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Six-year-old Ruby Bridges walked up the steps to her new school on November 14, 1960. It was her first day at William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. Ruby's mother had walked with her, but they weren't alone

Four U.S. federal marshals were with Ruby, too. They were there to protect her from the angry crowd of people at the school who didn't want Ruby there. Why? She was the first African American student to attend an all-white elementary school in the South.

At the time, many schools-especially in Southern states-were segregated, meaning that Black children attended different schools from white kids. Even though this had been against the law since 1954, it was still happening at William Frantz Elementary when she integrated, or attended school with children of different races.

People had been fighting against school segregation for many years, ever since the first laws to separate Black and white students were passed after the Civil War. It would take many brave people-including children like Ruby-to make people see that the laws did not provide equal education for all children and needed to change.

A long road ahead

Before the Civil War (1861-1865), enslaved children were not allowed to attend school. Soon after the war ended, the U.S. government required former slaveholding states that had fought against the Union to educate both white and Black children. Then, in 1868, Congress passed the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed every citizen equal rights and protection under the law-including equal access to education.

Not everyone agreed with these decisions. Southern leaders did not want Black people to have the same rights as white people. So most Southern states adopted a group of laws in the late 1870s, called Jim Crow laws, to segregate Black and white people. Throughout the South, nearly all public places-restaurants, parks, movie theaters, trains, swimming pools, schools, and even drinking fountains-were separated by race. It was because of these new laws that Black children could not attend the same schools as white children in the South.

Separate but not equal

Despite the 14th Amendment, Southern states were able to legally segregate Black and white children because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 1896 called Plessy vs. Ferguson. After Homer Plessy, a Black man, tried to sit in a whites-only train car, the court ruled that as long as Black and white people were treated equally, they could be separated by race. This became known as "separate but equal."

But "separate but equal" wasn't truly equal-conditions in places meant for Black people were usually much worse than those for white people. For instance, Black schools often had leaking roofs, sagging floors, and windows without glass. They were also overcrowded, with too many students per teacher and not enough desks or books. If books were available, they were old, outdated ones from white schools.

Black families knew that if they wanted their children to have an equal education that these laws needed to change. And the only way to do that was through the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hope for equality

In 1951, eight-year-old Linda Brown was not allowed to attend an all-white elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. Her father, Oliver Brown, did not think this was fair and filed a lawsuit against the Topeka Board of Education.

Around the same time, four other lawsuits challenging school segregation had been filed, so in 1952, the Supreme Court combined all of them into one. The justices would decide once and for all if schools could separate students based on the color of their skin.

Thurgood Marshall-who would later become the first African American Supreme Court justice-represented the five children and their families in a case called Brown vs. Board of Education. He argued that segregation was not equal and was actually harmful to children. The court agreed. On May 17, 1954, every single justice decided that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional, which meant that separating children in public schools by race went against what had been outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

School segregation was now against the law. States were ordered to begin desegregating their public schools. But changes were slow to come.

The Little Rock Nine

Some school districts defied the 1954 order by not integrating immediately or simply doing nothing. Other school boards purposefully delayed integration by years by integrating only one grade each year. Other white parents refused to send their children to integrated schools or held angry protests that were sometimes violent to prevent Black children from registering.

To help move integration along, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) decided to recruit a group of nine Black students to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The teenagers gathered on September 4, 1957, to enter the school. But the governor had called in the Arkansas National Guard, which blocked them from entering the building.

The story made headlines across America, and many people were outraged that Southern states were still defying the Supreme Court ruling. A few weeks later, on September 25, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to escort the students-now known as the Little Rock Nine-into the school. This time the students' integration efforts were successful.

The fight continues

After the Little Rock Nine, more and more Black families courageously started sending their children to all-white schools. It wasn't an easy decision for parents to make, since kids often faced bullying and loneliness. For instance, Ruby Bridges often sat in class with only her teacher because white parents didn't want their children in school with a Black student. Even Vice President Kamala Harris was part of a program in 1970 to bus children far from their neighborhoods to integrate schools in Berkeley, California.

Racial inequalities in the nation's school system still exist today, more than 65 years after the Brown decision. Schools in wealthier, mostly white neighborhoods sometimes have better technology, higher-quality books, and smaller class sizes; schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods with more people of color sometimes have older or broken computers, overcrowded classes, and buildings in need of repair.

But people continue to speak out against these inequalities and fight for equal education for all students. As former President Barack Obama said, "In the years to come, we must continue striving toward equal opportunities for all our children. ... Because when children learn and play together, they grow, build, and thrive together."

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For years, many public schools separated children based on their race. Here's how that changed so that kids of all races could go to school together.

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Every February, people in the United States celebrate the achievements and history of African Americans as part of Black History Month.

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On August 28, 2020, Martin Luther King III stood in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., as part of a demonstration to fight for changes in the ways that police interact with citizens, especially Black people.

Exactly 57 years ago, his father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., stood in the same spot and gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech during one of the most important civil rights demonstrations in U.S. history: the 1963 March on Washington. That day, over 250,000 people gathered on the National Mall to demand that people be treated equally, no matter their race.

A FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

The March on Washington took place during a nationwide civil rights movement in which Black Americans were fighting to receive the same treatment as white Americans.

Although slavery was made illegal in the United States in 1863 by the Emancipation Proclamation, Black people continued to be treated unfairly. For example, beginning in the 1890s, southern states passed what were called "Jim Crow" laws that discriminated against Black people and segregated (or separated) them from white people. The laws varied by state, but they often forced Black people to use different bathrooms from white people, ride in different train cars, or attend different schools. These "separate" facilities were often in poor condition. Many southern states also created tests to prevent Black people from voting.

Black people were also not being hired for jobs they were qualified for-especially government jobs or defense jobs like building warplanes-just because of their race. In 1941, civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph organized a march to protest that. But six days before the event, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed an executive order that banned discrimination in the defense industry and created a group to enforce the order. Randolph called off the march, but five years later, Congress stopped funding the enforcement group, and many companies went back to discriminating against Black people.

By the 1960s, many Black people were still unemployed or had low-paying jobs, and much of the country was still segregated by race. Civil rights leaders, including King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, joined with Randolph to organize another change-making demonstration: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the official name of the march.

The goal of the march was to urge President John F. Kennedy to pass a civil rights bill that would end segregation in public places like schools, ensure easier access to voting, train and place unemployed workers, and end the practice of not hiring people because of their race. The March on Washington was scheduled on the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.

"I HAVE A DREAM"

The day of the march was sunny and hot. Marchers arrived at the National Mall on buses and greeted each other with handshakes and hugs. Then they began their peaceful one-mile walk from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. The organizers estimated that perhaps 100,000 people would attend, but that day about 190,000 Black people and 60,000 white people came to the demonstration. Not a patch of grass could be seen as the marchers squeezed together to hear the speeches in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

For three hours, they heard inspiring messages from the civil rights leaders about keeping up hope in the fight for equality and a better life. John Lewis, who would go on to serve 33 years in Congress, said, "Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete."

King spoke last. One hundred years after emancipation, Black Americans, he said, were still not free. He said the marchers were there to fulfill the promise of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, which guarantees all citizens the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He said that Black people wouldn't be free until they have the freedom to visit all public spaces, freedom to enter businesses, freedom to vote, and freedom from police brutality.

Just when it seemed King was ending his speech, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted, "Tell them about the dream!" That's when he gave the most remembered line of the day: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

ACHIEVEMENTS

From the Lincoln Memorial, the leaders walked to the White House, where they met with Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to demand support for a national civil rights bill. A year later, their demand was granted. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlaws discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or national origin. It also ended segregation in all public places and made voter registration easier for everyone.

Then the next year, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It allowed the federal government to overturn state laws that had made it harder for Black people to vote.

THE FIGHT ISN'T OVER

Although the 1963 March on Washington brought important changes to the United States, the fight for equality between Black and white people isn't over. A 2013 Supreme Court decision struck down a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required some states (especially those with a history of making it hard for Black people to vote) to get permission from the federal government to change their voting laws. Since the decision, those states have created new voting rules, such as ones that decrease the amount of time for early voting and throw out ballots cast at the wrong polling station. Some say this is making voting more difficult.

Other issues also demonstrate inequality between races. For instance, according to a Harvard University study, Black Americans are over three times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans. After George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a police officer on May 25, 2020, about 15 million people across the country have protested in support of Black lives.

As A. Philip Randolph said at the 1963 March on Washington, "The March on Washington is not a climax of our struggle, but a new beginning, not only for the negro but for all Americans who thirst for freedom and a better life."

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A historic demonstration gained freedoms for Black Americans

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Gallery: Civil Rights Movement | American Experience | PBS

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View a gallery of photos taken during the civil rights movement.

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Eyes on the Prize | Article

The Black Panthers
Founded in Oakland in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the Black Panthers gained national attention for their militancy, Maoism, uniforms, and willingness to bear arms near police. Yet critics tended to ignore the fact that the Panthers' carrying of guns was legal under California law, and to overlook their many non-controversial activities, including running medical clinics and free breakfast programs for the poor. The goal of ending police brutality was only one of a ten-point Panther program that emphasized social and economic justice. Like Malcolm X, the Panthers would not renounce the use of force in self-defense, and they inevitably courted violence. Branded "the greatest threat" to America's internal security by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, the Panthers found themselves under assault by the FBI and police. Tensions culminated in a December 4, 1969, raid that left Chicago Panthers leader Fred Hampton and a colleague dead. The government eventually settled a civil rights lawsuit stemming from the incident for $1.85 million dollars.

Chicago Housing Activists
Chicago white racists were notorious for bombing black homes on the "wrong side" of the city's racial boundaries. They attacked hundreds of homes to keep African American homeowners in the ghetto. Some 15 years after the Chicago Freedom Movement of 1966, public housing remained a serious problem for the city's African American community. In one case, 14,000 people lived in a single block. Although 85% of the inhabitants were black, management was mostly white. Chicago's African American activists aimed to change that. Two of the key leaders were Lutrelle Palmer, reporter, radio host, and founder of Chicago Black United Communities; and Marion Stamps, director of the Chicago Housing Tenants Organization and a resident of the infamous Cabrini-Green development, who ran for alderman in an effort to spotlight housing issues.

Citizen's Council
In reaction to Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that declared segregation illegal in 1954, some Southerners formed local Citizens' Councils. Many white community leaders in the South - doctors, lawyers, bankers and politicians - joined the group, leading their opponents to call them a "white-collar Klan" who used their legal and economic power to suppress blacks in their communities. The editor of the organization's newspaper said, "The strategy of the Citizens' Council during the year following the U.S. Supreme Court decision was to delay, to delay, to delay...", trying to indefinitely postpone racial integration in public facilities including schools. The Council also worked to keep blacks from voting, arguing that poorly educated voters could be easily manipulated by corrupt influences.

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942 by the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation to address civil rights issues. During World War II, many African Americans served their country honorably in the military, despite still facing racial barriers at home. In 1942, the organization held America's first organized sit-in in Chicago. Initially based in the North, CORE broadened its reach in 1961 by sending racially mixed groups of passengers on Freedom Rides to desegregate interstate buses. Three of its members - Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney - were murdered in Mississippi during voter registration efforts in 1964's Freedom Summer. Speaking at Chaney's funeral, CORE's Mississippi head David Dennis said, "He's got his freedom, and we're still fighting for ours."

The FBI and the Civil Rights Movement
The Bureau of Investigations was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907, and renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in 1935. J. Edgar Hoover directed the agency from 1924 until his death in 1972. The FBI historically kept a close eye on black leaders, like Marcus Garvey, but that reached a new level in 1967 when Hoover instigated COINTELPRO, a counter intelligence program directed, in Hoover's words, "to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings." COINTELPRO harassed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, as well as the more militant Black Panthers. The FBI also infiltrated white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

Fisk University
Nashville's Fisk University was founded in 1866, after the Civil War, to provide an education for recently freed slaves. Nearly a hundred years later, Fisk hosted workshops on nonviolent demonstration, and students like Diane Nash used what they learned to lead sit-ins early in 1960 aimed at desegregating the lunch counters of the city's department stores. The students faced arrest and violent attacks from segregationists, but kept up their protest until the counters were integrated in May of that year.

Howard University Student Protesters
Long recognized as one of the nation's preeminent black institutions, Howard University had graduated civil rights leaders like Thurgood Marshall Charles Houston, Gloria Richardson, Andrew Young, Amiri Baraka, and Stokely Carmichael. By the mid-1960s, however, student leaders chafed at mandatory ROTC programs and administrators they felt were merely seeking to produce graduates acceptable to white America. The winning of the "Miss Homecoming" title by Afro-wearing Robin Gregory in 1966 kicked off a new wave of student activism. Demonstrators blocked the head of the Selective Service System from speaking, and when campus administrators cracked down on dissent and ignored student demands, protesters took over the administration building in March 1968, forcing administrators to meet several of their demands and treat them with a newfound respect. The protest at Howard University sped up the spread of the Black Student Union and Black Studies movements nationwide.

The Klu Klux Klan
At the end of the American Civil War, Confederate veterans formed the Ku Klux Klan to resist Reconstruction. The group incited riots and assaulted and murdered blacks and Republicans (the party of Lincoln, and of emancipation) to intimidate voters and influence elections.

"The Invisible Empire of the South" waned with the end of Reconstruction but was newly incarnated in the 20th century reaching an estimated peak membership of millions in the 1920s. The Klan's activities increased again in the 1950s and 1960s in opposition to the civil rights movement. In line with their founding ambitions, the Ku Klux Klan attacked and killed both blacks and whites who were seeking to enfranchise the African American population. A related movement, white Citizens' Councils, known as the "uptown Klan," espoused similarly racist views but claimed they did not sanction violence.

The Little Rock Nine
The Little Rock Nine were a group of courageous black students who integrated the Arkansas capital city's Central High School in September 1957. They were: Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls. Initially thwarted by violent white mobs and National Guard troops who refused to help, the students eventually entered school after President Dwight Eisenhower ordered paratroopers to protect them. Brown was expelled in February 1958 after verbally responding to a racial slur, but the other eight stayed, and on May 29, Green became the first of the group - and the first African American - to graduate from Central High.

The Nation of Islam and Elijah Muhammad (1897 - 1975)
A traveling silk salesman named W. D. Fard founded the Nation of Islam (NOI) in Detroit in 1930. A variant of traditional Islam, the NOI taught that God was black and whites were a race of devils whose dominion over the earth would soon end. Fard disappeared in 1934 and leadership passed to Georgia native Elijah Muhammad. The NOI began a period of explosive growth in the 1950s, attracting thousands with a doctrine of black pride, separation, and self-sufficiency. With Malcolm X as its chief spokesman, the NOI created its own school, restaurants, and a newspaper. But soon tensions between the two men surfaced. Boxer Muhammad Ali joined the NOI in 1964, while Malcolm X left to form his own organization. He was assassinated in 1965 by members of the NOI, an event for which Elijah Muhammad would always deny any responsibility.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded in 1909 in response not only to widespread lynchings of blacks in the South but also a dramatic 1908 lynching in the Great Emancipator Abraham Lincoln's hometown of Springfield, Illinois in the North. During the 1920s the NAACP developed as a mass organization, becoming the largest American civil rights group with numerous grassroots branches.

Over the years, the NAACP focused on desegregating schools and universities through the court system, winning the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 and helping James Meredith integrate the University of Mississippi in 1962. Its members (including Rosa Parks) also challenged segregation in public accommodations, lobbied for civil rights legislation in Congress, and promoted voter registration throughout the South. For their activities, several NAACP members paid the ultimate price, including the organization's Mississippi field representative, Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in 1963.

Local NAACP leaders included pioneering figures ranging from Daisy Bates in Little Rock, Arkansas and Robert F. Williams in Monroe, North Carolina to Fred Hampton in Chicago, Illinois, Father James Groppi in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Ruth Batson in Boston, Massachusetts. The Youth Councils of the NAACP played a major role in the student wing of the freedom movement.

National Welfare Rights Organization
The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was the brainchild of Syracuse University professor George Wiley, a Congress of Racial Equality member who left academia in 1964. In 1965 he formed the Poverty/Rights Action Center, which would evolve into the NWRO two years later. The NWRO advocated for improvements in the lives of welfare recipients, including dignified treatment and payments sufficient to maintain a decent quality of life. Johnnie Tillmon served as chair; she was a community and labor organizer before suffering disabilities from a life of hard labor. Alongside Beulah Sanders and thousands of other organizers, Wiley and Tillmon spread their gospel of welfare rights across the country. The NWRO grew to 30,000 members and could count more than 100,000 in their local campaigns and more than 300 local affiliates. The NWRO joined with the SCLC in 1968's Poor People's Campaign and nearly reached agreement on welfare reform with the Nixon administration, only to see the deal collapse over the issue of guaranteed incomes for recipients. The NWRO disbanded in the mid-1970s, but local affiliates continued its work.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an organization of African American ministers, formed in January 1957, shortly after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. With Martin Luther King, Jr. as its president, the SCLC promoted nonviolent protest and spearheaded civil rights campaigns in Southern towns like Birmingham and Selma. In 1966 the SCLC turned its focus to Northern ghettos with the Chicago Freedom Movement, and after King's 1968 assassination it conducted a Poor People's Campaign of civil disobedience, the centerpiece of which was a tent encampment called Resurrection City in Washington, D.C. Upon King's death, Reverend Ralph Abernathy took over leadership of the SCLC.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Students involved in nonviolent civil rights sit-ins formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. SNCC focused more on grassroots organizing than another civil rights organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Among its activities SNCC formed a musical group, the Freedom Singers, that helped inspire and raise funds for the movement (one of its members, Bernice Johnson Reagon, would later found the group Sweet Honey in the Rock).

In addition to participating in protests, SNCC members registered black voters in the rural South, including the 1964 "Freedom Summer" campaign in Mississippi. That year SNCC formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to challenge the state's all-white delegation at the party's Atlantic City convention. SNCC member and MFDP founder Unita Blackwell was arrested some 70 times during the voter registration effort. Later in life, she would become mayor of Mayersville, Mississippi, and address the 1984 Democratic Convention.

SNCC also helped organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama. That group later inspired the Black Panther Party. And SNCC's Stokely Carmichael, Willie Ricks, Ruby Doris Robinson, Cleveland Sellers and H. Rap Brown launched the "Black Power" slogan, paving the way for a new phase of the freedom movement.

Poor People's Campaign/Resurrection City (1968)
The last great initiative of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Sothern Christian Leadership Conference, the Poor People's Campaign attempted to broaden the civil rights movement to include economic justice for disadvantaged people of all races. Conceived in November 1967, it began after King's assassination in April 1968. The centerpiece of the campaign was mass civil disobedience in Washington by an army of protesters including National Welfare Rights Organization members, and in mid-May they set up an encampment on the Mall dubbed "Resurrection City." Staging a series of sit-ins and demonstrations at various government agencies, the nearly 7,000 protesters brought their concerns to the nation's attention, but conflicts in the camp, terrible weather, and the assassination of Robert Kennedy all conspired to sap strength from the campaign, and Resurrection City was shut down a month after it opened.

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Groups During the American Civil Rights Movement | American Experience | PBS

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Eyes on the Prize | Article The Black Panthers Founded in Oakland in 1966 by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, the Black Panthers gained national attention for their militancy, Maoism, uniforms, and willingness to bear arms near police.

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Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed. Alabama

Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races. Alabama

Railroads: The conductor of each passenger train is authorized and required to assign each passenger to the car or the division of the car, when it is divided by a partition, designated for the race to which such passenger belongs. Alabama

Restaurants: It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment. Alabama

Pool and Billiard Rooms: It shall be unlawful for a negro and white person to play together or in company with each other at any game of pool or billiards. Alabama

Toilet Facilities, Male: Every employer of white or negro males shall provide for such white or negro males reasonably accessible and separate toilet facilities.

Intermarriage: The marriage of a person of Caucasian blood with a Negro, Mongolian, Malay, or Hindu shall be null and void. Arizona

Intermarriage: All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a person of negro descent to the fourth generation inclusive, are hereby forever prohibited. Florida

Cohabitation: Any negro man and white woman, or any white man and negro woman, who are not married to each other, who shall habitually live in and occupy in the nighttime the same room shall each be punished by imprisonment not exceeding twelve (12) months, or by fine not exceeding five hundred ($500.00) dollars. Florida

Education: The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately. Florida

Juvenile Delinquents: There shall be separate buildings, not nearer than one fourth mile to each other, one for white boys and one for negro boys. White boys and negro boys shall not, in any manner, be associated together or worked together. Florida

Mental Hospitals: The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together. Georgia

Intermarriage: It shall be unlawful for a white person to marry anyone except a white person. Any marriage in violation of this section shall be void. Georgia

Barbers: No colored barber shall serve as a barber [to] white women or girls. Georgia

Burial: The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons. Georgia

Restaurants: All persons licensed to conduct a restaurant, shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room or serve the two races anywhere under the same license. Georgia

Amateur Baseball: It shall be unlawful for any amateur white baseball team to play baseball on any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of a playground devoted to the Negro race, and it shall be unlawful for any amateur colored baseball team to play baseball in any vacant lot or baseball diamond within two blocks of any playground devoted to the white race. Georgia

Parks: It shall be unlawful for colored people to frequent any park owned or maintained by the city for the benefit, use and enjoyment of white persons...and unlawful for any white person to frequent any park owned or maintained by the city for the use and benefit of colored persons. Georgia

Wine and Beer: All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time. Georgia

Reform Schools: The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other. Kentucky

Circus Tickets: All circuses, shows, and tent exhibitions, to which the attendance of...more than one race is invited or expected to attend shall provide for the convenience of its patrons not less than two ticket offices with individual ticket sellers, and not less than two entrances to the said performance, with individual ticket takers and receivers, and in the case of outside or tent performances, the said ticket offices shall not be less than twenty-five (25) feet apart. Louisiana

Housing: Any person...who shall rent any part of any such building to a negro person or a negro family when such building is already in whole or in part in occupancy by a white person or white family, or vice versa when the building is in occupancy by a negro person or negro family, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five ($25.00) nor more than one hundred ($100.00) dollars or be imprisoned not less than 10, or more than 60 days, or both such fine and imprisonment in the discretion of the court. Louisiana

The Blind: The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race. Louisiana

Intermarriage: All marriages between a white person and a negro, or between a white person and a person of negro descent, to the third generation, inclusive, or between a white person and a member of the Malay race; or between the negro a nd a member of the Malay race; or between a person of Negro descent, to the third generation, inclusive, and a member of the Malay race, are forever prohibited, and shall be void. Maryland

Railroads: All railroad companies and corporations, and all persons running or operating cars or coaches by steam on any railroad line or track in the State of Maryland, for the transportation of passengers, are hereby required to provide separate cars or coaches for the travel and transportation of the white and colored passengers. Maryland

Education: Separate schools shall be maintained for the children of the white and colored races. Mississippi

Promotion of Equality: Any person...who shall be guilty of printing, publishing or circulating printed, typewritten or written matter urging or presenting for public acceptance or general information, arguments or suggestions in favor of social equality or of intermarriage between whites and negroes, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and subject to fine or not exceeding five hundred (500.00) dollars or imprisonment not exceeding six (6) months or both. Mississippi

Intermarriage: The marriage of a white person with a negro or mulatto or person who shall have one-eighth or more of negro blood, shall be unlawful and void. Mississippi

Hospital Entrances: There shall be maintained by the governing authorities of every hospital maintained by the state for treatment of white and colored patients separate entrances for white and colored patients and visitors, and such entrances shall be used by the race only for which they are prepared. Mississippi

Prisons: The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts. Mississippi

Education: Separate free schools shall be established for the education of children of African descent; and it shall be unlawful for any colored child to attend any white school, or any white child to attend a colored school. Missouri

Intermarriage: All marriages between...white persons and negroes or white persons and Mongolians...are prohibited and declared absolutely void...No person having one-eighth part or more of negro blood shall be permitted to marry any white person, nor shall any white person be permitted to marry any negro or person having one-eighth part or more of negro blood. Missouri

Education: Separate rooms [shall] be provided for the teaching of pupils of African descent, and [when] said rooms are so provided, such pupils may not be admitted to the school rooms occupied and used by pupils of Caucasian or other descent. New Mexico

Textbooks: Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools, but shall continue to be used by the race first using them. North Carolina

Libraries: The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals. North Carolina

Militia: The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization.No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available, and while white permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers. North Carolina

Transportation: The...Utilities Commission...is empowered and directed to require the establishment of separate waiting rooms at all stations for the white and colored races. North Carolina

Teaching: Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined in any sum not less than ten dollars ($10.00) nor more than fifty dollars ($50.00) for each offense. Oklahoma

Fishing, Boating, and Bathing: The [Conservation] Commission shall have the right to make segregation of the white and colored races as to the exercise of rights of fishing, boating and bathing. Oklahoma

Mining: The baths and lockers for the negroes shall be separate from the white race, but may be in the same building. Oklahoma

Telephone Booths: The Corporation Commission is hereby vested with power and authority to require telephone companies...to maintain separate booths for white and colored patrons when there is a demand for such separate booths. That the Corporation Commission shall determine the necessity for said separate booths only upon complaint of the people in the town and vicinity to be served after due hearing as now provided by law in other complaints filed with the Corporation Commission. Oklahoma

Lunch Counters: No persons, firms, or corporations, who or which furnish meals to passengers at station restaurants or station eating houses, in times limited by common carriers of said passengers, shall furnish said meals to white and colored passengers in the same room, or at the same table, or at the same counter. South Carolina

Child Custody: It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro. South Carolina

Libraries: Any white person of such county may use the county free library under the rules and regulations prescribed by the commissioners court and may be entitled to all the privileges thereof. Said court shall make proper provision for the negroes of said county to be served through a separate branch or branches of the county free library, which shall be administered by [a] custodian of the negro race under the supervision of the county librarian. Texas

Education [The County Board of Education]: shall provide schools of two kinds; those for white children and those for colored children. Texas

Theaters: Every person...operating...any public hall, theatre, opera house, motion picture show or any place of public entertainment or public assemblage which is attended by both white and colored persons, shall separate the white race and the colored race and shall set apart and designate...certain seats therein to be occupied by white persons and a portion thereof , or certain seats therein, to be occupied by colored persons. Virginia

Railroads: The conductors or managers on all such railroads shall have power, and are hereby required, to assign to each white or colored passenger his or her respective car, coach or compartment. If the passenger fails to disclose his race, the conductor and managers, acting in good faith, shall be the sole judges of his race. Virginia

Intermarriage: All marriages of white persons with Negroes, Mulattos, Mongolians, or Malaya hereafter contracted in the State of Wyoming are and shall be illegal and void. Wyoming

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Examples of Jim Crow Laws - Oct. 1960 - Civil Rights

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Nurses: No person or corporation shall require any white female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed. Alabama Buses: All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races.

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After the United States Civil War, state governments that had been part of the Confederacy tried to limit the voting rights of Black citizens and prevent contact between Black and white citizens in public places.

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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.

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."

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 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.

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 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 4, 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.

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.

Sit-In at 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."

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, which 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

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.

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.

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.

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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Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders | HISTORY

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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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Twinkl Teaching Resources - United States

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The Civil Rights Movement for Kids | What is Segregation? | Black History Month | Twinkl USA

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Can Kids Change the World? | The Civil Rights Movement