civil rights

Harry Truman

President who desegregated the military and supported early civil rights during the Cold War

Dwight D. Eisenhower

President who enforced desegregation at Little Rock by sending federal troops

John F. Kennedy

President who proposed major civil rights legislation after Birmingham violence

Lyndon B. Johnson

President who pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965

A. Philip Randolph

Labor leader who pressured FDR to ban job discrimination with a planned March on Washington

Jackie Robinson

First Black Major League Baseball player, breaking the color barrier in 1947

Emmett Till

Black teenager whose lynching in 1955 shocked the nation and energized the movement

Thurgood Marshall

NAACP lawyer who won Brown v. Board and later became first Black Supreme Court justice

Earl Warren

Chief Justice who led the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education

Orval Faubus

Arkansas governor who tried to block school integration at Little Rock

Rosa Parks

Sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott by refusing to give up her bus seat

Martin Luther King Jr.

Leader of nonviolent protest and head of the SCLC

James Meredith

First Black student to integrate the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss)

George Wallace

Alabama governor who resisted desegregation, “stand in the schoolhouse door”

Elijah Muhammad

Leader of the Nation of Islam promoting Black separatism

Malcolm X

Nation of Islam leader who advocated Black pride and self-defense

Stokely Carmichael

SNCC leader who popularized the term “Black Power”

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

Founders of the Black Panthers advocating armed self-defense

Great Migration (1915-1970s)

Movement of Black Americans from the rural South to Northern and Western cities for jobs and rights

Executive Order 8802

FDR order banning racial discrimination in defense industries after Randolph’s pressure

“Double Victory” Campaign

WWII call for victory against fascism abroad and racism at home

Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

Civil rights group using nonviolent direct action like sit-ins and Freedom Rides

Smith v. Allwright (1944)

Supreme Court case banning white-only primary elections

Integration of Major League Baseball (1947)

Jackie Robinson breaks baseball’s racial barrier

Committee on Civil Rights and “To Secure These Rights” (1948)

Truman report calling for strong federal civil rights protections

Executive Order 9981 (July 1948)

Truman order desegregating the armed forces

Election of 1948

Truman’s surprise victory aided by Black voter support and civil rights stance

The NAACP

Organization using legal challenges to fight segregation and discrimination

red-lining, restrictive housing covenants, and Shelley v. Kraemer (1949)

Housing discrimination practices struck down by Supreme Court

mechanical cotton picker

Machine that reduced farm jobs and pushed Black migration north

Sweatt v. Painter (1950) and McLaurin v. Oklahoma (1951)

Court cases weakening “separate but equal” in higher education

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Supreme Court ruling that school segregation is unconstitutional

Brown II (1955)

Ordered desegregation with “all deliberate speed,” allowing delays

White Citizens’ Councils

White groups organized to resist school integration peacefully but forcefully

Southern Manifesto (1955)

Document signed by Southern politicians opposing Brown decision

Little Rock Crisis (1957)

Eisenhower sends troops to enforce school integration in Arkansas

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)

Year-long bus boycott led by MLK after Rosa Parks’ arrest

Greensboro Sit-ins (1960)

Student protests at segregated lunch counters that spread across the South

Freedom Rides (1961)

Interracial bus rides challenging segregation in interstate travel

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

MLK’s organization promoting nonviolent protest

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

Student-led group organizing sit-ins and voter registration

Integration of Ole Miss and University of Alabama (1962)

Federal enforcement of Black student admission despite violent resistance

March on Washington/”I Have a Dream Speech” (28 August 1963)

Massive protest where MLK called for racial equality

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Law ending segregation in public places and banning job discrimination

Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964)

Banned poll taxes that prevented Black voting

“Bloody Sunday” (Selma March) (7 March 1965)

Violent attack on marchers that led to Voting Rights Act support

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Law protecting Black voting rights and federal oversight of elections

Lowndes County voter registration drives (1966)

SNCC effort that inspired the Black Panther symbol

Black Muslims/Nation of Islam

Religious movement promoting Black pride and separation from whites

“Black Power”

Movement emphasizing racial pride, self-defense, and independence

“Long Hot Summers”

Wave of urban race riots in the mid-1960s

Watts Riot (1965)

Major Los Angeles riot showing frustration outside the South

Kerner Commission (1968)

Report blaming riots on racism and economic inequality

Black Panthers

Militant group advocating armed self-defense and community programs

de facto vs. de jure segregation

Segregation by practice versus segregation by law

Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. (4 April 1968)

Event that marked a major turning point and decline of the movement