Selected Sixties Events for 1966

Selected Sixties Events for 1966
Month	Day	Event	Related Resource
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
March	26	20,000 - 30,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam War in New York City.
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.
June	17	Stokely Carmichael, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), speaks at a rally in Greenwood, Mississippi, and argues for Black Power. Carmichael defined this as "a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, and to build a sense of community".
August		In White v. Crook, a 3 judge federal court declares an Alabama law that excludes women from state juries to be unconstitutional.
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
October	19	The founding conference of the National Organization for Women (NOW) is held in Washington, DC. Betty Friedan is elected president.	Link