Civil Rights Timeline Camille Kahra

Brown V. Board of Education

May 17, 1954

1. Plessy V. Ferguson
2. Linda Brown, a young African American girl, was denied admission to her neighborhood school, due to her race.
3. Segregation of public schools was ruled unconstitutional in result of Brown V. Board.

Emmett Louis Till Murdered

Aug 28, 1955

1. Location: Money, Mississippi
2. Emmett was murdered brutally by two men at age 14 for flirting with a white woman. The men were found guilty after trial.

Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat

Dec 1, 1955

1. Rosa Parks challenged public segregation laws by refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
2. Rosa Parks was arrested for actions. But it also inspired the African Americans dramatic boycott on busses, eventually bringing an end to bus segregation in Alabama.

Events at Little Rock, Arkansas

Sep 4, 1957

1. Mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas ordered troops from the national guard to prevent nine African American students from entering their local high school to which they had recently been admitted to. An angry white mob also joined the troops.
2. U.S army troops were sent to guard the high school and escort the students around school.

Civil Rights Act of 1957

Sep 9, 1957

1. President Eisenhower passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
2. The law protected the right of African Americans to vote.

James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss

Oct 1, 1962

1. When Meredith tried to enroll at Ole Miss, he was greeted at the admissions office by governor of Mississippi, Ross Barrett, who denied him entrance.
2. 500 federal marshals were sent to escort Meredith to the campus. Later due to more conflict, Kennedy sent several thousand troops to the school and helped Meredith attend classes under federal guard.

Medgar Evers Assassinated

Jun 12, 1963

1. Medgar Evans was an African American civil rights activist and field secretary for the NAACP.
2. Medgar was shot in the back while in the driveway of his house by Byron de la Beckwith, a white supremacist.

The March on Washington

Aug 28, 1963

1. The purpose of the March on Washington was to gain more public support for the civil rights movement because Kennedy would have a hard time pushing his civil rights bill through congress.
2. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech".

Young African American Girls Killed

Sep 15, 1963

1. Location: Birmingham, Alabama
2. Four young schoolgirls were killed in the bombing of their Baptist church. This attack was intended to injure African Americans, like it did.

Civil Rights Workers Slain

Jun 21, 1964

1. Location: Philadelphia, Mississippi
2. Civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were abducted and shot dead by Klansmen.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Jul 2, 1964

1. President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
2. The law banned segregation in public places and discrimination in the workplace.

March to Selma

Mar 7, 1965

1. March to Selma was organized as a responsive protest to the fact that despite African Americans making up a majority of Selma's population, they composed only 3% of the registered voters. This was because a sheriff was violently terrorizing them to prevent them from voting.
2. As the protestors approached the outskirts of Selma, the sheriff ordered them to disperse. 200 state troopers and deputized citizens brutally beat the protestors.
3. President Johnson proposed a new voting rights law.

Voting Rights Act

Jul 9, 1965

1. Location: Washington D.C
2. Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It eliminated things that had previously restricted African Americans from voting, like literacy tests.

Thurgood Marshall first black Supreme Court Justice

Oct 2, 1967

1. Thurgood Marshall was the NAACP's chief counsel and director of its Legal Defense and Education Fund before becoming a justice.
2. This was such a monumental event because Thurgood could help the Civil Rights movement a lot in his new position.
   

Student Protestors Killed

Feb 8, 1968

1. Location: Orangeburg, North Carolina
2. Students Samuel Hammond Jr., Delano MIddleton, and Henry Smith are killed when highway patrolmen fire on protestors. 27 others were injured.

The Assassination of Dr. Mr Luther King

Apr 4, 1968

1. Dr. Martin Luther King was standing on his hotel balcony, when he was assassinated by a sniper.
2. His death marked the end of an era in African American history. The movement continued on but lacked the unity of purpose and vision that Dr. King had given it.

Attack of the Freedom Riders

May 14, 1978

1. Freedom Riders were teams of African Americans and whites attempting to desegregate interstate busses, by riding the busses into the South. They were often attacked violently, sometimes even killed.
2. CORE helped organize freedom riders.
3. Both African Americans and whites joined the Freedom Riders.