A Timeline of Major Events in the American Civil Rights Movement

In the Summer of 1866, rioting took place in Memphis and New Orleans by whites, showing Northerners that they need to take more action for the freedmen. The next year in March 1867 Congress separates the South into two military districts that are subject to Martial Law. This allows for ratification of the 14th Amendment and guarantees voting rights for African American men. In early 1868 President Johnson was impeac... ... middle of paper ... .... This affected the nations politics by moving toward the first representation of an African American in the state legislature (digital history: Congressional reconstruction).

On May 17, 1954 the Supreme Court made its ruling in the Brown vs. Board of Education case. Brown vs. Board of Education overturned the doctrine of “separate but equal” that was set by Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) by desegregating the public school system. As early as 1849, the idea of segregated schools had been fought in court. Between 1881 and 1949, there were eleven court cases fighting for desegregated schools just in the state of Kansas. In the fall of 1950, members of the NAACP in Kansas decided to make their own attempt at desegregating the school system.

Quoted in Adolph Edwards, Marcus Garvey) While Garvey tried to give blacks their rightful place he reversed the roles of the races. Garvey called the white religion a rejection of black culture, insisting that blacks must leave "Babylon" (the Western world) and return to their homeland of Africa. The first Universal Negro Improvement Association international convention (UNIA) opened at Liberty Hall in New York's Harlem under the leadership of Marcus Garvey . 25,000 delegates from 25 nations attended. Garvey began to exalt African beauty and promote a "back to Africa" campaign with a plan for resettlement in Liberia (Liberia was first African colony to gain independence) He promoted a steamship company that would provide transportation for blacks to return to Africa.

The Ku Klux Klan At the end of the American Civil War radical members of Congress attempted to destroy the white power structure of the Rebel states. The Freeman's Bureau was established by Congress on 3rd March, 1865. The bureau was designed to protect the interests of former slaves. This included helping them to find new employment and to improve educational and health facilities. In the year that followed the bureau spent $17,000,000 establishing 4,000 schools, 100 hospitals and providing homes and food for former slaves.

Martin Luther organized sit-ins, marches and boycotts. This was otherwise known as civil disobedience. King believed that it was now time to end segregation and discrimination in the South and throughout the entire country (Civil Rights 84). King helped bring together many blacks that were looking for peaceful solutions to racial oppression in the United States. King became the youngest man ever to win the Nobel peace prize in 1964.

This conference led to the formation (1910) of the NAACP, headed by eight prominent Americans, seven white and one, William E. B. Du Bois, black (wikipedia 1). The selection of Du Bois was significant, for he was a black who had rejected the policy of gradualism advocated by Booker T. Washington and demanded immediate equality for blacks. From 1910 to 1934 Du Bois was the editor of the association's periodical The Crisis, which reported on race relations around the world. The new organization grew so rapidly that by 1915 it was able to organize a partially successful boycott of the motion picture The Birth of a Nation, which portrayed blacks of the Reconstruction era in a distorted light( Spartacus 2).

In 1954 school segregation, the Supreme Court took great consequences; in Brown versus Board of Education of Topeka. The court set aside permitting cities of more than 15,000 to keep up separate schools for blacks and whites. They ruled that all segregation in public schools is inseparable unequal and all blacks barred from attending public schools with white pupils are denied equal protection of the law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. The doctrine was prolonged to state-supported colleges and universities in 1956. The school was the c... ... middle of paper ... ...f organizing work, developing local organizers, and a movement centered on the belief that oppressed people could directly take part in changing the systems that governed their lives.

The struggle these African-Americans faced to have their rights ... ... middle of paper ... ...or southern blacks to vote. In 1967 the Supreme Court rules interracial marriage legal. In 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead at the age of thirty-nine. Also the civil rights act of 1968 is passed stopping discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. In 1988 President Reagan’s veto was overridden by congress passing the “Civil Rights Restoration Act” expanding the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds.

The radical republicans in congress designed a serious of acts known as the reconstruction acts to implement their program in the south. These acts included the Freedman’s Bureau that helped the free slaves adjust to a free society. Also, the Civil Rights Act, which guaranteed blacks both the right to vote and the right to hold property. President Johnson vetoed all the reconstruction acts of congress and congress under the domination of the radical republicans overrode his vetoes. This gridlock between the presidential power and congressional power set the stage for an impeachment in 1868.

The American government takes affirmative action very seriously as demonstrated in the methods it has implemented to combat discrimination in the workplace. Although it can be argued when affirmative action actually emerged, the government’s efforts to protect the rights of all American citizens with regard to employment began in 1941. President Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) when A. Phillip Randolph, president and founder of one of the most powerful black labor unions, threatened to organize a mass march on Washington D.C. if Roosevelt did not take action on behalf of black workers. It was the responsibility of the FEPC to increase the number of black citizens employed by defense contractors. The commission continued its efforts throughout World War II and then was eliminated.