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The Civil Rights Act of 1957, passed on September 9, 1957, was the first Civil Rights legislation passed since Reconstruction. The Civil Rights Act banned the institution of practices designed to prevent blacks from voting, such as literacy tests.  It also allowed for investigation into cases of voting fraud (Civil Rights Movement).

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“King’s [Martin Luther King Jr.’s] ‘Letter from Birmingham City Jail’ of April 16,1963, defended civil disobedience and warned that frustrated African Americans might turn to black nationalism, a development that he predicted would lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.  International news coverage of the Birmingham clashes prompted Pres.  John F. Kennedy to introduce legislation that eventually became the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” (Clayborne).
www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement

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“I had to get the news from the TV man. ‘Today, July second, 1964,’ he said, ‘the president of the United States signed the Civil Rights Act into law in the East Room of the White House,’” (20).

In The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd adds bits and pieces that depict real life events happening at the time the novel takes place.

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“Rosaleen came home, a bona fide registered voter in the United States of America,” (283).

This quote demonstrates how Rosaleen felt when she was finally able to vote. In the beginning of the novel, she was beaten for trying to register to vote, but she finally got to excercise her right to vote.

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“That is when the dealer lifted the flashlight over his head then down, smashing it into Rosaleen’s forehead. She dropped to her knees... “maybe now you feel like apologizing” the dealer said. Rosaleen tried to get to her feet, but without her hands it was hopeless. It took me and Mr. Gaston both to pull her up. “Your black ass is gonna apologize one way or another”, the dealer said, and stepped toward Rosaleen,” (35-36).

The white response to Rosaleen going to register to vote demonstrates how important it was to some whites to prevent blacks from moving towards equality.  Rosaleen was beaten and sent to jail for simply standing up for rights.

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“I studied at a Negro teachers’ college in Maryland. June did too, but it was hard to get a job, since there weren’t that many places for Negros to teach,” (145).

Being an African American it was hard to get jobs, and couldn’t get jobs at white establishments. This created fewer jobs for June and august to get jobs at schools.

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“He filled us in an interrelation parade in St. Augustine that got attacked by a mob of white people, about white vigilante groups, fire hoses, and teargas. We got all the totals. Three civil rights workers killed. Two bomb blasts. Three Negro students chased with ax handles,” (88).

At the Boatwright house, Lily and the Boatwright sisters watched the news together. They saw reports of all the things that were happening to African Americans across the country. It demonstrates the horrible lengths that whites were willing to go to prevent racial equality.

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The Voting Rights Act was passed into a law on August 6, 1965. This act banned literacy tests and poll taxes, and instituted federal examiners who had the power to register citizens to vote (Civil Rights Movement).
#righttovote
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement

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The Fair Housing Act became a law on April 11, 1968. This was the last act passed in the Civil Rights Era. It banned discrimination based on sex, race, religion, and nationalality (Civil Rights Movement).
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement

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“Operating within customer, the driver asked four black women in the middle row to get up so that the new white passengers could sit down. Two did, but the two other women refused. The driver asked again, but when they refused he hailed a nearby police officer. Three policemen soon boarded the bus... but one female resistor remained in her seat. She was a feisty fifteen-year-old named Claudette Colvin. At one point during the incident, Colvin declared: ‘I done paid my dime. I ain’t got no reason to move,’” (Aretha 38).

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“So you've been here the whole time, staying with colored women. Jesus Christ,” (291).

When Lily’s father T. Ray comes and sees that she has been living with colored women, he is very angry. He believes that people of other nationalities are not good people and should not be raising a white girl.

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“On Oct. 7, 1963, James Forman and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) helped organize more than 300 black citizens from Dallas County to go to the voter registration office in Selma. Though they waited in line all day, only a few were allowed to fill out applications, all of which were defined by white officials,” (Marching for the Vote).

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“Segregation of public schools was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in 1954 with Brown v Board of Education... President Dwight D Eisenhower deployed federal troops to ensure nine black students entered high school after Arkansas Governor Orval Faunus has called in the National Guard,” (Segregation in the United States).

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“Despite the bombing of King’s [Martin Luther King Jr.’s] house and other acts of intimidation by segregationists, MIA [Montgomery Improvement Association] leaders were able to sustain the [bus] boycott until November 1956, when the NAACP [Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People] won a Supreme Court order to desegregate the bus system,” (Clayborne).
www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement

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“The one-day boycott put the bus company on notice. Since at least three-quarters of the city’s regular bus riders were black, bus revenue dropped dramatically on Monday. Many of the white riders had skipped riding the bus that day, either in support of the boycotters or to avoid the whole scene,” (Aretha 49).
#fightingforthecause

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“Four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina, sparked a new phase of the Southern civil rights movement on February 1, 1960, when they staged a sit-in at a drugstore lunch counter reserved for whites,” (Clayborne).
www.britannica.com/event/American-civil-rights-movement

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“The first of three protest marches took place on March 7, 1965, a day known as Bloody Sunday... As marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they were met by state troopers and armed citizens. Troopers on horseback charged the marchers, attacking them with nightsticks and tear gas. The crowd also participated in the attack, leaving many marchers severely injured and some even beaten unconscious. Fifty marchers were injured and 17 were hospitalized,” (Marching For the Vote).
#bloodysunday

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“I asked one white man where the [voting] registration office was and he directed me to go down to Hatcher Bottom.  That’s the swamp along the Hatcher River, where a Negro was lynched back about 1940 after he tried to vote,” (Uschan 46).

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“The church was a meeting place for black activists and citizens during the movement, acting as a sort of headquarters for activism planning. Shuttlesworth and Dr. King were frequent speakers at the church.On September 15, 1963, two Ku Klux Klan members planted 19 sticks of dynamite outside the church’s basement. The explosion killed four young black girls – Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair – and injured 22 other people,” (Marching for the Vote).
#fourangelsdied
https://medium.com/@BonnieKGoodman/otd-in-history-september-15-1963-the-16th-street-baptist-church-bombing-in-birmingham-alabama-857e6b5937c7

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“A new group of Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery on May 22, 1961, to replace those who had been wounded, and on May 24, they boarded buses bound for Jackson, Mississippi. The riders were not attacked upon arrival, but they were arrested shortly after when they attempted to use whites-only facilities at the station,” (Marching for the Vote).
#freedomriders
https://www.apr.org/post/remembering-freedom-riders

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She remembers when forty African Americans went and sat in on a white segregated library. She remembers seeing the police rushing in and bringing them to jail.  Elaine remembers her first arrest with her sisters. They were sitting at the white lunch counter. Her and her sisters were so excited to final get their first arrest. They knew that to get something done, they needed to get arrested. Elaine and her sisters got arrested 17 times together.

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Betty was one of the many people that  attempted walking across the bridge on the way to Montgomery on Bloody Sunday. She was towards the back of the march, and saw police officers on horses up ahead. All of a sudden, she saw smoke and the police officers charging ahead, whipping the people. She remembers running away trying to escape getting whipped.

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Betty Strong Boynton Interview Selma, AL

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“Montgomery featured segregated schools, restaurants, restrooms and drinking fountains. But black citizens felt the pain of segregation most acutely on the buses. Whites were right there, in their faces. Blacks had to swallow whatever pride they had and cower subserviently to the back of the bus,” (Aretha 30).
https://www.thevintagenews.com/2015/06/05/27-heartbreaking-photos-that-sums-up-the-racial-segregation-era-in-the-united-states/

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“The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.  We will no longer plead—we will write the proper laws on the books.  Give us the ballot, and we will fill the legislatures with men of good will,’” (Uschan 47).

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On August 31, 1962, Hamer registered [to vote] in Indianola.  When she returned to the plantation, he owner told her she had to withdraw her registration or be fired...Because Hamer refused, she was kicked off the plantation where she had lived and worked for eighteen years,” (Uschan 52).

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“Shortly after that [the bombing of Martin Luther King Jr.’s home], another explosive device rocked Birmingham’s A.C. Gaston Motel, headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) while it led antisegregation protests,” (Uschan 72).

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“In his inaugural address, Alabama governor Geaorge Wallace pleaded he would never quit fighting civil rights: ‘It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, This very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom...In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny [the federal government].  And I say, Segregation now!  Segregation tomorrow!  Segregation forever!’” (Uschan 78).