The Jim Crow Laws and Racism in United States History Read Online Free Page A

Nashville, Tennessee, to Birmingham. It met with violence in Montgomery. Despite the setbacks, a sense of victory prevailed. One of the riders, John Lewis, said “If not us, who? If not now, then when? . . . Will someone else’s children have to risk their lives instead of us risking ours?” 11

TIMELINE
    1865 —Former slaves are freed at end of Civil War.
    1865–1866 —Southern states enact Black Codes, repressive laws against African Americans.
    1867 —Congress passes the Reconstruction Act.
    1868 —All citizens are given equal rights under newly ratified Fourteenth Amendment.
    1870 —Mississippi’s Hiram Revels becomes the first black United States senator.
    1875 —A major civil rights act forbids discrimination in public accommodations.
    1877 —A specially appointed panel gives Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the votes needed to become president; After taking office, Hayes removes troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.
    1883 —Supreme Court rules the 1875 Civil Rights Act unconstitutional.
    1895 —Booker T. Washington’s “Cast down your bucket” speech helps make him the most powerful African American in the country.
    1896 — Plessy v. Ferguson Supreme Court verdict establishes the “separate but equal” doctrine.
    1905 —W.E.B. Du Bois organizes the Niagara Movement, which calls for an end to segregation.
    1909 —A New York City conference establishes the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
    1915 —Hit film Birth of a Nation sparks a revival of the Ku Klux Klan.
    1916–1919 —Half a million Southern blacks go north in a movement called the Great Migration.
    1954 — Brown v. Board of Education verdict forbids segregation in public schools.
    1955–1956 —Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama, stage a massive bus boycott.
    1957 —Black students, guarded by federal troops, integrate Little Rock’s Central High School.
    1960 —Students in Greensboro, North Carolina, begin the first of a series of “sit-ins.”
    1961 —Freedom Riders escape after violence in Alabama cities.
    1963 —Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers his famous “I have a dream” speech before a huge civil rights demonstration in Washington, D.C.
    1964—Twenty-fourth Amendment outlaws poll taxes in federal elections; A sweeping civil rights bill makes discrimination in public accommodations illegal.
    1965 —Voting Rights Act permits federal supervision of Southern elections.
    1968 —Fair Housing Act prevents discrimination in sale or rental of most housing; Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated.

FURTHER READING
    Candaele, Kerry. Bound for Glory 1910–1930 . New York: Chelsea House, 1997.
    Fireside, Harvey. Plessy v. Ferguson: Separate but Equal? Springfield, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1997.
    ———, and Sarah Betsy Fuller. Brown v. Board of Education: Equal Schooling for All . Hillside, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1994.
    Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution 1863–1877 . New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
    Fremon, David K. The Negro Baseball Leagues . New York: New Discovery, 1994.
    Hauser, Pierre. Great Ambitions: From the “Separate but Equal” Doctrine to the Birth of the NAACP . San Diego: Chelsea House, 1995.
    Hull, Mary. Rosa Parks: Civil Rights Leader . New York: Chelsea House, 1994.
    King, Casey, and Linda Bennett Osborne, Oh, Freedom! Kids Talk About the Civil Rights Movement with the People Who Made It Happen . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997.
    Litwack, Leon F. Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow . New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

INDEX
A
    Abbott, Robert S., 46
    African-American Council, 39
B
    Bevel, Rev. James, 79
    Birth of a Nation , 27–28
    Black Codes, 9–10
    Brown, Linda, 5–6, 57
    Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas , 5–7, 57–60, 64, 78
    Bruce, Blanche K., 13
    Byrnes, James, 7
C
    Carnegie, Andrew, 37
    Carver, George Washington, 35
    Clark, Jim, 78–79
    Congress of Racial Equality (CORE),