# data[].attributes.headline
How did MLK Jr. Die? The assassination of MLK Jr. 

# data[].attributes.subject
How did MLK Jr. Die? The assassination of MLK Jr. 

# data[].attributes.body
What led to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? How did his death affect the Civil Rights Movement?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Table of Contents

1. King Assassination: Background

2. Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

3. King Assassination Conspiracy

4. Impact of the King Assassination

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that sent shock waves reverberating around the world. A Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King had led the civil rights movement since the mid-1950s, using a combination of impassioned speeches and nonviolent protests to fight segregation and achieve significant civil rights advances for African Americans. His assassination led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for an equal housing bill that would be the last significant legislative achievement of the civil rights era.

King Assassination: Background

In the last years of his life, Dr. King faced mounting criticism from young African American activists who favored a more confrontational approach to seeking change. These young radicals stuck closer to the ideals of the Black nationalist leader Malcolm X ( himself assassinated in 1965), who had condemned King's advocacy of nonviolence as "criminal" in the face of the continuing repression suffered by African Americans.

As a result of this opposition, King sought to widen his appeal beyond his own race, speaking out publicly against the Vietnam War and working to form a coalition of poor Americans-Black and white alike-to address such issues as poverty and unemployment.

Did you know? Among the witnesses at King's assassination was Jesse Jackson, one of his closest aides. Ordained as a minister soon after King's death, Jackson went on to form Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) and to run twice for U.S. president, in 1984 and 1988.

In the spring of 1968, while preparing for a planned march to Washington to lobby Congress on behalf of the poor, King and other SCLC members were called to Memphis, Tennessee, to support a sanitation workers' strike. On the night of April 3, King gave a speech at the Mason Temple Church in Memphis.

In his speech, King seemed to foreshadow his own untimely passing, or at least to strike a particularly reflective note, ending with these now-historic words: "I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

In fact, King had already survived an assassination attempt in the shoe section of a Harlem department store on September 20, 1958. The incident only affirmed his belief in non-violence.

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

At 6:05 p.m. the following day, King was standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he and his associates were staying, when a sniper's bullet struck him in the neck. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, at the age of 39.

Shock and distress over the news of King's death sparked rioting in more than 100 cities around the country, including burning and looting. Amid a wave of national mourning, President Lyndon B. Johnson urged Americans to "reject the blind violence" that had killed King, whom he called the "apostle of nonviolence."

He also called on Congress to speedily pass the civil rights legislation then entering the House of Representatives for debate, calling it a fitting legacy to King and his life's work. On April 11, Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, a major piece of civil rights legislation that prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin or sex. It is considered an important follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

King Assassination Conspiracy

On June 8, authorities apprehended the suspect in King's murder, a small-time criminal named James Earl Ray, at London's Heathrow Airport. Witnesses had seen him running from a boarding house near the Lorraine Motel carrying a bundle; prosecutors said he fired the fatal bullet from a bathroom in that building. Authorities found Ray's fingerprints on the rifle used to kill King, a scope and a pair of binoculars.

On March 10, 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to King's murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. No testimony was heard in his trial. Shortly afterwards, however, Ray recanted his confession, claiming he was the victim of a conspiracy. The House Select Committee on Assassinations (who also investigated the assassination of JFK) maintained that Ray's shot killed king.

Ray later found sympathy in an unlikely place: Members of King's family, including his son Dexter, who publicly met with Ray in 1977 and began arguing for a reopening of his case. Though the U.S. government conducted several investigations into the trial-each time confirming Ray's guilt as the sole assassin-controversy still surrounds the assassination.

At the time of Ray's death in 1998, King's widow Coretta Scott King (who in the weeks after her husband's death had courageously continued the campaign to aid the striking Memphis sanitation workers and carried on his mission of social change through nonviolent means) publicly lamented that "America will never have the benefit of Mr. Ray's trial, which would have produced new revelations about the assassination...as well as establish the facts concerning Mr. Ray's innocence."

Impact of the King Assassination

Though Black and white people alike mourned King's passing, the killing in some ways served to widen the rift between Black and white Americans, as many Black people saw King's assassination as a rejection of their vigorous pursuit of equality through the nonviolent resistance he had championed.

His murder, like the killing of Malcolm X in 1965, radicalized many moderate African American activists, fueling the growth of the Black Power movement and the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

King has remained the most widely known African American leader of his era, and the most public face of the civil rights movement, along with its most eloquent voice.

A campaign to establish a national holiday in his honor began almost immediately after his death, and its proponents overcame significant opposition-critics pointed to FBI surveillance files suggesting King's adultery and his influence by Communists-before President Ronald Reagan signed the King holiday bill into law in 1983.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination - Facts, Reaction & Impact | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Baptist minister and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. His murder led to an outpouring of anger among Black Americans, as well as a period of national mourning that helped speed the way for lasting civil rights legislation.

# data[].attributes.headline
Photo Analysis: The Signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968

# data[].attributes.subject
Photo Analysis: The Signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968

# data[].attributes.body
Look at the photo. Carefully examine the photo. Use the photo to answer the questions. Also think about the goals of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Courtesy of Library of Congress, Leffler, Warren K., "Lyndon Baines Johnson signing Civil Rights Bill," 11 April 1968

Description

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was a landmark law in the United States signed into law by United States President Lyndon B. Johnson provided an avenue for equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed or national origin and made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone ... by reason of their race, color, religion or national origin." Part of this act is commonly known as the Fair Housing Act and was meant as a follow‑up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Source-Dependent Questions

Look closely at the photo. Why would a group of people gather around President Johnson as he signed the Civil Rights Act?

The 1968 Civil Rights Act was a follow up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 addressed equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed or national origin. Discuss reasons why another Civil Rights act needed to be signed into law after the one signed in 1964.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 also made it a federal crime to "by force or by threat of force, injure, intimidate, or interfere with anyone... by reason of their race, color, religion or national origin." Discuss reasons why this specific language would be included in the Civil Rights Act.

Citation Information

Leffler, Warren K., "Lyndon Baines Johnson signing Civil Rights Bill," 11 April 1968. Courtesy of Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
President Lyndon B. Johnson Signs 1968 Civil Rights Act, April 11, 1968

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Source-Dependent Questions Look closely at the photo. Why would a group of people gather around President Johnson as he signed the Civil Rights Act? The 1968 Civil Rights Act was a follow up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 addressed equal housing opportunities regardless of race, creed or national origin.

# data[].attributes.headline
Freedom Riders Remember Anniston, Alabama. Watch this news story from their experience.

# data[].attributes.subject
Freedom Riders Remember Anniston, Alabama. Watch this news story from their experience.

# data[].attributes.body
What happened to some college students who wanted to try to desegregate the public transportation system? Did they get the help they needed? Why did it take 50 years?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Freedom Riders recount Ala. attack 50 yrs later

# data[].attributes.headline
Who were the Freedom Riders? Representative John Lewis and the 13 Freedom Riders.

# data[].attributes.subject
Who were the Freedom Riders? Representative John Lewis and the 13 Freedom Riders.

# data[].attributes.body
A link from the New York Times recalling the original Freedom Riders and their cause for the desegregation of public transportation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Who Were the Freedom Riders? (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Representative John Lewis was among the 13 original Freedom Riders, who encountered violence and resistance as they rode buses across the South, challenging the nation’s segregation laws.

# data[].attributes.body
Learn about the violence from the eyes of CORE. The people who were in Mississippi during Freedom Summer. This is the 3rd largest of the Big Four Civil Rights Groups.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Freedom Summer was a highly publicized campaign in the Deep South to register blacks to vote during the summer of 1964.

During the summer of 1964, thousands of civil rights activists, many of them white college students from the North, descended on Mississippi and other Southern states to try to end the long-time political disenfranchisement of African Americans in the region. Although black men had won the right to vote in 1870, thanks to the Fifteenth Amendment, for the next 100 years many were unable to exercise that right. White local and state officials systematically kept blacks from voting through formal methods, such as poll taxes and literacy tests, and through cruder methods of fear and intimidation, which included beatings and lynchings. The inability to vote was only one of many problems blacks encountered in the racist society around them, but the civil-rights officials who decided to zero in on voter registration understood its crucial significance as well the white supremacists did. An African American voting bloc would be able to effect social and political change.

Freedom Summer marked the climax of intensive voter-registration activities in the South that had started in 1961. Organizers chose to focus their efforts on Mississippi because of the state's particularly dismal voting-rights record: in 1962 only 6.7 percent of African Americans in the state were registered to vote, the lowest percentage in the country. The Freedom Summer campaign was organized by a coalition called the Mississippi Council of Federated Organizations, which was led by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). By mobilizing volunteer white college students from the North to join them, the coalition scored a major public relations coup as hundreds of reporters came to Mississippi from around the country to cover the voter-registration campaign.

The organization of the Mississippi Freedom Party (MFDP) was a major focus of the summer program. More than 80,000 Mississippians joined the new party, which elected a slate of sixty-eight delegates to the national Democratic Party convention in Atlantic City. The MFDP delegation challenged the seating of the delegates representing Mississippi's all white Democratic Party. While the effort failed, it drew national attention, particularly through the dramatic televised appeal of MFDP delegate Fannie Lou Hamer. The MFDP challenge also lead to a ban on racially discriminatory delegations at future conventions.

Freedom Summer officials also established 30 "Freedom Schools" in towns throughout Mississippi to address the racial inequalities in Mississippi's educational system. Mississippi's black schools were invariably poorly funded, and teachers had to use hand-me-down textbooks that offered a racist slant on American history. Many of the white college students were assigned to teach in these schools, whose curriculum included black history, the philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement, and leadership development in addition to remedial instruction in reading and arithmetic. The Freedom Schools had hoped to draw at least 1000 students that first summer, and ended up with 3000. The schools became a model for future social programs like Head Start, as well as alternative educational institutions.

Freedom Summer activists faced threats and harassment throughout the campaign, not only from white supremacist groups, but from local residents and police. Freedom School buildings and the volunteers' homes were frequent targets; 37 black churches and 30 black homes and businesses were firebombed or burned during that summer, and the cases often went unsolved. More than 1000 black and white volunteers were arrested, and at least 80 were beaten by white mobs or racist police officers. But the summer's most infamous act of violence was the murder of three young civil rights workers, a black volunteer, James Chaney, and his white coworkers,Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. On June 21, Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner set out to investigate a church bombing near Philadelphia, Mississippi, but were arrested that afternoon and held for several hours on alleged traffic violations. Their release from jail was the last time they were seen alive before their badly decomposed bodies were discovered under a nearby dam six weeks later. Goodman and Schwerner had died from single gunshot wounds to the chest, and Chaney from a savage beating.

The murders made headlines all over the country, and provoked an outpouring of national support for the Civil Rights Movement. But many black volunteers realized that because two of the victims were white, these murders were attracting much more attention than previous attacks in which the victims had been all black, and this added to the growing resentment they had already begun to feel towards the white volunteers. There was growing dissension within the ranks over charges of white paternalism and elitism. Black volunteers complained that the whites seemed to think they had a natural claim on leadership roles, and that they treated the rural blacks as though they were ignorant. There was also increasing hostility from both black and white workers over the interracial romances that developed the summer. Meanwhile, women volunteers of both races were charging both the black and white men with sexist behavior.

But despite the internal divisions, Freedom Summer left a positive legacy. The well-publicized voter registration drives brought national attention to the subject of black disenfranchisement, and this eventually led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, federal legislation that among other things outlawed the tactics Southern states had used to prevent blacks from voting. Freedom Summer also instilled among African Americans a new consciousness and a new confidence in political action. As Fannie Lou Hamer later said, "Before the 1964 project there were people that wanted change, but they hadn't dared to come out. After 1964 people began moving. To me it's one of the greatest things that ever happened in Mississippi."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Freedom Summer was a highly publicized campaign in the Deep South to register blacks to vote during the summer of 1964. During the summer of 1964, thousands of civil rights activists, many of them white college students from the North, descended on Mississippi and other Southern states to try to end the long-time political disenfranchisement of African Americans in the region.

# data[].attributes.headline
John Lewis remembers "Bloody Sunday" the March through Selma, Alabama.

# data[].attributes.subject
John Lewis remembers "Bloody Sunday" the March through Selma, Alabama.

# data[].attributes.body
Hear from John Lewis, his memories of Selma, Alabama. His march with MLK Jr. and Hosea Williams.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bloody Sunday | Rep. John Lewis remembers the fateful day in Selma

# data[].attributes.headline
The Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement (Bloody Sunday)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement (Bloody Sunday)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nearly a century after the Confederacy's guns fell silent, the racial legacies of slavery and Reconstruction continued to reverberate loudly throughout Alabama in 1965. On March 7, 1965, when then-25-year-old activist John Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama and faced brutal attacks by oncoming state troopers, footage of the violence collectively shocked the nation and galvanized the fight against racial injustice.

The passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 months earlier had done little in some parts of the state to ensure African Americans of the basic right to vote. Perhaps no place was Jim Crow's grip tighter than in Dallas County, Alabama, where African Americans made up more than half of the population, yet accounted for just 2 percent of registered voters.
WATCH: Full episodes of 'I Was There' online now.
For months, the efforts of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to register Black voters in the county seat of Selma had been thwarted. In January 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr., came to the city and gave the backing of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) to the cause. Peaceful demonstrations in Selma and surrounding communities resulted in the arrests of thousands, including King, who wrote to the New York Times, "This is Selma, Alabama. There are more negroes in jail with me than there are on the voting rolls."
READ MORE: Civil Rights Movement Timeline
The rising racial tensions finally bubbled over into bloodshed in the nearby town of Marion on February 18, 1965, when state troopers clubbed protestors and fatally shot 26-year-old Jimmie Lee Jackson, an African American demonstrator trying to protect his mother, who was being struck by police.

In response, civil rights leaders planned to take their cause directly to Alabama Governor George Wallace on a 54-mile march from Selma to the state capital of Montgomery. Although Wallace ordered state troopers "to use whatever measures are necessary to prevent a march," approximately 600 voting rights advocates set out from the Brown Chapel AME Church on Sunday, March 7.

King, who had met with President Lyndon Johnson two days earlier to discuss voting rights legislation, remained back in Atlanta with his own congregation and planned to join the marchers en route the following day. By a coin flip, it was determined that Hosea Williams would represent the SCLC at the head of the march along with Lewis, an SNCC chairman and future U.S. congressman from Georgia.

The demonstrators marched undisturbed through downtown Selma, where the ghosts of the past constantly permeated the present. As they began to cross the steel-arched bridge spanning the Alabama River, the marchers who gazed up could see the name of a Confederate general and reputed grand dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan, Edmund Pettus, staring right back at them in big block letters emblazoned across the bridge's crossbeam.

Once Lewis and Williams reached the crest of the bridge, they saw trouble on the other side. A wall of state troopers, wearing white helmets and slapping billy clubs in their hands, stretched across Route 80 at the base of the span. Behind them were deputies of county sheriff Jim Clark, some on horseback, and dozens of white spectators waving Confederate flags and giddily anticipating a showdown. Knowing a confrontation awaited, the marchers pressed on in a thin column down the bridge's sidewalk until they stopped about 50 feet away from the authorities.

"It would be detrimental to your safety to continue this march," Major John Cloud called out from his bullhorn. "This is an unlawful assembly. You have to disperse, you are ordered to disperse. Go home or go to your church. This march will not continue."

"Mr. Major," replied Williams, "I would like to have a word, can we have a word?"

"I've got nothing further to say to you," Cloud answered.

Williams and Lewis stood their ground at the front of the line. After a few moments, the troopers, with gas masks affixed to their faces and clubs at the ready, advanced. They pushed back Lewis and Williams. Then the troopers' pace quickened. They knocked the marchers to the ground. They struck them with sticks. Clouds of tear gas mixed with the screams of terrified marchers and the cheers of reveling bystanders. Deputies on horseback charged ahead and chased the gasping men, women and children back over the bridge as they swung clubs, whips and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. Although forced back, the protestors did not fight back.

Lewis later testified in court that he was knocked to the ground and a state trooper then hit him in the head with a nightstick. When Lewis shielded his head with a hand, the trooper hit Lewis again as he tried to get up.

Weeks earlier, King had scolded Life magazine photographer Flip Schulke for trying to assist protestors knocked to the ground by authorities instead of snapping away. "The world doesn't know this happened because you didn't photograph it," King told Schulke, according to the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Race Beat.

This time, however, television cameras captured the entire assault and transformed the local protest into a national civil rights event. It took hours for the film to be flown from Alabama to the television network headquarters in New York, but when it aired that night, Americans were appalled at the sights and sounds of " Bloody Sunday."
READ MORE: When Did African Americans Get the Right to Vote?
Around 9:30 p.m., ABC newscaster Frank Reynolds interrupted the network's broadcast of "Judgment at Nuremberg"-the star-studded movie that explored Nazi bigotry, war crimes and the moral culpability of those who followed orders and didn't speak out against the Holocaust-to air the disturbing, newly arrived footage from Selma. Nearly 50 million Americans who had tuned into the film's long-awaited television premiere couldn't escape the historical echoes of Nazi storm troopers in the scenes of the rampaging state troopers. "The juxtaposition struck like psychological lightning in American homes," wrote Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff in The Race Beat.

The connection wasn't lost in Selma, either. When his store was finally empty of customers, one local shopkeeper confided to Washington Star reporter Haynes Johnson about the city's institutional racism, "Everybody knows it's going on, but they try to pretend they don't see it. I saw 'Judgment at Nuremberg' on the Late Show the other night and I thought it fits right in; it's just like Selma."

Outrage at "Bloody Sunday" swept the country. Sympathizers staged sit-ins, traffic blockades and demonstrations in solidarity with the voting rights marchers. Some even traveled to Selma where two days later King attempted another march but, to the dismay of some demonstrators, turned back when troopers again blocked the highway at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Finally, after a federal court order permitted the protest, the voting rights marchers left Selma on March 21 under the protection of federalized National Guard troops. Four days later, they reached Montgomery with the crowd growing to 25,000 by the time they reached the capitol steps.

The events in Selma galvanized public opinion and mobilized Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which President Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965. Today, the bridge that served as the backdrop to "Bloody Sunday" still bears the name of a white supremacist, but now it is a symbolic civil rights landmark.
READ MORE: The MLK Graphic Novel That Inspired John Lewis and Generations of Civil Rights Activists

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How Selma's 'Bloody Sunday' Became a Turning Point in the Civil Rights Movement | HISTORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama helped lead to the Voting Rights Act.

# data[].attributes.headline
An interactive Microsite exploring the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1963

# data[].attributes.subject
An interactive Microsite exploring the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1963

# data[].attributes.body
This interactive microsite allows you to manipulate the timeline of the 1963 Civil Rights Movement and explore details previously learned only from textbooks. I like that this resource is interactive technology.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) founded

In Chicago, James Farmer and other activists committed to nonviolent direct action establish the interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Courtesy of the Division of Political History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Brown v. Board of Education

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas , the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision of "separate but equal" in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Montgomery Bus Boycotts

Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white person. Her arrest sparks a year-long boycott of city buses led by Martin Luther King Jr. In 1956, the Supreme Court rules in Browder v. Gayle that bus segregation laws are unconstitutional.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) founded

Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to work for full equality for African Americans.

Courtesy of the Division of Political History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) founded

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded during a conference organized by activist Ella Baker at Shaw University in North Carolina.

Courtesy of the Division of Political History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

Integration of Ole Miss

James Meredith enrolls as the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi. A night of rioting and violence follows despite the presence of US marshals on campus. President Kennedy orders federal troops to the University. Find out more .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In Chicago, James Farmer and other activists committed to nonviolent direct action establish the interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Courtesy of the Division of Political History, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas , the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision of "separate but equal" in Plessy v.

# data[].attributes.headline
JFK Speech regarding Integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith. He speaks of the US Court of Appeals and how the University handled his admission without the National Guard .

# data[].attributes.subject
JFK Speech regarding Integration of the University of Mississippi by James Meredith. He speaks of the US Court of Appeals and how the University handled his admission without the National Guard .

# data[].attributes.body
The audio recording is on the left hand side of the page and opens as an mp3. This is JFK's actual speech regarding the integration of the University. It shows how the south responded to integration.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans faced significant discrimination in the United States. Throughout much of the South they were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to violence including lynching, and could not expect justice from the courts. In the North, Black Americans also faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, and many other areas.

Progress and Protests: 1954-1960

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 invoked the tenth amendment or "states' rights" to justify segregation and claimed the desegregation decision violated the rights of states to manage their systems of public education. 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 segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked to be served. They refused to leave their seats after being denied service. 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.

The Election of 1960

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. The publicizing of this endorsement, combined with other campaign efforts, contributed to increased support among Black voters for Kennedy.

Across the nation, almost 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 contributed to his cautious navigation of civil rights issues. He was reluctant to lose southern support for legislation on many fronts by pushing too hard on civil rights legislation. Instead, encouraged by staff, 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.

The Freedom Rides

President Kennedy may have been reluctant to push ahead with civil rights legislation, but millions of African Americans forged ahead. 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.

James Meredith and the Integration of Ole Miss

In 1962, James H. Meredith Jr., an African American Air Force veteran, applied for admission to the all-white University of Mississippi, known as "Ole Miss." He attempted to register four times without success.

Long telephone conversations between the president, the attorney general, and Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett failed to produce a solution. When federal marshals accompanied Meredith to campus in another attempt to register for classes, rioting erupted by white protesters. 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. This was the first step in ending segregation at the University of Mississippi.

Martin Luther King Jr., Bull Connor, and the Demonstrations in Birmingham

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, another organizer of the Birmingham Campaign, rallied 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 peaceful 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.

Integrating the University of Alabama

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 the evening of 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. A few hours later, Medgar Evers, the best-known civil rights activist in Mississippi and a field officer in the NAACP, was murdered outside his home.

The March on Washington

On August 28,1963, an interracial and interfaith crowd of more than 250,000 Americans demonstrated for social and economic justice in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Key civil rights figures led the march including A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, Whitney Young, and John Lewis. The most memorable moment came when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. President Kennedy, concerned about the potential impact of the March on his pending civil rights legislation, initially did not support the event. But, after the successful conclusion of the March, he invited civil rights leaders to the White House where they discussed the need for bi-partisan support of civil rights legislation.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

During the summer and fall of 1963, the Kennedy administration worked to build bi-partisan support for the legislation. In late 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 substantial political acumen, the assistance of Robert Kennedy's Justice Department, and the outpouring of emotion after President Kennedy's assassination to generate passage of the Civil Rights Act.

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. Another milestone - the Voting Rights Act -- was passed in 1965. But more work has remained to be done. Although passage of these laws were significant achievements in the 1960s, discriminatory practices in many areas continue as civil rights activists strive for equality in the 21st century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Modern Civil Rights Movement and the Kennedy Administration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When John F. Kennedy became president in 1961, African Americans faced significant discrimination in the United States. Throughout much of the South they were denied the right to vote, barred from public facilities, subjected to violence including lynching, and could not expect justice from the courts.

# data[].attributes.headline
From the Vault of the FBI- the documents which document the Freedom Riders who were captured, arrested, held for trial, and notated possible links to the Communist Party?

# data[].attributes.subject
From the Vault of the FBI- the documents which document the Freedom Riders who were captured, arrested, held for trial, and notated possible links to the Communist Party?

# data[].attributes.body
I was shaking my head at this, and you will too probably. Just because someone does not discriminate against another race and chooses to help that race receive their civil rights and liberties according to the Constitution, does not make them a communist? or does it? read on my friends and you decide. Is this what you will focus your timeline on?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Administrative Policy Procedures - Anti-War - Bureau Personnel - Civil Rights - Counterterrorism - Foreign Counterintelligence - Frequently Requested - Fugitives - Gangs Extremist Groups - Gangster Era - Miscellaneous - Organizations - Organized Crime - Political Figures Events - Popular Culture - Public Corruption - Supreme Court - Unexplained Phenomenon - World War II - Violent Crime

# data[].attributes.headline
Map that depicts the Freedom Rides throughout the south.

# data[].attributes.subject
Map that depicts the Freedom Rides throughout the south.

# data[].attributes.body
Freedom rides were rides in which one African American and one white person would drive in a car together across many areas where desegregation was still prevalent. Looking at the routes taken, what were some of the major cities and states where many of the Freedom Riders travelled?

# data[].attributes.body
From the cartoon pictured, what assumptions can you make regarding how the artist felt regarding racial segregation?

# data[].attributes.headline
Newspaper digitally archived shows Harry Truman as president "wipes out" desegregation

# data[].attributes.subject
Newspaper digitally archived shows Harry Truman as president "wipes out" desegregation

# data[].attributes.body
Underneath the main headline there is a separate story regarding a lynching. This is what scholars might refer to as an oxymoron. You can also see a story about Governor Wallace in Alabama. From this newspaper, there are many different aspects of the civil rights movement present.

# data[].attributes.headline
Greenboro, NC. The Lunch Counter Sit-ins

# data[].attributes.subject
Greenboro, NC. The Lunch Counter Sit-ins

# data[].attributes.body
What happens when 4 students take a stand for Civil Rights by sitting down? Of course they don't get served by the store manager. So, they just keep sitting.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Reflections on the Greensboro Lunch Counter

# data[].attributes.body
She was the "Mother of the Civil Rights Movement". She helped Dr. King build the non-violent protest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ella Baker - 'The Mother of the Civil Rights Movement'

# data[].attributes.body
Why was a 14 year old boy murdered? The white woman who told her husband about him "whistling" at her says decades later the she lied about him.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Emmett Till, Age 14, Abducted and Murdered

# data[].attributes.body
When in September 1963, four innocent girls ages 11-14 are found deceased in the women's restroom of the 14th Street Baptist Church. Why did it take so long to find, arrest, and imprison their killers?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church

# data[].attributes.headline
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter and Malcolm X's daughter reflect on the fight for equality.

# data[].attributes.subject
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter and Malcolm X's daughter reflect on the fight for equality.

# data[].attributes.body
A 2021 interview on NBC Now-they talk about their struggle, being the daughter of a civil rights leader, and having to live up to the public expectations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Daughters Of Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X Reflect On Fight For Equality | NBC News NOW

# data[].attributes.body
A biography of Malcolm X and his story from crime to Islam, his belief that black people should fight for their freedoms in any means necessary.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Malcolm X: Minister & Human Rights Activist | Biography

# data[].attributes.headline
Cars outside the 16th Street Baptist Church

# data[].attributes.subject
Cars outside the 16th Street Baptist Church

# data[].attributes.body
A story to give you chills. Pictures from the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing

# data[].attributes.body
Who were the Little Rock 9? How did they influence the integration of schools? The story from newsreels, from the people who were there. The insults hurled their way, the violence they endured, all for the freedom we take for grasnted.

# data[].attributes.headline
Sound Smart about the Freedom Rides History.com

# data[].attributes.subject
Sound Smart about the Freedom Rides History.com

# data[].attributes.body
Here's a short version of the Freedom rides from the History Channel. It briefly explains when they began and some of the early history.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sound Smart: The Freedom Rides | History

# data[].attributes.headline
Newspaper Headline Reads: 10 Sticks of Dynamite, 4 dead children

# data[].attributes.subject
Newspaper Headline Reads: 10 Sticks of Dynamite, 4 dead children

# data[].attributes.body
16th Street Baptist Church Bombing pictures from the newspaper with captions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 sticks of dynamite... four dead children

# data[].attributes.body
True story of the Freedom Riders, the attacks on the Freedom Riders and their purpose in the Civil Rights movement in 6 minutes.

# data[].attributes.headline
Selma to Montgomery March the SNCC, SCLC, MLK, and John Lewis

# data[].attributes.subject
Selma to Montgomery March the SNCC, SCLC, MLK, and John Lewis

# data[].attributes.body
It was real, it happened, and here's the story, from their own words.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights. King told the assembled crowd: "There never was a moment in American history more honorable and more inspiring than the pilgrimage of clergymen and laymen of every race and faith pouring into Selma to face danger at the side of its embattled Negroes" (King, Address at the Conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March, 121).

On 2 January 1965 King and SCLC joined SNCC, the Dallas County Voters League, and other local African American activists in a voting rights campaign in Selma where, in spite of repeated registration attempts by local blacks, only two percent were on the voting rolls. SCLC had chosen to focus its efforts in Selma because they anticipated that the notorious brutality of local law enforcement under Sheriff Jim Clark would attract national attention and pressure President Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress to enact new national voting rights legislation.

The campaign in Selma and nearby Marion, Alabama, progressed with mass arrests but little violence for the first month. That changed in February, however, when police attacks against nonviolent demonstrators increased. On the night of 18 February, Alabama state troopers joined local police breaking up an evening march in Marion. In the ensuing melee, a state trooper shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old church deacon from Marion, as he attempted to protect his mother from the trooper's nightstick. Jackson died eight days later in a Selma hospital.

In response to Jackson's death, activists in Selma and Marion set out on 7 March to march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery. While King was in Atlanta, his SCLC colleague Hosea Williams and SNCC leader John Lewis led the march. The marchers made their way through Selma across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they faced a blockade of state troopers and local lawmen commanded by Clark and Major John Cloud, who ordered the marchers to disperse. When they did not, Cloud ordered his men to advance. Cheered on by white onlookers, the troopers attacked the crowd with clubs and tear gas. Mounted police chased retreating marchers and continued to beat them.

Television coverage of "Bloody Sunday," as the event became known, triggered national outrage. Lewis, who was severely beaten on the head, said: "I don't see how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam-I don't see how he can send troops to the Congo-I don't see how he can send troops to Africa and can't send troops to Selma" (Reed, "Alabama Police Use Gas").

That evening King began a blitz of telegrams and public statements "calling on religious leaders from all over the nation to join us on Tuesday in our peaceful, nonviolent march for freedom" (King, 7 March 1965). While King and Selma activists made plans to retry the march again two days later, Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson notified movement attorney Fred Gray that he intended to issue a restraining order prohibiting the march until at least 11 March, and President Johnson pressured King to call off the march until a federal court order could provide protection to the marchers.

Forced to consider whether to disobey the pending court order, after consulting late into the night and early morning with other civil rights leaders and John Doar, the deputy chief of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, King proceeded to the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the afternoon of 9 March. He led more than 2,000 marchers, including hundreds of clergy who had answered King's call on short notice, to the site of Sunday's attack, then stopped and asked them to kneel and pray. After prayers they rose and turned the march back to Selma, avoiding another confrontation with state troopers and skirting the issue of whether to obey Judge Johnson's court order. Many marchers were critical of King's unexpected decision not to push on to Montgomery, but the restraint gained support from President Johnson, who issued a public statement: "Americans everywhere join in deploring the brutality with which a number of Negro citizens of Alabama were treated when they sought to dramatize their deep and sincere interest in attaining the precious right to vote" (Johnson, "Statement by the President"). Johnson promised to introduce a voting rights bill to Congress within a few days.

That evening, several local whites attacked James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister who had come from Massachusetts to join the protest. His death two days later contributed to the rising national concern over the situation in Alabama. Johnson personally telephoned his condolences to Reeb's widow and met with Alabama Governor George Wallace, pressuring him to protect marchers and support universal suffrage.

On 15 March Johnson addressed Congress, identifying himself with the demonstrators in Selma in a televised address: "Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome" (Johnson, "Special Message"). The following day Selma demonstrators submitted a detailed march plan to Judge Johnson, who approved the demonstration and enjoined Governor Wallace and local law enforcement from harassing or threatening marchers. On 17 March Johnson submitted voting rights legislation to Congress.

The federally sanctioned march left Selma on 21 March. Protected by hundreds of federalized Alabama National Guardsmen and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, the demonstrators covered between 7 to 17 miles per day. Camping at night in supporters' yards, they were entertained by celebrities such as Harry Belafonte and Lena Horne. Limited by Judge Johnson's order to 300 marchers over a stretch of two-lane highway, the number of demonstrators swelled on the last day to 25,000, accompanied by Assistant Attorneys General John Doar and Ramsey Clark, and former Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall, among others.

During the final rally, held on the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, King proclaimed: "The end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. And that will be a day not of the white man, not of the black man. That will be the day of man as man" (King, " Address," 130). Afterward a delegation of march leaders attempted to deliver a petition to Governor Wallace, but were rebuffed. That night, while ferrying Selma demonstrators back home from Montgomery, Viola Liuzzo, a housewife from Michigan who had come to Alabama to volunteer, was shot and killed by four members of the Ku Klux Klan. Doar later prosecuted three Klansmen for conspiring to violate her civil rights.

On 6 August, in the presence of King and other civil rights leaders, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Recalling "the outrage of Selma," Johnson called the right to vote "the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men" (Johnson, "Remarks"). In his annual address to SCLC a few days later, King noted that "Montgomery led to the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and 1960; Birmingham inspired the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and Selma produced the voting rights legislation of 1965" (King, 11 August 1965).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights.

# data[].attributes.body
Rosa Parks speaks the LOC Collection this video is 33 minutes long, but it's her voice, her story.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Rosa Parks Collection: Telling Her Story at the Library of Congress. Highlights of the collection of Rosa Parks, a seminal figure of the Civil Rights Movement, on loan to the Library from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation for 10 years.

The Rosa Parks Collection at the Library of Congress

Howard Buffett decided to purchase this special collection in 2014, when he learned that it was languishing in an auction warehouse. He wanted to bring these rare items into public view and ensure their preservation. The Rosa Parks Collection reveals how deeply she believed in a moral imperative to oppose discrimination and the denial of individual rights. That belief most famously resulted in her decision to challenge the bus segregation laws in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955. But her autobiographical writings reveal numerous times in her life when that conviction motivated her to act.

The collection documents many aspects of her private life as well as her public work on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. While the 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs span 140 years, the content focuses on the 1950s through the 1990s and includes Mrs. Parks' own writings, letters from presidents, her Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom, and hand-drawn cards of appreciation from scores of schoolchildren.

This video contains highlights from the collection and a look behind the scenes at how the Library's team of experts in cataloging, preservation, digitization, exhibition and teacher training are making the legacy of Rosa Parks available to the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rosa Parks Collection Video | Articles and Essays | Rosa Parks Papers | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rosa Parks Collection: Telling Her Story at the Library of Congress. Highlights of the collection of Rosa Parks, a seminal figure of the Civil Rights Movement, on loan to the Library from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation for 10 years.

# data[].attributes.headline
NPR Radio Audio Interview with Claudette Colvin

# data[].attributes.subject
NPR Radio Audio Interview with Claudette Colvin

# data[].attributes.body
Before Rosa Parks, there was Claudette Colvin. There were many voices, faces, and names of others who refused to give up their seats on the bus.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Few people know the story of Claudette Colvin: When she was 15, she refused to move to the back of the bus and give up her seat to a white person - nine months before Rosa Parks did the very same thing.

Most people know about Parks and the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott that began in 1955, but few know that there were a number of women who refused to give up their seats on the same bus system. Most of the women were quietly fined, and no one heard much more.

Colvin was the first to really challenge the law.

Now a 69-year-old retiree, Colvin lives in the Bronx. She remembers taking the bus home from high school on March 2, 1955, as clear as if it were yesterday.

The bus driver ordered her to get up and she refused, saying she'd paid her fare and it was her constitutional right. Two police officers put her in handcuffs and arrested her. Her school books went flying off her lap.

"All I remember is that I was not going to walk off the bus voluntarily," Colvin says.

It was Negro history month, and at her segregated school they had been studying black leaders like Harriet Tubman, the runaway slave who led more than 70 slaves to freedom through the network of safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. They were also studying about Sojourner Truth, a former slave who became an abolitionist and women's rights activist.

The class had also been talking about the injustices they were experiencing daily under the Jim Crow segregation laws, like not being able to eat at a lunch counter.

"We couldn't try on clothes," Colvin says. "You had to take a brown paper bag and draw a diagram of your foot ... and take it to the store. Can you imagine all of that in my mind? My head was just too full of black history, you know, the oppression that we went through. It felt like Sojourner Truth was on one side pushing me down, and Harriet Tubman was on the other side of me pushing me down. I couldn't get up."

Colvin also remembers the moment the jail door closed. It was just like a Western movie, she says.

"And then I got scared, and panic come over me, and I started crying. Then I started saying the Lord's Prayer," she says.
'Twice Toward Justice'
Now her story is the subject of a new book, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice.

Author Phil Hoose says that despite a few articles about her in the Birmingham press and in USA Today, and brief mentions in some books about the civil rights movement, most people don't know about the role Colvin played in the bus boycotts.

Hoose couldn't get over that there was this teenager, nine months before Rosa Parks, "in the same city, in the same bus system, with very tough consequences, hauled off the bus, handcuffed, jailed and nobody really knew about it."

He also believes Colvin is important because she challenged the law in court, one of four women plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the court case that successfully overturned bus segregation laws in Montgomery and Alabama.

There are many reasons why Claudette Colvin has been pretty much forgotten. She hardly ever told her story when she moved to New York City. In her new community, hardly anyone was talking about integration; instead, most people were talking about black enterprises, black power and Malcolm X.

When asked why she is little known and why everyone thinks only of Rosa Parks, Colvin says the NAACP and all the other black organizations felt Parks would be a good icon because "she was an adult. They didn't think teenagers would be reliable."

She also says Parks had the right hair and the right look.

"Her skin texture was the kind that people associate with the middle class," says Colvin. "She fit that profile."

David Garrow, a historian and the author of Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, says people may think that Parks' action was spontaneous, but black civic leaders had been thinking about what to do about the Montgomery buses for years.

After Colvin's arrest, she found herself shunned by parts of her community. She experienced various difficulties and became pregnant. Civil rights leaders felt she was an inappropriate symbol for a test case.

Parks was the secretary of the NAACP. She was well-known and respected and, says Garrow, Parks had a "natural gravitas" and was an "inherently impressive person."

At the same time, Garrow believes attention to Colvin is a healthy corrective, because "the real reality of the movement was often young people and often more than 50 percent women." The images you most often see are men in suits.

Hoose says he believes Colvin understands the pragmatism that pushed Parks to the fore, but "on the other hand, she did it."

Hoose says the stories of Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are wonderful, but those are the stories of people in their 30s and 40s. Colvin was 15. Hoose feels his book will bring a fresh teen's perspective to the struggle to end segregation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Before Rosa Parks, There Was Claudette Colvin

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Most people know about Rosa Parks and the 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott. Nine months earlier, 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the same bus system.

# data[].attributes.body
Here is a timeline of the Civil Rights Movement. This will be helpful for your Summative Assessment Projects.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Supreme Court held that Blacks, enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States. Chief Justice Taney, arguing from the original intentions of the framers of the 1787 Constitution, stated that at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, Black people were considered a subordinate and inferior class of beings, "with no rights which the White man was bound to respect."

Significance: The Supreme Court denied citizenship to Black people, setting the stage for their treatment as second class citizens.

1865
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, also known as the Freedmen's Bureau,was established by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. Its main mission was to provide relief and help freedmen become self-sufficient in all areas of life.

Significance: The first Black schools were set up under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau. One of those schools - Howard University - would eventually train and graduate the majority of the legal team that overturned Plessy, including Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.

1865
Black Codes

Black Codes was a name given to laws passed by southern governments established during the presidency of Andrew Johnson. These laws imposed severe restrictions on freedmen, such as prohibiting their right to vote, forbidding them to sit on juries, and limiting their right to testify against white men. They were also forbidden from carrying weapons in public places and working in certain occupations.

Significance: Segregation Begins - Public schools were segregated, and Blacks were barred from serving on juries, and testifying against Whites.

1866
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 guaranteed Blacks basic economic rights to contract, sue, and own property.

Significance: The intention of this law was to protect all persons in the United States, including Blacks, in their civil rights.

1868
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified.

Significance: The 14th Amendment overruled Dred Scott v. Sanford. It guaranteed that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside, and that no state shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens, deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person the equal protection of the law.

1873
Slaughterhouse Cases
These cases narrowly defined federal power and emasculated the Fourteenth Amendment by asserting that most of the rights of citizens remain under state control.

1875
Civil Rights Act of 1875
In March, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875, prohibiting discrimination in inns, theaters, and other places of public accommodation. It was the last Federal civil rights act passed until 1957.

Significance:
Discrimination in places of public accommodation was prohibited.

1883
Civil Rights Cases
The Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875, and declared that the Fourteenth Amendment does not prohibit discrimination by private individuals or businesses.

1887
Jim Crow
The practices of comprehensive racial segregation known as " Jim Crow" emerged, and racial separation becomes entrenched.

Significance: Blacks largely disappeared from juries in the South.

Florida was the first state to enact a statute requiring segregation in places of public accommodation. Eight other states followed Florida's lead by 1892.

Homer A. Plessy challenged an 1890 Louisiana law that required separate train cars for Black Americans and White Americans. The Supreme Court held that separate but equal facilities for White and Black railroad passengers did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

Significance: Plessy v. Ferguson established the "separate but equal" doctrine that would become the constitutional basis for segregation.

Justice John Marshall Harlan, the lone dissenter in Plessy, argued that forced segregation of the races stamped Blacks with a badge of inferiority. That same line of argument would become a decisive factor in the Brown v. Board decision.

The Supreme Court upheld a local school board's decision to close a free public Black school due to fiscal constraints, despite the fact that the district continued to operate two free public white schools.

Significance: The Court's opinion argued that there was no evidence in the record that the decision was based on racial discrimination and that the distribution of public funds for public education was within the discretion of school authorities.

1908
Thurgood Marshall is born in Baltimore, MD, on July 2nd.
The Supreme Court upheld a Kentucky state law forbidding interracial instruction at all schools and colleges in the state.

1909
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People founded
W.E.B. DuBois, Ida Wells-Barnett, Mary White Ovington, and others founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Their mission was to eliminate lynching, and to fight racial and social injustice, primarily through legal action.

InGong Lum v. Rice the Supreme Court held that a Mississippi school district may require a Chinese-American girl to attend a segregated Black school rather than a White school.

1935
NAACP begins challenging segregation in graduate and secondary schools. Assisted by his protege Thurgood Marshall, Charles Hamilton Houston, of the NAACP, began his strategy of challenging segregation in graduate and professional schools.

Significance: Houston developed a legal strategy that would eventually lead to victory over segregation in the nation's schools through the Brown v. Board case. Houston's rationale for attacking segregated law schools was largely two-pronged. First, the establishment of separate but equal law school facilities for Black and White students would become too costly for the states. Second, White judges who matriculated in some of the nation's finest law schools could not, in good conscience, suggest that Black lawyers in segregated schools received "equal" legal training.

The Supreme Court decided in favor of Lloyd Gaines, a Black student who had been refused admission to the University of Missouri Law School.

1939
Thurgood Marshall named special counsel of the NAACP

1948
The NAACP board of directors formally endorsed Thurgood Marshall's view on segregation strategy.
By adopting Marshall's view, the NAACP decided to devote its efforts solely to an all-out attack on segregation in education, rather than pressing for the equalization of segregated facilities.

1948
Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma

A unanimous Supreme Court held that Lois Ada Sipuel could not be denied entrance to a state law school solely because of her race.

Thurgood Marshall and NAACP officials met with Black residents of Clarendon County, SC. They decided that the NAACP would launch a test case against segregation in public schools if at least 20 plaintiffs could be found. By November, Harry Briggs and 19 other plaintiffs were assembled, and the NAACP filed a class action lawsuit against the Clarendon County School Board.

Significance: Briggs v. Elliott became one of the cases consolidated by the Supreme Court into Brown v. Board of Education.

The Supreme Court held that the University of Texas Law School must admit a Black student, Heman Sweatt. The University of Texas Law School was far superior in its offerings and resources to the separate Black law school, which had been hastily established in a downtown basement.

The Supreme Court invalidated the University of Oklahoma's requirement that a Black student, admitted to a graduate program unavailable to him at the state's Black school, sit in separate sections of or in spaces adjacent to the classroom, library, and cafeteria.

Charles Houston provided legal representation for the Consolidated Parents Group, who, under the direction of Gardner Bishop, attempted to enroll a group of Black students in all White John Philip Sousa Junior High School, in Washington, D.C.

Significance: The Bolling case became one of the consolidated Brown cases. The U. S. Supreme Court would eventually file a separate opinion on Bolling because the 14th Amendment was not applicable in Washington, D.C.

1951
February
On February 28, Brown v. Board of Education was filed in Federal district court, in Kansas.

1951
May
Davis et al. v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al.

NAACP lawyer Spottswood Robinson filed Davis v. Prince Edward County, a challenge to Virginia's segregated schools.

Significance: Davis et al.ICounty School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia, et al., was another of the cases eventually consolidated as Brown v. Board of Education.

Briggs et al. v. Elliott et al.

This South Carolina case went to trial. Marshall and the NAACP presented a vast array of social science evidence showing how segregation harmed Black school children, including evidence from sociologist Kenneth Clark's controversial "Doll Study."

Significance: The U. S. District Court denied the Briggs plaintiff's request to order desegregation of Clarendon County, SC, schools and instead ordered the equalization of Black schools. Judge Julius Waring was the lone dissenter.

1951
June
Brown v. Board of Education

Robert Carter led the NAACP legal team into trial.

Significance: In August, a three-judge panel at the U. S. District Court unanimously held in the Brown v. Board of Education case that "no willful, intentional or substantial discrimination" existed in Topeka's schools. The U. S. District Court found that the physical facilities in White and Black schools were comparable and that the lower court's decisions in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin only applied to graduate education.

1951
October
Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al.; Gebhart et al. v. Bulah et al.; Belton et al. v. Gebhart et al.; Bulah et al. v. Gebhart et al.

These cases went to trial.

1952
March
Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, VA

The U. S. District court found in favor of the school board under the theory of "separate but equal."

Significance: The U. S. District Court unanimously rejected the Davis plaintiffs' request to order desegregation of Prince Edward County, VA, schools, ordering the "equalization" of Black schools instead.

1952
April
Gebhart et al. v. Belton et al.; Gebhart et al. v.Bulah et al.; Belton et al. v. Gebhart et al.; Bulah et al. v.Gebhart et al.

A Delaware court ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to immediate admission to White public schools.

Significance: In both of the Gebhart cases, the court ruled that the plaintiffs were being denied equal protection of the law and ordered that the 11 children involved be immediately admitted to Delaware's White schools. The board of education appealed the decision.

1952
June

The Supreme Court announced that it would hear oral arguments in Briggs and Brown during the upcoming October 1952 term.

1952
October
The Bundling of theBrown v. Board Cases

Days before arguments were to be heard in Briggs and Brown, the Supreme Court announced a postponement. Three weeks later, the Court announced that it would also hear the Delaware cases, as well as Davis v. Prince Edward County and the District of Columbia case, Bolling et al. v. Sharpe et al.

Significance: The Supreme Court agreed to hear all five of the school desegregation cases collectively. This grouping was significant because it showed school segregation as a national issue, not just a southern one.

[ Note: The U. S. Supreme Court eventually rendered a separate opinion on Bolling v. Sharpe because the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was not applicable in the District of Columbia.]

1952
December 9th - 11th

First round of arguments held in Brown and its companion cases.

1953
June

The Supreme Court ordered that a second round of arguments in Brown v. Board be heard in October.

1953
September
Chief Justice Fred Vinson Jr. died unexpectedly of a heart attack on the 8th. President Eisenhower nominated California Governor Earl Warren to replace Vinson as interim Chief on the 30th. The Court rescheduled arguments in Brown for December.

Significance: Justice Earl Warren would go on to deliver the unanimous ruling in the Brown v. Board case.

1953
December 7th - 9th

Second round of arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.

1954
March
The Senate confirmed Earl Warren as Chief Justice.

1954
May 17
Brown v. Board of Education
The Court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, and declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Bolling v. Sharpe
That same day, the Court held that racial segregation in the District of Columbia public schools violated the Due Process clause of the 5th Amendment in Bolling v. Sharpe.

The Court scheduled arguments on remedy in Brown for October but eventually put them off until April of 1955.

Significance: The Court ruled that state-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. In the wake of the decision, the District of Columbia and some school districts in the border states began to desegregate their schools voluntarily.

State legislatures in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia adopted resolutions of "interposition and nullification" that declared the Court's decision to be "null, void, and no effect."

Various southern legislatures passed laws that imposed sanctions on anyone who implemented desegregation, and enacted school closing plans that authorized the suspension of public education, and the disbursement of public funds to parents to send their children to private schools.

1954
October

After the sudden death of Justice Jackson, President Eisenhower nominated John Marshall Harlan, the grandson of the lone dissenter in Plessy, to fill the vacancy. After long hearings before the Senate, Harlan was finally sworn in as an Associate Justice in March of 1955.

1955
April

The Supreme Court heard its third round of arguments in Brown, this time concerning remedies.

May 31: Brown II
On the last day of the term, the Supreme Court handed down Brown II, ordering that desegregation occur with "all deliberate speed."

Significance: Brown II was intended to work out the mechanics of desegregation. Due to the vagueness of the term "all deliberate speed," many states were able to stall the Court's order to desegregate their schools. The legal and social obstacles that southern states put in place and encouraged, in their effort to thwart integration, served as a catalyst for the student protests that launched the civil rights movement.
Brown v. Board of Education Main Page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Timeline of Events Leading to the Brown v. Board of Education Decision, 1954 1857Dred Scott, Plaintiff in Error v. John F. A. Sanford The Supreme Court held that Blacks, enslaved or free, could not be citizens of the United States.

# data[].attributes.headline
A first hand account from a Freedom School Teacher

# data[].attributes.subject
A first hand account from a Freedom School Teacher

# data[].attributes.body
POV from a Civil Rights Activist and student from Spellman College. The kicker, she's white.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Civil Rights Movement -- Chude Allen: An Activist & Freedom School Teacher

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As told to and discussed by Freedom Movement veterans and family members at a story-telling session, U.C. Berkeley, September 30, 2018.] Participants: Chude: I'm Chude Allen, and I was a Freedom School teacher in Holly Springs, Mississippi in the summer of '64.

# data[].attributes.headline
An Audio Recording from Nelson Malden(Martin Luther King Jr.'s Barber

# data[].attributes.subject
An Audio Recording from Nelson Malden(Martin Luther King Jr.'s Barber

# data[].attributes.body
Visit this page to hear the first hand account from Martin Luther King Jr.'s Barber for 6 years from 1954-1960.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Library of Congress is not aware of any U.S. copyright protection (see Title 17, U.S.C.) or any other restrictions in the material in this collection, except as noted below. Users should keep in mind that the Library of Congress is providing access to these materials strictly for educational and research purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or other holders of rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. See our Legal Notices and Privacy and Publicity Rights for additional information and restrictions.

The individuals documented by the Occupational Folklife Project retain copyright and related rights to the use of their recorded and written testimonies and memories. They have granted the Library of Congress permission to provide access to their interviews and related materials for purposes that are consistent with the agency's educational mission, such as publication and transmission, in whole or in part, on the Web. Project participants' written permission is required for any commercial, profit-making distribution, reproduction, or other use beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

The American Folklife Center and the Occupational Folklife Project fieldworkers who carry out these projects feel a strong ethical responsibility to the people they have visited and who have consented to have their lives documented for the historical record. The Center asks that researchers approach the materials in this collection with respect for the culture and sensibilities of the people whose lives, ideas, and creativity are documented here. Researchers are also reminded that privacy and publicity rights may pertain to certain uses of this material.

Researchers or others who would like to make further use of these collection materials should contact the Folklife Reading Room for assistance.

Credit line

The "Big Top" Show Goes On: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2011-2012 (AFC 2012/003), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Boeing Aircraft Factory Workers: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2012-2013 (AFC 2012/036), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Cultural Traditions of Ironworkers in America's Upper Midwest: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2011-2012 (AFC 2011/062), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Dairy Farm Workers in New York's North Country, Archie Green Fellows project, 2012-2013 (AFC 2012/033), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Doctoring: The Occupational Folklore of Physicians: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2019-2020 (AFC 2019/030), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Domestic Workers United: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016 (AFC 2015/027), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Fresh Produce Workers in Arizona: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016 (AFC 2015/028), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Funeral Services Workers in the Carolinas, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2016-2017 (AFC 2016/037), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

The Green Book--Documenting African American entrepreneurs: Archie Green Fellows project, 2018-2019 (AFC 2018/029), Archie Green Fellows Project American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Hairdresser and Beauty Shop Culture in America: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2011-2012 (AFC 2012/035), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Homeless Shelter Workers in the Upper Midwest, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2016-2017, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress (AFC 2016/034)

Illuminating History: Union Electricians in New York City, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2016-2017 (AFC 2016/035), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Personal Home Health Care Aides in Michigan: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2017-2018 (AFC 2017/018), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Production Potters of the Midwest: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2018-2019 (AFC 2018/030), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Recent Immigrant Workers in Iowa's Meatpacking Industry: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2015-2016 (AFC 2015/026), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Stable Views: Voices and Stories from the Thoroughbred Racetrack: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2011-2012 (AFC 2012/034), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Taking Care--Documenting the Occupational Culture of Home Care Workers, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2014-2015 (AFC 2014/021), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress)

Teaching in Wisconsin Classrooms: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2013-2015 (AFC 2013/017), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Tobacco Workers of the Connecticut River Valley: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2014-2015 (AFC 2014/020), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Trash Talk: Workers in Vermont's Waste Management Industry: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2018-2019 (AFC 2018/031), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Washington State Workers: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2012-2013 (AFC 2012/032), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Western Folklife Center Occupational Folklore Project: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2011-2012 (AFC 2011/064), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Winery Workers in Virginia: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2017-2018 (AFC 2017/017), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Women Architects: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2019-2020 (AFC 2019/031), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Working the Port of Houston: Archie Green Fellows Project, 2011-2012 (AFC 2012/006), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

Working the Waterfront, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Archie Green Fellows Project, 2016-2017 (AFC 2016/036), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Nelson Malden interview conducted by Candacy A. Taylor, 2018-12-31.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nelson Malden was Martin Luther King's barber. He cut Reverend King's hair for six years from 1954 to 1960 at the Malden Bros. Barbershop, which was located on the first floor of the Ben Moore Hotel, a Green Book site in Montgomery, Alabama.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Video of the Landmark Brown v. Board of Education Newsreel

# data[].attributes.subject
The Video of the Landmark Brown v. Board of Education Newsreel

# data[].attributes.body
This is a video regarding the landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education and the implications for education.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Brown v. Board of Education in PBS' The Supreme Court