Struggle for African-American Equality

  • Reconstruction acts are passed gaurenteeing the civil rights of freed slaves

  • Fifteenth Amendment is passed giving blacks the right to vote

  • Plessy v. Ferguson: Supreme Court decision holds that racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws in the South

  • The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in New York

  • Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier in baseball

  • Brown vs, Board of Education declares segregation unconsititutional

  • Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat

  • The Little Rock Nine go to school

  • Four black students stage a sit in at a lunch counter, 6 months later they are finally served lunch

  • Martin Luther King recieves Nobel Peice Prize

  • Martin Luther King assassinated

  • Colin Powell becomes the first African American secretary of state

  • Halle Berry becomes first African American actress to win an Oscar for Best Actress