On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American seamstress and NAACP secretary, was arrested for violating Chapter 6, Section 11 of the Montgomery City Code, which upheld racial segregation on public buses. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a …
Rosa ParksMartin Luther King Jr.Montgomery Improvement AssociationE.D. NixonWomen's Political Councilcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismsegregationnonviolent-resistancedemocratic-erosion
On August 28, 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till, an African American boy visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, was abducted from his great-uncle’s home and brutally murdered by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, two white men. Till had allegedly whistled at or made remarks to Carolyn …
Roy BryantJ.W. MilamMamie TillTallahatchie County Sheriffcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismviolencejudicial-failuredemocratic-erosion
On May 31, 1955, one year after declaring school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court issued Brown II, its implementation ruling. Rather than setting firm deadlines or providing specific remedies, the Court ordered desegregation proceed “with all …
Earl WarrenU.S. Supreme CourtNAACP Legal Defense FundThurgood MarshallSouthern state governmentscivil-rightssegregationjudicialdemocratic-erosionmassive-resistance
On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, …
On August 13, 1953, President Eisenhower signed Executive Order 10479, establishing the President’s Committee on Government Contracts under Vice President Richard Nixon’s chairmanship. The committee was charged with ensuring that federal contractors did not discriminate in employment, …
Dwight D. EisenhowerRichard NixonGovernment Contract CommitteeNAACPcivil-rightsexecutive-orderemployment-discriminationfederal-contracting
President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order 9981 on July 26, 1948, abolishing discrimination “on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin” in the United States Armed Forces and repudiating 170 years of officially sanctioned discrimination. The order states “there …
Harry S. TrumanIsaac WoodardPresident's Committee on Equality of Treatment and OpportunityOmar BradleyKenneth Royallcivil-rightsmilitarydesegregationexecutive-orderracial-justice
On July 17, 1944, two transport ships loading ammunition at Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California explode, killing 320 men instantly, including 202 African American enlisted men who comprised the entire loading workforce. Three weeks later, 258 surviving Black sailors refuse to return to loading …
U.S. NavyThurgood MarshallNAACPPort Chicago 50Eleanor Rooseveltracial-discriminationmilitary-justicecivil-rightslabor-exploitationinstitutional-racism
The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Smith v. Allwright that Texas’s white primary system violated the Fifteenth Amendment, striking down one of the South’s most effective tools for excluding Black voters from meaningful political participation. The decision, argued by Thurgood Marshall for …
Supreme CourtStanley ReedThurgood MarshallNAACP Legal Defense FundLonnie Smith+1 morevoting-rightssupreme-courtwhite-primarycivil-rightsnaacp+1 more
The Detroit race riot erupts on June 20, 1943, killing 34 people, injuring over 400, and causing $2 million in property damage. The violence exposes how federal housing policy enforces residential segregation while demanding integrated war production, creating explosive tensions that government …
Detroit Police DepartmentFederal troopsDetroit housing authorityWar production workersNAACPracial-violencehousing-segregationwar-productioncivil-rightsinstitutional-racism
On July 27, 1919, the drowning of Black teenager Eugene Williams - who drifted into a white beach area on Lake Michigan and was stoned by white beachgoers - triggered eight days of racial violence in Chicago that killed 38 people (23 Black, 15 white), injured 537, and left over 1,000 Black families …
Chicago Police DepartmentIrish American athletic clubsBlack Great Migration communitiesGovernor Frank LowdenIllinois National Guardracial-violencecivil-rightsred-summerhousing-discriminationpolice-complicity
The Supreme Court unanimously struck down a Louisville, Kentucky ordinance prohibiting Black residents from moving onto blocks where the majority of residents were white, and vice versa. While appearing to be a civil rights victory, the Court’s reasoning in Buchanan v. Warley rested entirely …
Supreme Court of the United StatesNAACPMoorfield StoreyLouisville, Kentuckyhousing-discriminationcivil-rightsprogressive-erajudicial-powersegregation
The Supreme Court unanimously struck down Oklahoma’s grandfather clause in Guinn v. United States, marking the first time the Court invalidated a state voting restriction as a Fifteenth Amendment violation since Reconstruction. Chief Justice Edward White, himself a former Confederate soldier …
Supreme CourtChief Justice Edward WhiteOklahoma LegislatureNAACPvoting-rightssupreme-courtgrandfather-clausefifteenth-amendmentcivil-rights
Within months of taking office, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration began systematically segregating the federal government, reversing decades of relative integration in civil service employment. Postmaster General Albert Burleson proposed segregation at an April 11, 1913 cabinet …
President Woodrow WilsonPostmaster General Albert BurlesonTreasury Secretary William McAdooNAACPBooker T. Washington+1 morecivil-rightssegregationprogressive-erafederal-governmentinstitutional-racism
The Seneca Falls Convention, held July 19-20, 1848, at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls, New York, marked the first organized women’s rights convention in the United States. Organized primarily by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott along with local Quaker women, the …
Elizabeth Cady StantonLucretia MottFrederick DouglassJane HuntMary Ann McClintock+1 morewomens-suffragedemocratic-expansioncivil-rightsinstitutional-resistanceabolitionist-movement