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Montgomery Bus Boycott
Many black leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association. It was made to run the boycott and talk with city leaders for an end to segregation. They elected Martin Luther King Jr. to lead them. The location of the meeting was at the Dexter Ave Baptist Church.King encouraged people to continue their protest. It started a chain reaction, the beginning of a mass movement. -
The Little Rock 9
The school board in Little Rock, Arkansas, won a court order stating nine black students had to be admitted into Central High. The school had 2,000 white students. The governor, Orval Faubus, was determined to win reelection and began to campaign as a defender of white supremacy despite being known as a moderate on racial issues. Orval sent the Arkansas National Guard to surround the school.District ordered him to remove the troops so he just left them to the angry white mob. -
The Little Rock 9 pt. 2
After the black students went in the building, angry whites beat at least two black reporters and broke a lot of the school´s windows. Eisenhower ordered the Army to send troops to Little Rock. He also federalized the Arkansas National Guard. Troops surrounded the school by 5:00 A.M. They had to stay until the end of the school year while officials in Little Rock continued to resist imtegration. -
Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was intended to protect African Americans´ right to vote. Eisenhower believed it was his responsibility to protect their voting rights. Several Southern senators tried to stop it, but the Senate majority leader, Lyndon Johnson Made a compromise that allowed the act to pass. Although it was much weaker than initially indended, it helped create the civil rights division within the Dept. of Justice and the United States Commission on Civil Rights. -
The Sit-In Movement
Four African American students inNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro decided to sit at the whites-only counrer until they recieved the same service as the white people. News of this pread quickly, causing 29 more students to go to the same counter and participate in only one day. By the end of the week, over 300 students joined in. Within two months, it spead across 54 cities. By 1961, sit-ins took place in over 100 cities. -
The Sit-In Movement pt. 2
Ella Baker, the executive director of the SCLC, invited student leaders to a convention at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She encouraged students to form their own group instead of joining the SCLC or the NAACP. The students agreed with Baker and made the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). A SNCC organizer named Fannie Lou Hamer helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and challenged the legality of Mississippi´s Segregated Democratic Party -
The Freedom Riders
CORE leader James Farmer asked teams of African American and white volnteers to travel into the South to draw attention to its refusal to integrate bus terminals. The freedom riders boarded several southbound interstate buses in early May. Angry white mobs attacked them in nearly every stop. In Anniston, somebody threw a firebomb in one bus. In Birmingham, the riders were greeted with a gang of men armed with baseball bats, chains, and lead pipes. -
The Freedom Riders pt. 2
The gang beat the riders terribly. The head of the police in Birmingham, Publib Safety Commissioner Theophilus Eugene ¨Bull¨ Connor, said there was no police at the bus station because it was Mother's Day, and he gave most of them the day off. It was later discovered that Connor paid the KKK to beat up the Freedom Riders. -
James Meredith and the Desegregation of the University of Mississippi
James Meredith wanted to transfer to the University of Mississippi. The school was still segregated at that time. When he tried to register the governor, Ross Barnett, was preventing it. President Kennedy sent 500 federal marshalls to escort Meredith to campus. Soon after Meredith arrived, an angry white mob attacked the campus, causing a riot. Meredith went to school under federal protection, graduating in August. -
Protests in Birmingham
Martin Luther King Jr. decided to protest in Birmingham, Alabama hoping to provoke a violent response. He had hoped the President Kennedy would intervene. Bull Connor was running for mayor at the time. King was arrested only eight days after the protests began. The protest grew after King was released. Bull Connors ordered the police to use clubs, dogs, and fire hoses against the protestors. The events encouraged Kennedy to prepare a new Civil Rights bill. -
The March on Washington
A. Philip Randolph suggested a march on Washington to persuade Congress to pass the new Civil Rights bill, and King agreed. More than 200,000 people of all races marched to America's capital. The people heard speeches and hyms as they gathered around the Lincoln Memorial. King gave a speech talking about his dream of freedom and equality in America. His speech built up momentum for the new bill. Congress tried everything to slow down the bill by delaying votes and dragging out investigations. -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
A small group of Southern senators tried to block the bill forever. 67 senators voted for closure to stop a filibuster. Kennedy's assassination turned it around. Lyndon B. Johnson became the next president and he dedicated himself to finishing what Kennedy started, including the new bill. Johnson tried to pass the bill again in Februrary, showing great results. When July came, President Johnson signed the bill. Making the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into a law. -
The Selma March
Jim Clark, the sheriff of Slema scared the African Americans into not voting, despite black people making up the majority of Selma's population. King stated that they are demanding voting rights. His words inspired a protests, where nearly 2,000 African Americans, including school children, were arrested. Clark's men attacked the protestors, making headlines. Activists marched from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery. Clark ordered them to disperse when they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge. -
The Selma March pt. 2
200 state troopers and deputized citizens beat the protestors while they were praying. This day was later known as "Bloody Sunday". It left 70 African Americans in the hospital and more injured. A furious President Johnson decided to propose a new voting rights law. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This allowed the U.S. attorney general to send federal examiners to register qualified voters. This bypassed local officials who often refused to register blacks. The law also stopped discriminatory devices. By the end of the year more than 250,00 African Americans registered as new voters. This law was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
King went to Memphis to support a strike of African American sanitation workers in March. In April, King was assassinated on the balcony of the hotel he was staying at. In the wake of his death, Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1968. This outlawed discrimination in house sales and renting. Kings death marked an end to an era in American history, despite the movement continuing after.
