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What Is The Civil Rights movement and what was its timeline?

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What Is The Civil Rights movement and what was its timeline?

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Davis, Jack E. "Civil Rights Movement." Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. Grolier Online, 2014. Web. 1 July 2014. 10/30/17

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Civil Rights Movement | Free Middle School Teaching Resources

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The civil rights movement changed America forever. Who were the leaders of the civil rights movement? What were the major events in the movement?

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He was inspired by Rosa Parks and MLK. When he was 23 he was recognized as one of the leaders of the civil rights movement

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What were some major events?                                       1. Brown v. Board of Education                                   2. Montgomery Bus Boycott   3. Birmingham  Bombing        4. Selma  

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What were some major events?                                       1. Brown v. Board of Education                                   2. Montgomery Bus Boycott   3. Birmingham  Bombing        4. Selma  

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Feldmeth, Greg D. "U.S. History Resources"
http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/USHistory.html (31 March 1998).

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Key Events in the American Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King Jr.'s first arrest, Montgomery, 1955

Event Date Significance

Plessy v. Ferguson decision

1896

Supreme Court rules that separate but equal facilities for different races is legal. Gives legal approval to Jim Crow laws

Booker T. Washington writes Up From Slavery

1901

Arguing that gradual progress is the best path for blacks, Washington focuses on job training and suggests that self-respect and self-help would bring opportunities

Korematsu v. U.S.
1944

Supreme Court rules that concentration camps were a wartime necessity

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision

1954

Supreme Court reverses Plessy by stating that separate schools are by nature unequal. Schools are ordered to desegregate "with all deliberate speed"

Bakke v. Regents of University of California decision

1978

Supreme Court rules that fixed racial quotas are illegal after Allan Bakke is denied admission to UC Davis medical school even though his grades and scores were higher than most minority applicants admitted

Los Angeles riots

May 1992

Following acquittal of officers who beat Rodney King, 600 buildings are torched and 50 people killed, and $1 billion in damage recorded

Please cite this source when appropriate:
Feldmeth, Greg D. "U.S. History Resources"
http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/USHistory.html (31 March 1998).

Back to Outlines & Charts Index

Back to U.S. History Resources main page.

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Key Events in the American Civil Rights Movement

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Key Events in the American Civil Rights Movement Martin Luther King Jr.'s first arrest, Montgomery, 1955 Event Date Significance Plessy v. Ferguson decision 1896 Supreme Court rules that separate but equal facilities for different races is legal. Gives legal approval to Jim Crow laws Booker T.

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Leaders of the Civil Rights      1. Rosa Parks                            2. Martin Luther King Jr.         3. Malcolm X                             4. John Lewis                            5. Lyndon Johnson

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Leaders of the Civil Rights      1. Rosa Parks                            2. Martin Luther King Jr.         3. Malcolm X                             4. John Lewis                            5. Lyndon Johnson

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Black History Month is our time to highlight and reflect on those who have made significant contributions to the black community. These notable civil rights leaders changed the course of history through their activism. Some, like Martin Luther King Jr., are household names. Others, like Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the March on Washington, are unsung heroes. Their names may not be included in every history textbook, but their contributions to the fight for equality are important to recognize and remember.

1. Educator Dorothy Height was president of the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years. She was a leader in both the civil rights and reproductive rights movements over her career, and was a recipient of both the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

2. Bayard Rustin was a leading civil rights activist who organized the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famed "I Have a Dream" speech. Rustin advised King on Gandhian civil disobedience tactics, and he and King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

3. Civil rights leader and politician John Lewis currently serves as the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th Congressional district. Lewis served as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1963. Lewis helped plan the March on Washington and is a hero of the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" protest at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. Lewis is considered one of the last living "Big Six" from the civil rights era.

4. Hosea Williams was a member of Martin Luther King Jr.'s inner circle and served as a trusted confidant to MLK. He dedicated his life to public service and founded the organization "Hosea Feed the Hungry and the Homeless," one of the largest holiday social services in North America.

5. Gloria Richardson co-founded the Cambridge Non-Violent Action Committee, which worked to desegregate Cambridge, Md. In honor of her work, Richardson was invited to be one of the women included in the March on Washington's "Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom."

6. The most well-known figure of the era, Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, activist, humanitarian and leader of the civil rights movement. He is best known for using nonviolent civil disobedience, grounded in Christian beliefs, to push for social change.

7. James L. Farmer Jr. led and organized the 1961 Freedom Ride on buses throughout the American South, which helped pave the way for the desegregation of interstate travel in the United States.

8. A. Philip Randolph was a prominent member of both the civil rights movement and the labor organizing movement. Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first majority-black labor union. Randolph led the March on Washington along with Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

9. Roy Wilkins became the executive director of the NAACP in 1964. During his tenure, the NAACP played an integral role in many significant civil rights victories, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

10. Whitney M. Young was the president of the National Urban League from 1961 until his death in 1971. He is credited with transforming the National Urban League and bringing it to the forefront of the civil rights movement.

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Civil Rights Leaders Who Changed History

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Black History Month is our time to highlight and reflect on those who have made significant contributions to the black community. These notable civil rights leaders changed the course of history through their activism. Some, like Martin Luther King Jr., are household names. Others, like Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the March on Washington, are unsung heroes.

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Lyndon Johnson was the means to an end of segregation because he signed the civil rights act in 1964 which outlawed segregation in business

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He served as the leader for the civil rights movement and organized many non-violent protests like the famous march on Washington

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I'm sure most of you know her. She was the one of the ones who started the main part of the civil rights movement

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Civil Rights and the 1950s: Crash Course US History #39

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Famous Civil Rights Activists Biographies 

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Famous Civil Rights Activists Biographies 

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Civil rights activists, known for their fight against social injustice and their lasting impact on the lives of all oppressed people, include Martin Luther King Jr., Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, W.E.B. Du Bois and Malcolm X.

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About the Movement

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's came about out of the need and desire for equality and freedom for African Americans and other people of color. Nearly one hundred years after slavery was abolished, there was widespread segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement and racially motivated violence that permeated all personal and structural aspects of life for black people. "Jim Crow" laws at the local and state levels barred African Americans from classrooms and bathrooms, from theaters and train cars, from juries and legislatures.

During this period of time, there was a huge surge of activism taking place to reverse this discrimination and injustice. Activists worked together and used non-violent protest and specific acts of targeted civil disobedience, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-Ins, in order to bring about change. Much of this organizing and activism took place in the Southern part of the United States; however, people from all over the country-of all races and religions-joined activists to proclaim their support and commitment to freedom and equality. For example, on August 28, 1963, 250,000 Americans came to Washington, D.C. for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They came to have their voices heard and listen to speeches by many civil rights leaders, especially Martin Luther King, Jr., who delivered what would become one of the most influential speeches in history.

Between 1954 and 1968, civil rights legislation was passed. Fundamental and lasting change was made during this relatively short period of time and its impact can be seen in a myriad of ways in our society today. However, civil rights issues such as immigration, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, the perpetual segregation of our nation's schools-to name just a few-remain and are in need of ongoing work.

Landmark and Sweeping Civil Rights Legislation

Brown v. Board of Education

"We conclude that in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

These celebrated words from the Brown v. Board of Education Majority Opinion ushered in an unprecedented era of civil rights and school restructuring in the United States. In 1954, when this judgment was written, not a single black student attended a majority white public school in the American South.

The Road to Brown

In 1892, Homer Plessy, an African-American man, refused to give up his seat to a white man on a train in New Orleans, as he was required to do by Louisiana state law. For this action he was arrested. Plessy, contending that the Louisiana law separating blacks from whites on trains violated the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, decided to fight his arrest in court. In 1896, his case was presented to the United States Supreme Court. By a vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court ruled against Plessy. With this ruling, racial segregation was permitted under the guise of "separate but equal" and racially segregated schools were made legal. Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Plessy and similar cases, many people continued to press for the abolition of Jim Crow and other racially discriminatory laws.

In 1952, five separate cases came before the U.S. District Court concerning the issue of segregation in public schools. These cases were Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas), Briggs v. Elliot (South Carolina), Davis v. Board of Education of Prince Edward County (Virginia), Boiling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia) and Gebhart v. Ethel (Delaware). While the facts of each case are different, the main issue in each was the constitutionality of state-sponsored segregation in public schools. Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund handled these cases. A three-judge panel at the U.S. District Court heard the cases and ruled in favor of the school boards. The plaintiffs then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

When the cases came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court consolidated all five cases under the name of Brown v. Board of Education. Thurgood Marshall personally argued the case before the Court. Although he raised a variety of legal issues on appeal, the most common one was that separate school systems for blacks and whites were inherently unequal, and thus violate the "equal protection clause" of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Unable to come to a solution by June 1953 (the end of the Court's 1952-1953 term), the Court decided to rehear the case in December 1953. Finally, all of the Justices agreed to support an unanimous decision.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court delivered the unanimous ruling declaring state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson fifty years ago on July 2, 1964. The Act banned discrimination in public facilities including private companies offering public services like lunch counters, hotels and theaters; provided for the integration of schools and other public facilities and made employment discrimination illegal based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The document was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.

Despite the Supreme Court's ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that school segregation was unconstitutional, in the 1960s, in many communities in the United States, African American and white people were still segregated in schools, public transportation and restaurants. Discrimination prevented many African Americans from receiving equal consideration for employment and education. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 sought to legally prohibit and punish these injustices. And while many leaders at that time reminded the public that laws alone cannot shape "the hearts and minds" of people, the power of government through laws is a critical step to bring about change.

The road to passing the Civil Rights Act was a bumpy one. For decades after Reconstruction, Congress did not pass a single civil rights act. With protests throughout the south including one in Birmingham where police tried to suppress nonviolent demonstrators with dogs and fire hoses, President John F. Kennedy decided to act. In June 1963, he proposed the most far reaching civil rights legislation to date, saying the U.S. "will not be fully free until all of its citizens are free."

Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. continued to press for the bill as did newly inaugurated President Lyndon B. Johnson. The House approved the bill with bipartisan support but when it moved to the Senate, a seventy-five day filibuster ensued. Finally, the Senate voted 73-27 in favor of the bill and President Johnson signed the bill into law on July 2, 1964. Upon signing it, he said, "Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders. We believe that all men are created equal. Yet many are denied equal treatment."

Voting Rights Act (VRA)

History of the VRA

In March 1965, on a bridge outside Selma, Alabama, a second phase of the revolution was born. Civil and human rights activists, including many young people, took to the streets in a peaceful protest for voting rights for African-Americans. They were met with clubs and violence. Many were beaten and severely injured, including a young activist named John Lewis, who now serves as Congressman for Georgia's 5th District. But the activists did not face attacks on their march in vain. Television brought this conflict of angry violence against peaceful, moral protest into living rooms across America.

Five days later, President Johnson announced to a joint session of Congress that he would bring them an effective voting rights bill. Echoing the spiritual anthem of the civil rights movement, he said simply, "We Shall Overcome."

He-and we-did overcome. On August 6, 1965, President Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act, hailed by many as the most effective civil rights law ever.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was designed to address the disenfranchisement of people of color, especially African Americans, from voting. It prohibits discrimination based on race, and requires certain jurisdictions to provide bilingual assistance to language minority voters. Section 2 of the Act, which bars the use of voting practices or procedures that discriminate against minority voters, has been used successfully to attack discrimination in voting including restrictive voter registration requirements, districting plans that dilute minority voting strength, discriminatory annexations, and the location of polling places at sites inaccessible to minority voters.

Section 5 of the Act requires federal "preclearance" before covered jurisdictions (i.e., specified jurisdictions with a history of practices that restrict minority voting rights) may make changes in existing voting practices or procedures. The Act also provides the Department of Justice with the authority to appoint federal observers and examiners to monitor elections to ensure that they are conducted fairly. Initial enforcement efforts targeted, among other things, literacy tests, poll taxes, and discriminatory registration practices.

In 1975, the Voting Rights Act was amended to address the voting rights of language minority groups. Sections 4 and 203 of the Act apply in jurisdictions with significant numbers of voters with limited or no English proficiency and require such jurisdictions to provide voting materials and assistance in relevant languages in addition to English.

Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act)

In 1966 President Lyndon Johnson failed to persuade Congress to pass a civil rights bill with a fair housing provision. The assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., generated the support needed to pass the bill two years later.

On April 11, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968-popularly known as the Fair Housing Act-which prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. It also contained anti-riot provisions and protected persons exercising specific rights-such as attending school or serving on a jury-as well as civil rights workers urging others to exercise these rights. It included the Indian Bill of Rights to extend constitutional protections to Native Americans not covered by the Bill of Rights.

When originally passed in 1968, the Act only covered four protective classes: race, color, religion, and national origin. Sex was added as a protective class in 1974. In 1988, disability and familial status were included as protective classes as well.

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The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's came about out of the need and desire for equality and freedom for African Americans and other people of color. Nearly one hundred years after slavery was abolished, there was widespread segregation, discrimination, disenfranchisement and racially motivated violence that permeated all personal and structural aspects of life for black people.

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He became a very famous man when he appeared on TV as a representative for the NOI. He didn't do anything specific but he popularized the civil rights movement across the nation.

NOI ( Nation of Islam )

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The refusal to comply with certain laws or to pay taxes and fines, as a peaceful form of political protest.

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civil disobedience meaning: 1. the act by a group of people of refusing to obey laws or pay taxes, as a peaceful way of.... Learn more.

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The separation of humans into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life.
https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/race_color.cfm

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At its height in the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement drew children, teenagers, and young adults into a maelstrom of meetings, marches, violence, and in some cases, imprisonment. Why did so many young people decide to become activists for social justice? Joyce Ladner answers this question in her interview with the Civil Rights History Project, pointing to the strong support of her elders in shaping her future path: "The Movement was the most exciting thing that one could engage in. I often say that, in fact, I coined the term, the 'Emmett Till generation.' I said that there was no more exciting time to have been born at the time and the place and to the parents that movement, young movement, people were born to... I remember so clearly Uncle Archie who was in World War I, went to France, and he always told us, 'Your generation is going to change things.'"

Several activists interviewed for the Civil Rights History Project were in elementary school when they joined the movement. Freeman Hrabowski was 12 years old when he was inspired to march in the Birmingham Children's Crusade of 1963. While sitting in the back of church one Sunday, his ears perked up when he heard a man speak about a march for integrated schools. A math geek, Hrabowski was excited about the possibility of competing academically with white children. While spending many days in prison after he was arrested at the march, photographs of police and dogs attacking the children drew nationwide attention. Hrabowski remembers that at the prison, Dr. King told him and the other children, "What you do this day will have an impact on children yet unborn." He continues, "I'll never forget that. I didn't even understand it, but I knew it was powerful, powerful, very powerful." Hrabowski went on to become president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he has made extraordinary strides to support African American students who pursue math and science degrees.

As a child, Marilyn Luper Hildreth attended many meetings of the NAACP Youth Council in Oklahoma City because her mother, the veteran activist Clara Luper, was the leader of this group. She remembers, "We were having an NAACP Youth Council meeting, and I was eight years old at that time. That's how I can remember that I was not ten years old. And I - we were talking about our experiences and our negotiation - and I suggested, made a motion that we would go down to Katz Drug Store and just sit, just sit and sit until they served us." This protest led to the desegregation of the drug store's lunch counter in Oklahoma City. Mrs. Hildreth relates more stores about what it was like to grow up in a family that was constantly involved in the movement.

While some young people came into the movement by way of their parents' activism and their explicit encouragement, others had to make an abrupt and hard break in order to do so, with some even severing familial ties. Joan Trumpauer Mulholland was a young white girl from Arlington, Virginia, when she came to realize the hypocrisy of her segregated church in which she learned songs such as "Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black and white." When she left Duke University to join the movement, her mother, who had been raised in Georgia, "thought I had been sort of sucked up into a cult... it went against everything she had grown up and believed in. I can say that a little more generously now than I could have then." Phil Hutchings' father was a lifetime member of the NAACP, but couldn't support his son when he moved toward radicalism and Black Power in the late 1960s. Hutchings reflects on the way their different approaches to the struggle divided the two men, a common generational divide for many families who lived through those times: "He just couldn't go beyond a certain point. And we had gone beyond that... and the fact that his son was doing it... the first person in the family who had a chance to complete a college education. I dropped out of school for eleven years... He thought I was wasting my life. He said, 'Are you ... happy working for Mr. Castro?'"

Many college student activists sacrificed or postponed their formal education, but they were also picking up practical skills that would shape their later careers. Michael Thelwell remembers his time as a student activist with the Nonviolent Action Group, an organization never officially recognized by Howard University and a precursor to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC): "I don't think any of us got to Howard with any extensive training in radical political activism. By that I mean, how do you write a press conference [release]? How you get the attention of the press? How do you conduct a nonviolent protest? How do you deal with the police? How do you negotiate or maneuver around the administration? We didn't come with that experience." Thelwell's first job after he graduated from college was to work for SNCC in Washington, D.C., as a lobbyist.

Similar reflections about young people in the freedom struggle are available in other collections in the Library. One such compelling narrative can be found in the webcast of the 2009 Library of Congress lecture by journalist and movement activist, Tracy Sugarman, entitled, "We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi." As is readily apparent from that lecture and the previous examples, drawn from the Civil Rights History Project collection, the movement completely transformed the lives of young activists. Many of them went on to great success as lawyers, professors, politicians, and leaders of their own communities and other social justice movements. They joined the struggle to not only shape their own futures, but to also open the possibilities of a more just world for the generations that came behind them.

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Youth in the Civil Rights Movement | Articles and Essays | Civil Rights History Project | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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At its height in the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement drew children, teenagers, and young adults into a maelstrom of meetings, marches, violence, and in some cases, imprisonment. Why did so many young people decide to become activists for social justice?

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A landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

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The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn't end discrimination against Black people-they continued to endure the devastating effects of racism, especially in the South. By the mid-20th century, Black Americans had had more than enough of prejudice and violence against them. They, along with many white Americans, mobilized and began an unprecedented fight for equality that spanned two decades.
WATCH: The Civil Rights Movement on HISTORY Vault
Jim Crow Laws

During Reconstruction, Black people took on leadership roles like never before. They held public office and sought legislative changes for equality and the right to vote.

In 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution gave Black people equal protection under the law. In 1870, the 15th Amendment granted Black American men the right to vote. Still, many white Americans, especially those in the South, were unhappy that people they'd once enslaved were now on a more-or-less equal playing field.

To marginalize Black people, keep them separate from white people and erase the progress they'd made during Reconstruction, " Jim Crow " laws were established in the South beginning in the late 19th century. Black people couldn't use the same public facilities as white people, live in many of the same towns or go to the same schools. Interracial marriage was illegal, and most Black people couldn't vote because they were unable to pass voter literacy tests.
READ MORE: How Jim Crows Limited African American Progress
Jim Crow laws weren't adopted in northern states; however, Black people still experienced discrimination at their jobs or when they tried to buy a house or get an education. To make matters worse, laws were passed in some states to limit voting rights for Black Americans.

Moreover, southern segregation gained ground in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that facilities for Black and white people could be "separate but equal."
READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?
World War II and Civil Rights

Prior to World War II, most Black people worked as low-wage farmers, factory workers, domestics or servants. By the early 1940s, war-related work was booming, but most Black Americans weren't given the better paying jobs. They were also discouraged from joining the military.

After thousands of Black people threatened to march on Washington to demand equal employment rights, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941. It opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin.

Black men and women served heroically in World War II, despite suffering segregation and discrimination during their deployment. The Tuskegee Airmen broke the racial barrier to become the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses. Yet many Black veterans were met with prejudice and scorn upon returning home. This was a stark contrast to why America had entered the war to begin with-to defend freedom and democracy in the world.

As the Cold War began, President Harry Truman initiated a civil rights agenda, and in 1948 issued Executive Order 9981 to end discrimination in the military. These events helped set the stage for grass-roots initiatives to enact racial equality legislation and incite the civil rights movement.
READ MORE: Why Harry Truman Ended Segregation in the US Military
Rosa Parks

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old woman named Rosa Parks found a seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus after work. Segregation laws at the time stated Black passengers must sit in designated seats at the back of the bus, and Parks had complied.

When a white man got on the bus and couldn't find a seat in the white section at the front of the bus, the bus driver instructed Parks and three other Black passengers to give up their seats. Parks refused and was arrested.

As word of her arrest ignited outrage and support, Parks unwittingly became the "mother of the modern day civil rights movement." Black community leaders formed the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) led by Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr., a role which would place him front and center in the fight for civil rights.

Parks' courage incited the MIA to stage a boycott of the Montgomery bus system. The Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted 381 days. On November 14, 1956 the Supreme Court ruled segregated seating was unconstitutional.

Little Rock Nine

In 1954, the civil rights movement gained momentum when the United States Supreme Court made segregation illegal in public schools in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. In 1957, Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas asked for volunteers from all-Black high schools to attend the formerly segregated school.

On September 3, 1957, nine Black students, known as the Little Rock Nine, arrived at Central High School to begin classes but were instead met by the Arkansas National Guard (on order of Governor Orval Faubus) and a screaming, threatening mob. The Little Rock Nine tried again a couple of weeks later and made it inside, but had to be removed for their safety when violence ensued.

Finally, President Dwight D. Eisenhower intervened and ordered federal troops to escort the Little Rock Nine to and from classes at Central High. Still, the students faced continual harassment and prejudice.

Their efforts, however, brought much-needed attention to the issue of desegregation and fueled protests on both sides of the issue.
READ MORE: Why Eisenhower Sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock After Brown v. Board
Civil Rights Act of 1957

Even though all Americans had gained the right to vote, many southern states made it difficult for Black citizens. They often required prospective voters of color to take literacy tests that were confusing, misleading and nearly impossible to pass.

Wanting to show a commitment to the civil rights movement and minimize racial tensions in the South, the Eisenhower administration pressured Congress to consider new civil rights legislation.

On September 9, 1957, President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law, the first major civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It allowed federal prosecution of anyone who tried to prevent someone from voting. It also created a commission to investigate voter fraud.

Woolworth's Lunch Counter

Despite making some gains, Black Americans still experienced blatant prejudice in their daily lives. On February 1, 1960, four college students took a stand against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina when they refused to leave a Woolworth's lunch counter without being served.

Over the next several days, hundreds of people joined their cause in what became known as the Greensboro sit-ins. After some were arrested and charged with trespassing, protesters launched a boycott of all segregated lunch counters until the owners caved and the original four students were finally served at the Woolworth's lunch counter where they'd first stood their ground.

Their efforts spearheaded peaceful sit-ins and demonstrations in dozens of cities and helped launch the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to encourage all students to get involved in the civil rights movement. It also caught the eye of young college graduate Stokely Carmichael, who joined the SNCC during the Freedom Summer of 1964 to register Black voters in Mississippi. In 1966, Carmichael became the chair of the SNCC, giving his famous speech in which he originated the phrase "Black power."
READ MORE: How the Greensboro Four Sit-In Sparked a Movement
Freedom Riders

On May 4, 1961, 13 " Freedom Riders"-seven Black and six white activists-mounted a Greyhound bus in Washington, D.C., embarking on a bus tour of the American south to protest segregated bus terminals. They were testing the 1960 decision by the Supreme Court in Boynton v. Virginia that declared the segregation of interstate transportation facilities unconstitutional.

Facing violence from both police officers and white protesters, the Freedom Rides drew international attention. On Mother's Day 1961, the bus reached Anniston, Alabama, where a mob mounted the bus and threw a bomb into it. The Freedom Riders escaped the burning bus, but were badly beaten. Photos of the bus engulfed in flames were widely circulated, and the group could not find a bus driver to take them further. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (brother to President John F. Kennedy) negotiated with Alabama Governor John Patterson to find a suitable driver, and the Freedom Riders resumed their journey under police escort on May 20. But the officers left the group once they reached Montgomery, where a white mob brutally attacked the bus. Attorney General Kennedy responded to the riders-and a call from Martin Luther King Jr.-by sending federal marshals to Montgomery.

On May 24, 1961, a group of Freedom Riders reached Jackson, Mississippi. Though met with hundreds of supporters, the group was arrested for trespassing in a "whites-only" facility and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Attorneys for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People ( NAACP) brought the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, who reversed the convictions. Hundreds of new Freedom Riders were drawn to the cause, and the rides continued.

In the fall of 1961, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals
HISTORY and Google Earth: Follow the Freedom Riders' Journey Against Segregation During the Civil Rights Era
March on Washington

Arguably one of the most famous events of the civil rights movement took place on August 28, 1963: the March on Washington. It was organized and attended by civil rights leaders such as A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King Jr.

More than 200,000 people of all races congregated in Washington, D. C. for the peaceful march with the main purpose of forcing civil rights legislation and establishing job equality for everyone. The highlight of the march was King's speech in which he continually stated, "I have a dream..."

King's " I Have a Dream" speech galvanized the national civil rights movement and became a slogan for equality and freedom.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964-legislation initiated by President John F. Kennedy before his assassination -into law on July 2 of that year.

King and other civil rights activists witnessed the signing. The law guaranteed equal employment for all, limited the use of voter literacy tests and allowed federal authorities to ensure public facilities were integrated.
READ MORE: 8 Steps That Paved the Way to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Bloody Sunday

On March 7, 1965, the civil rights movement in Alabama took an especially violent turn as 600 peaceful demonstrators participated in the Selma to Montgomery march to protest the killing of Black civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by a white police officer and to encourage legislation to enforce the 15th amendment.

As the protesters neared the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were blocked by Alabama state and local police sent by Alabama governor George C. Wallace, a vocal opponent of desegregation. Refusing to stand down, protesters moved forward and were viciously beaten and teargassed by police and dozens of protesters were hospitalized.

The entire incident was televised and became known as " Bloody Sunday." Some activists wanted to retaliate with violence, but King pushed for nonviolent protests and eventually gained federal protection for another march.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

When President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965, he took the Civil Rights Act of 1964 several steps further. The new law banned all voter literacy tests and provided federal examiners in certain voting jurisdictions.

It also allowed the attorney general to contest state and local poll taxes. As a result, poll taxes were later declared unconstitutional in Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections in 1966.

Part of the Act was walked back decades later, in 2013, when a Supreme Court decision ruled that Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act was unconstitutional, holding that the constraints placed on certain states and federal review of states' voting procedures were outdated.

Civil Rights Leaders Assassinated

The civil rights movement had tragic consequences for two of its leaders in the late 1960s. On February 21, 1965, former Nation of Islam leader and Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally.

On April 4, 1968, civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on his hotel room's balcony. Emotionally-charged looting and riots followed, putting even more pressure on the Johnson administration to push through additional civil rights laws.
READ MORE: Why People Rioted After Martin Luther King Jr.'s Assassination
Fair Housing Act of 1968

The Fair Housing Act became law on April 11, 1968, just days after King's assassination. It prevented housing discrimination based on race, sex, national origin and religion. It was also the last legislation enacted during the civil rights era.

The civil rights movement was an empowering yet precarious time for Black Americans. The efforts of civil rights activists and countless protesters of all races brought about legislation to end segregation, Black voter suppression and discriminatory employment and housing practices.
READ MORE: Civil Rights Movement Timeline
Six Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement
10 Things You May Not Know About Martin Luther King Jr.

Sources

A Brief History of Jim Crow. Constitutional Rights Foundation.
Civil Rights Act of 1957. Civil Rights Digital Library.
Document for June 25th: Executive Order 8802: Prohibition of Discrimination in the Defense Industry. National Archives.
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-In. African American Odyssey.
Little Rock School Desegregation (1957). The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute Stanford.
Rosa Marie Parks Biography. Rosa and Raymond Parks.
Selma, Alabama, (Bloody Sunday March 7, 1965). BlackPast.org.
The Civil Rights Movement (1919-1960s). National Humanities Center.
The Little Rock Nine. National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior: Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site.
Turning Point: World War II. Virginia Historical Society.

Photo Galleries

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The civil rights movement was a struggle for justice and equality for African Americans that took place mainly in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its leaders were Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Little Rock Nine, Rosa Parks and many others.

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In the early 1960s, the fundamental prize sought by the Civil Rights Movement was something that African Americans had never known: full legal equality.

When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans throughout much of the South were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to insults and violence, and could not expect justice from the courts. In the North, black Americans also faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, and many other areas. But the civil rights movement had made important progress, and change was on the way.

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Many southern political leaders claimed the desegregation decision violated the rights of states to manage their systems of public education, and they responded with defiance, legal challenges, delays, or token compliance. As a result, school desegregation proceeded very slowly. By the end of the 1950s, fewer than 10 percent of black children in the South were attending integrated schools.

The pace of civil rights protests rose sharply in response to the Supreme Court's decision. Martin Luther King Jr. led a boycott that ended segregated busing in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1957, National Guard troops under orders from President Dwight D. Eisenhower enforced the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. But, even after Little Rock, school integration was painfully slow, and segregation in general remained largely untouched.

In February 1960, four black college students sat down at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked to be served. They were refused service, and they refused to leave their seats. Within days, more than 50 students had volunteered to continue the sit-in, and within weeks the movement had spread to other college campuses. Sit‑ins and other protests swept across the South in early 1960, touching more than 65 cities in 12 states. Roughly 50,000 young people joined the protests that year.

By the 1960 presidential campaign, civil rights had emerged as a crucial issue. Just a few weeks before the election, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested while leading a protest in Atlanta, Georgia. John Kennedy phoned his wife, Coretta Scott King to express his concern, while a call from Robert Kennedy to the judge helped secure her husband's safe release. The Kennedys' personal intervention led to a public endorsement by Martin Luther King Sr., the influential father of the civil rights leader.

Across the nation, more than 70 percent of African Americans voted for Kennedy, and these votes provided the winning edge in several key states. When President Kennedy took office in January 1961, African Americans had high expectations for the new administration.

But Kennedy's narrow election victory and small working margin in Congress left him cautious. He was reluctant to lose southern support for legislation on many fronts by pushing too hard on civil rights legislation. Instead, he appointed unprecedented numbers of African Americans to high-level positions in the administration and strengthened the Civil Rights Commission. He spoke out in favor of school desegregation, praised a number of cities for integrating their schools, and put Vice President Lyndon Johnson in charge of the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. Attorney General Robert Kennedy turned his attention to voting rights, initiating five times the number of suits brought during the previous administration.

President Kennedy may have been reluctant to push ahead with civil rights legislation, but millions of African Americans would not wait. Eventually, the administration was compelled to act.

For decades, seating on buses in the South had been segregated, along with bus station waiting rooms, rest rooms, and restaurants. In May 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), led by James Farmer, organized integrated Freedom Rides to defy segregation in interstate transportation. Freedom Riders were arrested in North Carolina and beaten in South Carolina. In Alabama, a bus was burned and the riders attacked with baseball bats and tire irons. Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 400 federal marshals to protect the freedom riders and urged the Interstate Commerce Commission to order the desegregation of interstate travel.

In 1962, James H. Meredith Jr., an African American Air Force veteran, was denied admission to the University of Mississippi, known as "Ole Miss." Meredith attempted to register four times without success.

Long telephone conversations between the president, the attorney general, and Governor Ross Barnett failed to produce a solution. When federal marshals accompanied Meredith to campus in another attempt to register for classes, rioting erupted. Two people died and dozens were injured. President Kennedy mobilized the National Guard and sent federal troops to the campus. Meredith registered the next day and attended his first class, and segregation ended at the University of Mississippi.
See Integrating Old Miss, an interactive website that tells the story of James Meredith and the tumultuous events surrounding his historic admission to the University of Mississippi.
In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr., and Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth launched a campaign of mass protests in Birmingham, Alabama, which King called the most segregated city in America. Initially, the demonstrations had little impact. Then, on Good Friday, King was arrested and spent a week behind bars, where he wrote one of his most famous meditations on racial injustice and civil disobedience, "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Meanwhile, James Bevel, one of King's young lieutenants, summoned black youths to march in the streets at the beginning of May. Birmingham City Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor used police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses to put down the demonstrations. Nearly a thousand young people were arrested. The violence was broadcast on television to the nation and the world.

Invoking federal authority, President Kennedy sent several thousand troops to an Alabama air base, and his administration responded by speeding up the drafting of a comprehensive civil rights bill.

Governor George Wallace had vowed at his inauguration to defend "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever." In June 1963, he upheld his promise to "stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent two black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama. To protect the students and secure their admission, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard. And on June 11, the president addressed the nation.

Kennedy defined the civil rights crisis as moral, as well as constitutional and legal. He announced that major civil rights legislation would be submitted to the Congress to guarantee equal access to public facilities, to end segregation in education, and to provide federal protection of the right to vote.

In August 1963, more than 200,000 Americans of all races celebrated the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation by joining the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Key civil rights figures led the march, including A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, and Whitney Young. But the most memorable moment came when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Later that fall, the comprehensive civil rights bill cleared several hurdles in Congress and won the endorsement of House and Senate Republican leaders. It was not passed, however, before November 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated. The bill was left in the hands of Lyndon B. Johnson. Before becoming vice president, Johnson had served more than two decades in Congress as a congressman and senator from Texas. He used his connections with southern white congressional leaders, and with the assistance of Robert Kennedy's Justice Department and the outpouring of emotion after the president's assassination, the Civil Rights Act was passed as a way to honor President Kennedy.

Provisions of the legislation included: (1) protecting African Americans against discrimination in voter qualification tests; (2) outlawing discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; (3) authorizing the US Attorney General's Office to file legal suits to enforce desegregation in public schools; (4) authorizing the withdrawal of federal funds from programs practicing discrimination; and (5) outlawing discrimination in employment in any business exceeding 25 people and creating an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to review complaints.

Passed on July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act was a crucial step in achieving the civil rights movement's initial goal: full legal equality.

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When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, black Americans, especially those living in southern and border states, were denied legal equality and human dignity. They could not vote, were barred from public facilities, were subjected to routine insults and violence (often carried out by law enforcement officials), and could not expect justice from the courts.