Download - A Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement
A TIMELINE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
The Civil Rights Movement 1954-1968
1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968
Brown v. Board of
Education
Montgomery Bus Boycott Little
Rock Nine
SCLC Established
Sit-Ins
SNCC Founded
Freedom Rides
James Meredith
March On Washington
Civil Rights Act
24th Amendment
Malcolm X Murdered
Voting Rights Act
Executive Order 11246 “Black
Power”
Black Panthers Founded
Martin Luther King Jr. Shot
Brown v. Board of Education
May 17th, 1954
Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, which had stated that “separate but equal” was legal.
Concerning Segregation in Schools in Topeka, Kansas.Linda Brown had to walk 6 blocks just to catch the bus for her segregated black school. The white school was only a total of 7 blocks from her house.
Montgomery Bus BoycottRosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man.
Her arrest caused others to boycott the bus systems by walking, car-pooling, and bicycling wherever they went.
December 1st, 1955
SCLC Established
Creation was triggered by the bus boycotts
Nonviolent
Open to all races, religions and backgrounds
Martin Luther King Jr. was the first President.
February 14th, 1957
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Little Rock Nine
September 24th, 1957
Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.Governor had the National Guard surrounding the school.Eisenhower ordered troops to help the nine students enter the school.
Sit-ins
February 1st 1960
Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina
Four students ordered doughnuts and coffee and were refused service so they refused to get up.The next day, 30 students joined them and this continued the whole week.
SNCC Founded
Originally created at Shaw University to help stage sit-ins like those in Greensboro.
Because of white violence, the non-violence approach changed.
April 15th 1960
(Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)
Freedom Rides
May 4th, 1961
James Farmer of CORE organized these rides to test to see if the Supreme Court legislation that banned segregation of buses would hold up.
13 people started in Washington D.C. expecting extreme violenceAlabama caused problems
James Meredith
October 1st, 1962
Troops and federal marshals were sent in to assure that James Meredith was registered and could attend classCrowds taunted the marshals and it ended in a confrontation where things were thrown, smashed and guns were fired.University of Mississippi
March on Washington
August 28th, 1963
MLK Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech here.
Organized by the “Big Six.” The influential civil rights leaders of the time.
Started in Birmingham and went to the Washington Monument. Had entertainment and speakers.
24th Amendment
Prohibits poll tax in federal elections.
This did not eliminate poll tax in state and local elections.
African Americans still had to partake in literacy tests.
January 23rd, 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Outlawed discrimination in the work field
Equal access to public places
Federal Government had power to enforce this law.
July 2nd, 1964
Malcolm X Murdered
The biggest convert of African Americans to join the Black Muslim congregation.
For black pride and nationality. Spoke mostly militant about whites until his trip to Mecca.
February 21st, 1965
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Eliminated illegal barriers to the right to vote
Absolutely ended the Jim Crow laws
Against voter examinations
August 6th, 1965
Executive Order 11246
Introduced affirmative action for equal rights in the workplace and the learning environment.
September 24th, 1965
Black Panthers Founded and “Black Power” is coined.
Founded for self-defense because of all of the violence seen in the previous fights for equality.
Black power came from Stokley Carmichael’s speech vocalizing his anger with the little progress and arrests.
June 10th and October 1st, 1966
MLK Jr. Shot
39 years old Killed by James
Earl Ray on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
The movement declined but did not end.
April 4th, 1968
Works Cited
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9.html
http://www.sclcnational.org/
http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/jb/modern/jb_modern_polltax_1.html
Dierenfield, Bruce J. Civil Rights Movement. Harlow, England: Pearson Longman, 2004.
Kasher, Steven. Civil Rights Movement a Photographic History, 1954-68. New York: Abbeville P, 1996.
Levy, Peter B., ed. Documentary History of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. New York: Greenwood P, 1992.