The Civil Rights Movement Timeline

1. The Civil Rights Movement:
A Timeline

2. 1954
•May 17
th
–Supreme Court rules in
Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, KS
•Segregation in US public
schools ruled
unconstitutional
•Decision overturns 1896
“separate but equal”
Plessy v. Ferguson ruling
•Marks a victory for
NAACP attorney Thurgood
Marshall
–Marshall later returned to
the Supreme Court as
the nation’s first black
justice

3. 1955
•August 28
th
–14-year-old Chicago, IL
native Emmett Louis Till
murdered in Mississippi
while visiting his family
•Killed for allegedly
whistling at a white woman
•Mutilated body found in
Tallahatchie River
•Two suspects were later
acquitted by an all white
jury for Till’s murder
•Case becomes catalyst for
Civil Rights Movement
•December 1
st
–NAACP member Rosa
Parks arrested for refusing
to give up her seat at the
front of the “colored
section” of a Montgomery
bus to a white passenger
•Montgomery
community launches a
bus boycott
–Boycott lasted 381
days (12/5/55 to
12/20/56)
–Buses desegregated
12/21/56

4. 1957
•January – February
–Rev. Martin Luther King,
Jr., Charles K. Steel, &
Fred L. Shuttlesworth
establish the Southern
Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC)
•King is made first
president of SCLC
•SCLC becomes major
force in organizing the
movement
•King urges participants to
“forever conduct our
struggle on the high plane
of dignity and discipline”

5. …1957
•September
–Central High School, Little Rock, AR
•Nine black high school students set out to integrate
the all-white school
–Students were blocked from entering the school – Governor
Orval Faubus’ orders
–Federal troops & National Guards sent to intervene on behalf of
the “Little Rock Nine” – President Dwight Eisenhower’s orders

6. 1960
•February 1
st
–Woolworth’s segregated
lunch counter
•4 black students from North Carolina Agricultural &
Technical College conduct sit-in
–Refused service, but allowed to stay at counter
–Event triggers many similar nonviolent protests
throughout the South
»Parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries and other
public facilities integrated because of similar efforts
–Same 4 students were actually served lunch at the same
Woolworth’s 6 months later

7. …1960
•April
–Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) founded at Shaw University
•Gave black youth a place in the movement
•Grows into a more radical organization led by
Stokely Carmichael
–Later coined the term “Black Power”

8. 1961
•May 4
th
–Freedom Riders
•Both black and white student
volunteers (1,000+) took trips to South during spring
and summer to analyze segregation laws of
interstate travel facilities
•Sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) and the SNCC
•Attacked by angry mobs along the way

9. 1962
•October 1
st
–James Meredith
•Becomes first
black student to
enroll at the
University of
Mississippi
•5,000 Federal
troops sent to
Mississippi due to
violence and riots
stemming from
integration –
orders of President
John F. Kennedy

10. 1963
•May
–Birmingham, AL Public
Safety Commissioner
Eugene “Bull” Connor
uses fire hoses & police
dogs on black
demonstrators
•Images televised and
published nation-wide
•April 16
th
–Martin Luther King arrested
& jailed in Birmingham, AL
during anti-segregation
protests
•Writes legendary “Letter
from Birmingham Jail”
–Letter argues that
“individuals have
the moral duty to
disobey laws”
• June 12
th
–Jackson, MS
•37-year-old Medgar Evers,
Mississippi’s NAACP field
secretary, gunned down
outside his home
–Byron De La
Beckwith tried
twice, both
resulting in hung
juries; convicted
30 years later
•August 28
th
–200,000+ March on
Washington, congregating
at Lincoln Memorial
•Martin Luther King, Jr.
gives his legendary “I
Have a Dream” speech
•September 15
th
–4 young girls murdered
while attending Sunday
School when Sixteenth
Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, AL was
bombed
•Riots following bombing
resulted in deaths of 2
more black youths

11. 1964
•January 23
rd
–24
th
Amendment abolishes the poll tax
•Originally instituted in 11 southern states to make
it difficult for poor blacks to vote
•Freedom Summer
–Council of Federated Organizations (COFO)
•Network of civil rights groups that includes CORE & SNCC
•Launches massive effort to register black voters
•July 2
nd
–President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1964
•August 2
nd
–Bodies of 3 civil rights workers (2 white, 1 black) found in earthen dam
in Neshoba County, MS
•Murdered by police officers/members of Ku Klux Klan
•Had been working to register black voters & investigating the burning of a
black church in Mississippi

12. 1965
•February 21
st
–Malcolm X shot to death in Harlem, NY by members of the Black Muslim
faith
•Founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity
•March 7
th
- “Bloody Sunday”
–Selma, AL marchers tear-gassed, whipped, and clubbed by police
•August 10
th

–Congress passes Voting Rights Act of 1965
•Makes registering to vote easier for Southern black voters
•August 11
th
– 17
th
–Watts/Los Angeles, CA race riots erupt
•September 24
th
–President Lyndon B. Johnson enforces affirmative action (Executive
Order 11246)

13. 1966
•October
–Militant Black Panthers organization founded
in Oakland, CA by Huey Newton & Bobby
Seale

14. 1968
•April 4
th

–Martin Luther King, Jr. shot to death at age 39
•Shot as he stands on balcony outside his hotel
room in Memphis, TN

15. 1971 - Present
•1971 - Busing becomes legitimate means for achieving
integration of public schools
•1988 – Congress passes Civil Rights Restoration Act
(overrides President Reagan’s veto)
•1992 – First race riots in decades erupt in South-Central
Los Angeles after acquittal of 4 white police officers
accused in Rodney King beating
•2004 – Emmett Till’s murder case reopened
•2005 – Rosa Parks dies at age 92
•2006 – Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
dies of a stroke at age 78
•2007 – Emmett Till’s 1955 murder case is officially closed

16. 2008
We Shall
Overcome!