1. The Black Civil Rights Movement

2. 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education requires schools to integrate “with all deliberate speed.”

3. August 1955 Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi.

4. 1955 Dec. 1: Rosa Parks arrested Dec. 5: Montgomery Improvement Association formed, MLK is named president

5. 1956 Dec. 1956: Supreme Court desegregates buses

6. 1957-1961 (Little Rock Nine enroll in Central Little Rock High) James Meredith is first black man to enroll at Ole Miss University

7. 1960 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee launches sit-ins to protest segregation.

8. 1961 Freedom Rides: White and black activists ride buses throughout the South, protesting segregation.

9. 1963 Protests in Birmingham draw national attention. MLK writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to explain and defend civil disobedience

10. 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom MLK gives “I Have a Dream” speech

11. 1964 LBJ signs Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law bans discrimination in all public places.

12. 1964 Freedom Summer: CORE and SNCC recruit volunteers, mostly white college students, to work to increase voter registration in Mississippi. Three volunteers are murdered: James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman. Murder trial becomes national news.

13. 1964 March from Selma to Montgomery Police brutality draws national attention

14. 1965 Lyndon Baines Johnson signs Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning use of literacy tests and grandfather clauses

15. Riots (1965, 1967)

16. 1966 Stokely Carmichael announces SNCC’s new focus on Black Power Declares SNCC to be an all-black organization

17. 1960s Malcolm X preaches black nationalism and black separatism alongside the Nation of Islam

18. 1966 Black Panther Party for Self Defense is founded in Oakland, CA Panthers create breakfast programs, medical clinics, Afrocentric schools, and patrol neighborhoods.

19. 1968 Civil Rights Act of 1968 (Fair Housing Act) outlaws housing discrimination MLK is assassinated RFK is assassinated Vietnam War and protests reach height of violence

20. 1969-1974 Supreme court requires states to speed up integration, recommend busing. Resistance occurs throughout the country. In Boston, riots occur. Alexander v. Holmes Board of Ed. and Swann v. Charlotte Board of Ed

21. 1961-1976 JFK, LBJ, and Nixon issue executive orders requiring businesses and colleges to enact affirmative action programs

22. 1977 In Regents of University of California vs. Bakke, the Supreme Court rules that quota systems are unconstitutional. Race can only be one factor in hiring and admission to school.