The Civil Rights movement was an African-American social movement that fought for equal rights with white Americans, primarily from 1954 to 1968, with activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Malcolm X leading the movement. Backed by the liberal wings of the US Democratic Party and the US Republican Party and by labor unions and major religious denominations, the Civil Rights movement used "civil disobedience" and the constitutional right to protest peacefully to achieve its goals. The movement took part in famous protests such as the Montgomery bus boycott, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, and the Selma to Montgomery marches. The movement achieved the ratification of the 24th Amendment (which abolished poll taxes, allowing for poor people to vote), the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but its leaders Dr. King and Malcolm X would become martyrs, being assassinated by opponents of the cause. Despite achieving more freedoms, African-Americans were still oppressed in the following decades, living in de facto segregation in inner city ghettoes, going to different schools than white students, being racially stereotyped, and being targeted by racist policemen. The civil rights movement also suffered from internal divisions, as pacifists such as Martin Luther King, Jr. became rivals with the violent black separatist Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam. Today, the Civil Rights movement's legacy has been preserved by Black Lives Matter and human rights groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
8 June 1955 - University of Oklahoma admits black students.
23 June 1955 - Virginia decides to continue segregation into 1956.
29 June 1955 - Supreme Court forces University of Alabama to admit a black student.
11 July 1955 - Any teacher supporting integration in the State of Georgia is fired.
14 July 1955 - Buses in Columbia, South Carolina are desegregated.
1 August 1955 - All black teachers affiliated with the NAACP in Georgia are fired.
13 August 1955 - Regional Council of Negro Leadership activist Lamar Smith is murdered in Brookhaven, Mississippi.
28 August 1955 - African-American teenager Emmett Till is brutally murdered for whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi.
7 November 1955 - Segregation is banned in public parks, playgrounds, and on interstate bus routes.
1 December 1955 - Montgomery bus boycott starts after Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.
3 February 1956 - Autherine Lucy, the University of Alabama student admitted on 29 June 1955 under a Supreme Court decision, is expelled for filing legal action against the university in response to her suspension (which was caused by white protests).
13 February 1956 - Wilmington, Delaware desegregates its schools.
1 March 1956 - Alabama legislature asks for federal funds to deport African-Americans to northern states.
12 March 1956 - Supreme Court orders for the University of Florida to admit a black law student without delay.
23 April 1956 - Buses nationwide are desegregated under Browder v. Gayle as a result of the Montgomery bus boycott.
26 May 1956 - NAACP's operations in Alabama are prohibited.
10 September 1956 - Schools in Louisville, Kentucky are desegregated.
15 October 1956 - Integrated social and athletic events are banned in Louisiana.
20 December 1956 - A month and seven days after Alabama is forced to desegregate its buses, federal marshals arrive to enforce desegregation.
24 December 1956 - African-Americans defy segregation on Tallahassee, Florida buses.
1957[]
Members of the Little Rock Nine being escorted into Central High School
8 February 1957 - 14th and 15th Amendments are declared null and void by the Georgia State Senate.
14 February 1957 - Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
18 April 1957 - Florida Senate declares desegregation "null and void".
2 September 1957 - Arkansas governor Orval Faubus deploys state National Guardsmen to block the integration of Little Rock Central High School, only for the US 101st Airborne Division to arrive in the city. The "Little Rock Nine", a group of nine black students, are allowed into the school on 24 September under the protection of the army.
27 September 1957 - Civil Rights Act of 1957 is signed into effect by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
9 October 1957 - Florida threatens to close any school if federal troops are sent in to enforce desegregation. Texas follows suit on 26 November.
1958[]
LSU logo
29 June 1958 - Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is bombed by the Ku Klux Klan.
30 June 1958 - NAACP's members are allowed to anonymously operate in Alabama.
July 1958 - All Dockum stores in Kansas are desegregated due to sit-ins.
19 August 1958 - Six-year sit-in campaign starts in Oklahoma City, forcing drug store lunch counters to be desegregated.
4 September 1958 - Justice Department forces Terrell County, Georgia to allow black registered voters.
8 September 1958 - Louisiana State University is desegregated, and 69 black students enroll on 12 September.
29 September 1958 - Supreme Court rules that states may not use evasive measures to prevent desegregation.
28 November 1958 - Athletic events in Louisiana are desegregated.
19 January 1959 - Closed Norfolk, Virginia schools are reopened with black students.
18 April 1959 - 26,000 people take part in a rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, where Martin Luther King speaks for the integration of schools.
20 November 1959 - Alabama limits black voter registration.
1960[]
A piece of the lunch counter from the Greensboro sit-ins at the Smithsonian, 27 April 2014
May 1960 - Nashville lunch counters and other public areas are desegregated.
6 May 1960 - Civil Rights Act of 1960 is signed into law by President Eisenhower.
31 July 1960 - Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad calls for an all-black state, and NOI membership rises to between 50,000 and 100,000.
19-28 October 1960 - Martin Luther King, Jr. is imprisoned for a sit-in at Rich's Department Store in Atlanta, only for Robert F. Kennedy to secure his release.
14 November 1960 - Ruby Bridges becomes the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South, going to William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.
6 March 1961 - President John F. Kennedy passes Executive Order 10925, coining the term "affirmative action" and demanding that action be taken against workplace discrimination.
4 May 1961 - The Freedom Riders start their first "freedom ride" into the South.
6 May 1961 - Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy delivers the Kennedy administration's first formal endorsement of civil rights.
14 May 1961 - The Ku Klux Klan firebombs a Freedom Rider bus outside of Anniston, Alabama.
15-16 December 1961 - MLK takes part in protests in Albany, Georgia against the segregation of public facilities, and he is arrested.
1962[]
18-20 January 1962 - Student protests against the arrests of sit-in leaders lead to Baton Rouge's Southern University closing down.
3 April 1962 - All military reserve units, except for the US National Guard, are officially desegregated.
20 September-1 October 1962 - The University of Mississippi, "Ole Miss", is forcefully desegregated as black student James Meredith enrolls in the school.
23 October 1962 - FBI begins to investigate "communist infiltration" of SCLC.
20 November 1962 - President Kennedy passes an executive order that forbids segregation in federal housing.
1963[]
Activists being attacked by a police fire hose during the Birmingham campaign
14 January 1963 - Governor George Wallace of Alabama calls for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in his inaugural address.
3 April-10 May 1963 - Daily mass demonstrations against segregation are held in Birmingham, Alabama in the "Birmingham campaign".
16 April 1963 - Martin Luther King writes his famous letter from Birmingham jail while being held for parading without a permit.
11-12 May 1963 - The Klan and the local police launch a double bombing against local blacks, leading to rioting and the deployment of federal troops.
11 June 1963 - Governor Wallace stands in front of a schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in an attempt to prevent two black students from entering the building, and federal marshals force him to move aside as the college is desegregated. That same day, President Kennedy makes his historic civil rights address.
12 June 1963 - NAACP activist Medgar Evers is murdered in Jackson, Mississippi.
21 June 1964 - Civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney are murdered by local Klansmen in league with the police.
2 July 1964 - The Civil Rights Act of 1964, passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, officially desegregates the USA. The act is a major victory for the Civil Rights movement, but many southern states refuse to desegregate, delaying the process with state laws.
10 December 1964 - King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent campaigning for freedom.
1965[]
18 February 1965 - Jimmie Lee Jackson is shot by state troopers at a Marion, Alabama restaurant while attempting to protect his grandfather and mother from severe beatings, and he dies on 26 February 1964. In response, Dr. King and the SCLC start the "Selma to Montgomery marches", protesting at Jackson's death and advocating for voting rights for African-Americans.
4 April 1967 - MLK delivers "Beyond Vietnam" speech and calls for the defeat of materialism, militarism, and racism.
"The Long Hot Summer of 1967" sees 159 race riots break out, leaving over 85 people dead, over 2,100 injured, and over 11,000 arrested. The most serious riots occur in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan.
12 February 1968 - Memphis, Tennessee sanitation workers begin a wildcat strike to protest poor working conditions.
3 April 1968 - MLK visits Memphis during his "Poor People's Campaign" with the goal of inspiring the workers to follow him in another march on Washington DC, delivering the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech.
4 April 1968 - MLK is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by James Earl Ray.
4-8 April 1968 - Over 150 US cities see race riots in reaction to the murder of MLK, leading to widespread destruction and violence.
12 April 1968 - Poor People's Campaign encamps in DC.
24 June 1968 - Poor People's Campaign ends after just over two months; it is seen as the "Little Bighorn" of the Civil Rights movement, as it fails to secure an "economic bill of rights". For all intensive purposes, the Civil Rights movement is at its end, with civil rights initiatives being taken over by the government.
