The American Civil Rights Movement

The American Civil Rights Movement A Movement of the People Not so long ago a revolution took place in America. The heroes of this revolution, known as the Civil Rights Movement, were not all famous leaders and renown strategists. Most were ordinary women, men and children with extraordinary courage and conviction for justice to prevail. Introduction to the Civil Rights Memorial Center Brochure The Civil Rights Movement was about more than integrated schools; it was about voting, jobs, transportation and opportunity. 1831 North Carolina General Assembly passes legislation forbidding anyone to teach slaves to read and write. North Carolina Event 1835 North Carolina Constitution revised. New laws take voting rights away from free people of color. North Carolina Event 1861-1865 Civil War North Carolina secedes from the Union May 20, 1861. North Carolina Event 1865 13th Amendment Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. National Event 1865 North Carolina repeals Ordinance of Secession and ends slavery. 13th Amendment ratified North Carolina Event 1868 14th Amendment Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. National Event 1870 15th Amendment Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. National Event 1875 Amendment to North Carolina Constitution established separate public schools for black and white children North Carolina Event 1877 North Carolina General Assembly authorizes first state-supported institution of higher learning for African Americans – a teacher training facility. The Howard School (est. 1867) becomes State Colored Normal School, which later becomes Fayetteville State University. North Carolina Event 1877 Military occupation of southern states ends, although the Civil War had ended 12 years earlier. Southern states begin to enact Jim Crow laws to restrict the rights of blacks. National Event 1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson Supreme Court states that “separate but equal” accommodations for whites and others is constitutional. Jim Crow laws become more widespread. National Event NAACP, 1909 On February 12th, 1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a multiracial group of activists in New York City, NY. National Event 1920 19th Amendment U.S. Constitution gives women throughout the nation the right to vote. North Carolina does not ratify the amendment until 1971. North Carolina Event MOWM, 1942 In 1942, labor activist A. Phillip Randolph organizes the March on Washington Movement (MOWM) in response to unrelenting employment prejudice and to encourage equal integration in the armed forces. National Event CORE,1942 The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded in 1942 by James L. Farmer, Jr., George Houser and Bernice Fisher. Bayard Rustin also played an instrumental role in the founding of CORE. National Event 1947 CORE tests Supreme Court decision against segregation on interstate bus travel. Eight African American men travel by bus and are arrested in Asheville, Durham and Chapel Hill. This “Journey of Reconciliation” becomes model for 1961 Freedom Riders. North Carolina Event 1950 According to the 1950 Census, Charlotte is one of the most residentially segregated cities in the US. North Carolina Event 1951 A court order requires UNC Chapel Hill to admit minority students to its graduate and professional schools. Floyd McKessick, Harvey Beech, Jr., Kenneth Lee and James Lassiter become first African Americans admitted to the UNC law school. North Carolina Event Brown, 1954 On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court rules in the landmark case Brown vs. Board of Education, that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and therefore unconstitutional. National Event 1955 North Carolina General Assembly adopts resolution opposing racial integration in the state’s public schools. Legislation gives local school boards control over desegregation of their schools. North Carolina Event December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. National Event 1955-1956 December 5, 1955 Montgomery bus boycott begins. Blacks in Montgomery walk everywhere they go. November 13, 1956 Supreme Court bans segregated seating on Montgomery buses. National Event 1957 August 29, 1957 Congress passes first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction National Event September 4, 1957 Dorothy Counts, Gus Roberts, Girvaud Roberts and Delois Huntley become the first black children to integrate four previously all white Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools North Carolina Event September 24, 1957 President Eisenhower orders federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to enforce school desegregation. National Event January, 1960 Charlotte's city and county schools are combined into a single large district, becoming one of the largest in the nation. Schools are still divided by race. However, this move later makes integration possible because it makes white flight from the school system difficult. White families cannot find other nearby segregated school systems. North Carolina Event February 1, 1960 Greensboro Sit-in Charlotte's Franklin McCain and three other North Carolina A & T students stage a sit-in at a “Whites Only” lunch counter after being refused service at the F.W. Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. They begin a sit-in that spreads to eight other cities in the state, and finally, to every state in the South. North Carolina Event February 9, 1960 Students from Johnson C. Smith hold protests at lunch counters in downtown Charlotte. Led by theological student Charles Jones, hundreds of students join a sit-in protest at downtown restaurants that refuse service to black customers. Eight stores close their dining areas rather than serve the black students. North Carolina Event April, 1960 The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University in Raleigh, NC. It provided a place for young blacks in the civil rights movement. National Event December 5, 1960 Supreme Court outlaws segregation at bus terminals. National Event May 4, 1961 The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins Freedom Rides in the South. Volunteers board buses to test a court ruling banning racial segregation on buses that cross state lines. Ten days later, a white mob in Alabama attacks one of the buses, beating the Freedom Riders and setting the bus on fire. National Event Summer 1961 Charlotte minister and dentist Dr. Reginald Hawkins claims that the School Board is closing existing white schools and building new ones in more distant white neighborhoods to avoid enrolling African Americans. North Carolina Event April 1, 1962 Civil Rights groups join forces to launch voter registration drive. National Event August 28, 1963 250,000 Americans march on Washington for civil rights. National Event January 23, 1964 Poll tax, a tax voters pay for the privilege to vote, is outlawed in federal elections. National Event June 20, 1964 Freedom Summer brings 1,000 young civil rights volunteers to Mississippi. National Event Civil Rights Act of 1964 July 2, 1964 President Johnson signs into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964 declaring discrimination based on race illegal. It outlaws segregation across the US in schools and public places. The law also mandates equal employment opportunity. National Event 1965 North Carolina institutes the freedom-of-choice plan, which allows parents to choose the public school their children attend. North Carolina Event 1965 March 7, 1965 – “Bloody Sunday” State Troopers beat back marchers at the Edmund Pettut Bridge in Selma, Alabama. March 21 to 25 – Civil Rights March for voting rights, from Selma to Montgomery, completed. National Event Civil Rights Act of 1965 On July 9, 1965 Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965. National Event October 2, 1967 Thurgood Marshall sworn in as the first black Supreme Court Justice. National Event 1968 Federal Court rules that North Carolina’s Freedom-of-Choice Plan is unconstitutional. North Carolina Event April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King assassinated in Memphis Tennessee as he prepared for a demonstration. National Event September 9, 1970 Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System is fully integrated. Until 1970, desegregation meant that one or a few individual African American students enrolled in an all-white school. Now, for the first time, black and white children are bused to truly integrate all the schools. There are no more all-white or all-black schools. Meanwhile, the school board continues to appeal the Swann case, the judgment that has forced it to integrate. North Carolina Event April 20, 1971 U.S. Supreme Court in Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. National Event September 1999 U.S. District Court Judge Robert Potter ruled that CMS is "unitary," issuing an injunction against the use of race in student assignment and the allocation of "educational opportunities," and mandated that a new student assignment plan be in place for the 2000-2001 school year. North Carolina Event As long as people are willing to take a stand for justice, the march for civil rights will never end. Introduction to the Civil Rights Memorial Center Brochure The march goes on….