CIVIL RIGHTS
A TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How did the United
States come from a country of slavery to a
nation of full legal equality and civil rights?
4. Cite specific textual and visual evidence to analyze the major events, personalities, tactics,
and effects of the Civil Rights Movement.
A. Assess the effects of President Truman’s decision to desegregate the United States armed
forces, and the legal attacks on segregation by the NAACP and Thurgood Marshall, the United
States Supreme Court decisions in the cases of Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher and George McLaurin,
and the differences between de jure and de factosegregation.
B. Compare and contrast segregation policies of “separate but equal,” disenfranchisement of
African Americans through poll taxes, literacy tests, and violence; and the sustained attempts
to dismantle segregation including the Brown v. Board of Educationdecision, Rosa Parks and
the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School, the
Oklahoma City lunch counter sit-ins led by Clara Luper, the Freedom Rides, the March on
Washington, the Birmingham church bombing, the adoption of the 24th Amendment, the
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Selma to
Montgomery marches, and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
C. Compare and contrast the view points and the contributions of civil rightsleaders and
organizations linking them to events of the movement including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
and his I Have a Dream speech, Malcolm X, NAACP, SCLC, CORE, SNCC, and the tactics used
at different times including civil disobedience, non-violent resistance, sit-ins, boycotts,
marches, and voter registration drives
CIVIL WAR Amendments
13th: 1865 abolished slavery
 14th: 1868 established citizenship
and due process
15th: 1870 universal male suffrage

Plessy v. Ferguson

1896 US Supreme Court legalizes
segregation in the United States
“SEPARATE BUT EQUAL”
Early Civil Rights Leaders

W.E.B. DuBois—
pushed for immediate
civil rights and
equality. Leader of
NAACP

Booker T. Washington
founder of Tuskegee
Institute.
1909 NAACP
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
est’d.

1948 Pres. Truman integrates the military
1954 Brown v. Board of Education
of Topeka, Kansas
Supreme Court rules “separate educational
facilities are inherently unequal”. Ends
school segregation.
1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks arrested for refusing to move
to the back of the bus. A boycott follows,
leading to desegregation.
1957 Central High School
Little Rock, Arkansas
“The Little Rock Nine”

Pres. Eisenhower sends federal troops
after Arkansas governor Orval Faubus uses
the National Guard to deny entrance to
African-American students at Central High.
1960 Sit-ins

College students in Greensboro, NC stage
sit-ins at the Woolworth’s lunch counter
1961 Freedom Rides

Volunteers, black and white, take buses
into the South to test new desegregation
laws, often meeting with violence
Freedom rides
1962 Univ. of Mississippi

Pres. Kennedy sends 5000 federal troops
to Mississippi to allow James Meredith, the
school’s 1st African-American student, to
attend.
1963 Birmingham, AL

Martin Luther King and the SCLC focus on
segregation in Birmingham. Protests there
end in violence, riots, and arrests of adults
and children.
Aug 1963 March on Washington

200,000 people hear Martin Luther King’s
“I Have a Dream” speech in Washington.
1963 Stand in the Schoolhouse
Door



Gov. George Wallace promises
“segregation today, segregation tomorrow,
segregation forever!”
Refuses to desegregate Univ. of Alabama
Stands aside only after being confronted
by federal marshals and the Alabama
National Guard.
1963 Bombing in Birmingham


16th St. Baptist Church, a bomb explodes
on a Sunday morning, killing four young
girls.
KKK member seen planting bomb, is
arrested, but found guilty of possessing
dynamite without a permit.
Fined $100 and six months
in jail.
1964 24th Amendment

Outlawed poll tax. Black voter registration
begins to increase.
1964 Civil Rights Act

Outlaws discrimination based on race.
1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer

Civil rights activists attempt to register
African-Americans to vote
1965 Selma March


Demanding voting rights, 600 protesters
plan to march to Montgomery.
6 blocks into march, they meet state
troopers armed with nightsticks and tear
gas.
SELMA, ALABAMA
1965
1965 Voting Rights Act


In the aftermath of Selma, Pres. Johnson
calls for passage of a voting rights bill.
Outlaws literacy tests, est’d fed. oversight
Protests—different views


KING: Non-violent,
passive resistance
Influenced by Ghandi


Black Power:
proactive, militant,
focus on black pride
and African heritage.
Term popularized by
Stokely Carmichael of
SNCC
1965 Malcolm X assassinated





Born Malcolm Little, he learned the ideas of black pride
and self-reliance from his father, a follower of Marcus
Garvey and member of the UNIA.
While in prison, he converted to Islam and joined the
Nation of Islam.
Upon release, he changed his name; the X represented
the African heritage he would never know.
He preached the superiority of blacks and separation
from whites; he scorned King’s non-violence saying black
people should use any means to protect themselves.
Between 1952 and 1963, the Nation of Islam grew from
500 members to 25,000.
Malcolm X


In 1964, Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to Mecca.
After seeing Muslims of different races treating
each other as equals, his views changed.
At a meeting in Feb. 1965, Malcolm X was
assassinated by two members of the Nation of
Islam, although imprisoned for their crime,
proclaimed their innocence.
1965-67 Urban Race Riots – a call
for economic rights

Watts (Los Angeles), Detroit, Newark
1968 Martin Luther King, Jr
assassinated

Memphis, TN, King is shot by James Earl
Ray. He was 39 years old.
Civil Rights Today



Do we face civil rights issues today?
Are we a desegregated, equal society?
Are there other groups dealing with civil
rights questions today?