American world war ii senior military officials  1945

Civil Rights Timeline

  • Brown vs. Board of Education

    Brown vs. Board of Education
    Supreme Court rules that segregated schools can never be equal in value and education. They were then ordered to desegregate/integrate public schools.
  • Rosa Parks

    Rosa Parks
    Rosa Parks, a civil rights activist, refuses to give up her seat for a white man and is arrested and jailed as a consequence. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott

    Montgomery Bus Boycott
    After the arrest of Rosa Parks, the citizens of Montgomery refused to use buses until equal seating was enforced. On January 20th, 1957, the buses were forced to integrate bus systems, hire black drivers, and seat people based on first-come-first-serve basis.
  • Little Rock Nine

    Little Rock Nine
    Nine Black students enrolled in their first day of classes at Little Rock, and the governor ordered the school to stay segregated and blocked the students from entering with mobs and crowds. President Eisenhower himself sent members of the National Guard to escort these students into the school safely.
  • Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-in

    Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-in
    Many blacks participated in this sit in to gain the right to be served, and opposed discrimiaiton. Eventually, the loss of business took its toll on the restaurant, and all black customers were served first and restaurants were desegregated.
  • Children's March

    Children's March
    Since all the adults that were protesting were arrested, black children started to march, and troops arrested and were violent towards children. On this day, President Kennedy order the troops to back off.
  • March On Washington

    March On Washington
    Over 200,000 Americans, not just blacks, gathered and marched in the nation's capitol to gain voting rights, jobs, and overall freedom. This is when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. performed his famous I Have A Dream speech.
  • 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

    16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
    A black church was bombed, and four black girls were killed by the bomb. Many people realized that they were not safe, even in church.
  • Civil Rights Act

    Civil Rights Act
    Kennedy was gunned down days after the march, and Lyndon Johnson passed strong civil rights laws which outlawed segregation in public facilities, discrimination in jobs, and general racism in public places.
  • Voting Rights Act

    Voting Rights Act
    Outlawed poll taxes, literacy tests, and other things that prevented blacks from voting aloing with whites.