SOCIAL REFORM MOVEMENTS – 1 (JR/SR) (#28-46)

W.E.B. Dubois, one of the founders of the National Association

for the Advancement of Colored People, publishes his pioneer-

ing book The Negro.

28

Women join the workforce at home as men join the military for

World War I.

28

The Nineteenth Amendment is ratified, giving women the right

to vote in all 48 states.

28

The League of Women Voters is founded to educate newly en-

franchised voters.

28

The American Civil Liberties Union is founded.

28

Frances Perkins becomes the first woman to serve in the presi-

dential cabinet.

32

Mary McLeod Bethune organizes the National Council of Ne-

gro Women to fight jobs discrimination, racism, and sexism.

32

The president issues an executive order ending segregation in

the Armed Services.

33

In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Supreme Court

rules that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.

34

Martin Luther King helps organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott

to protest racial segregation on the transit system.

34

King and others found the Southern Christian Leadership

Council (SCLC).

34

The president sends federal troops to escort the nine black stu-

dents who are blocked from integrating Central High School in

Little Rock AK.

34

The Civil Rights Act of 1957 allows federal prosecution of those

who suppress another’s right to vote.

34

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is

founded to protest racial segregation in Southern states.

34

In one of his first acts, the president issues an executive order

prohibiting discrimination in federal government hiring on the ba-

sis of race, religion, or national origin.

35

The Freedom Riders board buses to test a Supreme Court rul-

ing banning segregated interstate bus travel includes bus termi-

nals and rest rooms. The riders meet violence along the way.

35

The president sends 5,000 federal troops to contain the violence

associated with the enrollment of James Meredith as the first

black student at the University of Mississippi.

35

Cesar Chavez co-founds the National Farm Workers Associa-

tion (later called the United Farm Workers).

35

Governor George Wallace blocks two black students from regis-

tering at the University of Alabama. The standoff continues until

the president sends the National Guard to the campus.

35