Presentation Transcript

1. Civil rights in America

   1954-1968
2. 1954 May 17 The United States Supreme Court declares school segregation to be unconstitutional in the case of Brown v. board of education of Topeka The first citizen’s council is formed by whites in Mississippi to block school integration.
3. 1955 March 2 - Claudette Colvin, a teenager, is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. May 7 – in Belzoni, Mississippi, reverend George lee, active in the national association for the advancement of colored people (naacp), is murdered for his voter registration activities. August 28 – Emmett till, a Chicago teenager visiting relative in Mississippi, is tortured and killed for allegedly talking to a white woman in an “improper” way.
4. 1955 cont. November – the interstate commerce commission bans segregated buses and waiting rooms for interstate travel. Most white southern communities ignore the order. December 1 – Rosa parks is arrested in Montgomery for the same action Claudette Colvin had taken – refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person. December 5 – the Montgomery bus boycott begins and lasts over a year, until the buses are integrated. The Montgomery improvement association (MIS) is formed to coordinate the boycott, and Dr. Martin Luther King, JR. is elected its president.
5. 1956 March 12 – nearly a hundred congressional representatives and senators sign the “southern manifesto,” vowing to fight the supreme court school desegregation decision. June – Alabama outlaws the NAACP. In Birmingham, reverend Fred shuttlesworth organizes the Alabama Christian movement for human rights (ACMHR) to carry on civil rights activities. November – the united states supreme court rules that Montgomery bus segregation laws are unconstitutional. On December 21 the boycott ends in victory and the buses are integrated. December 25 – the shuttlesworth home in Birmingham is bombed.
6. 1957 January – the southern Christian leadership conference (SCLC, originally with another name) is founded. Martin Luther King jr. becomes its president. August – two students, Ricky and pat shuttlesworth, attempt to integrate all-white Phillips high school in Birmingham. They and their parents are attacked by a violent white mob. September – Arkansas governor orval faubus order the national guard to keep nine black students from integrating little rock’s central high school. President Eisenhower orders the 101st airborne division to little rock to protect the little rock nine.
7. 1958 May – Ernest green becomes the first black student to graduate from little rock’s central high school. The following school year, Arkansas governor orval faubus closes all public school in little rock to prevent further integration.
8. 1960 February – sit-ins by black students at segregated facilities begin in Greensboro, north Carolina. Similar protests take place all over the south and in some northern communities. April – more than a hundred students from nine states meet at Shaw university in north Carolina and form the student nonviolent coordinating committee (SNCC).
9. 1961 May – freedom riders organized by the congress of racial equality (CORE) travel on buses from Washington D.C. headed for Alabama and Mississippi to challenge local segregated travel rules. The buses are attacked on may 14 outside of Anniston, Alabama, and in Birmingham in what becomes known as the “mother’s day massacre.” six days later the freedom riders are beaten at the Montgomery bus station. The next evening first Baptist church in Montgomery is besieged by a white mob. President Kennedy is forced to send u.s. marshals to disperse the mob.
10. 1962 Representatives of Sncc, sclc, core, and naacp create the council of federated organizations (COFO) to promote voter registration activities in Mississippi.
11. 1963 April-may – massive protest demonstrations take place in Birmingham to challenge segregation. Let by police commissioner Eugene “bull” Connor, the police attack protesters with dogs and fire hoses. So many Thousands of children are involved that the campaign becomes known as “the children’s crusade.” June – Alabama governor George Wallace tries to prevent integration of the university of Alabama by standing in the doorway of the school. June – a group of civil rights activists, including Fannie Lou hamer and euvester Simpson, is jailed and beaten in winona, Mississippi. June 12 – medgarevers, the head of the naacp is Mississippi, is murdered.
12. 1963 cont. August 28 – over a quarter of a million people of all races join the march on Washington to demonstrate for civil rights. Martin Luther king, jr. gives his “I have a dream” speech. September 15 – sixteenth street Baptist church in Birmingham is bombed. Four young black girls are killed in the explosion. Fall – the freedom party organizes in Mississippi and conducts a freedom vote to show that blacks want to participate in elections, but are prevented from doing so by segregationists. More than 80,000 blacks vote in the freedom election. November 22 – president john f. Kennedy is assassinated.
13. Martin Luther king jr.
14. Sixteenth street Baptist church bombing
15. 1964 Summer – the “freedom summer” project begins in Mississippi with a plan to bring more than a thousand young people to the state to work on voter registration and other community projects. June 16 – Mount Zion church in longdale, Mississippi, is burned to the ground. June 21 – civil rights workers Michael schwerner, James earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman, on a trip to investigate the burning of mount Zion church, are murdered by ku klux klan members. August 4 – the bodies of schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman are found buried in an earthen dam outside Philadelphia, Mississippi.
16. 1964 cont. August – the Mississippi freedom democratic party (MFDP) challenges the all-white state Democratic party delegation at the national democratic party convention in Atlantic city, new jersey. Fall – the first group of students integrates the schools in Montgomery, Alabama.
17. 1965 February 18 – civil rights worker Jimmie lee Jackson is beaten and shot by state police in Marion, Alabama. He dies eight days later. March 7 – civil rights demonstrators begin a march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the murder of Jimmie lee Jackson and to demand voting rights for blacks. They are brutally beaten by police officers while crossing the Edmund pettus bridge in Selma. The attack becomes known as “bloody Sunday.”
18. 1965 cont. March 9 – reverend James reeb, a Boston minister who had traveled to Selma to join the demonstrators, is viciously beaten by a white gang and dies two days later. March 21 – thousands begin a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights. March 25 – viola liuzzo is killed by Klansmen while driving demonstrators between Selma and Montgomery. She had come to Selma from Michigan to join the protest. August 20 – Jonathan Daniels, seminary student and civil rights activist, is shot and killed at point-blank range in Hayneville, Alabama. His killer is acquitted by an all-white jury.
19. Selma to Montgomery marches
20. 1965 cont. August – president Lyndon Johnson signs into law the voting rights act of 1965. Fall – Thelma Eubanks and six other students integrate Gibson high school in mccomb, Mississippi. Delores Boyd and arlam Carr are part of a group that integrates Lanier high school in Montgomery, Alabama.
21. 1968 April 4 – martin Luther king, jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.