| 17 May 1954: |
Supreme Court outlaws school segregation in Brown vs. Board of Education. |
| 07 May 1955: |
Reverend George Lee: killed for leading voter registration drive. Belzoni, MS. |
| 13 August 1955: |
Lamar Smith: murdered for organizing black voters. Brookhaven, MS. |
| 28 August 1955: |
Emmett Louis Till: youth murdered for speaking to white woman. Money, MS. |
| 22 October 1955: |
John Earle Reese: slain by nightriders opposed to black school improvements. Mayflower, TX. |
| 01 December 1955: |
Rosa Parks: arrested for refusing to give up her seat on bus to a white man. Montgomery, AL. |
| 05 December 1955: |
Montgomery bus boycott begins. |
| 13 November 1956: |
Supreme Court bans segregated seating on Montgomery buses. |
| 23 January 1957: |
Willie Edwards Jr.: killed by Ku Klux Klan. Montgomery, AL. |
| 29 August 1957: |
Congress passes first Civil Rights act since reconstruction. |
| 24 September 1957: |
President Eisenhower orders federal troops to enforce school desegregation. Little Rock, AR. |
| 25 August 1959: |
Mack Charles Parker: taken from jail and lynched. Polarville, MS. |
| 1 February 1960: |
Black students stage sit-in at ‘whites only’ lunch counter. Greensboro, NC. |
| 05 December 1960: |
Supreme Court outlaws segregation in bus terminals. |
| 14 May 1961: |
Freedom riders attacked in Alabama while testing compliance with bus desegregation laws. |
| 25 September 1961: |
Herbert Lee: voter registration worker killed by white legislator. Liberty, MS. |
| 1 April 1962: |
Civil Rights groups join forces to launch voter registration drive. |
| 09 April 1962: |
Cpl. Roman Ducksworth Jr.: taken from bus and killed by police. Taylorsville, MS. |
| 30 September 1962: |
Riots erupt when James Meredith, a black student, enrolls at Ole Miss. |
| 30 September 1962: |
Paul Guihard: European reporter killed during Ole Miss riot. Oxford, MS. |
| 23 April 1963: |
William Lewis Moore: slain during one-man march against segregation. Atlanta, AL. |
| 03 May 1963: |
Birmingham police attack marching children with dogs and firehoses. |
| 11 June 1963: |
Alabama Governor stands in schoolhouse door to stop university integration. |
| 12 June 1963: |
Medgar Evers: Civil Rights leader assassinated. Jackson, MS. |
| 28 August 1963: |
250,000 Americans march on Washington for Civil Rights. |
| 15 September 1963: |
Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley: schoolgirls killed in bombing of 16th Baptist Church. Birmingham, AL. |
| 15 September 1963: |
Virgil Lamar Ware: youth killed during wave of racist violence. Birmingham, AL. |
| 23 January 1964: |
Poll tax outlawed in federal elections. |
| 31 January 1964: |
Louis Allen: witness to murder of civil rights worker, assassinated. Liberty, MS. |
| 23 March 1964: |
Johnnie Mae Chapell: shot by 4 white men along a roadside. Jacksonville, Fla. |
| 07 April 1964: |
Rev. Bruce Klunder: killed protesting construction of segregated school. Columbus, OH.
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| 02 May 1964: |
Henry Hezekiah Dee, Charles Eddie Moore: killed by Klan. Meadville, MS. |
| 20 June 1964: |
Freedom summer brings 1,000 young civil rights volunteers to Mississippi. |
| 21 June 1964: |
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner: Civil Rights workers abducted and slain by Ku Klux Klan. Philadelphia, MS. |
| 02 July 1964: |
President Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of 1964. |
| 11 July 1964: |
Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn: killed by Ku Klux Klan while driving north. Colbert, GA. |
| 26 February 1965: |
Jimmie Lee Jackson: Civil Rights marcher killed by state trooper. Marion, AL. |
| 07 March 1965: |
State troopers beat black marchers at Edmund Pettus Bridge. Selma, AL. |
| 11 March 1965: |
Rev. James Reeb: march volunteer beaten to death. Selma, AL. |
| 25 March 1965: |
Civil Rights march from Selma to Montgomery completed. |
| 25 March 1965: |
Viola Gregg Liuzzo: killed by Ku Klux Klan while transporting marchers. Selma Highway, AL. |
| 02 June 1965: |
Oneal Moore: black deputy killed by Nightriders. Varnado, LA. |
| 09 July 1965: |
Congress passes Voting Rights Act of 1965. |
| 18 July 1965: |
Willie Wallace Brewster: killed by Nightriders. Anniston, AL. |
| 20 August 1965: |
Jonathan Daniels: seminary student killed by deputy. Hayneville, AL. |
| 03 January 1966: |
Samuel Younge Jr.: student civil rights activist killed in dispute over whites-only restroom. Tuskegee, AL. |
| 10 January 1966: |
Vernon Dahmer: black community leader killed in Ku Klux Klan bombing. Hattiesburg, MS. |
| 10 June 1966: |
Ben Chester White: killed by Klu Klux Klan. Natchez, MS. |
| 30 July 1966: |
Clarence Triggs: slain by Nightriders. Bogalusa, LA. |
| 27 February 1967: |
Wharlest Jackson: Civil Rights leader killed after promotion to white job. Natchez, MS. |
| 12 May 1967: |
Benjamin Brown: Civil Rights worker killed when police fired on protesters. Jackson, MS. |
| 02 October 1967: |
Thurgood Marshall sworn in as first black Supreme Court Justice. |
| 08 February 1968: |
Samuel Hammond Jr. Delano Middleton, Henry Smith: students killed when highway patrolmen fired on protestors. Orangeburg, SC. |
| 04 April 1968: |
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassinated. Memphis, TN. |
