President Truman signs the Executive Order 9981, which bans racial segregation in the armed forces. It states, "It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin."
The Supreme Court unanimously agrees to overturn Plessy V. Ferguson and ban racial segregation in schools. This has a massive effect on the United States, especially the South, which was commanded to integrate schools " with all deliberate speed". This case is a landmark for Civil Rights.
Nine black students were prohibited from entering a formerly all white school. It seems that integration in schools as mandated in Brown V. Board of Education may be harder than it seems, however President Eisenhower effectively secures the black student's education by sending in troops.
The first black student enrolls at the University of Mississippi, which enrages many students as they commit acts of violence and start riots. President Kennedy quells the chaos with 5,000 troops.
The 24th Amendment ends the onerous poll tax.
President Johnson, who has done the most for civil rights than any other president, signs the Civil Rights act of 1964, which bans all racial and gender discrimination.
Largely as aided by Bloody Sunday, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Requirements used to make black voting difficult are banned.
President Johnson issues an executive order that enforces affirmative action. This affirmative action is aimed for protecting the individual minority in obtaining labor.
The Supreme Court pronounces interracial marriage legal, and forces states that prohibit such marriage to legalize it.
This Civil Rights Act bans discrimination in real estate transactions.
In order to help schools desegregate with "all deliberate speed", the Supreme Court rules using busing as a constitutional means of segregation in public schools.
J. W Milam and Roy Bryant, two white men, kidnap, beat, and kill a 14 year-old African American Emmett Till. They are acquitted by an all-white jury, and later brag about it in an article in Look magazine. African Americans around the country are enraged a drive forward the Civil Rights movement.
Rosa Park was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus. This was the impetus to the bus boycott headed by Rv. Martin Luther King Jr. The boycott had achieved its goal as buses were desegregated about a year later.
Martin Luther King is the first president of the SCLC, which advocates civil rights through non-voilent civil disobedience.
Martin Luther KIng said ""We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline"
As a form of Civil Disobedience, likely inspired by Martin Luther King Jr's leadership, 4 black college students sit-in at Woolworth's lunch counter. They are refused service, but remain at the counter nevertheless. Eventually other blacks would follow their example, and sit-ins became a common form of protestation to integrate public facilities. 6 months later, the 4 college students were served food at the same counter.
The SNCC is founded to help young blacks in the civil rights movement. Unfortunately Stokely Carmichael perverts the traditional meanings of the committee as it becomes more radical.
Student volunteers take bus trips to the South to discover if the South had truly desegregated. The Freedom Riders find themselves attacked numerous times throughout the tour. The program was sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
While arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for protesting, he wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail", which influenced many to commit civil disobedience.
As the media televises blacks being hosed down by fire hoses and tackled down by police dogs, the American public (including JFK) is shocked and begin to sympathize with blacks.
200,000 people March to Washington and assemble at the Lincoln Memorial.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his legendary "I have a Dream" speech.
An an effort to register black voters, The Council of Federated Organizations sends out volunteers from multiple civil rights groups to educate blacks. In protestation of all-white Mississippi representatives, the COFO sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
After converting to a peaceful, orthodox Islam, Malcom X., who had formerly advocated violence and black separation is shot to death.
In order to urge voting rights, blacks march to Montgomery Alabama but meet resistance from a police blockade, who brutally attack them.
This was caused by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The militant Black Panthers, which use violence to push for black separation.
In Seattle Washington, Stokely Carmichael gives a speech encouraging "black power", in which he pushes for "the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary".
As a result of the recent federal regulation on civil rights and the black separatist movement, race riots occur in Newark and Detroit.
In Memphis Tennessee, Martin Luther King Jr. is shot by a racists, this enrages blacks throughout the country.
