Civil Rights Movement Timeline

1954

May 17 - The U.S. Supreme Court overturns the doctrine of “separate but equal” in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling that segregation in public schools is impermissible. Thurgood Marshall served as attorney for the NAACP.

1955

August 28 - Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was taken at gun point from his uncle's home located on the outskirts of Money, Mississippi. Three days later, the mutilated body of Emmett Till was discovered in the Tallahatchie River. Its was weighted down by a seventy-five pound cotton gin fan that was tied around Till's neck with barbed wire.

September - Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were tried, and found not guilty for the murder of Emmett Till.

December 1 - Rosa Parks is arrested after she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on the city bus. The Montgomery Improvement Association, led by Martin Luther King Jr. organizes the Montgomery bus boycott, which lasts for over a year.

1956

December 21 - After the U.S. Supreme Court affirms the District Court’s decision that segregation on buses is unconstitutional, the Montgomery buses are desegregated.

1957

January/February - The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is founded by Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Bayard Rustin. The SCLC was instrumental in organizing nonviolent protests during the civil rights movement.

September 25 - President Eisenhower sends troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to protect and assist nine black students in the desegregation of Little Rock Central High.

1958

June 30 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in NAACP v. Alabama, that NAACP has the constitutional right of freedom of assembly to keep its membership a secret.

1960

February 1 - Four black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College students sit down at a segregated Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and wait to be served. This sparks sit-ins throughout numerous other southern cities.

April - Shaw University students create the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which serves to organize sit-ins.

1961

May 4 – The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) uses “freedom riders” to protest segregation on interstate transportation.

November 1 - The SNCC tests the desegregation of the bus terminal in Albany. Once the protestors enter the white waiting room, they are ordered to leave by the police.

1962

October 1 - With the help of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, James Meredith becomes the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi.

1963

June 12 - Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers, is murdered outside of his home. Byron De La Beckwith is arrested and tried for the crime, but after two hung jury verdicts, he is not convicted until twenty years later.

August 28 - 250,000 people gather at the Lincoln Memorial to participate in the March on Washington. Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

September 15 - A bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four girls.

1964

Summer - Known as Freedom Summer, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) organizes efforts to register black voters.

June 21 – Three Mississippi Freedom Summer workers, James E. Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are murdered.

July 2 - The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is signed by President Johnson. The Act makes it illegal to discriminate in employment and illegal to segregate public facilities.

1965

February 1 – Martin Luther King and 250 marchers are arrested after marching in Selma, Alabama for voting rights.

February 21 – Malcolm X is shot by three gunmen while on stage at the Manhattan Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.

March 7 – Voting rights marchers are beaten by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. This day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

August 6 – The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is signed into law by President Johnson. The act makes literacy tests illegal.

1966

October - The Black Panther Party, a militant self-defense organization, is founded in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.

1967

June 12 – In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court hands down the ruling that the prohibition of interracial marriage is unconstitutional.

October 2 – Thurgood Marshall becomes the first black Supreme Court Justice.

1968

April 4 – Martin Luther King is shot and killed by James Earl Ray while standing on the balcony outside of his motel room.

April 11 – The Civil Rights Act of 1968 is passed, which makes it illegal to discriminate in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.