Civil Rights Events

1831 Aug 21
to 1831 Aug 22
 Nat Turner's Rebellion
It was Sunday, August 21, deep in the woods near the Travis house at a place called Cabin Pond. Around a crackling fire Turner’s confederates feasted on roast pig and apple brandy. With t...
1927 Apr 27 Coretta Scott Is Born
Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, in Heiberger, near Marion, Alabama. She spent her childhood on her parents' farm in Heiberger. The farm had been in the family since the Civil War, ...
1945 Coretta Scott Enrolls At Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio
Wanting a better life for their children, the Scotts sent all three to college. Coretta, who graduated at the top of her high school class in 1945, won a scholarship to study elementary e...
1952 Coretta Scott Meets Martin Luther King Jr.
"I always believed that there was a purpose for my life, and that I had to seek that purpose, and that if I discovered that purpose, then I believed that I would be successful in what I wa..." —Coretta Scott King
1953 Jun 18 Coretta Scott Marries Martin Luther King Jr.
When he proposed, she deliberated for six months before saying yes, and they were married in the garden of her parents' house on June 18, 1953. The 350 guests, elegant big-city folks from...
1955 Aug 28 The Murder of Emmett Till
In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old black boy whistled at a white woman in a grocery store in Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till, a teen from Chicago, didn't understand that he had broken th...
1957 Sep 9 President Eisenhower Signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957, primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since Reconstruction. After it was proposed t...
1959 Feb 9 Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King Travel To India
“It was wonderful to be in Gandhi’s land,” wrote the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., a few months after returning from a monthlong visit to India in 1959. “I left India more convinced th...
1963 Sep 15 The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is Bombed
[A]bout 10:22 on that morning 34 years ago today, worshipers heard a clicking noise, like the very loud click of a clock. ''What was that?'' Sunday school teacher William Sturdivant had t...
1964 Aug 28
to 1964 Aug 30
 Philadelphia Race Riot of 1964
Philadelphia has worked hard to eliminate friction between Negroes and police. It is one of the few cities with a civilian review board to handle complaints of police brutality. It assign...
1968 Coretta Scott King Founds The Martin Luther King Jr. Center For Nonviolent Social Change
Coretta Scott King started the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in the basement of the couple's home in the year following King's 1968 assassination. In 1981, th...
1968 Apr 8 Coretta Scott King Leads Silent Memorial March For Martin Luther King Jr.
An assassin finally snuffed out Dr. King's life on April 4, 1968, while he led a strike of 1,300 black sanitation workers - the working poor of their day - to demand the right to have a u...
1969 Coretta Scott King Publishes 'My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.
In the years immediately following her husband's death, King was involved in many things. For example, in June of 1969 Coretta Scott King published her first biography, My Life with Marti...
1969 Jun 28 The Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village Unofficially Ignite the Gay Rights Movement
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Gr...
1975 Apr 10 Lee Elder Becomes the first African American to play in the Masters Tournament
"Some people told me, 'Man, how can you play in the Masters after all this? Why don't you refuse?' But I feel I can do more good being there. As hard as I've tried to get there, how can I ..." —Lee Elder
1983 Sep 17 Vanessa Williams Becomes the First African-American Miss America
On September 17, 1983, Williams made history by becoming the first African-American woman in the pageant’s 63-year history to capture the Miss America title. (For the competition’s first ...
1983 Nov 2 'Martin Luther King Jr. Day' Becomes a National Holiday
Coretta King’s most enduring contribution to American culture has been as chair of the Martin L. King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. In the late 1970s the King Center collected six milli...
1985 Clayborne Carson Directs The Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project
The King Papers Project's principal mission is to publish a definitive fourteen-volume edition of King's most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpubl...
1986 Coretta Scott King Travels To South Africa
During the 1980s, Scott King reaffirmed her long-standing opposition to apartheid, participating in a series of sit-in protests in Washington, D.C. that prompted nationwide demonstrations...
1998 Apr 1 Coretta Scott King Calls On Civil Rights Community to Join In Struggle Against Homophobia
"I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy," King told 600 people at...
1998 Apr 23 James Earl Ray Dies In Prison
In Atlanta, Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, issued a statement that said: ''This is a tragedy, not only for Mr. Ray and his family but also for the entire nation. America will ne...
2006 Jan 30 Coretta Scott King Dies
After suffering a stroke and mild heart attack in August 2005, Coretta Scott King died on 30 January 2006 while being treated at the Hospital Santa Monica in Mexico City. Her funeral serv...
2007 Aug 30 Uncovered Documents Show FBI Was Spying On Coretta Scott King
The American Civil Liberties Union today issued a call to change FBI spying guidelines after documents were released revealing that the FBI spied on Coretta Scott King, after the death of...
2009 Jun 6 Deadly Riots Erupt in Western China
China said on Tuesday at least 156 people were killed when Muslim Uighurs rioted in the restive region of Xinjiang in some of the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit the country in decades. ...
2010 Mar 4 Mexico City Law Allowing Same-Sex Marriages Goes Into Effect
Throngs of Mexico City gay and lesbian couples registered for marriage licenses Thursday, the day Latin America's first gay-marriage law took effect. The first gay weddings will take p...
2010 May 9 Lena Horne Dies
Lena Horne died on Mothers Day, May 9, 2010, in New York City of heart failure, according to her daughter, Gail Lumet Buckley. In addition to her daughter, she is survived by granddaughte...
2010 Dec 18 United States Senate Votes To Repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
The Senate on Saturday struck down the ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military, bringing to a close a 17-year struggle over a policy that forced thousands of Americans...