Civil rights movement in USA 1950s-1960s

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Events

Jim Crow Laws

1876 - 1965

Supreme Court declared compulsory segregation illegal

1954

Desegregation of buses in Montgomery, Alabama, began to take place

1955

Congress passed the Civil Right Act giving equal voting rights to black people

1957

Martin Luther King became the leader of the peaceful Civil Rights Movement

1957

White mobs tried to stop nine black children from enrolling at an all white school in Arkansas

1957

Martin Luther King campaignrd for federal supervision of election

1960

J. F. Kennedy elected president

1960

President Kennedy appointed the first black judge

1961

Murder of Kennedy in Dallas

1963

Martin Luther King gaoled for leading a protest march

1963

Malcom X gave a speech titled "The ballot or the bullet"

1964

Lyndon Johnson elected president

1964

Civil Rights Act gave black people equal rights of entry to the cinema and shops

1965

Murder of Robert Kennedy

1965

Murder of Malcom X

1965

Stokely arrested. Black Power speech

1966

Classius Clay "Muhammad Ali" refused to go to war

1967

Richard Nixon elected president

1968

Black militancy died down

Approx. 1969

Supreme Court ruled desegregation of school should begin immediately

1969