Civil Rights Movement
Civil Rights Movement: 1890-1900 1890: The
state of Mississippi adopts
poll taxes and literacy tests to discourage black
voters. 1895: Booker T.
Washington delivers his Atlanta Exposition
speech, which accepts segregation of
the races. 1896: The Supreme Court rules
in Plessy v. Ferguson the separate but
equal treatment of the races is
constitutional. 1900-1910 1900-1915: Over one
thousand blacks are lynched in
the states of the former Confederacy. 1905: The
Niagara Movement is
founded by W.E.B. du Bois and other black leaders to urge
more direct action
to achieve black civil rights. 1910-1920 1910: National Urban
League is
founded to help the conditions of urban African Americans.
1920-1930
1925: Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey is convicted of
mail fraud. 1928:
For the first time in the 20th century an African
American is elected to
Congress. 1930-1940 1931: Farrad Muhammad
establishes in Detroit what will
become the Black Muslim Movement. 1933: The
NAACP files -and loses- its firs
suit against segregation and discrimination
in education. 1938: The Supreme
Court orders the admission of a black
applicant to the University of Missouri
Law School 1941: A. Philip
Randoph threatens a massive march on Washington
unless the Roosevelt
administration takes measures to ensure black employment in
defense
industries; Roosevelt agrees to establish Fair Employment
Practices
Committee (FEPC). 1942: The congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
is organized in
Chicago. 1943: Race riots in Detroit and Harlem cause
black leaders to ask their
followers to be less demanding in asserting their
commitment to civil rights; A.
Philip Randolph breaks ranks to call for
civil disobedience against Jim Crow
schools and railroads. 1946: The Supreme
Court, in Morgan v. The Commonwealth of
Virginia, rules that state laws
requiring racial segregation on buses violates
the Constitution when applied
to interstate passengers. 1947: Jackie Robinson
breaks the color line in
major league baseball. 1947: To Secure These Rights,
the report by the
President’s Committee on Civil Rights, is released; the
commission, appointed
by President Harry S. Truman, recommends government action
to secure civil
rights for all Americans. 1948: President Harry S. Truman issues
an executive
order desegregating the armed services. 1950-1960 1950: The NAACP
decides to
make its legal strategy a full-scale attack on educational
segregation. 1954:
First White Citizens Council meeting is held in Mississippi.
1954: School
year begins with the integration of 150 formerly segregated school
districts
in eight states; many other school districts remain segregated. 1955:
The
Interstate Commerce Commission bans racial segregation in all facilities
and
vehicles engaged in interstate transportation. 1955: Rosa Parks is
arrested for
refusing to give up her bus seat to a white person; the action
triggers a bus
boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, let by Martin Luther King Jr.
1956: The home of
Martin Luther King Jr. is bombed. 1956: The Montgomery
bus boycott ends after
the city receives U. S. Supreme Court order to
desegregate city buses. 1957:
Martin Luther King Jr. and a number of
southern black clergymen create the
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC). 1958: Ten thousand students
hold a Youth March for
Integrated Schools in Washington, D.C. 1959: Sit-in
campaigns by college
students desegregate eating facilities in St. Louis,
Chicago, and
Bloomington, Indiana; the Tennessee Christian Leadership Conference
holds
brief sit-ins in Nashville department stores. 1960-1970 1960:
Twenty-five
hundred students and community members in Nashville, Tennessee,
stage a march on
city hall—the first major demonstration of the civil
rights
movement—following the bombing of the home of a black lawyer. 1960:
John F.
Kennedy is elected president by a narrow margin. 1961: Martin
Luther King Jr.
and President John F. Kennedy hold a secret meeting at which
King learns that
the new president will not push hard for new civil rights
legislation. 1962: Ku
Klux Klan dynamite blasts destroy four black
churches in Georgia towns. 1962:
President Kennedy federalizes the
National Guard and sends several hundred
federal marshals to Mississippi to
guarantee James Meredith’s admission to the
University of Mississippi Law
School over the opposition of Governor Ross
Barnett and other whites; two
people are killed in a campus riot. 1963: Black
students Vivian Malone and
James Hood enter the University of Alabama despite a
demonstration of
resistance by Governor George Wallace; in a nationally
televised speech
President John F. Kennedy calls segregation morally wrong.
1963:
President John F. Kennedy is assassinated; Vice President Lyndon
B.
Johnson assumes the presidency. 1964: President Lyndon Johnson signs
the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in most
public
accommodations, authorizes the federal government to withhold funds
from
programs practicing discrimination, and creates the Equal Employment
Opportunity
Commission. 1964: Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize. 1965:
Malcolm X is assassinated while addressing a rally of
his followers in New York
City; three black men are ultimately convicted
of the murder. 1965: Rioting in
the black ghetto of Watts in Los Angeles
leads to 35 deaths, 900 injuries, and
over 3,500 arrests. 1966: Martin Luther
King Jr. moves to Chicago to begin his
first civil rights campaign in a
northern city. 1966: Martin Luther King Jr.
leads an integrated march in
Chicago and is wounded when whites throw bottles
and bricks at demonstrators.
1966: The Black Panther Party (BPP) is founded in
Oakland, California.
1966: James Meredith is shot by a sniper while on a one man"march against fear"
in Mississippi. 1967: Martin Luther King Jr. delivers
his first speech
devoted entirely to the war in Vietnam, which he calls ‘one
of history’s most
cruel and senseless wars’; his position causes
estrangement with President
Johnson and is criticized by the NAACP. 1967:
Rioting at all-black
Jackson State College in Mississippi leads to one death and
two serious
injuries. 1967: Thurgood Marshall is the first black to be nominated
to serve
on the Supreme Court. 1967: Rioting in the black ghetto of Newark,
New
Jersey, leaves 23 dead and 725 injured; rioting in Detroit leaves 43
dead and
324 injured; President Johnson appoints Governor Otto Kerner of
Illinios to head
a commission to investigate recent urban riots. 1968: The
Kerner Commission
issues its report, warning that the nation is ‘moving
toward two societies,
one black, one white—separate and unequal." 1968:
Martin Luther King Jr.
travels to Memphis, Tennessee, to help settle a
garbage worker strike. 1968:
Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated by
James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee,
precipitating riots in more than one
hundred cities. 1968: Congress passes civil
rights legislation prohibiting
racial discrimination in the sale or rental of
housing. 1968: Ralph
Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr.’s successor as head of
the SCLC, leads Poor
People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. 1969: The Supreme
Court replaces
its 1954 decision calling for "all deliberate speed" in
school desegregation
by unanimously ordering that all segregation in schools
mush end "at
once."