Civil Rights Movement Events

1851 Jun 5 First Installment Of Uncle Tom's Cabin Is Published
On June 5, 1851, Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly began to appear in serial form in the Washington National Era, an abolitionist weekly. Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery st...
1926 Feb 1 United States Observes the First Negro History Week Later Known as Black History Month
Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875 - April 3, 1950) was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life a...
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, ...
1929 Jan 15 Reverand Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Is Born
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., twentieth-century America's most compelling and effective civil rights leader, was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. After entering Morehou...
1943 Rosa Parks first incident on segregated bus
For years, the black community had complained that the situation was unfair, and Parks was no exception: "My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arres...
1943 Dec Rosa Parks joins NAACP and becomes active in Civil Rights Movement
In December 1943, Parks became active in the Civil Rights Movement, joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer secretary to its president, Edgar Nixon. Of her p...
1944 Jul 17 Jackie Robinson arrested for refusing to move to back of military bus
While awaiting results of hospital tests on his prior ankle injury from junior college, Robinson boarded an Army bus with a fellow black officer's wife; although the Army had commissioned...
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...
1945 Aug 28 Jackie Robinson Signs with Brooklyn Dodgers' Organization
Branch Rickey, president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers signs Jackie Robinson to a contract and assigns him to the team's International League farm club, the Montreal Royals....
1946 Apr 18 Jackie Robinson plays first regular season game with Montreal Royals
Jackie Robinson plays his first professional baseball game for the Montreal Royals at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey. The Montreal Royals won 14 - 1.
1947 Apr 15 Jackie Robinson plays in first game as a major leaguer with Brooklyn Dodgers
In his first season, with Eddie Stanky entrenched at second base for the Dodgers, Robinson was forced to play first base. On April 15, 1947 Robinson made his debut before a crowd of 26,62...
1949 Jackie Robinson wins National League Most Valuable Player (MVP)
Jackie Robinson won the Most Valuable Player award for the National League, leading the league with a .342 batting average and 37 stolen bases. Baseball fans also voted Robinson as the s...
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...
1954 May 17 US Supreme Court Rules on Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson i...
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...
1955 Sep 23 All-White Jury Acquitted J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant for the Murder of Emmett Till
Mrs. Bradley traveled to Mississippi to testify at the trial, staying in the home of Dr. T.R.M. Howard in the all-black town of Mound Bayou. Others staying in Howard's home were black rep...
1955 Dec 1
to 1956 Dec 20
 Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its publi...
1955 Dec 1 Rosa Parks Refuses to Give Up Seat on Bus
"I did not get on the bus to get arrested; I got on the bus to go home. " —Rosa Parks
1957 Sep 4 Nine black students are prevented from entering formerly all-white Little Rock Central High School by the Arkansas National Guard
The Little Rock Nine was a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were init...
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...
1960 Feb 1 Four black students sit at a segregated lunch counter in Woolworth's, sparking the Greensboro sit-ins
The sit-ins were very significant to the movement. They symbolized a change in the mood of African-American people. Up until then, we had accepted segregation — begrudgingly — but we had ...
1961 May 4 The first Freedom Ride leaves Washington DC for racially-segregated South
Civil Rights activists called Freedom Riders rode on interstate buses into the segregated southern United States to test the United States Supreme Court decision Boynton v. Virginia, (196...
1961 Dec Martin Luther King, Jr. Becomes Involved in the Albany Movement
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, on November 17, 1961. Local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National ...
1962 Jul 23 Jackie Robinson enshrined in Baseball Hall of Fame
In his first year of eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962, Robinson encouraged voters to consider only his on-field qualifications, rather than his cultural impact on the gam...
1962 Oct 1 James Meredith Becomes First Black Student at the University of Mississippi
Meredith was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi of Native American (Choctaw) and Black American heritage. He enlisted in the United States Air Force right out of high school and served from 1...
1963 May 3
to 1963 May 8
 Violence Erupts as Civil Rights Protesters Clash with Police in Birmingham, AL
The Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the unequal treatment black Americans endured in Bi...
1963 Jun 11 Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door took place at Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on 11 June, 1963. George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, in a symbolic attempt to keep his...
1963 Jul "The St. Augustine Four" Jailed for Sitting at Whites-Only Lunch Counter
The civil rights movement brought forth many heroes who set an example for America and the world. Some were old. Some were middleaged. Some were young. Among the youngest of those heroes ...
1963 Aug 18 James Meredith Becomes the first African-American to Graduate from the University of Mississippi
James H. Meredith returned to the University of Mississippi Sunday to become the 115-year-old institution's first Negro graduate. It was on another Sunday - 282 days before - that Mer...
1963 Aug 28 Martin Luther King, Jr. Delivers "I Have a Dream" Speech
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a D...
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 Jun Council of Federated Organizations Launches Freedom Summer to Register Black Voters in Mississippi
Freedom Summer (also known as the Mississippi Summer Project) was a campaign in the United States launched in June 1964 to attempt to register as many African American voters as possible ...
1964 Jul 2 President Johnson Signs Civil Rights Act of 1964 into Law
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public place...
1964 Aug 24
to 1964 Aug 27
 Fannie Lou Hamer Speaks at 1964 Democratic National Convention
"All of this is on account we want to register [sic], to become first-class citizens, and if the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land o..." —Fannie Lou Hamer
1964 Oct 14 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent...
1965 Feb 21 Malcolm X Assassinated in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom
On February 21, 1965, in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, Malcolm X began to speak to a meeting of the Organization of Afro-American Unity when a disturbance broke out in the crowd of 400. A...
1965 Feb 23
to 1965 Feb 27
 Malcolm X's Funeral
The number of mourners who came to the public viewing in Harlem's Unity Funeral Home from February 23 through February 26 was estimated to be between 14,000 and 30,000. The funeral of Mal...
1965 Mar 7 "Bloody Sunday", First March from Selma to Montgomery
On March 7, demonstrators start a 54-mile march in response to an activist's murder. They are protesting his death and the unfair state laws and local violence that keep African America...
1965 Mar 9 Martin Luther King, Jr. Leads Second March from Selma to Montgomery
Immediately after "Bloody Sunday", Martin Luther King Jr. began organizing a second march to be held on Tuesday, March 9, 1965, calling for people across the country to join him. Hundreds...
1965 Mar 21 Martin Luther King, Jr. Leads Third March from Selma, Successfully Reaching Montgomery
The five-day, four-night march began on March 21, and covered a 54-mile (87 km) route along U.S. Route 80 (in Alabama known as the "Jefferson Davis Highway"). Protected by 2,000 soldiers ...
1965 Aug 6 Lyndon B. Johnson Signs National Voting Rights Act of 1965 into Law
The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. § 1973–1973aa-6) outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Amer...
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 4
to 1968 Apr 8
 Riots Erupt in Washington, DC Following Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination
The Washington, D.C. riots of April 4–8, 1968 erupted with the April 4, 1968 assassination of Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil unrest affected at least 110 U.S. ...
1968 Apr 4
6:01PM
 Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated at Lorraine Motel
In March 1968, Reverend King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of striking African American sanitation workers. The workers had staged a walkout on February 11, 1967, to protest unequ...
1968 Apr 4
9:00PM
 Robert F. Kennedy Delivers Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
A speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. was given by New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy on April 4, 1968. Kennedy was campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nom...
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...
1968 Aug 26
to 1968 Aug 29
 Riots Erupt at the Democratic National Convention
The 1968 Democratic National Convention of the U.S. Democratic Party was held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago, Illinois, from August 26 to August 29, 1968. The purpose of the...
1968 Oct 12
to 1968 Oct 27
 Games of the XIX Olympiad Held in Mexico City, Mexico
The 1968 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Mexico City in October 1968. The 1968 Games were the first Oly...
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...