1947
Jackie Robinson integrates Major League Baseball by becoming a Brooklyn Dodger.
1954
In the case Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overturns the earlier decision in Plessy v. Ferguson and rules that segregation in public schooling violates the Constitution. The justices state directly that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
1955
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white person and ignites
1956
a yearlong boycott of buses by the African-American community in Montgomery, Alabama. This fight for integration is led by the young and then unknown minister, Martin Luther King, Jr.
1956
After the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is banned in Alabama, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth works with others in the Birmingham community to start the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR).
The Klan bombs the home of Shuttlesworth in Birmingham. Shuttlesworth ignores the warning and continues to fight for the integration of buses.
1957
King and other activists found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
A mob savagely beats Shuttlesworth when he tries to enroll his daughters at all-white Phillips High School.
1960
Four African-American college students sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, and fuel a movement that inspires other students throughout the South to fight for the integration of facilities.
Growing from the Greensboro sit-ins, young activists form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
1961
An integrated group of thirteen freedom riders boards buses in Washington, D.C., and travels throughout the South in order to desegregate transportation facilities. The riders are met and beaten by mobs in Birmingham.
1961—1962
SCLC and SNCC lead unsuccessful demonstrations against segregation in Albany, Georgia.
1962
James Meredith integrates the University of Mississippi. President Kennedy sends in federal troops to quell riots.
1963 — January: Shuttlesworth invites SCLC to Birmingham to support the fight against segregation.
April: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., arrives in Birmingham. The first demonstrations and marches slowly begin.
April 12: On Good Friday, King and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy violate a court injunction against marching and are arrested.
Late April: In response to white clergy who question the need for demonstrations, King composes his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Early May: In support of the movement, young people skip school and march in the streets of Birmingham. They fill the jails.
May 10: Representatives of the white community in Birmingham reach a settlement with SCLC.
May 11: One day after the settlement is announced, the Klan bombs the home of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s brother, the Reverend A. D. King, as well as the Gaston Motel. Rioting erupts throughout Birmingham.
June 11: In a major television address, President John F. Kennedy calls for significant civil rights legislation.
August 28: Over two hundred fifty thousand march in Washington to support the goals of the civil rights movement. Marchers hear Martin Luther King, Jr., deliver his famous “I have a dream” speech.
September 15: The Klan bombs the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church killing four young girls and shocking the nation.
November 22: President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas.
1964
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which includes many of the same goals sought by SCLC and ACMHR through the Birmingham marches.
1965
Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which leads to a dramatic increase in the number of African-American voters.
1979
Richard Arrington becomes the first African-American mayor of Birmingham, Alabama.