguson (1892 / 1896)

    this happened in Louisiana and the US supreme court. the incident was in 1892, and the hearing was in 1896. this was when an African american man, homer plessy, refused to sit in a Jim crow passenger car and broke a Louisiana law.
  • mendez v. westminster school district

    this happened in Westminster, California on march 2, 1945. it was a case against the school district which ended segregation of Mexican Americans in California schools, and it was important because it set a standard for the rest of the nation.
  • brown v. board of education

    this happened in 1954 in Topeka, Kansas. it was a court case that said that public school which are segregated is unconstitutional. important bc it got civil rights in schools.
  • Montgomery bus boycott

    Rosa Parks ignites 381-day bus boycott organized by Martin Luther King, Jr
  • Southern Manifesto urges resistance to desegregation efforts

    Over 100 southern members of Congress sign document attacking the Supreme Court decision. Only Lyndon Johnson, Estes Kefauver, and Albert Gore refuse to join protest
  • Freedom riders oppose segregation

    Blacks and whites take buses to the South to protest bus station segregation. Many are greeted with riots and beatings
  • March on Washington

    More than 200,000 blacks and whites gather before Lincoln Memorial to hear speeches (including King's "I Have a Dream") and protest racial injustice
  • Malcolm X assassinated

    Rejecting integration and nonviolence, Malcolm splits off from Elijah Muhammad's Black Muslims and is killed by black opponents
  • watts riots

    In first of more than 100 riots, Los Angeles black suburb erupts in riots, burning, looting, and 34 deaths
  • Voting Rights Act approved

    After the act was passed, southern black voter registration grew by over 50% and black officials are elected to various positions.
  • Race riots in Detroit and Newark

    Worst riots in U.S. history results in 43 deaths in Detroit and federal troops being called out to restore order
  • MLK is assassinated

    While supporting sanitation workers' strike which had been marred by violence in Memphis, King is shot by James Earl Ray. Riots result in 125 cities
  • Medgar Evers murdered

    Head of Mississippi NAACP is shot outside his home on the same night that Pres. Kennedy addresses the nation on race