1954
• Brown v Board of Education decision orders the desegregation of schools
1955
• Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus
Boycott
1957
• School desegregation crisis occurs in
Little Rock , Arkansas

1960
• Greensboro Sit-ins are staged at the
Greensboro, NC Woolworths lunch counter
1961
• Freedom Riders start their ride down south to test the Supreme Court decision to ban segregated bus lines
1962
• Integrating Ole Miss , by James
Meredith attending University of
Mississippi

1963
• Birmingham Alabama ends segregation thanks to the SCLC (May)
1963
1964
• March on Washington led by Martin
Luther King Jr. “I have a dream” speech
(August)
Kennedy Assassination
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, religion, national origin and sex

1964
• Freedom Summer takes place when many student volunteers help register voters in the South
1965
• Voting Rights Act of 1965 is passed which prohibits literacy tests

• National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP)
– Founded in 1909 with the mission of ensuring,
“the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination
• Congress of Racial Segregation (CORE)
– Founded in Chicago in 1942 by both blacks and whites and believed that nonviolent civil disobedience could also be used by African-
Americans to challenge racial segregation in the
United States

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC)
– Founded by ministers (MLK Jr.) in 1957 to “carry on nonviolent crusades against the evils of second-class citizenship”
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC)
– Founded in 1960 by Ella Baker and students at
Shaw University (in North Carolina) with a focus on nonviolent protests (most famous for sit ins) very separate from SCLC

The Freedom Riders
• On May 4, 1961, a group of 13
African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides
– A series of bus trips through the
American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals
– Organized by CORE two busses left
Washington DC and planned to reach New Orleans, Louisiana, on
May 17 th to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Supreme
Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision

The Freedom Riders
• The group encountered tremendous violence from white protestors along the route, but also drew international attention to their cause
• They attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South
– African-American Freedom Riders tried to use
“whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters, and vice versa
• The first acts of violence against them occurred on
May 12 th in Rock Hill South Carolina when 3 riders were attacked while waiting in a white’s only waiting area

The Freedom Riders
• The next day, May 13 th , they split into two busses, one would go to New Orleans (Greyhound bus) and one would go to Birmingham, Alabama
(Trailways Bus)
• On May 14, 1961, the Greyhound bus was the first to arrive in Anniston, Alabama.
– There, an angry mob of about 200 white people surrounded the bus, causing the driver to continue past the bus station
– The mob followed the bus in cars, and when the tires on the bus blew out, someone threw a bomb into the bus.

The Freedom Riders
• The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the surrounding mob.
• The second bus, arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, that day, and those riders were also beaten by an angry white mob, many of whom brandished metal pipes.
– Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner stated that, although he knew the Freedom Riders were arriving and violence awaited them, he posted no police protection at the station because it was Mother’s Day.

The Freedom Riders

The Freedom Riders
• Photographs of the burning
Greyhound bus and the bloodied riders appeared on the front pages of newspapers the next day, drawing attention to the Freedom Riders’ cause
• Following the widespread violence, CORE officials could not find a bus driver who would agree to transport the integrated group, and they decided to abandon the Freedom Rides.

The Freedom Riders
• An activist from the SNCC, organized a group of 10 students from
Nashville, Tennessee, to continue the rides.
– U.S. Attorney General Robert F.
Kennedy began negotiating with the Governor of Alabama and the bus companies to secure a driver and state protection for the new group of Freedom Riders.
– The rides finally resumed, on a
Greyhound bus departing
Birmingham under police escort, on May 20 th

The Freedom Riders
• The violence toward the Freedom
Riders did not stop with the presence of police
– The police abandoned the bus just before it arrived at the Montgomery,
Alabama, terminal
– A white mob then attacked the riders with baseball bats and clubs
– When Attorney General Kennedy found out, he sent 600 federal marshals to the city to stop the violence and accompany the riders while they finished the ride to
Jackson Mississippi

The Freedom Riders
• On May 24 th , the group of Freedom Riders departed Montgomery for Jackson, Mississippi.
• Several hundred supporters greeted the riders.
But those who attempted to use the whites-only facilities were arrested for trespassing
– During their hearings, the judge turned and looked at the wall rather than listen to the
Freedom Riders’ defense
– He sentenced the riders to 30 days in jail.
– NAACP attorneys appealed the convictions all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed them

The Freedom Riders
• The violence and arrests continued to gather national attention, and drew hundreds of new Freedom Riders to the cause
• The rides continued over the next several months
• That fall, under pressure from the Kennedy administration, the Interstate Commerce
Commission issued regulations prohibiting segregation in interstate transit terminals.

• In September of 1962 Air Force veteran
James Meredith won a federal court case which allowed him to enroll in the all-white
University of Mississippi a.k.a “Ole Miss”
– He arrived on campus to register and found that the governor of Mississippi
Ross Barnett was refusing to let his register
• President Kennedy ordered federal marshals to escort him to the registrars office
– Barnett issued a radio appeal: “I call on every Mississippian to keep his faith and courage. We will never surrender.”

• The broadcast brought out protesters in droves and on the night of September 30 th , 1962 riots broke out on the campus resulting in two deaths
– Took thousands of soldiers,
200 arrests, and 15 hours to stop the rioters
• In the months that followed, federal officials accompanied
Meredith to classes and protected his parents from nightriders who shot of their home

• The civil rights bill that President
Kennedy sent to Congress guaranteed
– Equal access to all public accommodations
– The federal government to desegregate schools
• Now all Congress had to do was pass it
– To help persuade them civil rights leaders summoned supporters of Civil
Rights to march on Washington D.C.
• Organized by A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin

• On August 28 th 1963 more than
250,000 people met in Washington
D.C.
– Assembled on the grassy lawn of the
Washington Monument and would march to the Lincoln Memorial
– Over 75,000 were white
– Listened to speakers demand the immediate passage of the civil rights bill
– Most famous speech that was given was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream speech”

• Two weeks after King’s historic speech, four young
Birmingham girls were killed when a rider in a car hurled a bomb through a church window (16 th
Street bombing)
• Two months later John F. Kennedy was assassinated
• July 2 nd , 1964 President Johnson signed the Civil
Rights Act of 1964
– Prohibited discrimination because of race, religion, national origin, and gender
– Gave citizens the right to enter libraries, parks, washrooms, restaurants, and other public places

• One of the most important things for African
Americans was their voting rights… which hadn’t been addressed in the Civil Rights Act of 1957 or
1964
– So during the summer of 1964 CORE and
SNCC began organizing groups of workers in the south to begin registering African Americans to vote
– Hoped that this campaign would receive national publicity and force Congress to pass a voting rights act
– Became known as Freedom Summer

• Civil Rights groups recruited college students and trained them in nonviolence resistance
– Thousands of students volunteered, mostly white, one-third female, went to
Mississippi to register voters
– Turned out to be very violent or even deadly
– June of 1964, three civil rights workers disappeared in Mississippi, investigators later learned that Klansmen and local police had murdered them, two of whom were white

• At the start of 1965, the SCLC conducted a major voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama
– They had been working there registering voters for two years
– By 1965, more than 2,000 African
Americans had been arrested in SCLC demonstrations
– Martin Luther King Jr. decided enough was enough when one protester was shot and killed, and organized a 50 mile protest march from Selma to Montgomery

• On March 7 th , 1965 about 600 protestors set out for Montgomery
– That night mayhem broke out and
TV cameras were there to capture the scene
– Police swung clubs and whips and launched tear gas at the marchers
• Demonstrators flocked to Selma by the hundreds
– Ten days later, President Johnson presented to Congress a new voting rights act and asked for a swift passage

• On March 21 st , 3,000 marchers again set out for
Montgomery, this time with federal protection
– Soon the numbers grew to 25,000
• That summer Congress passed Johnson’s Voting
Rights Act of 1965
– eliminated literacy tests that had previously disqualified many voters
– Federal examiners could enroll voters who had been denied the right to vote by local officials
– The percentage of registered voters in the South tripled

• Towards the mid 1960’s the Civil Rights movement moved from the South to the Northern
Cities
– New leaders emerged at the movement faced not legal segregation in the North but a deeply entrenched and oppressive racial prejudice
• In the North the problem was de facto segregation
– Segregation that exists by practice and custom
• In the South it was de jure segregation
– Segregation by law

• By the 1960’s most African Americans in the North lived in the cities which were decaying slums
– Slum lords took rent without complying with building or health ordinances
– Unemployment was very high
– Treated brutally by white police officers
• During the mid 60’s there were several race riots in northern cities
– Harlem, NYC
– Watts, Los Angeles
– All started because of violence towards blacks protesting peacefully

• By the close of the 1960’s the Civil Rights movement began to die down
– White opposition felt that ending de jure segregation was enough
– The Vietnam War began taking center stage with the media and with the economy
• However, there were a number of gains from the movement
1. The civil rights movement ended de jure segregation by bringing about legal protection for the civil rights of all Americans

2. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968
• Prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of most housing
• Strengthened anti-lynching laws
• made it a crime to harm a civil rights worker
3. Once school segregation ended, the number of
African Americans who finished high school and went on to colleges increased
4. The movement gave African Americans greater pride in their racial identity
• Adopted African American influenced styles and displayed symbols of African history and culture

5. In the entertainment world, the “color bar” was lowered as African Americans began to appear more frequently in movies and on TV
6. African Americans made substantial political gains
• By 1970 an estimated two-thirds of eligible
African Americans were registered to vote which resulted the election of African
American political leaders
• Many civil rights leaders would go on to become political leaders