1857
MARCH 6, 1857
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott decision to deny citizenship and constitutional rights to all black people, legally establishing the race as “subordinate, inferior beings — whether slave or freedmen.
1863
JAN. 1, 1863
Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Lincoln freed slaves in the Confederacy.
1865
DEC. 6, 1865
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery. However, Southern states managed to revive slavery era codes creating unattainable prerequisites for blacks to live, work or participate in society. The following year, the First Civil Rights Act invalidated these “Black Codes,” conferring the “rights of citizenship” on all black people.
1868
JULY 9, 1868
The 14th Amendment granted due process and equal protection under the law to African Americans.
1870
FEB. 3, 1870
The 15th Amendment granted blacks the right to vote, including former slaves.
1875
MARCH 1, 1875
Congress passed a third Civil Rights Act in response to many white business owners and merchants who refused to make their facilities and establishments equally available to black people. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 prohibited such cases of racial discrimination and guaranteed equal access to public accommodations regardless of race or color. White supremacist groups, however, embarked upon a campaign against blacks and their white supporters.
1896
MAY 18, 1896
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson upheld an 1890 Louisiana statute mandating racially segregated but equal railroad cars. The ruling stated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution dealt with political and not social equality. Plessy v. Ferguson gave a broad interpretation of “equal but separate” accommodations with reference to “white and colored people” legitimizing “Jim Crow” practices throughout the South.
1909
FEB. 12, 1909
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a multi-racial group of activists in New York, N.Y. Initially, the group called themselves the National Negro Committee. Founders Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison Villiard and William English Walling led the call to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty.
May 17, 1954
The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that sanctioned “separate but equal” segregation of the races, ruling that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” It is a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, who will later return to the Supreme Court as the nation’s first black justice
EMMETT LOUIS TILL.
THE PIVITOL EVENT IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Emmett Louis Till was son of Mamie Cartham and Louis Till. He was born in Chicago July 25, 1941 on Friday he was murdered brutally beaten, disfigured and thrown in the Tallahatchie River on Sunday August 28, 1955 by the hands of Roy Bryant and his half brother J.W. Milam which today has not been found guilty of his murder. They boasted bout the crime they commented in a Look Magazine interview.
December 1, 1955
NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat in Montgomery Alabama at the front of the “colored section” of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott, which will last for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated Dec. 21, 1956. As newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is instrumental in leading the boycott.
Jan.–Feb. 1957
Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttleswort establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King is made the first president. The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to King, it is essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hate mongers who oppose them: “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline,” he urges.
Septemeber 1957
An all-white Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas learns that integration is easier said than done. Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students, who become known as the “Little Rock Nine.
Feb. 1, 1960
Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth’s counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, and other public facilities.
April
Inn Raleigh North Carolina the Student Nonviolent Committee is founded at the Shaw University. The SNCC latter becomes a more radical organization especially under the Mr. Stokey Carmichael leadership from 1966- 1967.
May 4, 1961
Over the spring and summer, student volunteers begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations. Several of the groups of “freedom riders,” as they are called, are attacked by angry mobs along the way. The program, sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), involves more than 1,000 volunteers, black and white.
October 1, 1962
James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.
April 16 1963
Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” arguing that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws.
May1963
During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the civil rights movement around the world.
June 12, 1963
Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for murdering Evers.
August 28, 1963
About 200,000 people join the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
Sept. 15,1963
Four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of two more black youths
April 4, 1964 also Easter month of atonement and honor
Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime.
April 11,1964
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
Jan. 23,1964
The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax, which originally had been instituted in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to make it difficult for poor blacks to vote.
Summer of 1964
The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a network of civil rights groups that includes CORE and SNCC, launches a massive effort to register black voters during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer. It also sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention to protest—and attempt to unseat—the official all-white Mississippi contingent.
July 2,1964
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation.
August 4th 1964
The bodies of three civil-rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen dam, six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and, on June 21, had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them
FEB. 21, 1965 – MALCOLM X Assassinated
Born Malcolm Little AKA Malcolm X world-renowned black nationalist leader was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan on the first day of National Brotherhood Week. A Black Muslim Minister, revolutionary black freedom fighter, civil rights activist and for a time the national spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, he famously spoke of the need for black freedom “by any means necessary.” Disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad’s teachings, Malcolm formed his own organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity and the Muslim Mosque Inc. In 1964, he made a pilgrimage to Islam’s holy city, Mecca, and adopted the name El-Hajj Malik El Shabazz.
March 7,1965
Blacks from Selma begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed “Bloody Sunday” by the media. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later.
Aug. 10,1965
Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal.
Aug. 11–17, 1965
Race riots erupt in a black section of Watts in Los Angeles causing millions of damages in their neighborhoods and surrounding areas.
Sept. 24, 1965
Asserting that civil rights laws alone are not enough to remedy discrimination, President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces affirmative action for the first time. It requires government contractors to “take affirmative action” toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring and employment.
Oct 1966
In Oakland California the militant Black Panthers are founded by Dr.Huey Newton whom people feared even in his death and Bobby Seale.
April 19,1967
Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coins the phrase “black power” in a speech in Seattle. He defines it as an assertion of black pride and “the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary.” The term’s radicalism alarms many who believe the civil rights movement’s effectiveness and moral authority crucially depend on nonviolent civil disobedience.
June 12,1967
In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional. Sixteen states that still banned interracial marriage at the time are forced to revise their laws.
July 1967
Major race riots take place in Newark (July 12–16) and Detroit (July 23–30).
April 4th 1968 Assasination of Dr. Martin Luther King
During the most high Catholic holiday in the Month of Easter and atonement Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot to death as he stands on the balcony outside his open view hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime, but later more evidence points to a conspiracy as documented by various respected writers and television educational programs on PBS.
April 11th 1968
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, (HUD becomes into existence )prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.
April 20,1971
The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently opposed) in local school districts, court-ordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continue until the late 1990s.
March 22,1988
Overriding President Regan’s, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.
1989:
The Supreme Court, in a series of rulings, severely restricts the reach of federal anti-discrimination employment laws and remedies available to fight bias. The move prompts congressional effort to craft new law overturning the Court decision.
1990:
Congress passes -and President Bush signs- the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act, banning job discrimination against people with disabilities and requiring buildings, businesses and public transportation to be accessible. Most provisions take effect in 11992-93.
1991:
Thurgood Marshall, first African American appointed to Supreme Court, resigns for health reasons. President Bush names Clarence Thomas, a conservative African American with little background in constitutional issues, to the post. The Thomas nomination brings to the fore the issue of sexual harassment, as one of Thomas’ former co-workers, law professor Anita Hill, charges Thomas sexually harassed her. Thomas denies accusations and after bitter, televise hearings that rivet the nation, he is confirmed, 52-48.
After two years of debate, vetoes and threatened vetoes, Bush reverses himself and says proposed civil rights bill is not a “quota bill.” On Nov. 22, he signs the legislation at a White House ceremony. But ceremony is overshadowed by reports that the president has proposed issuing a presidential order that would end all government affirmative action programs and hiring guidelines that benefit women and minorities. After sharply negative reactions from civil rights leaders and others, the administration backs down.
1992:
Voting Rights Act bilingual provisions are extended to 2007.
1993:
Shortly after being sworn in, President Clinton affirms his campaign pledge to lift the ban that prohibits gays from serving in the military. On April 25, at least 300,000 (the figure is hotly debated) march on Washington supporting federal civil rights legislation protecting gay men and lesbians from discrimination and opposing the military ban. Several months later on July 19, President Clinton, faced with congressional opposition to removing the ban, announces a “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue” policy regarding homosexuals in the military that falls short of lifting the ban. Congress moves to codify a restrictive interpretation of Clinton’s executive order.
The Supreme Court, in two rulings affecting civil rights, roils the waters for determining proper remedies for discrimination. In St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks the Court holds that even when a plaintiff shows that an employer gives a dishonest reason for alleged discriminatory actions, the worker is still required to present direct evidence of the employers discriminatory intent.
In Shaw v. Reno , a sharply divided High Court rules that legislative districts drawn in a “bizarre” fashion in order to create black representation can violate the constitutional rights of white voters to equal protection of the law. The ruling, which invalidates North Carolina’s majority African American 12th congressional district, is seen as opening the door to challenges of other states’ reapportionment plans that are aimed at equalizing the distribution of power.
1997:
June 14, in a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court upheld a court-drawn redistricting plan that reduced the number of majority-minority Georgia congressional districts from three to one. The cases of Abrams v. Johnson and the U.S. v. Johnson marked the second time the Court had been asked to rule on the constitutionality of Georgia’s congressional redistricting plan drawn pursuant to the 1990 Census. A deciding factor for the justices was the fact that Reps. Sanford Bishop Jr. and Cynthia McKinney, both Black Democrats, were re-elected despite the fact that they were running in districts where whites comprised the majority.
Nov. 22,1991
After two years of debates, vetoes, and threatened vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.
April 29, 1992
Second race riots in Los Angeles, California erupts in south-central, after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King , who which later was awarded 3million in lawsuit and later died on June 17th 2012 from cardiac arrest.
1995
The Supreme Court rules that federal programs using race as a category for hiring must have “compelling government interest” to do so.
The Supreme Court ruled that the consideration of race in creating congressional districts is unconstitutional.
June 23 2003
In the most important affirmative action decision since the 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court (5–4) upholds the University of Michigan Law School’s policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges when selecting their students because it furthers “a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.”
June 21,2005
The ringleader of the Mississippi civil rights murders, Edgar Ray Killen, is convicted of manslaughter on the 41st anniversary of the crimes.
October 24,2005
Rosa Parks dies at age 92.
January 30 2006
Coretta Scott King dies of a stroke at age 78.
February 2007
Emmett Till’s 1955 murder case, reopened by the Department of Justice in 2004, is officially closed. The two confessed murderers, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were dead of cancer by 1994, and prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to pursue further convictions.
May 10 2007
James Bonard Fowler, a former state trooper, is indicted for the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson 40 years after Jackson’s death. The 1965 killing lead to a series of historic civil rights protests in Selma, Ala.
January 2008
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduces the Civil Rights Act of 2008. Some of the proposed provisions include ensuring that federal funds are not used to subsidize discrimination, holding employers accountable for age discrimination, and improving accountability for other violations of civil rights and workers’ rights.
2008-2009
The 2008 Democratic Party presidential primary saw the first Black man and the first Woman trying to win the nomination.
President Obama is the first African American to hold the office.
As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009.
Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a major piece of health care reform legislation which he signed into law in March 2010, and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, forming part of his financial regulatory reform efforts, which he signed in July 2010.
January 2009
In the Supreme Court case Ricci v. DeStefano, a lawsuit brought against the city of New Haven, 18 plaintiffs—17 white people and one Hispanic—argued that results of the 2003 lieutenant and captain exams were thrown out when it was determined that few minority firefighters qualified for advancement. The city claimed they threw out the results because they feared liability under a disparate-impact statute for issuing tests that discriminated against minority firefighters. The plaintiffs claimed that they were victims of reverse discrimination under the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court ruled (5–4) in favor of the firefighters, saying New Haven’s “action in discarding the tests was a violation of Title VII.”
On October 8
President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
February 26,2012
The killing of Trayvon Martin became the new birth of passion and energy to a civil rights movement that had almost faded into history is now embraced and reinforced completely in this millennial by all minorities.
June 17, 2012
Rodney King dies two months before the 20th anniversary of the L.A. Riots.
June 2013
In Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which established a formula for Congress to use when determining if a state or voting jurisdiction requires prior approval before changing its voting laws. Currently under Section 5 of the act nine—mostly Southern—states with a history of discrimination must get clearance from Congress before changing voting rules to make sure racial minorities are not negatively affected. While the 5–4 decision did not invalidate Section 5, it made it toothless. Chief Justice John Roberts said the formula Congress now uses, which was written in 1965, has become outdated. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” he said in the majority opinion. In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the V.R.A.” (Voting Rights Act).
July 17, 2014
Eric Garner died in Staten Island, New York City, after a police officer put him in what has been described as a “chokehold” for about 15 to 19 seconds during an arrest. The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office attributed Garner’s death to a combination of a chokehold, compression of his chest, and poor health. New York City Police Department (NYPD) policy prohibits the use of chokeholds
August 9, 2014
In Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, 28, a white Ferguson police officer. The disputed circumstances of the shooting and the resultant protests and civil unrest received considerable attention in the U.S. and abroad, and sparked a vigorous debate about law enforcement’s relationship with African Americans, and police use of force doctrine in Missouri and nationwide.