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Plessy v. Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson is an important court case because it gave legal standing to the idea of separate but equal. It required that any separate facilities had to be of equal quality. The Plessy decision would be used as a precedent until 1954 with the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. -
NAACP
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People - They were a powerful voice in the struggle to improve the legal rights of African Americans and fought to bring an end to racial violence. -
Thursgood Marshall
In 1938 he gathered his best law students and started winning cases for the NAACP. They would win 29 of 32 cases argued before Supreme Court. -
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court decision that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, declared separate but equal schools unconstitutional. -
Emmet Till
Emmett Till was beat to death beyond the point of recognition for flirting with a young white woman. -
Rosa Parks
Secretary of the local NAACP chapter, she refused to give up her seat at the front of the "Colored people" section to a white person. She was arrested. This started the Montgoery Bus Boycott. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
NAACP organized this bus boycott one day after the arrest of Rosa Parks. The boycott was against the city bus system. 90% of African American bus riders stayed off the bus that day. It led to forming of the Montgomery Iprovement Association led by Martin Luther King Jr. The boyott lasted one year, when the supreme court rules, Dec. 21, 1956, that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. -
Little Rock School Integration
9 African American students won the right to go to a school with 2000 white students and faced a large amount of outlash from those who supported segregation. -
Freedom Rides
13 African Americans left DC on a bus to bring attention to the ruling that the supreme court had ordered that facilities and bus stations be open to all passengers. Further south mobs swarmed the bus and beat the freedom riders. -
March on Birmingham Alabama
Martin Luther King raised funds to protest Birmingham segregation laws. He was arrested in Apr. 1963 and started writing his "Letters from a Birmingham Jail". Civil rights protesters started hurting the black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the civil rights movement around the world. -
March on Washington
The 1963 March on Washington attracted approx. 250,000 people for a peaceful demonstration to promote Civil Rights and economic equality for African Americans. Participants walked down Constitution and Independence avenues, then gathered at the Lincoln Monument for speeches, songs, and prayer. Most memorable speech of the day was the Rev Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King,helped to establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King is made the first president. The SCLC was a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience.
On Aug. 28, 1963 Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. at the Lincoln Memorial at the "March on Washington. -
24th Ammendment
Prohibited the Poll tax in elections for federal offices. -
Civil Rights Act 1964
Outlawed Discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin -
Malcolm X
Fiery minister at the Nation of Islam. Against what MLK Jr. stood for (non-violent protests), but in 1964 after visiting Islam's holy sites he started cooperating with civil rights leaders, In Feb. 21, 1965 he was assassinated by black muslims who considered him a traitor to the cause. -
March from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights
600 blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. Called "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is considered the start for pushing through the voting rights act five months later. -
Voting Rights act of 1965
Pres. Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It stated that it is deadly wrong to deny any fellow American the right to vote. making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal. -
De jure vs, De facto segregation
De facto segregation was segregation that existed because of practice and custom and was harder to fight than de jure segregation , segregation by law, because you actually had to change peoples minds. -
Race Riots
on August 5, hostile whites stoned King as he led 600 marchers. King left Chicago without accomplishing what he wanted, yet pledging to return. -
Black Panther Party
U.S. African American militant party. They were trying to achieve black liberation and called on African Americans to arm themselves for liberation struggles.
