The Civil Rights Movement

17 May 1954 – 16 Apr 196862 items

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The March on Washington, 28 August 1963: Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph and Walter Reuther lead marchers under a sign demanding “decent housing now”. Photo: U.S. Information Agency, National Archives. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

From Brown to the Fair Housing Act

Fourteen years in which Black Americans and their allies took apart the legal order of segregation in the South. It opens on 17 May 1954, when the Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional, and closes in April 1968, a week after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., when Congress outlawed discrimination in housing. In between: boycotts, sit-ins, Freedom Rides, jail cells, marches, and the three great laws of 1964, 1965 and 1968.

How it is built

The campaigns are periods: Montgomery, Little Rock, Greensboro, the Freedom Rides, Albany, Birmingham, Freedom Summer, Selma, Chicago and Memphis. Events sit inside a campaign only when they were part of it. The Freedom Rides, the Selma-to-Montgomery march and the March Against Fear are drawn on the map as routes. Zoom into 28 August 1963 to see the March on Washington by the hour. Every date is Gregorian and every time UTC; Washington was then four hours behind.

The movement was met with violence. The people killed are named, and every count of the injured, the arrested or a crowd is given as the range its named sources give.

Threads to follow

law: rulings and acts, from Brown to Loving and 1968
protest: boycotts, sit-ins, rides and marches
schools: Little Rock, Ole Miss and Tuscaloosa
elections: the vote, from the poll tax to Selma
violence: the bombings and killings
mlk: Martin Luther King Jr., Montgomery to Memphis

Items

17 May 1954
Brown v. Board of Education
Supreme Court Building, Washington
2 Mar 1955
Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat
Montgomery, Alabama
31 May 1955
Brown II: “with all deliberate speed”
Supreme Court Building, Washington
28 Aug 1955
Emmett Till is abducted and murdered
Money, Mississippi
3 Sep 1955
Emmett Till’s open casket in Chicago
Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, State Street, Chicago
23 Sep 1955
Till’s killers acquitted in Sumner
Tallahatchie County Courthouse, Sumner, Mississippi
1 Dec 1955
Rosa Parks is arrested
Montgomery Street at the Empire Theatre, Montgomery
5 Dec 1955 – 20 Dec 1956
Montgomery bus boycott
≈ 1 year, 15 days · Montgomery, Alabama
30 Jan 1956
King’s house is bombed
Dexter Avenue parsonage, 309 South Jackson Street, Montgomery
13 Nov 1956
Supreme Court affirms Browder v. Gayle
Supreme Court Building, Washington
10 Jan 1957
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is founded
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Auburn Avenue, Atlanta
4 Sep 1957 – 27 May 1958
The Little Rock Nine
8 months, 25 days · Little Rock Central High School
9 Sep 1957
Civil Rights Act of 1957
25 Sep 1957
The 101st Airborne escorts the nine into Central High
Little Rock Central High School
≈ 1 year, 8 months
1 Feb 1960 – 25 Jul 1960
Greensboro sit-ins
5 months, 25 days · F. W. Woolworth store, 132 South Elm Street, Greensboro
15 Apr 1960 – 17 Apr 1960
SNCC’s founding conference
2 days · Shaw University, Raleigh
4 May 1961 – 1 Nov 1961
Freedom Rides
≈ 6 months · The Freedom Riders’ road, Washington to Jackson (sketch)
14 May 1961
A Freedom Riders’ bus is burned near Anniston
Alabama Highway 202, west of Anniston
20 May 1961
Riders beaten at the Montgomery bus station
Greyhound bus station, South Court Street, Montgomery
17 Nov 1961 – Aug 1962
The Albany Movement
≈ 9 months · Albany, Georgia
1 Oct 1962
James Meredith enrolls at Ole Miss
The Lyceum, University of Mississippi, Oxford
3 Apr 1963 – 10 May 1963
Birmingham campaign
1 month, 7 days · Birmingham, Alabama
16 Apr 1963
Letter from Birmingham Jail
Birmingham, Alabama
2 May 1963
The Children’s Crusade
Kelly Ingram Park, Birmingham
11 Jun 1963
Wallace’s stand in the schoolhouse door
Foster Auditorium, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
11 Jun 1963
Kennedy’s address on civil rights
The White House, Washington
12 Jun 1963
Medgar Evers is assassinated
The Evers home, Jackson, Mississippi
28 Aug 1963, 15:30 – 28 Aug 1963, 20:00
March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
≈ 4 hours, 59 minutes · Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial
28 Aug 1963, 19:00
King: “I have a dream”
Lincoln Memorial, Washington
28 Aug 1963, 21:00
The march leaders meet Kennedy
The White House, Washington
15 Sep 1963
16th Street Baptist Church bombing
16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham
27 Nov 1963
Johnson takes up Kennedy’s bill
United States Capitol, Washington
23 Jan 1964
The Twenty-fourth Amendment abolishes the poll tax
30 Mar 1964 – 10 Jun 1964
The Senate filibuster
2 months, 12 days · United States Capitol, Washington
Jun 1964 – Aug 1964
Freedom Summer
≈ 2 months, 1 day
21 Jun 1964
Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner are murdered
Near Philadelphia, Neshoba County, Mississippi
2 Jul 1964
The Civil Rights Act is signed
The White House, Washington
22 Aug 1964
Fannie Lou Hamer before the Credentials Committee
Convention Hall, Atlantic City, New Jersey
10 Dec 1964
King receives the Nobel Peace Prize
University of Oslo Aula
2 Jan 1965 – 25 Mar 1965
Selma voting rights campaign
2 months, 22 days · Selma, Alabama
18 Feb 1965
Jimmie Lee Jackson is shot in Marion
Marion, Alabama
21 Feb 1965
Malcolm X is assassinated
Audubon Ballroom, Washington Heights, Manhattan
7 Mar 1965
Bloody Sunday
Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma
9 Mar 1965
Turnaround Tuesday; James Reeb is beaten
Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma
15 Mar 1965
Johnson: “We shall overcome”
United States Capitol, Washington
21 Mar 1965 – 25 Mar 1965
The march from Selma to Montgomery
4 days · Selma to Montgomery along U.S. Route 80 (sketch)
25 Mar 1965
Viola Liuzzo is murdered
U.S. Route 80, Lowndes County
6 Aug 1965
The Voting Rights Act is signed
United States Capitol, Washington
11 Aug 1965 – 16 Aug 1965
The Watts uprising
5 days · Watts, Los Angeles
26 Jan 1966 – 26 Aug 1966
The Chicago Freedom Movement
≈ 7 months · 1550 South Hamlin Avenue, North Lawndale, Chicago
5 Jun 1966 – 26 Jun 1966
The March Against Fear
21 days · Memphis to Jackson through the Delta (sketch)
16 Jun 1966
“Black Power” in Greenwood
Greenwood, Mississippi
5 Aug 1966
King is stoned in Marquette Park
Marquette Park, Chicago
12 Jun 1967
Loving v. Virginia
Supreme Court Building, Washington
23 Jul 1967 – 28 Jul 1967
The Detroit uprising
5 days · 12th Street and Clairmount, Detroit
30 Aug 1967
Thurgood Marshall is confirmed to the Supreme Court
United States Capitol, Washington
8 Feb 1968
The Orangeburg massacre
South Carolina State College, Orangeburg
12 Feb 1968 – 16 Apr 1968
Memphis sanitation strike
2 months, 4 days · Memphis, Tennessee
29 Feb 1968
The Kerner Report
3 Apr 1968
“I’ve been to the mountaintop”
Mason Temple, Memphis
4 Apr 1968
Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated
Lorraine Motel, 450 Mulberry Street, Memphis
11 Apr 1968
The Fair Housing Act is signed
The White House, Washington