Civil rights timeline

Key protest and events

1787-     American constitution drafted

1791-     Bill of Rights

1861-65- American civil war

1862-     Emancipation proclamation (freedom of slaves)

1865-     Slavery abolished (13^th amendment)

1868-     Citizenship for all races (14^th amendment)

1870-     Voting rights for all races (15^th amendment)

1896-     Plessy v Ferguson (separate but equal)

1909-     NAACP founded

1915-     ‘Birth of a Nation’ (Klansmen portrayed as heroes)

1925-     A. Philip Randolph forms Brotherhood of Sleeping Car porters

1930-     Nation of Islam founded

1941-     Roosevelt’s Fair Employment Practices Commission (forced industries employed in the war effort not to discriminate on grounds of race

1942-     CORE established

1943-     Detroit Riots (3 day long disruption between black and whites over housing and jobs)

1944-     Smith v Alright (voting rights of AA in primary elections in Texas)

1946-     Morgan v Virginia (segregation on inter-state buses illegal)

                Truman establishes a committee on civil rights

1947-     CORE journey of reconciliation (trying to enforce Morgan v Virginia)

                NAACP boycott New Orleans department stores (refused to allow AA to try on hats)

                ‘To secure these rights’ published (job of federal government to support AA)

1948-     Discrimination in armed forces banned

`1950-    Sweatt v Painter (University of Texan Law school forced to accept Hemen Sweatt)

1951-     Committee on Government Contract compliance (long-term version of FEPC)

1954-     Brown v Board of Education

                Last all-black units in the armed forces disbanded

1955-     Brown v Board of Education II (specific time scale set)

                Emmett Till lynched

                Montgomery bus boycott

1956-     Browder v. Gayle (Aurelia Browder case outlawed segregation on buses)

                Montgomery bus company desegregated their buses

1957-     Little Rock Campaign (Orval Faubus opposed the enrolment and sent in the National Guard to stop the 9 students enrolling à Eisenhower used National Guard to protect the black students instead)

                Martin Luther King became President of the SCLC

                Civil Rights Act passed (increase in AA registration to vote)

1960-     Greensboro sit-ins (started with 4 local students sitting in white-only seats in Woolworths)

                SNCC formed

                Elijah Muhammad called for the…