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1954 Brown vs. Board of Education
The Supreme Court made the decision that the segregation of children in schools by race was unconstitutional. It ended the idea of "seperate but equal." -
1955
Emmett Till, a black man, was kidnapped and murdered, left in a River and South blacks sought justice for Emmett, but despite eyewitness testimony, white murders were not found guilty. There was mass National attention in the African American media thanks to an open casket funeral in Chicago, which depicted the torn apart Emmett. -
1955 Montgomery Bus Boycotts
Black citizens refused to ride the busses in Montgomery Alabama in hopes to end segregation on bus seating. It started when Rosa parks refused to stand up when both a white man and a policeman asked her to stand up. The protest lasted 381 days, the blacks walking to their jobs, or getting rides from friends and bosses. -
1957- Little Rock Nine
A group of 9 African-American students enrolled in school that was segregated before schools were unsegregated. They faced a lot of discrimination, and had to be escorted by Presidential troops to school and to each of their classes for the rest of that year. -
1960 Lunch Counter sit-ins (Greensboro start date)
In Greensboro on February 1, 1960, 4 African American students sat at a whites-only lunch counter in order to protest segregation. They faced a lot of verbal taunting and even had drinks and milkshakes poured on them. It ended up ending public facility segregation, and stopped racial and gender discrimination. -
1961 Freedom Bus Rides
The Freedom Bus rides started in May of 1961 and lasted until December of the same year, they were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses, the blacks in the front and the whites in the back. At bus stops, the blacks would go in the white facilities and the whites would go to the blacks's in order to fight to challenge the non-inforcing of bus desegregation. -
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1963 Birmingham protests
Birmingham was one of the most segregated/racially divided cities in America, and protests started in order to push businesses into employing people of all races, to end segregation in public spaces. What was different about this protest was that school children were the ones walking, as they could go to jail and it wouldn't hurt the families and it was newsworthy. King came and walked with the crowds, and was arrested, where he wrote, "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." -
1963 March on Washington
More than 200,000 people participated in this march in Washington DC. People gathered to hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech, which was created in support of civil rights and racial equality towards all. -
1964 Freedom (Mississippi) Summer
The Freedom Summer was a volunteer project in Mississipi in order to register as many African American voters as possible. "Freedom schools" were set up in order to educate African Americans in literacy and civics, to increase their participation in votings. -
1964 Civil Rights Act
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation in public spaces, such as restaurants, hotels and transportation. It gave the Justice Department the right to enforce this desegregation. The Act also prohibited discrimination in employment by race or gender. -
1965 Selma Marches
The Selma marches were the last non-violent protests done in the civil rights movement. They were marching in order to gain the ability to vote in the South, and the march was led by Martin Luther King. It became known as "Bloody Sunday" because the police beat and chased the nonviolent protestors, who came back injured and angry. -
1965 Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act prohibited literacy tests and poll taxes and gave the Federal Government the power to take over polling. It authorized the us of federal registrars to register voters if states failed to respect the 15th Amendment, which "grants the right to vote for all male citizens regardless of their ethnicity or prior slave status."