NAACP Founded by WEB DuBois and Ida B. Wells, and others… The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization formed in 1909 to advance justice for African Americans. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate race-based discrimination." In its early years, the NAACP was based in New York City. It concentrated on litigation(challenging laws in court) in efforts to overturn discrimination of blacks and the Jim Crow laws that legalized racial segregation.

Brown v. Board of Education Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was six cases, brought by parents on behalf of their children in coordination with the NAACP. Parents tried to enroll their children in their closest neighborhood school in 1951, which were all-white schools. Each student was denied enrollment and forced to attend the closest all-black school. The Supreme Court decided that segregated schools were unconstitutional. Brown v Board of Ed. DESEGREGATED public schools! Thurgood Marshall Civil rights lawyer for the NAACP who defended Linda Brown. Later appointed to the US Supreme Court to become the first African American to serve on the Court.

Little Rock Nine “The Little Rock 9” was a group of 9 African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially stopped from entering the segregated school by the Governor of Arkansas. The students were threatened by angry mobs of whites. The next day US President Eisenhower called in army troops to accompany the students inside the high school. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower sent Army troops to Little Rock to make sure that integration was carried out.

Rosa Parks & the Montgomery Bus Boycott On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks (a leader of her local NAACP chapter) was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man. Her decision inspired thousands of African Americans and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and its leader Martin Luther King, Jr. to boycott the city buses. African Americans walked to work or shared car rides until city buses allowed them to sit where they pleased. The bus company suffered a huge loss of business and in 1956, the Supreme Court declared that segregation in buses was unconstitutional. Rosa Parks

Civil Disobedience→ protests & arrests While in jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “the Letter from Birmingham Jail” an open letter that defends the strategy of nonviolent resistance to racism. The letter explains that people have a responsibility to break unjust laws and to take direct action rather than waiting for justice. The letter also stated: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" In the early 1960s, Birmingham, Alabama was one of the most racially divided cities in the United States. Martin Luther King Jr. called it the most segregated city in the country. On April 12, 1963, after several days of protests, Martin Luther King and 50 others were arrested. It was King's 13th arrest.

The March on Washington Martin Luther King Jr. The March on Washington was a massive protest march that occurred in August 1963, when over 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The March on Washington aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans and was also the occasion of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s now-iconic “I Have A Dream” speech.

Civil Disobedience→ sit-ins Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) On February 1, 1960, African American college students walked up to a whites-only lunch counter at the local WOOLWORTH'S store in Greensboro, North Carolina, and asked for coffee. When service was refused, the students sat patiently. Despite threats and intimidation, the students sat quietly and waited to be served. Before the end of the school year, over 1500 black demonstrators were arrested. The new protest strategy was born→ the sit-ins! The College students’ sacrifice brought results. Slowly, but surely, restaurants throughout the South began to abandon their policies of segregation. In April 1960, students from the North and the South came together and formed the STUDENT NONVIOLENT COORDINATING COMMITTEE (SNCC). The group became the organizers of future sit-ins at lunch counters, wade-ins at segregated swimming pools, and pray-ins at white-only churches.

Civil Disobedience→ freedom rides Fred Shuttlesworth Freedom riders were often stopped and arrested by Southern police officers. The Ku Klux Klan waited for buses and attacked and burned the buses. In 1961, several Freedom Riders (groups of white and African American civil rights activists) participated in Freedom Rides, bus trips through the American South to protest segregated bus terminals. Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters at bus stations in Alabama, South Carolina and other Southern states. The groups were confronted by police officers—as well as horrific violence from white protestors—along their routes, but also drew international attention to their cause. On May 29, 1961 US President John F. Kennedy ordered the Interstate Commerce Commission to enforce even stricter guidelines banning segregation in interstate travel.

March from Selma to Montgomery Alabama Martin Luther King Jr. “Bloody Sunday” Martin Luther King Jr. joins the march The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights lasted 3 weeks and left four people dead. On "Bloody Sunday," March 7, 1965, some 600 civil rights marchers headed out of Selma. They got only as far as six blocks away, where state and local lawmen attacked them with clubs and tear gas and drove them back into Selma. Two days later on March 9, Martin Luther King, Jr., led a march to the bridge. On Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery, walking 12 miles a day and sleeping in fields. By the time they reached the capitol, they were 25,000-strong. The marches led President Lyndon Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Black Panther Party Huey Newton & Bobby Seale Some angry young African American activists disagreed with the nonviolent methods of the SCLC and NAACP and decided to become more militant (rebellious, aggressive) The Black Panther Party was a political organization founded in 1966 with the goal to monitor the behavior of police officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police and murders and it has been labelled a “hate group”. The Black Panther Party also started a variety of community social programs, such as the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics.