Civil Rights Timeline

  • 14th Amendment

    14th Amendment
    The 14th Amendment to the Constitution granted citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States,” which included former slaves recently freed.
  • Great Depression

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8k0jJdqKP0 A severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930's
  • World War II

    A global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ax4iRb0aw
  • Brown v. Board of Education

    Brown v. Board of Education
    Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.
  • Murder of Emmett Till

    Emmett Till was an African American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after flirting with a white woman. The woman's husband and brother made Emmett carry a cotton-gin fan to the bank of a river and made him take off his clothes. They beat him nearly to death, gouged out his eye, shot him in the head, and then threw his body tied to the fan into the river.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGqqOMTreNA
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott
    This event was sparked by Rosa Parks when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Martin Luther King led the boycott. And it did work, they started to ride in black taxis and avoided riding in a bus.
  • Little Rock Nine

    Little Rock Nine
    The Little Rock Nine refers to nine brave Black students who went to the Little Rock all white school. These nine students faced harassment, were bulled, and threaghtened everyday. Governor at the time Faubus sent the Arkansas National Guard to prevent them from going inside. But then President Eisenhower sent the United States National Guard to escort these nine students to school and each student was assigned a soldier that would walk with them all day.
  • Sit-ins

    Sit-ins
    This is when four black students sat at a white only counter in a restaurant and asked to be served. Their service was refused, but they just sat there patiently waiting to be served. They were threatened and harassed, but they continued to just sit there patiently.
  • Albany Movement

    A desegregation coalition formed in Albany Georgia for the NAACP. The Albany Movement mobilized thousands of citizens and attracted nationwide attention, but failed to accomplish its goals because of a determined opposition.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZDeO80_5-c
  • Birmingham Campaign

    Birmingham Campaign
    A movement organized to bring attention to the integration efforts of African Americans. James Bevel asked African Americans to participate by taking a peaceful walk fifty at a time from the 16th Street Baptist Church to City Hall in order to talk to the mayor about segregation. This resulted in over a thousand arrests, and people using high-pressure water hoses and police attack dogs.
  • March on Washington

    March on Washington
    More than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington for a political rally known as the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. The event was designed to help change the political and social challenges African Americans faced across the country. This is when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I have a dream" speech.
  • 16th street church bombing

    The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was an act of white supremacist terrorism which occurred at the African-American 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KqCMsHlq0
  • 24th Amendment

    24th Amendment
    Not long ago, citizens in some states had to pay a fee to vote in a national election. This fee was called a poll tax. On January 23, 1964, the United States ratified the 24th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officials.
  • Civil Rights Act

    Civil Rights Act
    A landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
  • Martin Luther King Assassination

    Martin Luther King Assassination
    James Earl Ray was born in Alton, Illinois, on March 10, 1928. A confirmed racist and small-time criminal, Ray began plotting the assassination of revered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in early 1968. He shot and killed King in Memphis on April 4, 1968, confessing to the crime the following March.