This is a timeline of the 1954 to 1968 civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for all Americans. The goals of the movement included securing equal protection under the law, ending legally institutionalized racial discrimination, and gaining equal access to public facilities, education reform, fair housing, and the ability to vote.
Pre-civil rights movement, 1946–1953
Some of the 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement comes from earlier attempts to gain full racial equality. During the Reconstruction era, there were amendments to the United States Constitution which gave rights to former enslaved people: the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments.
As Jim Crow laws became more popular and plentiful, this led to a deep dive into racial segregation throughout much of the country. Early efforts made by organizations like the NAACP helped lay a foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
1946 In a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Morgan v. Virginia that a Virginia law imposing racial segregation in public facilities and transportation was unconstitutional, as the Commerce clause protected interstate traffic. However, neither Virginia nor other states observed the ruling, and it was not enforced for decades.
1947 April 14In Mendez v. Westminster, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rules that the forced segregation of Mexican-American students into separate "Mexican schools" was unconstitutional and unlawful.
1948 On Feb. 2, Silas Herbert Hunt breaks the color barrier in the South, enrolling in the University of Arkansas School of Law. He was still required to take classes separately from White students. In Delgado v Bastrop I.S.D., the Texas Attorney General decided that segregation of Mexican-American children was illegal.Allsup, V. Carl. 2019. "Delgado v Bastrop I.S.D." Handbook of Texas Online. Austin: Texas State Historical Association. In Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially restrictive covenants violate the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause and thus cannot be enforced by courts, though they may still be agreed to by private parties. The anthology series Destination Freedom premiers on local Chicago radio. This radio drama, produced by Richard Durham, will appear on Sunday mornings until mid-1950. In 1948, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Sipuel v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla. that the state of Oklahoma must provide instruction for Blacks equal to that of Whites. Thurgood Marshall acted as the head NAACP lawyer for this case and the justices ruled unanimously. The case was also a precursor for Brown v. Board of Education.Stevens, John Paul (August 6, 2005). "Address to the American Bar Association". Thurgood Marshall Awards Dinner Honoring Abner Mikva – Hyatt Regency Chicago. Washington, D.C.: Supreme Court of the United States (publisher). Retrieved July 10, 2025
1950 During the early years of the Miss America pageant, under the directorship of Lenora Slaughter, it became racially segregated via rule number seven that stated: "contestants must be of good health and of the White race.” Rule number seven was abolished in 1950. In Henderson v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation on railway dining cars violated the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.
1951 In April 1951, students at Robert Russa Moton High School, a segregated "Colored" school in Prince Edward County Virginia, staged a student strike over poor conditions and racial segregation. That strike led to the NAACP filing Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County in 1952.Student Strike at Moton High ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive On May 11, 1951, Lillie Mae Bradford, four years before Rosa Park's more publicized action, performed an act of civil disobedience on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama, for which she was arrested, on a charge of disorderly conduct. She saw that the bus driver had punched her ticket for the wrong price, apparently "a costly and frequently recurring error if it was indeed an error". Bradford asked to be charged the correct price, and after being told twice to return to the back of the bus, she sat down in the front. On December 25, 1951, the house of Harry and Harriette Moore in Mims, Florida was bombed. Harry died while being transported to the hospital, while Harriette died nine days later of her injuries. Their assassination made them the first martyrs of the movement and was the first assassination of any activist to occur during the Civil Rights Movement, and the only time that a husband and wife were killed during the history of the movement.
1952 The Briggs v. Elliott petition signed by parents in Summerton, South Carolina becomes first case in history that attacks segregation in public education. Due to what some say was clerical error, and what some speculate behind closed doors, Governor Jimmy Byrnes lobbied to move Briggs as lead case and instead, Brown v. Board of Education. On behalf of Black parents and children, the NAACP filed five lawsuits against school segregation that challenged the legality of the 1896 "separate but equal" ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. The five cases were Brown v. Board of Education, from Topeka Kansas, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County from Virginia, Bolling v. Sharpe from Washington DC, Briggs v. Elliott from Clarendon County South Carolina, and Bulah v. Gebhart from Delaware. The five cases were later consolidated in the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling.Students & Parents Challenge School Segregation ~ Civil Rights Movement Archive
1954–1959
1954 May 3In Hernandez v. Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States are entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. May 17In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. and Bolling v. Sharpe, the U.S. Supreme Court rules against the "separate but equal" doctrine, overturning Plessy v. Ferguson and saying that segregation of public schools is unconstitutional. May 28The Fayetteville, Arkansas, school board votes unanimously to integrate its historically Black school, Lincoln, with its White schools, starting with high school and gradually integrating junior highs and elementaries over an undefined period. July 27The Charleston, Arkansas, school board unanimously votes to end segregation in the school district. Ending segregation for first through twelfth grades, the Charleston school district was the first school district among the former Confederate States to desegregate. The schools opened for the new school year on August 23. July 30At a special meeting in Jackson, Mississippi, called by Governor Hugh White, T.R.M. Howard of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership, along with nearly one hundred other Black leaders, publicly refuse to support a segregationist plan to maintain "separate but equal" in exchange for a crash program to increase spending on Black schools. September 2In Montgomery, Alabama, 23 Black children are prevented from attending all-White elementary schools, defying the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. September 7 The District of Columbia ends segregated education; Baltimore, Maryland, follows suit on September 8. September 15Protests by White parents in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, force schools to postpone desegregation another year. September 16Mississippi attempts to abolish all public schools with an amendment to its State Constitution, but the amendment fails. September 30Integration of a high school in Milford, Delaware, collapses when White students boycott classes. October 4Student demonstrations take place against integration of Washington, DC, public schools. October 19Federal judge upholds an Oklahoma law requiring African-American candidates to be identified on voting ballots as "Negro". October 30Desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces said to be complete. Frankie Muse Freeman is the lead attorney for the landmark NAACP case Davis et al. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority, which ended legal racial discrimination in the city's public housing. Constance Baker Motley was an attorney for NAACP: it was unusual to have two women attorneys leading such a high-profile case.
1955 January 15President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs Executive Order 10590, establishing the President's Committee on Government Policy to enforce a nondiscrimination policy in Federal employment. January 20Demonstrators from CORE and Morgan State University stage a successful sit-in to desegregate Read's Drug Store in Baltimore, Maryland. April 5Mississippi passes a law penalizing white students by jail and fines who attend school with blacks. March 2 15-year-old Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat on the bus to a white woman, eventually resulting in the Browder v. Gayle case. May 7NAACP and Regional Council of Negro Leadership activist Reverend George W. Lee is killed in Belzoni, Mississippi. May 31The U.S. Supreme Court rules in " Brown II" that desegregation must occur with "all deliberate speed". June 8University of Oklahoma decides to allow black students. June 23Virginia Governor Thomas B. Stanley and Board of Education decide to continue segregated schools into 1956. June 29The NAACP wins a U.S. Supreme Court suit which orders the University of Alabama to admit Autherine Lucy. July 11The Georgia Board of Education orders that any teacher supporting integration be fired. July 14A Federal Appeals Court overturns segregation on Columbia, South Carolina, buses. August 1Georgia Board of Education fires all black teachers who are members of the NAACP. August 13Regional Council of Negro Leadership registration activist Lamar Smith is murdered in Brookhaven, Mississippi. August 28Teenager Emmett Till is killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman in Money, Mississippi. November 7The Interstate Commerce Commission bans bus segregation in interstate travel in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company. On the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court bans segregation on public parks and playgrounds. Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin responds that his state would "get out of the park business" rather than allow playgrounds to be desegregated. December 1Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus, starting the Montgomery bus boycott. This occurs nine months after 15-year-old high school student Claudette Colvin became the first to refuse to give up her seat. Colvin's was the legal case that eventually ended the practice in Montgomery. Roy Wilkins becomes the NAACP executive secretary.
1956 January 2Georgia Tech, supported by president Blake R. Van Leer, plays the Sugar Bowl against a Pittsburgh team featuring the African-American player Bobby Grier despite the objections of Governor Griffin on account of Grier's race. January 9Virginia voters and representatives decide to fund private schools with state money to maintain segregation. January 16FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover writes a rare open letter of complaint directed to civil rights leader T. R. M. Howard after Howard charged in a speech that the "FBI can pick up pieces of a fallen airplane on the slopes of a Colorado mountain and find the man who caused the crash, but they can't find a white man when he kills a Negro in the South."David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009, pp.154–55. January 24Governors of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia agree to block the integration of schools. February 1The Virginia General Assembly passes a resolution that the U.S. Supreme Court integration decision was an "illegal encroachment".