Civil Rights Events & Legislation

•Dred Scott (1857): Declared African-Americans were not and could never become citizens of the United States

•Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896): Declared segregation was legal as long as the facilities offered both races were equal. Became known as the “Separate But Equal” Doctrine. (De Jure Segregation)

•Brown vs. Board of Education (1954): Declared that segregation by race was unconstitutional in SCHOOLS!!

•Brown started the Modern Day Civil Rights Movement!!

Emmett Till

• 14 year old boy from Chicago

• Murdered by 2 white men for allegedly flirting with one of their wives in Mississippi

• August 1955

• The murderers were found not guilty

Ruby Bridges

• Began elementary school integration in 1960 after Brown v. Board of Education

• Escorted to school by the US military

Rosa Parks (1955)

• After the Brown decision, Rosa Parks worked with organizations like the NAACP to help integrate bus lines.

• Refused to give up her seat to a white man & was arrested.

• Started the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

• African-Americans refused to ride the busses to change the policy “whites in the front and African-Americans in the back”

• Lasted 381 days

Little Rock Nine were nine students who attended Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas despite violent protests.

HS students escorted by the military

Sit ins (1960)

• College students throughout the South peacefully sat at the lunch counters to protest segregation in restaurants.

Freedom Riders

• Spring of 1961

• Students from the North rode busses to the South to demonstrate violence and segregation in the South.

President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973)

• Signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

•Signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965

•Nominated the first African-American to the Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall.

Birmingham Church Bombing (1963)

• KKK bombs a church and kills 4 girls who are getting ready to sing in the choir for Sunday service.

Passage of Civil Rights Act 1964

• Civil rights law that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and/or national origin.

Bloody Sunday

• March 7,1965

• Peaceful march to Birmingham Alabama to demand equal voting rights

• Police block protesters and violently attack them

Amendment 24 (1964)

• Outlaws (bans) poll taxes!

• Five Southern states still used poll taxes in the 1960s:– Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and

Mississippi

De Jure (By Law)

• Segregation in public places including:– Schools– Restaurants– Railroad cars

**This happened because of Plessy v. Ferguson: “Separate but equal” not violation of 14th amendment.

De Facto (a way of life)

• After Brown, many schools did not want to integrate. Schools often redistricted and bussed students to schools further away. This type of social segregation is known as De Facto.

• De Facto segregation came after segregation was illegal.