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May
17, 1954
Supreme Court outlaws school segregation
in Brown v. Board of Education
July 11,
1954
White citizens council formed to resist desegregation
August 28,
1955
Emmett Louis Till
Murdered for speaking to a white woman, Money, Miss.
December 1, 1955
Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a
white man, Montgomery, Ala.
December 5,
1955
Montgomery bus boycott begins
November 13,
1956
Supreme Court bans segregated seating on Montgomery buses
August 29,
1957
Congress passes first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction
September 24, 1957
President Eisenhower orders federal troops to enforce school desegregation, Little
Rock, Ark.
February 1,
1960
Black students stage sit-in at ‘whites only’ lunch counter, Greensboro, N.C.
April 16,
1960
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (sncc)
founded to promote youth involvement
December 5,
1960
Supreme Court outlaws segregation in bus terminals
January 6,
1961
The University of Georgia is desegregated after a federal judge orders that two African-American students be admitted. White students jeer, “two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate.”
May 14,
1961
Freedom Riders attacked in Alabama while testing compliance with bus desegregation laws
May 21,
1961
Federal Marshals sent to protect civil rights activists
threatened by a mob in Montgomery, Ala.
April 1,
1962
Civil Rights groups join forces to launch voter registration drive
September 30, 1962
Riots erupt when James
Meredith, a black student, enrolls at Ole Miss
May 3,
1963
Birmingham police attack marching children with dogs and fire hoses
June 11,
1963
Alabama governor stands in schoolhouse door to stop university integration
June 12,
1963
Medgar Evers
Civil Rights leader assassinated, Jackson, Miss.
August 28,
1963
25,000 Americans march on Washington for civil rights
September 15,
1963
Addie Mae Collins, Denise Mcnair, Carole Robertson & Cynthia Wesley
Schoolgirls killed in bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Ala.
January 23,
1964
The 24th amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlaws poll
tax in federal elections
June 20,
1964
Freedom
summer brings 1,000 young civil rights volunteers to Miss.
June 21,
1964
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman & Michael Schwerner
Civil rights workers abducted and slain by klansmen, Philadelphia,
Miss.
July 2,
1964
President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1964
February 26,
1965
Jimmie Lee Jackson
Civil rights marcher killed by state trooper, Marion, Ala.
March 7,
1965
State troopers beat back marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, Ala.
March 25,
1965
Civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery completed
July 9,
1965
Congress passes Voting Rights Act of 1965
