1. A Brief History

2. Important Historical Milestones  1808 -- Importation of slaves banned; illegal slave trade continues.  1820 -- Missouri Compromise allows slavery in Missouri, but not elsewhere west of the Mississippi and north of Missouri's southern border; repealed in 1854  1857 -- Dred Scott Supreme Court decision rules that slaves do not become free when taken into a free state, that Congress cannot bar slavery from a territory, and that blacks cannot become citizens.  1863 -- President Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation freeing "all slaves in areas still in rebellion."  1865 -- Civil War ends. 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, added to the Constitution.  1868 -- 14th Amendment conferring citizenship added to Constitution.

3.  1896 -- Supreme Court approves "separate but equal" segregation doctrine.  1909 -- National Congress on the Negro convenes, leading to founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.  1948 -- President Truman issues executive order outlawing segregation in U.S. military.  1952 -- Racial, ethnic barriers to naturalization removed by Immigration and Naturalization Act.

4. “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” - Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

5. Timeline of Events in the Civil Rights Movement

6.  1954 -- U.S. Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling.  1955 -- Rosa Parks refuses to move to the back of a Montgomery, Alabama bus as required by city ordinance; boycott follows and bus segregation ordinance is declared unconstitutional.

7. But Did You Know…

9.  1957 -- Arkansas Gov. Orval Rubus uses National Guard to block nine black students from attending a Little Rock High School; following a court order, President Eisenhower sends in federal troops to ensure compliance.

10. “Little Rock Nine” by George Hunt

11. By Vincent Smith

12.  1960 -- Four black college students begin sit-ins at the lunch counter of a Greensboro, North Carolina restaurant where black patrons are not served.  Congress approves a watered-down voting rights act after a filibuster by Southern senators.  1961 -- Freedom Rides begin from Washington, D.C., into Southern states.  1962 -- President Kennedy sends federal troops to the University of Mississippi to quell riots so that James Meredith, the school's first black student, can attend.  The Supreme Court rules that segregation is unconstitutional in all transportation facilities.

13. "We are confronted primarily with a moral issue… whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.“ -John F. Kennedy

14.  1963 -- Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is killed by a sniper's bullet.  Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, leaves four young black girls dead.  In the same year, Martin Luther King Jr. delivers "I Have a Dream" speech to hundreds of thousands at the March on Washington.

15. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. “ - Martin Luther King Jr.

16.  1964 -- Congress passes Civil Rights Act declaring discrimination based on race illegal after 75-day long filibuster.  Three civil rights workers disappear in Mississippi after being stopped for speeding; found buried six weeks later.

17.  1965 -- March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand protection for voting rights; two civil rights workers slain earlier in the year in Selma.  Malcolm X assassinated.

18. Also in 1965…  One of the bloodiest and most destructive race riots ever in America happened in Watts, Los Angeles, California and lasted for five days, August 11-15, 1965. Thirty-five people were killed, nine hundred injured, and the property losses were over $225 million. Federal troops were called in to stop the violence.

20.  “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.” “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men. - Abe Lincoln

21. “Race Riot” silkscreen by Andy Warhol

22.  1965- New voting rights act signed. The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on January 23, 1964. It outlawed poll taxes that kept African-Americans from being able to vote, mostly in the southern states.  1967 -- Riots in Detroit, Newark, New Jersey.  Thurgood Marshall first black to be named to the Supreme Court.

23. At around this time, Emory Douglas starts making his well known albeit controversial Civil Rights art, much of which is used within the Black Panther Movement.

26. And in 1968, tragedy strikes…  Martin Luther King Jr.was assassinated. James Earl Ray later convicted and sentenced to 99 years in prison. He was shot while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Dr. King was in Memphis, Tennessee to help the mainly black sanitation workers of Memphis with their resolution of unfair treatment of wages and work conditions.

27. "Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals." -Martin Luther King Jr.

28. That same year…  Shirley Chisholm (1924- ) became the first African-American woman elected to Congress. Ms. Chisholm was elected to the House of Representatives from 12th District of New York. In 1972, she made a bid for the Presidency of the United States, becoming the first black woman to take on this challenge. She entered the primaries in twelve states. She resigned from Congress in 1982  The Civil Rights Bill of 1968 was signed into law. It included the Fair Housing Act that prohibited "discrimination on the basis of race in the renting and sale of houses and apartments."

29. Some follow up…  1983 -- Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday established.  1988 -- Congress passes Civil Rights Restoration Act over President Reagan's veto.  1989 -- Army Gen. Colin Powell becomes first black to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  1989 -- L. Douglas Wilder (Virginia) becomes first black elected governor.  1990 -- President Bush vetoes a civil rights bill he says would impose quotas for employers; weaker bill passes muster in 1991.  1994 -- Byron De La Beckwith convicted of 1963 Medgar Evers assassination.

30. And last but not least… Barack Obama is elected the first African- American President of the United States on Nov. 4 th, 2008.

31. A Poem from the Civil Rights Movement Still I Rise By Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

32. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard.

33. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

34. A Song From the Civil Rights Movement: Bob Dylan, Death of Emmett Till (1963) Twas down in Mississippi no so long ago, When a young boy from Chicago town stepped through a Southern door. This boy's dreadful tragedy I can still remember well, The color of his skin was black and his name was Emmett Till. Some men they dragged him to a barn and there they beat him up. They said they had a reason, but I can't remember what. They tortured him and did some evil things too evil to repeat. There was screaming sounds inside the barn, there was laughing sounds out on the street. Then they rolled his body down a gulf amidst a bloody red rain And they threw him in the waters wide to cease his screaming pain. The reason that they killed him there, and I'm sure it ain't no lie, Was just for the fun of killin' him and to watch him slowly die. And then to stop the United States of yelling for a trial, Two brothers they confessed that they had killed poor Emmett Till. But on the jury there were men who helped the brothers commit this awful crime, And so this trial was a mockery, but nobody seemed to mind. I saw the morning papers but I could not bear to see The smiling brothers walkin' down the courthouse stairs. For the jury found them innocent and the brothers they went free, While Emmett's body floats the foam of a Jim Crow southern sea. If you can't speak out against this kind of thing, a crime that's so unjust, Your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt, your mind is filled with dust. Your arms and legs they must be in shackles and chains, and your blood it must refuse to flow, For you let this human race fall down so God-awful low! This song is just a reminder to remind your fellow man That this kind of thing still lives today in that ghost-robed Ku Klux Klan. But if all of us folks that thinks alike, if we gave all we could give, We could make this great land of ours a greater place to live.

35. This Presentation was brought to you by: Lauren Miller