Civil Rights Movement Timeline 6h5w25

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 3m412

• Vermont is the first American state to abolish slavery.

March 3rd, 1820 37631v

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

September 17th, 1849 6g432x

• 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 a5v1b

• The Civil War begins.

 

July 17th, 1862 2o2s11

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

January 31st, 1865 gr5k

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

April 15th, 1865 5h4j3n

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

June 13th, 1868 i6532

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

July 28th, 1868 4k5c43

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

March 30th, 1870 5a1oe

• 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 q3c4g

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

November 26th, 1883 462662

• 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 2h2o64

• 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 4od63

• 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 6l1c42

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

Civil Rights - December 1st, 1955 6o231d

• 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 456d41

• 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 2e1k42

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

1964 z2957

• Nobel Peace Prize.

April 4th, 1968 271822

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

1978 18255

• 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 6eu3

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

January 15th, 1986 315b4p

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

1999 5i3544

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

2000 3n21x

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

March 24th, 2002 2f6k1k

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

January 20th, 2009 2i3z2a

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

Have Your Say 431c5y

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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