The Civil Rights Movement
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The civil rights struggle in modern times
1954 -- U.S. Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling.
1955 -- Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama, bus as required by city ordinance; boycott follows and bus segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional.
Federal Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation on interstate trains and buses.
1956 -- Coalition of Southern congressmen calls for massive resistance to Supreme Court desegregation rulings.
1957 -- Arkansas Gov. Orval Rubus uses National Guard to block nine black students from attending a Little Rock High School; following a court order, President Eisenhower sends in federal troops to ensure compliance.
1960 -- Four black college students begin sit-ins at lunch counter of a Greensboro, North Carolina, restaurant where black patrons are not served.
Congress approves a watered-down voting rights act after a filibuster by Southern senators.
1961 -- Freedom Rides begin from Washington, D.C., into Southern states.
1962 -- President Kennedy sends federal troops to the University of Mississippi to quell riots so that James Meredith, the school's first black student, can attend.
The Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities.
The Department of Defense orders full integration of military reserve units, the National Guard excluded.
1963 -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech to hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington.
Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, leaves four young black girls dead.
1964 -- Congress passes Civil Rights Act declaring discrimination based on race illegal after 75-day long filibuster.
Three civil rights workers disappear in Mississippi after being stopped for speeding; found buried six weeks later.
Riots in Harlem, Philadelphia.
1965 -- March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand protection for voting rights; two civil rights workers slain earlier in the year in Selma.
Malcolm X assassinated.
Riot in Watts, Los Angeles.
New voting rights act signed.
1966 -- Edward Brooke, R-Massachusetts, elected first black U.S. senator in 85 years.
1967 -- Thurgood Marshall first black to be named to the Supreme Court.
Carl Stokes (Cleveland) and Richard G. Hatcher (Gary, Indiana) elected first black mayors of major U.S. cities.
1968 -- Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee; James Earl Ray later convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison.
Poor People's March on Washington -- planned by King before his death -- goes on.
1973 -- Maynard Jackson (Atlanta), first black elected mayor of a major Southern U.S. city.
1975 --Voting Rights Act extended.
1978 -- Supreme Court rules that medical school admission programs that set aside positions based on race are unconstitutional (Bakke decision).
1979 -- Shoot-out in Greensboro, North Carolina, leaves five anti-Klan protesters dead; 12 Klansmen charged with murder.
1983 -- Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday established.
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Eric Li-6th period
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that as time passes, the supreme court tended to lean on the side of non-segregation- which is a good thing. However, with it came an increase of violent protests. Whenever the government acted, they would have to use reinforcements to be able to back their decisions. I was surprised at how short segregation ended in this country compared to the hundreds of years that other countries had to deal with. Here it took 30 something years after segregation was declared unconstitutional. Even after the civil war, the africans were never really free.
Trey Moore
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mr. Eric Li because in the other counrtys segration was there for a long time, but in our counrty it was only for a couple of years. And in the Civil War the blacks one the war but were never really granted there freedom.