Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement

 The civil rights movement came to national prominence in the United States during the mid-1950s and continued to challenge racial segregation and discrimination through the 1960s. Many organizations, notably the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), arranged nonviolent demonstrations to call attention to specific inequalities, while individuals also challenged unjust laws independently. The civil rights movement eventually achieved equal rights legislation, but not without challenges. In the late 1960s complications arose as various groups confronted the enduring economic and social consequences of past oppression. These problems persisted in subsequent decades, and the idea of real equality remained elusive well into the 21st century. Nonetheless, the intrepid supporters of the civil rights movement took some of the hardest first steps toward equality.

    1954: Brown v.
Board of Education

    On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The decision effectively overturned the “separate but equal” ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had allowed Jim Crow laws that mandated separate public facilities for whites and African Americans to prevail throughout the South during the first half of the 20th century. While the Brown ruling applied only to schools, it implied that segregation in other public facilities was unconstitutional as well.
    1955: Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

    On December 1, 1955, African American civil rights activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger. Her subsequent arrest initiated a sustained bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. The protest began on December 5, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., then a young local pastor, and was so successful that it was extended indefinitely. In the ensuing months, protestors faced threats, arrests, and termination from their jobs. Nonetheless, the boycott continued for more than a year. Finally, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling that segregated seating was unconstitutional, and the federal decision went into effect on December 20, 1956.
    1957: The Little Rock Nine and the Little Rock Central High School Integration

    In September 1957 nine African American students attended their first day at Little Rock Central High School, whose entire student population had until that point been white. The Little Rock Nine, as they came to be called, encountered a large white mob and soldiers from the Arkansas National Guard, sent by Arkansas Gov.
Orval Eugene Faubus, blocking the entrance of the school. For the next 18 days Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gov. Faubus, and Little Rock’s mayor, Woodrow Mann, discussed the situation. The Little Rock Nine returned on September 23, but were met with violence. The students were sent home and returned on September 25, protected by U.S. soldiers. Although the students were continually harassed, eight of the nine completed the academic year. The entire confrontation drew international attention not only to civil rights in the United States but also to the struggle between federal and state power.