Chronology: Key Events in the Campaign for African-American Civil Rights in the USA, 1950–1968

• 1950 Beginning of Korean War (until 1953).
• 1953 Eisenhower becomes president of the USA.
• 1954 Brown v Board of Education (Topeka) Supreme Court judgement.
• 1955 Rosa Parks arrested in Montgomery. Attacks on Black Americans by Ku Klux Klan continued.
• 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1957 Little Rock High School, Arkansas, crisis.
• 1958 Supreme Court declares school segregation unconstitutional.
• 1959 Television documentary The Hate that Hate Produced puts Black Power and Nation of Islam in spotlight.
• 1960 Sit-ins in the South. Civil Rights Act.
• 1961 Freedom Rides. John F. Kennedy becomes president.
• 1963 Martin Luther King’s campaign in Birmingham. March on Washington – ‘I have a dream …’ speech. Kennedy assassinated; Johnson becomes president.
• 1964 Civil Rights Act. Martin Luther King receives Nobel Peace Prize. US involved in Vietnam War.
• 1965 Selma to Montgomery March. Voting Rights Act. Watts riots. Malcolm X killed.
• 1966 Black Panther Party established. Ghetto riots.
• 1968 Martin Luther King assassinated. Race riots continue. Civil Rights Act passed.