Milestones of the Civil Rights Movement Since August 28, 1963

Milestones of the Civil Rights Movement Since August 28, 1963

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1963

Aug. 28

WASHINGTON, D.C.—About 250,000 people join the March on Washington. Assembling at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous ''I Have a Dream'' speech.

Sept. 15
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Four young girls attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of two more Black youth.

1964

June 20
The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a network of civil rights groups that includes CORE and SNCC, launches a massive effort to register Black voters during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer. It also sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., to protest—and attempt to unseat—the official all-White Mississippi contingent.

July 2
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, making segregation in public facilities and discrimination in employment illegal.

Aug. 5
Three civil-rights workers are officially declared missing, having disappeared on June 21 near Philadelphia, Miss. The last day they are seen, James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been arrested on speeding charges and then released to the Ku Klux Klan. Their bodies are found after President Johnson sends military personnel to join the search party.

1965

Feb. 18

SELMA, Ala.—Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, participating in a march led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is killed by Alabama state troopers as he attempts to prevent the troopers from beating his mother and grandfather.

Feb. 21
Malcolm X, Black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is shot to death in Harlem.

March 7
SELMA, Ala.—Blacks begin a March to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed ''Bloody Sunday.''

Aug. 10
Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Blacks, particularly those in the South, to register to vote. Literacy tests and discriminatory gimmicks become illegal.

1966

June 17
Stokely Carmichael, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, popularizes the phrase, “Black Power,” during a voter registration drive in Mississippi.

1967

July 23

Sparked by a police raid on a Black Power hangout, Detroit erupts into the worst urban rebellion in the nation, leaving 43 people dead, including 33 African-Americans and 10 Whites. During nine months of the year, 164 other racial disturbances are reported across the country, including in Tampa, Cincinnati, Atlanta, the New Jersey cities of Newark, Plainfield and Brunswick. At least 83 people are killed.

Aug. 30
Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African-American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1968

Jan. 3

Rep. Shirley Chisholm (D-N.Y.) becomes the first African-American woman member of Congress.

March 1
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, known as the Kerner Commission, issues its report warning that the nation is moving toward two separate societies—one Black and poor, the other affluent and White.

April 4
MEMPHIS, Tenn.—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., at age 39, is shot to death as he stands on the balcony outside of his hotel room. Although escaped convict James Earl Ray later pleads guilty to the crime, questions about whether there was a conspiracy persists to this day. The assassination sparks unrest and civil disorders in 124 cities, including Washington, D.C.

April 11
President Johnson signs the Fair Housing Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing.

1971

April 20

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds busing as a tool for desegregating public schools.

1983 

Nov. 2

President Ronald Reagan signs into law a federal holiday honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Civil Rights leaders had campaigned for the holiday since he was assassinated, April 4, 1968. The holiday was not observed until 1986 due to resistance. Some states refused to observe the holiday, giving it different names or combining it with other holidays. In 2000, it was officially observed in all 50 states for the first time.


1988

March 22

Overriding President Ronald Reagan's veto, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.

1991

Nov. 22
After two years of debates, vetoes and threatened vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws and allowing financial damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.

2003

June 23
In the most important affirmative action decision in a quarter of a century, the Supreme Court (5–4) upholds the University of Michigan Law School's admissions policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors considered by colleges when admitting students. In a companion decision, the court invalidated the university’s undergraduate admissions program, which awarded 20 points to members of underrepresented groups on campus.

2006

July 26

President George W. Bush signs into law a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act that overwhelmingly passed Congress after civil rights leaders and members of the Congressional Black Caucus mobilized African-Americans and their supporters and kept the issue before the public.

2008

August 28, 2008

Democratic U. S. Sen. Barack Obama becomes the first Black presidential nominee of a major political party. He accepts the nomination in front of an outdoor crowd of more than 75,000 at Denver's Invesco Field at Mile High. His acceptance speech coincided with the 45th anniversary of the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

2008

Nov. 4

Former Sen. Barack Obama is elected the first Black President of the United States.

2009

Jan. 20

Former Sen. Barack Obama is inaugurated at the U. S. Capitol as the 44th President of the United States. He takes the oath of office in front of a historic crowd of hundreds of thousands, the largest attendance at a D.C. event in the history, including a record number of African-Americans. His speech expresses hope to “remake” America.

2009

Feb. 2

Obama appoints former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder as U. S. attorney general. He is the first African-American to serve in that role.

March 20

Keeping a promise to the Black Press, Obama accepts News Maker of the Year Award from the National Newspaper Publishers Association in the State Dining Room of the White House. He credits the coverage by Black newspapers as being a significant factor in his win.

July 16

Obama speaks to the 100th Anniversary of the NAACP at its convention in New York. He urges the nation’s oldest civil rights organization to fight “as long as it takes.”

Source: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Teachervision.com., TriceEdneyWire.com