-
President Truman signs the Executive order
which stated ¨it is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity.¨ -
Brown v. Board of education of Topeka, Kans.
unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. -
Emmett Till Kidnapped and kills
visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahassee River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. -
NAACP member Rosa Parks
refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time -
Martin Luther King Jr,Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth
created the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) becomes a major force bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. -
Central High School learns about integation
Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. -
Freedom Riders
student volunteers begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities where they were attacked by angry mobs -
Martin Luther King Jr
arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala. -
Neshoba Country, Miss.
The bodies of three civil-rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen dam, James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24 -
Black Panthers
in Oakland, Calif. the militant Black Panthers are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. -
MLK shot and killed
MLKJ was shot and killed convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime. -
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. -
Riot breaks out in Los Angeles
The first race riots in decades erupt in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King. -
Mississippi civil rights murders
Edgar Ray Killen, is convicted of manslaughter on the 41st anniversary of the crimes. -
Emmett Till
Emmett Till's 1955 murder case, reopened by the Department of Justice in 2004, is officially closed -
Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano
n the Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano, a lawsuit brought against the city of New Haven, 18 plaintiffs—17 white people and one Hispanic—argued that results of the 2003 lieutenant and captain exams -
Shelby County v. Holder
the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which established a formula for Congress to use when determining if a state or voting jurisdiction requires prior approval before changing its voting laws -
Atlanta opens new museum
A new museum, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, opens in Atlanta. -
Micheal Brown shot and killed
civil rights investigation into police practices in Ferguson, Mo. where a Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by a white police officer -
Justice Department report documenting civil rights violations
avoiding a civil rights lawsuit. The agreement will necessitate the levying of new taxes to pay for the planned improvements and require local vote.
