10 Important Events of the Civil Rights Era

  • Brown VS The Board Of Education

    The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 is one of the most pivotal opinions landmarking decisions ever rendered by the Supreme Court at that time because it condradicted a 50 year old Plessy VS Ferguson by stating that segragation in education was illegal. With deliberate speed the case inflicted changes in national and social policy which angered many Southerners.
  • Rosa Parks Arrested

    December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a tired 42-year-old seamstress , refused to give up her bus seat when she was arrested In Montgomery, Alabama and with that act soon made a pivotal symbol of the civil rights movement which helped end segregation laws in the South.
  • "I Have A Dream" And The March On Washington

    The March on Washington, a march throughout Washington D.C. by a melting pot of 250,000 Americans from all different kinds of backgrounds, demanded a change in jobs and freedom and was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital. It was one of the first to have extensive television coverage and rallied many with King's "I Have A Dream Speech" which spoke of a nation of equality and has been refered to a literary wonder.
  • JFK Assassination

    John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Kennedy was fatally shot by a sniper while traveling with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald who acted alone according to orignial FBI reports.
  • Lyndon Johnson Sworn in As President

    After the tragic assassination of John F. Kennedy, becomes America's 36th President in 1963 and is faced with domestic issues like civil rights and poverty and foreign issues like the war with communism in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson proved that he wouldn't be a forgotten political figure during his 6 years in office (1963-69) when he passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  • Civil Rights Act of 1964

    The Civil Rights Act of 1964, enacted July 2, 1964, is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, national and religious minorities, and women in public places across the country. It was one of the big wins for civil rights.
  • Bloody Sunday

    Bloody Sunday was the first of a series of three marches which attempted to span from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest in accordance to voting inequalities and sparked the voting movement. Bloody Sunday marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement, reciev national attention and resulted in 17 injuries and the deaths of civil right activist by the KKK members.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965

    The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the much needed bill that prohibited discrimination in voting. Echoing the language of the 15th Amendment, the Act prohibits states and local governments from imposing any voting qualifications that denied voting right due color. Before, Blacks were often required to take citizenship tests that was almost impossible to pass. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 gave Blacks the right they had been demanding for years!
  • Detroit Riots of 1967

    The Detroit Riot of 1967 began when police vice squad officers executed a raid on an after hours drinking club in a predominantly black neighborhoodlocated at Twelfth Street and Clairmount Avenue. They were expecting to round up a few patrons, but instead found 82 people inside holding a party for two returning Vietnam veterans. The riots then sprung up due to civil unrest, social factors including police abuse, economic inequality and rapid demographic change.
  • MLK Assassination and the Fair Housing Act of 1968

    April 4th, 1968, Earl James Ray shot and killed the great leader of the Civil Rights movement on his balcony at a Memphis, TN.\ motel. The killer might have slained MLK's body, but not his spirt and what he stood for. In the shadow of the death, Robert Kennedy also fell to an murders bullet. In response, Lyndon Johnson pushed for the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968 through Congress. Successfully, the bill expands the rights of minorities on selling and purchasing real estate.