Selected Events for Civil Rights Movement |
| Year | Month | Day | Event | Related Resource |
| 1948 | July | 26 | President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981, desegregating the U.S. Armed Forces. Order 9981 states, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." The order also establishes the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services. | Link |
| 1952 | | | Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is published. The novel chronicles the travels of its narrator, a young, nameless black man, as he moves through the levels of American racial intolerance and cultural bigotry. | |
| 1954 | May | 17 | In the case of Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, the U.S. Supreme Court ends federally sanctioned racial segregation in the public schools by ruling unanimously that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Brown overturned the precedent of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had declared "separate but equal facilities" constitutional, and provided the legal foundation of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. | Link |
| 1955 | August | 28 | Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago is murdered in Money, Mississippi while visiting relatives. He allegedly whistled at and said "Bye, baby" to a white woman. The case attracts national attention. In September, an all-white jury finds his alleged killers not guilty of murder. | Link |
December | 01 | Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for violating municipal laws when she does not relinquish her seat on a city bus to a white man. At her trial she is convicted and ordered to pay a fine of $10. She is jailed when she refuses to pay. | Link | December | 05 | Martin Luther King, Jr. begins the Montgomery Bus Boycott. It continues through 1956. The boycott gives King a position of leadership within the national civil rights movement and demonstrates that nonviolent methods of protest can be effective. | | | 1960 | January | 24 | Martin Luther King, Jr. moves to Atlanta and becomes co-pastor, with his father, of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. | Link |
February | 01 | Four black freshmen from NC A&T College refuse to give up their seats at the "white's only" lunch counter at a Woolworth's in Greensboro. Within weeks the tactic of sit-ins is taken up by people across the South. | Link | April | 15 | Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded by a group of Southern Black college students at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC. | Link | May | 06 | President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Voting Rights Act of 1960 permitting federal courts to appoint voting referees to conduct voter registration following a judicial finding of voting discrimination. | | October | 19 | Martin Luther King & 35 students are arrested for a sit-in at the snack bar of Rich's Department Store, Atlanta, GA. He is sentenced to four months hard labor for violating a suspended sentence he received for a 1956 traffic violation. John and Robert Kennedy use their influence to secure King's release from Reidsville Prison on October 27. | Link | December | 05 | The Supreme Court prohibits segregating interstate bus passengers in the public waiting rooms and restaurants (Boynton vs Virginia) | Link | | 1961 | May | 04 | Interracial groups board buses destined for the South to test the Supreme Court's 1946 decision, which declared segregated seating of interstate passengers unconstitutional. The Freedom Riders meet violent mobs in Anniston and Birmingham. | Link |
December | 16 | Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Albany, Georgia at a demonstration to desegregate public facilties. | Link | | 1962 | October | 01 | James H. Meredith is officially registered as a student at the University of Mississippi, marking the school's integration, following a night of rioting that claims the lives of two students and injures 160 federal marshals. | Link |
| 1963 | April | 16 | Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for participating in a demonstration to end segregated facilities. During his 11 day imprisonment he writes the "Letter from Birmingham Jail." | Link |
May | 03 | Birmingham Public Safety Director, "Bull" Connor permits the use of police dogs and fire hoses against civil rights protesters. Over 2,400 persons are arrested between May 2-7. | Link | May | 20 | The U.S. Supreme Court declares Birmingham, Alabama segregation ordinances unconstitutional. | Link | June | 11 | Alabama Governor George Wallace tries to stop the court ordered integration of the University of Alabama by standing by the door and personally refusing entrance to black students and Justice Department officials. | Link | June | 12 | Medgar Evers, NAACP field secretary and civil rights activist, is murdered at his home in Jacksonville, Mississippi . Evers, a Sergeant in the United States Army, is buried in Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC | Link | August | 28 | The 1963 March on Washington is the first integrated civil rights demonstration. The March is organized to present the civil rights agenda to Congress. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers the famous the "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd of 250,00 | Link | September | 15 | Four small black girls are killed in a Birmingham, Alabama church bombing. | Link | | 1964 | January | 08 | In Lyndon Johnson's first State of the Union address he asks Congress to "let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined." | Link |
January | 21 | Lyndon Johnson appoints Carl Rowan as director of the U.S. Information Agency. Rowan is the first black to serve on the National Security Council. | | February | 04 | The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, ending the poll tax in federal elections. | Link | April | 24 | The Klu Klux Klan burns crosses at 61 separate locations across Mississippi. | Link | June | 11 | Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested and jailed in St. Augustine, Florida. King and a group of his followers were charged with trespassing at the Monson Motor Lodge on the bayfront after persisting in attempts to be seated for lunch. | Link | June | 21 | Three civil rights workers are murdered after traveling to Neshoba County, Mississippi to investigate the burning of a black church. No one was ever charged, although Federal agents identified a group of Ku Klux Klansmen as the killers. | Link | July | 03 | The 1964 Civil Rights Act is passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson. | Link | August | 04 | The bodies of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are discovered by FBI agents buried near the town of Philadelphia in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The begins an exhaustive search for the murderers by the FBI. A case against 19 conspirators is brought to trial ("Mississippi Burning Trial"). In October 20, 1967 the jury returns verdicts of guilty against seven conspirators, nine are acquitted, and the jury is unable to reach a verdict on three of the men charged. | Link | October | 14 | Martin Luther King, Jr. is named winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. | Link | November | 03 | Lyndon Johnson is elected President in a landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. | | December | 07 | The Supreme Court rules that a Florida law barring racially mixed unmarried couples from living together is an unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment. | | December | 14 | The U.S. Supreme Court declares that The Heart of Atlanta Motel, Atlanta, Georgia, violated Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by refusing to accept Black Americans (Heart of Atlanta Motel v. U.S.) . Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbade racial discrimination by places of public accommodation if their operations affected commerce. | Link | | 1965 | February | 01 | Alabama official arrest 700 blacks as they demonstrate against the state's voter registration requirements in Selma. Protests and arrests continue the next day. On the 6th President Johnson pledges to seek legislation eliminating voting barriers. | |
February | 21 | Malcom X is murdered in New York City. | Link | March | 07 | Civil Rights demonstrators are brutally assaulted by heavily armed state troopers and deputies on march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on a date now known as 'Bloody Sunday.' | Link | March | 20 | President Johnson mobilizes the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights marchers in Selma. | | March | 21 | Over 3,000 civil rights marchers leave Selma for a march to Montgomery, Alabama protected by federal troops. 25,000 marchers join along the way. Upon reaching the capitol, Martin Luther King, Jr. hands a petition to Governor George Wallace, demanding voting rights for blacks and gives an address. | Link | March | 25 | Viola Liuzzo, wife of a Detroit Teamsters Union business agent, is shot and killed while driving a carload of civil rights workers to the Montgomery Airport. A member of the NAACP, Viola had decided to take part in the Selma to Montgomery March. | Link | | 1966 | February | | Martin Luther King, Jr. moves his family into a Chicago slum to begin a protest for better housing and economic conditions. To avoid confrontation, Mayor Daley meets with King, and a group of local housing authorities, church representatives and black leaders. | |
March | 24 | The U.S. Supreme Court declares poll taxes are unconstitutional. | Link | May | 16 | Martin Luther King, Jr. presents an antiwar statement at a Washington DC Vietnam protest rally. King agrees to serve as a co-chairman of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. | | June | 06 | James Meredith is shot in Hernando, Mississippi during a 220-mile "March Against Fear" from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. Meredith survives the attack and later completes the march; Aubrey James Norvell, the white man who shot him, is sentenced to five years in prison. | | August | 26 | Martin Luther King, Jr.'s efforts secure in an open housing agreement in Chicago. A Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) poverty and unemployment program called Operation Breadbasket was created in Chicago and put under the leadership of Jesse Jackson. | | October | 15 | The Black Panther Party is founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Newton and Seale articulate their goals in a ten-point platform that demand, among other items, better housing, full employment,and an end to police brutality. | Link | | 1967 | October | | Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as a Supreme Court justice. Long before President Lyndon Johnson appointed him the first African-American Supreme Court justice, Marshall had established himself as the nation's leading legal civil rights advocate. | Link |
March | 12 | Alabama is ordered to desegregate all public schools. | | October | 30 | The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the contempt-of-court convictions of Dr. King and seven other black leaders who led the 1963 marches in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King and his aides serve four day jail sentences. | | November | 07 | The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Declaration on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. | | December | 04 | Martin Luther King, Jr. announces the formation by SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) of a "Poor People's Campaign" with the aim of representing the problems of poor blacks and whites. | Link | December | 11 | A black student is shot to death during a two day riot on the campus of Jackson State College, Jackson, Mississippi. | | | 1968 | February | 08 | Three black students are shot to death and 30 wounded by police on the campus of South Carolina State College in Orangeburg (Orangeburg Massacre). | |
February | 14 | Cesar Chavez, Mexican American labor activist and leader of the United Farm Workers, begins a month long fast that publicizes the California farm workers' strike and grape boycott. | | April | 05 | At 6:01 p.m. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated on while standing on a balcony at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. | Link | April | 10 | Title II of the Civil Rights Act, known as the Indian Civil Rights Act, extends to Native American certain constitutional rights previously unavailable to them. | Link | November | 04 | Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black woman elected to the House of Representatives. She joins 9 other women. | Link | | 1969 | August | 08 | President Nixon issues Executive Order 11478 which requires Affirmative Action programs in Federal employment. | |
December | 04 | Police storm Black Panther leader Fred Hampton's Monroe Street apartment in an early-morning raid, killing Hampton and another man, Mark Clark, and wounding others. Thousands attend Hampton's funeral. Although police claim they acted in self-defense, a subsequent investigation proves the Panthers had offered no resistance. | | | 1971 | July | | President Nixon certifies the 26th Amendment, lowering the voting age to 18. | Link |
December | 09 | Inmates, mostly African American and Puerto Rican, take over the Attica State Penitentiary. They issue demands for improved living conditions, call the prison administration "racist," and criticize the "ruthless brutalization" of prisoners. Governor Nelson Rockefeller orders the prison retaken by force in a bloody, punitive operation. | | | 1973 | November | 30 | The United Nations General Assembly adopts the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. | |
