Civil Rights Movement Timeline f40l

Long before Martin Luther King Jr. walked onto the civil rights stage, many important events took place in the civil rights movement for equality and peace. Many civil rights leaders went before Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech and many came after. Here are some of the important dates and events that took place over the past few hundred years that made America the country it is today.

July 2nd,1777 5v1443

• Vermont is the first American state to abolish slavery.

March 3rd, 1820 6c6p1k

• The Missouri Compromise is enacted; slavery is banned everywhere north of Missouri, but is still legal in the southern United States.

September 17th, 1849 v5ni

• Harriet Tubman escapes slavery in Maryland and spends the next several years helping more than 300 people escape to free territory by way of the Underground Railroad.

April 12th, 1861 5n4b19

• The Civil War begins.

 

July 17th, 1862 2r5z4

• Congress gives President Abraham Lincoln the green light to allow black people to the military.

January 31st, 1865 61711t

• The Thirteenth Amendment is ed and slavery is officially abolished from the United States.

April 15th, 1865 4c4v5g

• President Abraham Lincoln, the president who abolished slavery, is assassinated.

June 13th, 1868 3y5en

• Ex-slave Oscar Dunn becomes Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana.

July 28th, 1868 5a1917

• The Fourteenth Amendment is ed giving black citizens in America full citizenship.

March 30th, 1870 2o4b70

• The right to vote is granted to all American males (other than Native Americans), regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude (so even men who had previously been slaves could now vote).

March 1st, 1875 4065j

• Civil Rights Act is ed giving all black citizens the right to equal treatment in public and on any public transportation.

November 26th, 1883 1e3y4g

• US Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act to be unconstitutional because laws covered by the Civil Rights Act should be left up to individual states, not the federal government. Individual states now again allowed to discriminate in any way they want against black citizens.

1917 6j724y

• In the same year that the United States enters World War I, anti-black riots are held in St. Louis, Illinois and more than 100 black citizens are either killed or injured. More than 10,000 black New Yorkers hold the Silent Parade to protest the violence.

December 8th, 1936 y1uw

• The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAA) sues the government to make them pay black and white teachers equal salaries.

June 3rd, 1946 5b34w

• US Supreme Court bans segregation of black and white people on public transit.

Civil Rights - December 1st, 1955 2u3n56

• Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, AL. Martin Luther King Jr. leads a boycott of Montgomery buses that lasts over a year.

September 24th, 1957 6l503i

• Nine black students integrate with white students at Central High School in Little Rock, AR. President Dwight Eisenhower sends the paratroopers in to ward off any violence.

August 28th, 1963 474a4k

• More than 250,000 civil rights demonstrators march on Washington, DC, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "I Have A Dream" speech.

1964 6i5e1w

• Nobel Peace Prize.

April 4th, 1968 w5c5a

• Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, TN, where had gone to give a speech to striking garbage workers.

1978 2t5345

• Unita Blackwell, founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, becomes the first black woman mayor in the history of Mississippi in the city of Mayersville. She had once been denied the right to vote there.

1983 24439

• Vanessa Williams is crowned the first African American Miss America.

January 15th, 1986 4om1m

• Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday is celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time.

1999 6d3l52

• NAA launches a campaign against TV networks to increase number of minorities in shows.

2000 603q2l

• Colin Powell becomes the first black US Secretary of State.

March 24th, 2002 43x10

• Halle Berry becomes first African American woman to win an Oscar for best actress.

January 20th, 2009 3en67

• Barack Obama becomes first African American president of the United States.

Have Your Say 2l214p

Have you studied the Civil Rights Movement in school? What was the most interesting thing you learned? Let us know in the comments section below!

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