1953, June: Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There was a ten-day boycott of buses successfully undertaken by the former NAACP president. The boycott was done to gain modifications in the segregation rules regarding buses.

1954, May 17: The U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools to be inherantly unequal (Brown vs. Board of Education). They then mandated desegregation.

1955: "Brown II" decision of the Supreme Court required desegregation "with all deliberate speed."

The Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed segregation in interstate buses and waiting rooms. The order was ignored by most.

1955, August 28: Emmit Till, a visiting boy from Chicago, was lynched in Mississippi.

1955, December 1: Rosa Parks, a forty-two-year-old woman from Montgomery, was arrested for refusing to relinquish her seat to a white man on a public bus.

1955, December 5: The Montgomery Bus Boycott began; also the first day of Rosa Parks' trial.

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the University of Alabama to admit Autherine Lucy for graduate study.

1956, Februray 3: Autherine Lucy attempted to enter the University and white students rioted for three days. She was first suspended for her own safety, but then was expelled permanently. The University of Alabam remained segregated for seven more years.

The "Southern Manifesto" was signed by Southern senators and led by Harry Byrd of Virginia. It was a document denouncing the Supreme Court's decision of desegregation.

1956, June 4: U.S. District Court ruled that racial segregation on city bus lines was unconstitutional.

1956, November 13: U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the District Court.

1956, December 21: Montgomery's buses were integrated, the boycott was called off after a 381-day boycott. The integration came after a Supreme Court decision declared Montgomery's segregation of buses illegal.

1957, January: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was formed.

1957, July: Tuskegee, Alabama redistricted itself to esclude black voters. This led to a selective buying campaign against white merchants that lasted four years. Black citizens got back their vote in 1961.

The Arkansas National Guard was called out to prevent the entrance of nine black students to all-white Central High School in Litte Rock. President Eisenhower sent 10,000 federalized National Gaurdsmen and paratroopers to Little Rock to enforce integration.

The first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction was passed by Congress. It created the Civil Rights Commission and the Civil Rights division of the Department of Justice.

1958: A successful voter registration drive in Tennessee lead to severe economic reprisals. Many blacks were evicted. Tent City was erected, and a national appeal for aid was sent out.

1960, February 1: The first sit-in was held at Woolworths lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students' actions were repeated by students all across the South. Sympathetic boycotts and picketings occured in the North.

1960, April: The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was founded.

1960, October 19: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed in Atlanta.

1961, May 4: First group of Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C. on a mission to desegregate interstate bus travel. Organized by CORE, they left shortly after the Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate transportation terminals. The bus was burned outside Anniston, Alabama, on May 14. A mob beat the Riders upon their arrival in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Riders spent 40-60 days in jail.

The SCLC was called in to help desegregate facilities in Albany, Georgia.

1962, September 20: James Merideth made his first attempts to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He was actually enrolled by Supreme Court order.

1962, October 1: James Merideth was escorted into class by U.S. marshals after a weekend of riots.

Malcolm X headed the New York City Mosque of the Black Muslims.

1963, April 3: Major demonstrations were held in Birmingham by the SCLC to protest segregation; they continued throughout May. Police Commissioner Eugene ("Bull") Conner responded with police dogs, fire hoses, and mass arrests.

1963, April: William Moore, a white CORE member who had planned a march from Chattanooga to Jackson to protest segregation, was murdered. The march was taken up by CORE and other demonstrators.

1963, April 16: Dr. King wrote "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

1963, May 10: Dr. King and his brother's homes were bombed on the night that white leaders agreed on a plan for desegregation. Blacks rioted until dawn.

1963, May 20: The Supreme Court ruled Birmingham segregation ordinances unconstitutional.

1963, June 11: Alabama governor George C. Wallace tried to stop the integration of the University of Alabama by standing in the door and personally refusing to admit black students. Students were admitted after President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard, and Governor Wallace removed himself from the door.

1963, June 12: Medgar Adams, head of Mississippi NAACP, was ambushed and shot outside of his home.

1963, August 28: The March on Washington was held. Sponsored by civil rights groups, churches and some unions, it attracted hundreds of thousands of marchers. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech on the Lincoln Memorial steps.

1963, November: A mock election was held in Mississippi, and it collected nearly 80,000 votes for "freedom candidates". It paralleled the state election for governor from which they were excluded.

1963, November 22: An assassin killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas.

1964, Summer: Freedom Summer was held in Mississippi. It was a voter registration drive designed to get more blacks to the polls.

1964, June 21: Three Civil Rights workers were murdered while investigating an incindence of violence in Philadelphia, Mississippi.

1964, July 2: The Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

1964, July 18-23: Riots occurred in Harlem, and one man was killed.

1964, August: Riots occurred in New Jersey, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.

1964, December 10: Martin Luther King, Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

1965: Lyndon Johnson outlined the Great Society program to attack poverty.

1965, January-March: the desegregation campaign in Selma, Alabama, escalated, and one local teenager died.

1965, February 21: Malcolm X was shot by blacks at the Audobon Ballroom in New York City.

1965, March: Demonstrators were beaten as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge.

1965, March 17: The Voting Rights Bill was submitted to Congress.

1965, March 21-25: Marchers were escorted from Selma to Montgomery during the march by federal troops.

1965, August 6: the Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Johnson.

1965, August 11-16: Watts riots occured in Los Angeles, California, leaving 35 people dead.

1966, March 25: The Supreme Court ruled that any poll tax was unconstitutional.

1966, Spring: Alabama primary held, this was the first time since Reconstruction that blacks had voted in any number.

1966, June 6: James Meredith was killed by a sniper on his one-man, 220-mile "March Against Fear" in Mississippi.

1966, June: The term "Black Power" was used for the first tiem in front of reporters.

1966, July 10: Dr. King made a drive to make Chicago an open city in regard to housing.

1966, October: The Black Panther party was formed in oakland, California.

Riots occured in Chicago and Cleveland.

The SNCC voted to exclude all white members. CORE began to endorse the black power concept.

1967, March 12: Alabama was ordered to desegregate all public schools.

1967, July 12-17: Riots occured in Newark, New Jersey; 23 people died.

1967, July 23-30: The worst riots of the century to date occured in Detroit; 43 people died.

1967, July 26: Black leaders called for an end to the riots.

1968, February 12: Sanitation workers went on strike for equal pay for equal work in memphis, Tennessee.

1968, April 14: Martin Luther Kin, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis while speaking in support of te striking sanitation workers. Massive riots occured throughout the nation.

1968, May: Ralph Abernathy and the SCLC went ahead with the Poor People's campaign that had been planned by Dr. King. Thousands camped out in "Resurrection City" in Washington, D.C. in May and June.