On September 4, 1957, 9 black students were chosen to desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas

For weeks, violent crowds camped out to protest the entry of the Little Rock 9 to Central High School and were supported by the Governor, the Guard, and the Little Rock Police.

President Eisenhower, inspired by the outrage from the country, ordered the Guard to escort the Little Rock 9 into the school on September 25, 1957. This set a precedent and a triumph for the Civil Rights movement.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka was a landmark 1954 Supreme Court case in which the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional.

Public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas closed because the governor was opposed to desegregation.

Tax payer money was used to open private schools to accommodate white students.

Once schools reopened, only 2 of the Little Rock 9 returned, accompanied by a few new Black students.

On December 14, 1960, the United Nations issued the Declaration on the Granding of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.

"All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development" (Spring p.113)

In Nevember of 1960, the United Nations issued the Convention Against Discrimination in Education.

Article 1 of this Convention stated:

"For the purposes of this Convention, the term “discrimination” includes any distinction, exclusion, limitation on preference which, being based on race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, economic condition or birth, has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing equality of treatment in education..."(Spring p.114-115).

On July 2, 1964, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

In 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson was a landmark decision in the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine.

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) was organized at the University of Chicago in 1943.

CORE was a major organization in the civil rights movement.

This organization became well known later on in the 1950s when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made the main tactic of the civil rights movement "nonviolent confrontation".

On December 1, 1955, Rosa parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to white passengers.

Rosa Parks was arrested, which led to a boycott.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a civil rights protest during which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. The boycott took place from December 5, 1955, to December 20, 1956

Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech before a crowd of some 250,000 people at the 1963 March on Washington

On January 2, 1968, the Bilingual Education Act was passed.

US legislation provided grants to school districts to establish educational programs for students struggling with speaking English.

This was an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

In 1975, the United States Congress enacted the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act.

The Act allowed for Indian tribes to have greater autonomy and to have the opportunity to assume the responsibility for programs and services administered to them on behalf of the Secretary of the Interior through contractual agreements.

The Native American Languages Act was passed in 1990

This policy stated that the United States "declares to preserve, protect and promote the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use practice and develop Native American Languages"

In March 1968, as many as 22,000 mostly Mexican American students walked out of their classrooms at seven Los Angeles schools.

The unprecedented event spotlighted educational inequality, galvanized the Chicano civil rights movement.