Civil Rights Movement 1950s – 1970

1955: Fourteen-year-old Chicago resident Emmett Till is lynched while vacationing in Money, Mississippi on August 28.

1955: Chuck Berry, an early breakthrough rock and roll artist, records "Maybellene" with Chicago's Chess Records.

1955: Rosa Parks refuses to relinquish her bus seat to a white man on December 1, initiating the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the 26 year old pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, is elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which leads the year-long boycott against the city's racially segregated bus line.

1955: On January 7 Marian Anderson becomes the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera

1955: On January 15 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10590 which creates the President's Committee on Government Policy to enforce the federal government's policy of nondiscrimination in federal employment.

1955: On May 7 Reverend George W. Lee, an NAACP activist, is killed in Belzoni, Mississippi.

1955: On May 31 the U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown II that public school desegregation must occur with all deliberate speed.

1956: Autherine Lucy is admitted to the University of Alabama on February 3. She is suspended on February 7 after a riot ensues at the university to protest her presence. Lucy is expelled on February 29.

1956: On November 11, Nat King Cole becomes the first African American to host a prime-time variety show on national television. He appears on NBC.

1956: Harry Belafonte's "Calypso," released by RCA Records, is the first album in history to sell more than one million copies.

1956: On November 13, the U.S. Supreme Court in Gayle v. Browder bans segregation in intrastate travel, effectively giving a victory to those supporting the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1956: On April 10 popular entertainer Nat King Cole is assaulted on stage during a segregated performance at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, Alabama.

1956: The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission is formed in Jackson, the state captial, to maintain racial segregation in Mississippi.

1957: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first legislation protecting black rights since Reconstruction. The act establishes the Civil Rights section of the Justice Department.

1957: In September President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to ensure the enforcement of a federal court order to desegregate Central High School and to protect nine African American students enrolled as part of the order. 

1957: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) was founded at a mass meeting in Birmingham, Alabama.

1957: Perry H. Young becomes the first black pilot for a commercial passenger airline (New York Airways).  The following year, 1958, Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first black commercial passenger airline flight attendant (Mohawk Airlines).

1958: On January 12, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is organized in Atlanta with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as its first President.

1958: The Alvin Ailey Dance Theater is formed in New York.

1958: Louis E. Lomax becomes the first African American newscaster for a major network station. He is hired by WNTA-TV in New York City.

1958: Althea Gibson becomes the first African American woman to win the U.S. Open tennis championship in Forest Hills.

1959: On January 12, Berry Gordy, Jr., founds Motown Records in Detroit.

1959: Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" opens in New York on March 11 with Sidney Poitier in the starring role. It is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.

1959: On April 26, Mack Charles Parker is lynched near Poplarville, Mississippi.

1959: Ella Fitzgerald and William "Count" Basie become the first African American performers to win Grammy awards.

1960: Census of 1960, U.S. population: 179,323,175, Black population: 18,871,831 (10.6 percent)

1960: On February 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro begin a sit-in at Woolworth's Drug Store to protest company policy which bans African Americans from sitting at its counters.

1960: On April 15, 150 black and white students gather at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina to form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

1960: The Civil Rights Act of 1960 is signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on May 6. The Act established federal inspection of local voter registration rolls and introduces penalties for anyone who obstructs a citizen's attempt to register to vote

1960: On Nov. 8, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy defeats Vice President Richard Nixon in one of the closest elections in history. Many observers credit African American voters with Kennedy's narrow margin of victory.

1961: On May 4, seven blacks and four whites leave Washington, D.C., for the Deep South on the first Freedom Ride for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

1961: Riots on the University of Georgia campus in September fail to prevent the enrollment of the institutions first two African American students, Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter (Gault).

1962: Ernie Davis, a running back at Syracuse University, becomes the first African American athlete to receive college football's Heisman Trophy.

1962: On October 1, James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. On the day he enters the University, he is escorted by U.S. marshals after federal troops are sent in to suppress rioting and maintain order.

1963: Martin Luther King, Jr. writes his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" on April 16.

1963: On May 3, Birmingham police use dogs and fire hoses to attack civil rights demonstrators.

1963: Despite Governor George Wallace's vow to block the schoolhouse door to prevent their enrollment on June 11, Vivian Malone and James Hood register for classes at the University of Alabama. They are the first African American students to attend the university

1963: On June 12, Mississippi NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers is assassinated outside his home in Jackson.

1963: Over 200,000 people gather in Washington, D.C. on August 28 as part of the March on Washington, an unprecedented demonstration demanding civil rights and equal opportunity for African Americans. Dr. Martin Luther King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech

1963: Former tennis champion Althea Gibson becomes the first African American woman to compete in a Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tournament in Cincinnati.

1963: On September 15, the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church is bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls: Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, ages 11-14.

1963: Iota Phi Theta Fraternity is founded on September 19 at Morgan State University in Baltimore.

1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas on November 22.

1963: Wendell Oliver Scott became the first black driver to win a major NASCAR race.

1963: Marian Anderson and Ralph Bunche are the first black winners of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

1964: On January 8, President Lyndon Johnson in his first State of the Union Address declares unconditional war on poverty in America, thus initiating a broad array of government programs designed to assist the poorest citizens of the nation including a disproportionate number of black people

1964: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project.

1964: Sidney Poitier wins the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film, "Lilies of the Field." He is the first African American male actor to win in that category.

1964: On March 12, Malcolm X announces his break with the Nation of Islam and his founding of the Muslim Mosque in Harlem. On June 28 he founds the Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City.

1964: On June 21 civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner are abducted and killed by terrorists in Mississippi.

1964: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed by Congress on July 2. The act bans discrimination in all public accommodations and by employers. It also establishes the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) to monitor compliance with the law.

1964: The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) delegation led by Fannie Lou Hamer is denied seating at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City in August.

1964: On August 20, President Lyndon Johnson signs the Economic Opportunity Act, initiating the federally-sponsored War on Poverty. The act includes Head Start, Upward Bound, and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA).

1965: Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, New York on February 21.

1965: On March 7, six hundred Alabama civil rights activists stage a Selma-to-Montgomery protest march to draw attention to the continued denial of black voting rights in the state. The marchers are confronted by Alabama State Troopers whose attack on them at the Edmund Pettus Bridge became known as Bloody Sunday

1965: In March, the White House releases "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," popularly known as the Moynihan Report.

1965: Alex Haley publishes The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

1965: The Voting Rights Act is signed into law on August 6.

1965: The Watts Uprising (also known as the Watts Rebellion) occurs in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles on August 11-16. Thirty four people are killed and one thousand are injured in the five day confrontation.

1965: Maulana Karenga founds the black nationalist “Organization US” in Los Angeles following the Watts Uprising.

1966: On January 13, Robert Weaver, President Lyndon Baines Johnsons nominee to head the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development, is confirmed for the post by the U.S. Senate. Weaver becomes the first African American to hold a cabinet post.

1966: On January 25th Constance Baker Motley is appointed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson to the Federal Bench in New York City. She becomes the first African American woman elevated to a federal judgeship.

1966: In May, Stokely Carmichael becomes chairman of SNCC at its headquarters in Atlanta and publicly embraces the concept of black power.

1966: On June 5, James Meredith begins a solitary "March Against Fear" for 220 miles from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi to protest racial discrimination. Soon after crossing into Mississippi Meredith is shot by a sniper. Civil Rights leaders including Martin

1966: On October 15, The Black Panther Party is formed in Oakland, California by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton.

1966: On November 8, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts becomes the first African American to be popularly elected to the U.S. Senate.

1966: On November 8, Julian Bond wins a seat in the Georgia State Senate. However he is denied the seat by the Georgia Legislature because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. Bond is eventually seated after a bitter court battle.

1967: On April 4, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers the speech, "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church, New York City.  It is his first public criticism of the Vietnam War.

1967: H. Rap Brown becomes chairman of SNCC on May 12 at its headquarters in Atlanta.

1967: On June 12, the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia strikes down state interracial marriage bans.

1967: The six-day Newark Riot begins on July 12 and claims 23 dead, 725 injured and 1,500 arrested.

1967: Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall takes his seat as the first African American Justice on the United States Supreme Court on July 13.

1967: On July 23, the Detroit Race Riot erupts. Between July 23 and July 28, 43 are killed, 1,189 are injured and over 7,000 are arrested.

1968: On February 8, three students at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg are killed by police in what will be known as the Orangeburg Massacre.

1968: The "Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders," popularly known as the "Kerner Report," is released in March.

1968: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4. In the wake of the assassination 125 cities in 29 states experienced uprisings. By April 11, 46 people are killed and 35,000 are injured in these confrontations.

1968: In April Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which outlaws discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.

1968: On June 19, the Poor Peoples Campaign brings 50,000 demonstrators to Washington, D.C.

1968: Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to win the Men's Singles competition in the U.S. Open.

1968: San Francisco State University establishes the nations first Black Studies Program in September.

1968: In November Shirley Chisholm of New York is the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress.

1968: Elizabeth Duncan Koontz becomes the first African American to serve as president of the National Education Association (NEA).

1969: The Ford Foundation gives one million dollars to Morgan State University, Howard University, and Yale University to help prepare faculty members to teach courses in African American studies.

1969: On May 5, Moneta Sleet, Jr. of Ebony magazine, becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in Photography.

1969: On September 22, the African American Studies Program begins offering courses at Harvard University.

1969: Howard N. Lee becomes the first African American mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At the time he is the first African American mayor of a predominately white Southern city.

1969: On December 4, Chicago police kill Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke.

1969: In a special message to Congress, President Richard Nixon identifies drug abuse as "a serious national threat." Citing a dramatic jump in drug-related juvenile arrests and street crime between 1960 and 1967, Nixon calls for a national anti-drug policy at the state and federal level.

1970: Dr. Clifton Wharton, Jr., is named president of Michigan State University on January 2. He is the first African American to lead a major, predominately white university in the 20th Century.

1970: On February 18, Bobby Seale and six other six defendants (popularly known as the Chicago Seven) are acquitted of the charge of conspiring to disrupt the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

1970: The first issue of Essence magazine appears in May.

1970: On May 15, two students, Philip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, are killed by police in a confrontation with students at Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi.

1970: The first issue of Black Enterprise magazine appears in August.

1970: The San Rafael, California courthouse shooting on August 7 results in the death of Judge Harold Haley and three others including Jonathan Jackson, the younger brother of imprisoned Black Panther George Jackson. UCLA Philosophy Professor Angela Davis is imprisoned for over a year until she is acquitted in 1972.

1970: The Joint Center for Political Studies is established in Washington, D.C.

1970: Census of 1970, U.S. population: 204,765,770, Black population: 22,580,289 (11.1 percent)