Civil Rights

African are being shipped to North America as slaves.

1600s

The writers of the United States Constitution decide that slaves will count as three fifths of a person when deciding how many representatives each state will have in Congress.

1787

The Missouri Compromise allows the people in each state to vote on whether slavery should be legal in that state or not.

1820

Sojourner Truth escapes from slavery and begins fighting for the desegregation of buses in Washington D.C. and for women’s rights.

1826

Nat Turner sees a vision and hears voices telling him to fight against slavery by killing slave owners

1828

Frederick Douglass gives speeches and publishes a newspaper to encourage others to help fight against slavery.

1847

Harriet Tubman begins helping over 300 slaves escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

1849

The Compromise of 1850 ends the slave trade to the United States, but allows slavery to continue.

1850

Dred Scott takes his case to win his freedom to the Supreme Court, and the court rules that slaves who escape to free states must be returned to their masters.

1857

Abraham Lincoln is elected the sixteenth President of the United States, and begins to work to keep the country together.

1860

The South breaks away from the North resulting in the civil war.

1861- 1865

1863

1865 1868 187013th Amendment: Ends slavery in the United States

14th Amendment: Makes all people born in the Untied States citizens

15th Amendment: Gives black men the right to vote

1868

Plessy vs. Ferguson

NAACP

In the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, KS, the Supreme Court rules that separate schools for black and white students is unconstitutional.

1954

1955

Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the front of a bus, helping begin the Montgomery Bus Boycotts.

Martin Luther King, Jr. leads the Montgomery Bus Boycott to help end segregation on buses.

1957

The Little Rock Nine help integrate the all-white Little Rock Central High School.

1957

1960

Ruby Bridges is one of the first black students to attend an all-white school.

1960

Greensboro Sit In

Black and white freedom riders travel into the south to see if they will be treated equally, and they are attacked by racists.

1961

President John F. Kennedy promises to end racial discrimination in his inaugural address.

1961

Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his "I Have a Dream" Speech in Washington, D.C.

1963

Malcolm X

Medgar Evers

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Selma to Montgomery March

MLK assassinated