"To most Movement veterans, the post-WWII U.S. Freedom Movement was but one episode in the long struggle of Black Americans for Human rights in this country. A struggle that began 400 years ago when the first slaves were brought to these shores and tried to escape, and when Native Americans first fought to defend their homelands. A movement that continues to this day in on-going struggles to win justice, dignity, and equality for all regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or economic level; struggles for fair pay and decent working conditions; and struggles to have every vote counted, every child educated, every senior cared for every ill person treated, and every human soul accorded a fair share of the Tree of Life" (1).
The African American Civil Rights Movement refers to the series of social movements, acts of resistance, and demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of individuals who strove for equal recognition under the law and an end to Jim Crow segregation--the legal mandate that called for 'separate but equal' facilities for blacks and whites in the South. The decade-long struggle triggered the real ugliness of racism in the South, as it challenged the closed societies of Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama, who resisted integration; the deaths of Civil Rights martyrs like Vernon Dahmer, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr. and countless others. Yet, it did achieve ground-breaking historical change in the legislation of the United States. Significantly, the Movement brought about the inclusion of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "which banned discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin in employment practices and ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace, and by public accommodations". Other Acts that follows included the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 (2).
Some key events led to the gathering steam that become the Civil Rights Movement in the South. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court passed the Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that ruled segregation of public schools unconstitutional. In Bolling v. Sharpe, the Supreme Court ruled the segregation laws of Plessy v. Ferguson (Jim Crow) unconstitutional. That same year, the young teenage boy, Emmett Till is kidnapped, pistol whipped and murdered by two klansman for having whistled at a shop owner's wife in Money, Mississippi.
In 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, initiating the Montgomery bus boycott. This event leads to other bus boycotts throughout the South, including one in Tallahassee, Florida in 1956. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, out of paranoia concerning communist infiltration in the U.S., initiates COINTELPRO to "investigate and disrupt" and suspicious groups operating in the U.S.
1956-65, Movement to integrate southern universities begins.
In 1957, the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) names Martin Luther King as its chairman; Governer Orval Faubus of Arkansas attempts to prevent the integration of Little Rock High School by calling out the National Guard. The next year, the NAACP Youth Council state sit-ins at lunch counters in Wichita, Kansas. In less than a month, Dockum stores--the Wichita chain that segregated its clientele had become integrated. This event preceded the famous sit-ins at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC, which sparked a series of like events. In 1960, SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) is formed in North Carolina.
1961, Freedom Riders a group of protestors organized by CORE (Congress on Racial Equality) to ride interstate buses across the South to protest against segregation); they are assaulted at a Greyhound Bus Station in Montgomery.
1962, James Meredith is prohibited by Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett from becoming the first black student at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss); Fannie Lou Hamer attempts to register to vote; later the next year, Hamer is badly beaten by segregationists in Winona, Mississippi.
1963, Dr. King completes his Letter from a Birmingham Jail; Medgar Evers is murdered by Byron de la Beckwith in Jackson, MS. Four young girls are killed at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Birmingham Riot of 1963.
1964, Freedom Summer: Three civil rights workers--James Cheney (MS), Michael Schwherner and Andrew Goodman (NY) are murdered by sheriffs in Neshoba County, MS. Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed.
1965, Voting Act of 1965; Raylawni Branch and Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong, both African Americans, attend the University of Southern Mississippi.
1966, James Meredith begins the March Against Fear from Memphis to Jackson, MS. He is injured by birdshot; Stokely Carmichael uses the term "Black Power."
1967, Trial of accused murderers of Civil Rights workers Cheney, Schwerner, and Goodman. Seven of the eighteen suspects are convicted. Edgar Ray Killen is later convicted as conspirator of the murder in 2005.
1968, Memphis sanitation workers are killed in the line of duty; Memphis sanitation Worker Strike begins. King delivers the Mountaintop speech; He is killed in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
(Events listed here.)
A Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68)
