Brown Vs. Board Of Education

Supreme Court decision that overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1896); led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court ruled that "separate but equal" schools for blacks were inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional. The decision energized the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

December, 1955 - In Montgomery, Alabama, she refused to give up her bus seat for a White man as required by city ordinance. It started the Civil Rights Movement and an almost nation-wide bus boycott lasting 11 months.

Was the site of forced desegregation in 1957 when the governor of Alabama wouldn't allow the "Little Rock nine" access to the school. President Eisenhower then mobilized the 101st airborne division to force the school to admit the students.

first federal civil rights law since reconstruction. established civil rights commission and civil rights division of the department of justice.

4 students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical college in Greensboro sat down at the whites-only lunch counter. The black students remained seated and would not be moved when asked to do so. They believed that the Supreme Court's Brown decision of 1954 should have ended the indignities of racial ldiscrimination and segregation, but massive resistance to racial equality still proved the rule throughout Dixie. Six months later, after prolonged sitins, boycotts, and demonstrations, and violent white resistance, Greensboro's white civic leaders grudgingly allowed blacks to sit down at restaurants and be served. This sit-in inspired similiar sit-ins throughout North Carolina and in neighboring states.

More than 200,000 African-Americans and others marched in Washington D.C. and heard MLK give his speech "I have a Dream".

Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1964) eliminated the poll tax as a prerequisite to vote in national elections.

campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible in Mississippi, which up to that time had almost totally excluded black voters. The project was organized by the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of four established civil rights organizations: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), with SNCC playing the lead role.

This act made racial, religious, and sex discrimination by employers illegal and gave the government the power to enforce all laws governing civil rights, including desegregation of schools and public places.

1965; invalidated the use of any test or device to deny the vote and authorized federal examiners to register voters in states that had disenfranchised blacks; as more blacks became politically active and elected black representatives, it rboguth jobs, contracts, and facilities and services for the black community, encouraging greater social equality and decreasing the wealth and education gap

In Memphis, Tennessee- night before assassination gave speech in church "I've been to the mountain" speech, In speech said that he might not get there- 1000's of death threats, Next night shot on balcony of his hotel- April 4, 1968, 100,000's mourn him and go to funeral, Murderer found in Canada- found guilty (James Earl Ray)