UN Condemns South African Apartheid
In 1962 the United Nations General Assembly condemned South Africa’s racist apartheid policies.
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George Wallace “Segregation Forever”
Segregationis George Wallace won 1962 Alabama gubernatorial election
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Freedom Riders
Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated Southern United States in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of US Supreme court rulings that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. Source:...
UN Condemns South African Apartheid
https://youtu.be/odXAghDLWKM In April 1961 the UN General Assembly condemned South Africa's apartheid policy. Leading the resistance to South Africa’s policy of apartheid in the 20th century, Nelson Mandela was incarcerated by the South African government...
Civil Rights Act of 1960
https://youtu.be/9ppTiyxFSs0 The Civil Rights Act of 1960 was a United States federal law establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls. The act introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register...
Greensboro Sit-ins
https://youtu.be/tjeVqNcN5yI In February 1960 four black North Carolina A&T students staged the first of the historic 1960s sit-ins at a dime store lunch counter where they had been refused service. Source: History.com
Little Rock Voters Close Public Schools
In September 1958, Gov. Orval Faubus closed all Little Rock, Arkansas public high schools for one year rather than allow integration to continue, leaving 3,665 black and white students without access to public education. Source: Library of Congress.
Martin Luther King Jr. Stabbed
https://youtu.be/bhm5tE5e4FY In September 1958 Martin Luther King Jr. was autographing copies of his memoir Stride Toward Freedom (about the Montgomery bus strike) in a Harlem department store when a 42-year-old African American woman plunged a seven-inch penknife...
Loving v. Virginia Landmark Court Case
Loving v. Virginia was a 1958 Supreme Court case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage in the United States. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Richard and Mildred Loving, a white man and Black woman whose marriage was...
Arkansas National Guard Prevents School Desegregation
In September 1957, as a test of Brown v. Board of Education, nine Black students enrolled at formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Governor Orval Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the Black students’ entry into the high...
Nat King Cole Attacked on Birmingham Alabama Stage
https://youtu.be/3PHQQRB5_w8 In April 1956, African American singer and pianist Nat King Cole was knocked down by a group of white men while he was performing before an all-white audience in Birmingham, Alabama. Before the attack, a drunk man near the front row...
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
https://youtu.be/pxTWb38NERg In December 1955 an African-American woman named Rosa Parks was arrested for refusal to surrender her seat to a white person on a Montgomery Alabama public bus. The subsequent Montgomery bus boycott lasted from December 1955 to...
US Supreme Court Orders End to Racial Segregation
https://youtu.be/TTGHLdr-iak With its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka unanimous (9–0) decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools were unconstitutional, even if the...
Marian Anderson Sings at the Met
https://youtu.be/J-Q8MbUsWac In 1955, at the age of 58, Marian Anderson became the first African-American soloist to sing at New York's Metropolitan Opera. Singing the role of the sorceress Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo en maschera, Anderson later said: "I was...
Brown v. Board of Education
In the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka the justices ruled unanimously that racial segregation of children in public schools was unconstitutional. The case became one of the cornerstones of the civil rights movement,...
Al Jolson
https://youtu.be/KD_YRnuuKyY Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson, was an American singer, comedian, and actor who lived from 1886-1950. In the 1920s, Jolson was immensely popular as America's highest-paid entertainer. In 1927 Jolson starred in The Jazz Singer, the...
First Black NBA Player
https://youtu.be/08IK0FjcPss In 1950 Chuck Cooper an All-American basketball player from Duquesne University (a private Catholic school in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania) was selected in the second round by the Boston Celtics. Cooper thus became the first...
God Bless America
Kate Smith' s version of Irving Berlin's song God Bless America has been part of American sports tradition for decades. https://youtu.be/-BIoN9bWTMo However, a recent revelation that she also recorded two songs with racist content in the 1930s (That's Why Darkies Were...
Civil Rights 1949
The Law of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties: A Handbook of Your Basic Rights, by Edwin S. Newman, Oceana Publications 1949. In 1949, racism was still firmly rooted in the laws of many individual statest in the United States of America. States without stripes or...
U.S. Armed Forces Desegregated
During WWII, the U.S. Army had become the nation's largest minority employer. More than one million of 2.5 million African-American males were inducted into the armed forces by 1945. African Americans, ~11% of all registrants liable for military service,...
Jackie Robinson
Joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American in major league baseball. CAREER BATTING STATISTICS YEAR TEAM GP AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS AVG OBP SLG OPS WAR 1947 BKN 151 590 125 175 31 5 12 48 74 36 29 0 .297 .383 .427...
Don’t Be a Sucker
This interesting War Department film from 1947, with anti-racist and anti-fascist themes, warns Americans not to let let fanaticism and hatred turn them into suckers. However, with the emerging Cold War, this rhetoric seems oddly out of synch.. In August...
Mexican-Americans in WWII
Ethnic and racial discrimination in WWII-era America was a powerful social force. Just as the civil rights of African-Americans were restricted in the South, similar discrimination weighed heavily against many "Tejanos" of Mexican descent in the Southwest. Breaking...
Race-Based Education USA
In 1946 A US district court case in Orange County, Ca., Mendez vs. Westminster, ruled that race-based public school enrollment was illegal. During the trial, the Mendez family's attorney presented social science evidence that segregation resulted in feelings of...
Interstate Bus Segregation
In June 1946 the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Virginia law requiring racial segregation on commercial interstate buses as a violation of the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. The appellant Irene Morgan, riding an interstate Greyhound bus in 1944 had been...