Florida Memory Timeline Challenge banner image with vertical American flag background and smaller images in a line, including a map of Florida, Mary McLeod Bethune, people celebrating V-J Day, Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, and the Challenger space shuttle launch.
menu

Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement (1942-1968) was a decades-long nationwide movement to end legal segregation and ensure equal rights for African Americans under the law. Historians use a variety of dates to mark the beginning and the end of the Civil Rights Movement. This timeline uses President Harry S. Truman’s decision to issue Executive Order 9981 in 1948, which abolished discrimination in the United States Armed Forces, as a starting point for the Civil Rights Movement and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, as an end point.

Destroyed home of Harry and Hariette Moore.
Bombing of Home of Harry and Harriette Moore - Mims, Florida, 25 December 1951, Florida Memory, Print Collections, PR05144.
December 25, 1951
Assassination of Harry T. and Harriette Moore

Harry T. and Harriette Moore were civil rights activists who helped form the Brevard County chapter of the NAACP in 1934. Their work made them targets of the Ku Klux Klan, and Klan members planted a bomb underneath the Moore home. On December 25, 1951, the bomb exploded. Harry died the same day while Harriette died nine days later.

Learn More

Frontpage of the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper showing the headline Court Bans Segregation in Public School Cases.
Tallahassee Democrat Headline for Segregation Ban - Tallahassee, Florida, 17 May 1954, Florida Memory, Reference Collection, RC12403.
May 17, 1954
Brown v. Board of Education

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment, making it unconstitutional.

Learn More

Reverend C.K. Steele and Reverend H. McNeal Harris on a Tallahassee city bus in protest of segregated bus seating.
Reverend C. K. Steele (Center Left), and Reverend H. McNeal Harris (Center Right), Protesting Segregated Bus Seating in Tallahassee, 24 December 1956, Florida Memory, Reference Collection, RC12419.
1956
Tallahassee Bus Boycott Begins

The Tallahassee Bus Boycott began five months after Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama after two women from Florida A&M University refused to move to the "colored" section of the bus. A year later, the non-violent boycott was successful, and Tallahassee desegregated the buses.

Learn More

Reverend C.K. Steele, John Boardman, and Reverend J. Raymond Henderson at the Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Florida.
Civil Rights Activists - Tallahassee, Florida, Florida Memory, Reference Collection, RC12794.
January 26, 1957
FSU Expels John Boardman Over Civil Rights Demonstrations

Florida State University blocked John Boardman, a white Ph.D. student, from re-enrolling in classes after Boardman invited African American students from Florida A&M University to attend a Christmas party on FSU's campus. Boardman publicly supported integration and argued his expulsion was a punishment from the university.

Learn More

National Guard soldiers walking in formation in front of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Thomas J. O'Halloran, [National Guard Soldiers Walk in Front of Central High School, Little Rock, Arkansas], [January 1958], Library of Congress, U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection, 2022887124.
September 4, 1957
Little Rock Nine Attempt to Enter Central High School

On September 4, 1957, nine African American teenagers arrived at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, for their first day of classes. They were stopped by an angry mob of segregationists and the Arkansas National Guard. On September 25, federal troops escorted the Little Rock Nine to their first full day of school.

Learn More

Page from the Congress of Racial Equality's rules for action pamphlet describing the power and principles of nonviolent direct action.
Congress of Racial Equality, CORE Rules for Action Pamphlet, ca. 1957, Florida Memory, State Archives of Florida, Collection N2015-1, n2015-1_b003_f07_11.
1959
Stephens Sisters Start the Tallahassee Chapter of CORE

Sisters Patricia and Priscila Stephens started the Tallahassee chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) at Florida A&M University in October 1959. CORE practiced nonviolent direct action, including sit-ins.

Learn More

Page from the Philadelphia Tribune newspaper with a photograph of Patricia and Priscilla Stephens and their mother Lottie Hamilton looking at a piece of paper.
Activists Patricia and Priscilla Stephens with Their Mother Lottie in Philadelphia, 1960, Florida Memory, Patricia Stephens Due Papers, N2015-1, Box 10, Folder 4, DUE007.
March 18, 1960
Leon County Jail-in Begins

On March 18, 1960, a Leon County judge found eleven Florida A&M University students guilty of disturbing the peace after they participated in a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Tallahassee. Eight of the students refused to pay the $300 fine and chose to go to jail. This was one of the first jail-ins of the Civil Rights Movement.

Learn More

Six-year-old Ruby Bridges being escorted to the formerly white-only William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana by U.S. Marshals.
Photograph of Ruby Bridges Being Escorted to School by U.S. Marshals, 14 November 1960, National Archives at College Park, 175539851.
November 14, 1960
Ruby Bridges Integrates William Frantz Elementary School

On November 14, 1960, six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first African American child to integrate the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, a formerly all-white school. She was escorted to school each day by her mother and U.S. Marshals.

Learn More

  • "Ruby Bridges," National Park Service, last modified July 28, 2020.

Three men attempting to enter the Savarin Restaurant at the municipal airport in Tallahassee.
Members of the "Tallahassee Ten" Attempting to Enter the Savarin Restaurant at the Municipal Airport, 15 June 1961, Florida Memory, Tallahassee Democrat Collection, TD01485B.
1961
Tallahassee Ten (Freedom Riders) Arrested

In June 1961, a group of Freedom Riders planned to fly home from Tallahassee after a successful freedom ride. Before they left, the Freedom Riders wanted to test if they would be served at the segregated airport restaurant. They were denied service and arrested for unlawful assembly.

Learn More

Demonstrators marching in the street holding signs with messages supporting equal employment and civil rights during the March on Washington.
Marion S. Trikosko, [Demonstrators Marching in the Street Holding Signs During the March on Washington, 1963], 28 August 1963, Library of Congress, 2013647403.
August 28, 1963
March on Washington

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place on August 28, 1963. More than 200,000 people marched to demand an end to racial segregation, employment discrimination, and other civil rights abuses. Leaders from the major civil rights organizations attended.

Learn More

Still image taken from a Highway Patrol film depicting pro-segregationists attempting to prevent Black people from swimming at a white-only beach in St. Augustine.
Segregationists Trying to Prevent Blacks From Swimming at a "White Only" Beach in St. Augustine, 25 June 1964, Florida Memory, Reference Collection, RC12407.
1964
Saint Augustine Civil Rights Protests

During the summer of 1964, Saint Augustine, Florida, became a major battleground in the Civil Rights Movement. The U.S. Congress was debating civil rights legislation at that time, and the protests in Saint Augustine helped convince many lawmakers to vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law on July 2, 1964.

Learn More

President Lyndon B. Johnson handing a pen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the signing of the Civil Rights Act.
Cecil Stoughton, Signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2 July 1964, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, 276-13-WH64.
July 2, 1964
President Lyndon B. Johnson Signs the Civil Rights Act into Law

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2, 1964. The act includes seven titles (or parts) that cover a range of topics. Some of the well-known titles make discrimination illegal in public spaces, in federally funded programs, and for businesses. The Civil Rights Act was an important achievement for the Civil Rights Movement as well as other social movements in the United States.

Learn More

Still image taken from a Highway Patrol film showing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking at a podium with Ralph Abernathy standing beside him.
Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr. - Saint Augustine, Florida, 1964, Florida Memory, Reference Collection, RC12406.
April 4, 1968
Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The reaction across the United States was a mixture of disbelief, grief, and at times violent anger. Reactions to Dr. King's death were just as passionate in Florida.

Learn More

Russell Means speaking at the Miami-Dade Community College south campus.
Actor and Political Activist Lakota Indian Russell Means Speaking at the Miami-Dade Community College South Campus - Kendall, Florida, 14 April 1983, Florida Memory, PR22089.
1968
The American Indian Movement (AIM) Founded

The American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during the summer of 1968 by a group of Native activists, including Clyde and Vernon Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, Eddie Benton-Banai, and George Mitchell. From the late 1960s through the 1980s, AIM was the most well-known Native American civil and political rights organization. AIM's takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington, D.C. in 1972 and their standoff with the FBI at Wounded Knee in 1973 drew worldwide attention.

Learn More

Features