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1954--
The Supreme Court
rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board
of Education of Topeka, Kans.,
unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is
unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale
desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
ruling that sanctioned "separate but equal" segregation of the races,
ruling that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."
It is a victory for NAACP
attorney Thurgood
Marshall, who will later return to the Supreme Court as the
nation's first black justice.
- Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till
is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally
beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly
whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant,
are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They
later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine
interview. The case becomes a cause célèbre of the civil
rights movement.
- (Montgomery,
Ala.) NAACP member Rosa Parks
refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a
bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In
response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus
boycott, which will last for more than a year, until the buses are
desegregated Dec. 21, 1956. As newly elected president of the
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Reverend Martin Luther
King, Jr., is instrumental in leading the boycott.
1956--
1957--
- Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele,
and Fred L.
Shuttlesworth
establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King
is made the first president. The SCLC becomes a major force in
organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on
nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to King, it is essential
that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and
hatemongers who oppose them: "We must forever conduct our struggle on
the high plane of dignity and discipline," he urges.
- (Little
Rock, Ark.) Formerly all-white Central High School learns that integration
is easier said than done. Nine black students are blocked from entering
the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus.
President
Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene
on behalf of the students, who become known as the "Little Rock Nine."
1958--
1959--
1960--
- (Greensboro,
N.C.) Four
black students
from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in
at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused
service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers
many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later
the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's
counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South
in integrating parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, and other
public facilities.
- (Raleigh,
N.C.) The Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) is founded at Shaw University, providing young blacks with a
place in the civil rights movement. The SNCC later grows into a more
radical organization, especially under the leadership of Stokely
Carmichael (1966–1967).
1961--
Over the spring and
summer,
student volunteers begin taking bus trips
through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in
interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations.
Several of the groups of " freedom riders,"
as they are called, are attacked by angry mobs along the way. The
program, sponsored by The Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), involves more than 1,000 volunteers, black and white.
James Meredith
becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of
Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause
President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.
1963--
- Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed
during
anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal "Letter from
Birmingham Jail," arguing that individuals have the moral duty to
disobey unjust laws.
- During civil rights protests in Birmingham,
Ala.,
Commissioner of
Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on
black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised and
published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the civil
rights movement around the world.
- (Jackson,
Miss.) Mississippi's NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers,
is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in
1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for
murdering Evers.
<>(Washington,
D.C.) About 200,000 people join the March on
Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln
Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous
"I Have a
Dream" speech. Listen
to archived material: George Geesey, 1963 March on Washington,
"We Shall Overcome, WGBH, Boston, August 28, The Washington Monument
and read
associated material..
- <>(Birmingham,
Ala.) Four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole
Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending Sunday school are killed when a
bomb explodes<>
at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil
rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of
two more black youths.
1964--
- The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax,
which
originally had been
instituted in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to make it
difficult for poor blacks to vote.
- The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO),
a
network of civil
rights groups that includes CORE and SNCC, launches a massive effort to
register black voters during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer.
It also sends delegates to the Democratic National
Convention to protest—and attempt to unseat—the official all-white
Mississippi contingent.
- President
Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act
of 1964.
The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the
Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race,
color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal
government with the powers to enforce desegregation.
- (Neshoba Country, Miss.) The bodies of three
civil-rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen
dam, six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson.
James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had
been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and, on June 21,
had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were
arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several
hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan,
who murdered them.
1965--
- (Harlem,
N.Y.) Malcolm
X,
black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American
Unity, is shot to death. It is believed the assailants are members of
the Black
Muslim faith, which Malcolm had recently abandoned in favor of
orthodox Islam.
- (Selma,
Ala.)
Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are
stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are
hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them.
The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. The march is
considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five
months later.
- Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
making
it easier for
Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and
other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are
made illegal.
- (Watts,
Calif.) Race riots erupt in a black section of Los Angeles.
- Asserting that civil rights laws alone are not
enough
to remedy discrimination, President
Johnson
issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces affirmative action for the
first time. It requires government contractors to "take affirmative
action" toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring
and employment.
1966--
1967--
- Stokely
Carmichael,
a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coins
the phrase "black power" in a speech in Seattle. He defines it as an
assertion of black pride and "the coming together of black people to
fight for their liberation by any means necessary." The term's
radicalism alarms many who believe the civil rights movement's
effectiveness and moral authority crucially depend on nonviolent civil
disobedience.
- In Loving v. Virginia, the
Supreme Court rules that
prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional. Sixteen states
that still banned interracial marriage at the time are forced to revise
their laws.
- Major race riots take place in Newark (July
12–16).
- Major race riots take place in
Detroit
(July 23–30).
- Case Study Landmark: Ann Arbor Neighborhood Watch
established
1968--
- (Memphis,
Tenn.)
Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony
outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl
Ray is convicted of the crime.
- President
Johnson signs the Civil
Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental,
and financing of housing.
1969--
1970--
1971--
1972--
1973--
1974--
1975--
1976--
1977--
1978--
1979--
1980--
1981--
1982--
1983--
1984--
1985--
1986--
1987--
1988--
Overriding President Reagan's
veto, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands
the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions
receiving federal funds.
1990--
1991--
After two years of
debates,
vetoes, and threatened vetoes, President Bush
reverses himself and signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening
existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of
intentional employment discrimination.
( Los Angeles, Calif.)
The first race riots in decades erupt in south-central Los Angeles
after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped
beating of African American Rodney King.
1994--
1995--
1996--
1997--
1998--
1999--
2000--
2001--
- World Trade Center and other
bombings,
September 11.
- Case Study Landmark:
Neighborhood Watch Advisory Board (later
"Panel") established in Ann Arbor.
2002--
2003--
In the most important
affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke
case, the Supreme Court (5–4) upholds the University of Michigan Law
School's policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered
by colleges when selecting their students because it furthers "a
compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow
from a diverse student body."
2005--
2006--
Coretta Scott King
dies of
a stroke at age 78.
2007--
- Emmett Till's 1955 murder case, reopened by the
Department of Justice
in 2004, is officially closed. The two confessed murderers, J. W. Milam
and Roy Bryant, were dead of cancer by 1994, and prosecutors lacked
sufficient evidence to pursue further convictions.
- James Bonard Fowler, a former state trooper, is
indicted for the murder
of Jimmie Lee Jackson 40 years after Jackson's death. The 1965 killing
lead to a series of historic civil rights protests in Selma, Ala.
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