A divided union: civil rights in the USA, 1945–74
Date
Event
1947
'Hollywood Ten': House Committee on Un-American activities (HUAC) investigates the Hollywood Motion Picture
Industry
1948
Harry S. Truman re-elected President in the November election
1951
Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were eventually convicted of spying for the USSR
Senator Joseph McCarthy as head of HUAC investigates Communist activity in the government with huge publicity
(known as McCarthyism)
Brown versus Topeka Board of Education-a landmark case which opened the door for the integration of schools
19501954
1954
1955
1957
1957
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1968
1973
1974
 The arrest of Rosa Parks for violating local bus segregation order leading to the Montgomery Bus Boycott
 Dr Martin Luther King Junior became President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),
adopting the method of non-violent direct action
 Death of Emmett Till- while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American
from Chicago, is brutally murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier
The case of the ‘Little Rock Nine’ and the matter of racial integration in schools at Central High School in Little
Rock, Arkansas
The Civil Rights Act (1957) authorized the prosecution of those who violated the right to vote for all United States
citizens
 Students for a Democratic Society formed- It became an American student organization that flourished in the midto-late 1960s and known for its activism against the Vietnam War
 First student sit-ins as an act of civil disobedience against segregation in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960
 John F. Kennedy (JFK) defeated Richard Nixon in the closest ever presidential election, winning by 118,000 votes
thanks largely to the power of television
‘Freedom riders’ went out in integrated buses to continue challenging segregated transport in the Southern states.
They were sometimes met with violence e.g. the Anniston fire-bombing
Meredith Case in which James Meredith gained admission to the segregated University of Mississippi with legal help
for Meredith from the NAACP
 The March on Birmingham and the March on Washington (where Dr King made the famous I have a Dream’ speech.
 Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay men and women working in the same place different salaries for similar work
 JFK assassinated. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson ( popularly known by his initials LBJ) takes over
 Mississippi Freedom Summer –a voter registration drive aimed at increasing the number of registered Black voters
in Mississippi
 Civil Rights Act (1964) ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination on the basis of
race, colour, religion, sex or national origin
 The Berkeley Free Speech movement refers to a group of college students who, during the 1960s, challenged many
campus regulations limiting their free-speech rights
 Anti-Vietnam War movement mostly led by university students picked up pace and continued to early 1970s
 The March on Selma-a campaign for voter freedom and registration in which protestors were violently attacked by
police (‘Bloody Sunday’). Led to President Johnson declaring support for a new Voting Rights Act
 Malcom X-a radical Muslim leader and orator who was formerly associated with the Nation of Islam assassinated
 Race riots in the Watts District, Los Angeles –a series of violent confrontations between Los Angeles police and
residents of Watts and other predominantly African American neighbourhoods of South-Central Los Angeles. Main issue
stemmed from police brutality against African American citizens
 Stokely Carmichael becomes chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a group formed
to give younger Black people more of a voice in the civil rights movement
 The National Organization for Women (NOW) founded as an activist organization promoting equal rights for women
 The Black Panthers were formed by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party’s original purpose under its Ten
Point Program was to patrol African American neighbourhoods to protect residents from acts of police brutality
Martin Luther King Junior assassinated
Olympic Games-During their medal ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City on October 16, 1968, two
African-American athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, each raised a black-gloved fist during the playing of the
US national anthem in protest at the lack of civil rights in the USA
 Roe v. Wade-U.S. Supreme Court ruled (7–2) that state regulation of abortion was unconstitutional
 Watergate scandal-President Nixon found to have used government resources to carry out illegal surveillance of his
political opponents in the 1972 election. After initially denying, Nixon admitted and resigned
 Phyllis Schafly and other women opposed to the feminist agenda launch the STOP ERA campaign
 War Powers Act limited the powers of the US President to declare war against other countries
After the Watergate scandal, more laws to limit presidential power such as:
 Election Campaign Act
 The Privacy Act
 Congressional Budget Control Act
President Gerald Ford issued Nixon with a presidential pardon