Browse Cases

Showing 1-25 of 31 results

Black students, community, allies begin desegregating Jackson, Mississippi, 1962-1963

Country
United States
Time period
October, 1962 to 18 June, 1963
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
5 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Kerry Robinson 26/04/2014

Jackson was the largest city in Mississippi in 1960, with 250,000 residents, 50,000 of whom were black. Medgar Evers, a field secretary for the Jackson chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) began to build up NAACP Youth Councils at colleges and high schools in the area since 1961. Since the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) were in other parts of Mississippi, the NAACP was the only consistent nonviolent group in Jackson.

Black students sit-in for U.S. civil rights, Marshall, Texas, 1960

Country
United States
Time period
26 March, 1960 to 3 April, 1960
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
3 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Kerry Robinson 06/04/2014

Marshall, Texas, despite having a black majority, practiced public and private racial segregation like most of the South in the 1950’s. The town included two historically black colleges: Bishop College and Wiley College. 

Freedom Summer campaign for African American voting rights in Mississippi, 1964

Country
United States
Time period
June, 1964 to August, 1964
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
8 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Rachel S Ohrenschall, 19/03/2012

By 1964, a handful of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) field workers had endured three years of continued repression as they challenged Mississippi’s racial discrimination. Only 6.7% of black Mississippians were registered to vote in 1962, the lowest percent in the country. In 1963 SNCC’s Mississippi operation was facing a stalemate. Since arriving in 1961 they had few concrete victories to show for their hard and dangerous work in the state. They had gotten few people to attempt to register, and even fewer were successful.

U.S. civil rights activists campaign for federal government action, 1957-63

Country
United States
Time period
May, 1957 to December, 1963
Classification
Change
Cluster
Economic Justice
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
8 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
George Lakey, 09/10/2012

In 1957 A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin initiated a campaign to pressure the U.S. government to intervene for the civil rights of African Americans.

Randolph, 68, was the acknowledged “elder” among civil rights leaders, with a base in the labor movement.  Rustin, 57, was a veteran civil rights and peace activist who had coached Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott.

African Americans boycott buses for integration in Montgomery, Alabama, U.S., 1955-1956

Country
United States
Time period
1 December, 1955 to 20 December, 1956
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Human Rights
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Carl E. Sigmond, 29/08/2011

The yearlong boycott of Montgomery, Alabama’s city buses by between 40,000 and 50,000 African American residents was in the works for years before it began in December 1955. At that time in Montgomery, as well as in many cities across the southern United States, laws required African Americans to sit at the back of buses and yield their seats to white passengers if no other seats were available.

Memphis, Tennessee, sanitation workers strike, 1968

Country
United States
Time period
February 12, 1968 to April 16, 1968
Classification
Change
Cluster
Economic Justice
Human Rights
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Kylin Navarro, 12/09/2010

On February 12, 1968, sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, began a labor strike to protest unfair wages, unsafe working conditions, and the city’s refusal to recognize their sanitation workers union.

Tallahassee, Florida, students sit-in for U.S. Civil Rights, 1960

Country
United States
Time period
February, 1960 to December, 1960
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
3 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Jeewon Kim, 12/09/2010

Prior to the Tallahassee student sit-ins of 1960, the Tallahassee Bus Boycott took place in 1956, patterned after the Montgomery Bus Boycott that started with the refusal of Rosa Parks to surrender her bus seat to a white person. Tallahassee was sometimes called the “little Mississippi” where segregation was prominent.

Tallahassee black community boycotts buses for desegregation, 1956-57

Country
United States
Time period
May 27, 1956 to January, 1957
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
8 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Hanna King, 12/9/2010

On May 27, 1956, Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson, two female students at all-black Florida A+M University in Tallahassee, Florida, paid their ten-cent fares and boarded a segregated city bus. They sat in seats normally occupied by white people, because the back of the bus, where black patrons were expected to sit, was very crowded. When the driver asked them to move, they refused, citing the standing-room only conditions of the back of the bus, and their own fatigue. They offered to leave if their fares were refunded.

Orangeburg, South Carolina, students sit-in for U.S. civil rights, 1960

Country
United States
Time period
February, 1960 to March, 1960
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
4 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
William Lawrence, 12/09/2010

In 1960, Orangeburg, South Carolina was a town of 13,852 people.  Although the African-American population numbered only around 5,000 and declining, racial tension in the town was high due to a series of protests and boycotts in 1955-56.  Two all-black colleges, South Carolina State College (SCSC) and Claflin College, were home to plenty of potential activists.  When students in Greensboro sat-in for racial integration on February 1, students in Orangeburg eagerly followed suit.  They formed the Orangeburg Student Movement Association (OSMA) to coordinate actions between

College of the Holy Cross students campaign against war and racism, 1968-1969

Country
United States
Time period
January, 1968 to December, 1969
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Peace
Total points
6 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Patrick Curran, 4/11/2011

Similar to action taken on college and university campuses throughout the 1960s in the United States, students at the College of the Holy Cross also took a stand against the Vietnam War.  Students first organized to protest the presence of recruiters for Dow Chemical Company (a manufacturer of napalm) in O’Kane Hall on campus in January 1968.

Black University of Washington students campaign for inclusion, United States, 1968

Country
United States
Time period
January, 1968 to May, 1968
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Hanna King, 31/10/2010

The 1960s was a time of national turmoil for the civil rights of African-Americans, and Seattle was no exception. However, up until 1968, Seattle’s civil rights movement was subdued, compared to the fervor and tension of campaigns in other cities.

Philadelphian African American students campaign for greater rights, 1967

Country
United States
Time period
November 10, 1967 to November 22, 1967
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Human Rights
Total points
4 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Carl E. Sigmond, 16/06/2011

Cecil B. Moore, the prominent African American civil rights activist and criminal defense attorney, ran for mayor of Philadelphia in 1967. As part of his campaign, Moore supported the demands of Philadelphia's African American students and parents who called for changes to school district policy. These changes included new courses in African American history and the allowance of African American students to wear traditional African clothing in school.

Peace campaigners act for civil rights in Albany, GA, 1963-1964

Country
United States
Time period
December 23, 1963 to February 24, 1964
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Peace
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Anthony Phalen, 06/11/2009

In 1963 a long-distance peace march demanding U.S. foreign policy change got caught in the wave of civil rights campaigns in the southern United States. Beginning on May 26, 1963, the Committee for Nonviolent Action (CNVA), a racially integrated group of social activists left Quebec City, Canada on their Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Walk for Peace to protest the United States' policy toward Cuba. 

African Americans campaign for equal accommodations, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, 1963

Country
United States
Time period
April 3, 1963 to May 10, 1963
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Aurora Muñoz, 10/10/2009

On April 3, 1963, several black integrationists belonging to the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) entered the Briling Cafeteria in Birmingham and sat at the white’s only lunch counter to request service. When they were refused service, these members staged a sit-in. The ACMHR had struggled to desegregate the lunch counter and bring about equal employment opportunities in all sectors for black citizens in Birmingham for seven long years.

Atlanta students sit-in for U.S. civil rights, 1960-1961

Country
United States
Time period
March, 1960 to March, 1961
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Hannah Jones, 31/01/2010

In the early 1960’s, student-led sit-ins were a prominent scene in the United States Civil Rights Movement. The success of a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina (see “Greensboro, NC, students sit-in for U.S. Civil Rights, 1960”) began a wave of action in college campuses throughout the South. One of the many areas inspired by the Greensboro sit-ins was Atlanta, Georgia.

Students protest segregation in Columbia, South Carolina, 1960-1961

Country
United States
Time period
February, 1960 to April, 1961
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
4.5 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Elowyn Corby, 30/01/2011

By the beginning of the 1960s the Civil Rights Movement had taken hold of the United States, where black Americans had been treated unjustly since they first arrived in the nation.  During the Civil Rights Movement, black communities all throughout the US South rose up in protest against the segregationist policies that kept them in systematically separate and insufficient living arrangements, a world away from the “separate but equal” treatment promised them by the 14 amendment and its interpretation in the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.

Virginia Union University students campaign for desegregation in Richmond, USA, 1960

Country
United States
Time period
February 20, 1960 to January, 1961
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Hannah-Ruth Miller, 31/01/2010

The students of Virginia Union University, a black university, wanted to do something to contribute to the growing sit-in movement that had begun on February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina (see “Greensboro, NC, students sit-in for U.S. Civil Rights, 1960”). Led by students Frank Pinkston and Charles Sherrod, who had been counseled on nonviolent protest methods by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., more than 200 Virginia Union students and faculty marched from their campus to Richmond’s downtown shopping district on February 20, 1960.

African Americans campaign for voting rights in Selma, Alabama, USA, 1965

Country
United States
Time period
January, 1965 to April, 1965
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Human Rights
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Max Rennebohm, 28/9/2009

Even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, most African Americans in the southern United States were still unable to vote because of registration requirements such as literacy tests and slow registration processes. In Selma, Alabama the registration office was open only two days a month and could only process 15 registrations for each of these days. This was not nearly enough to register the 15,000 black citizens of voting age in the county.

Baton Rouge students sit-in for U.S. civil rights (Southern University 16), 1960

Country
United States
Time period
March 28, 1960 to April, 1960
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Human Rights
Total points
3 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Arielle Bernhardt, 28/01/2010

Throughout most of the U.S. civil rights campaigns of the 1950s, Baton Rouge, Louisiana remained quiet. The city of “broad avenues and tree-lined streets” (Sinclair 1998) remained fully segregated despite movements towards desegregation in neighboring states. However, at the beginning of 1960, when university students staged sit-ins at lunch counters across the south, students at Baton Rouge’s Southern University took notice. Southern University, a black university on the edge of the city, became home to the main civil rights campaign in Baton Rouge.

Nashville students sit-in for U.S. civil rights, 1960

Country
United States
Time period
13 February, 1960 to May, 1960
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Aly Passanante, 30/01/2011

Starting in February of 1960, students began sit-ins in various stores in Nashville, Tennessee, with the goal of desegregation at lunch counters.  Students from Fisk University, Baptist Theological Seminary, and Tennessee State University, mainly led by Diane Nash and John Lewis, began the campaign that became a successful component of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, and was influential in later campaigns.

Rock Hill, South Carolina, students sit-in for U.S. civil rights, 1960

Country
United States
Time period
12 February, 1960 to March, 1961
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
6 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Sophia Naylor, 31/1/2010

In 1955, before the sit-in campaign in Rock Hill, South Carolina even began, Rock Hill’s St. Anne School desegregated in compliance with the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. In 1957, Rev. Cecil Ivory (who would later become a leader in the sit-in campaign), led a bus boycott that put the Rock Hill bus company out of business. Sit-ins elsewhere, including in nearby Charlotte (see “University students campaign for racial integration in Charlotte, NC, 1960”), helped start Rock Hill’s own sit-in campaign. Sit-in protests lasted throughout the entire year.

Freedom Riders end racial segregation in Southern U.S. public transit, 1961

Country
United States
Time period
4 May, 1961 to 1 November, 1961
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
10 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Gavin Musynske 12/09, edited with additional material by George Lakey 9/9/11

In 1947, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) conducted a “Journey of Reconciliation” to direct attention toward racial segregation in public transportation in the Southern U.S.A. Although this initial freedom ride campaign was not regarded as a great success during its time, it inspired the 1961 Freedom Rides that fueled the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.

African American citizens campaign for integration in Durham, N.C., 1963

Country
United States
Time period
18 May, 1963 to 21 May, 1963
Classification
Change
Cluster
Economic Justice
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
9 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Meghan Auker Becker, 14/03/2010

The mass demonstrations of 1963 in Durham were the culmination of a local black freedom movement that had slowly gained momentum over the preceding years. Durham had been the site of a thwarted sit-in at the Royal Ice Cream Parlor in 1957, limited desegregation of schools, and the long-standing lunch-counter sit-ins in 1960 (see “Durham students sit-in for U.S. Civil Rights, 1960”). Throughout the next few years, civil rights activists continued to attack segregation in theaters, schools, motels, and restaurants as well as demand increased employment opportunities for blacks.

Cambridge, Maryland, activists campaign for desegregation, USA, 1962-1963

Country
United States
Time period
January, 1962 to July, 1963
Classification
Change
Cluster
Democracy
Economic Justice
Human Rights
National/Ethnic Identity
Total points
8 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Rebecca Contreras, 30/01/2011

Cambridge, a small city in Eastern Shore Maryland, was racially divided in 1960 between African Americans and European Americans. Unemployment rates for African Americans were quadruple those of white people and segregation was pervasive in public and private spaces alike.

African-Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, protest segregation, 1956-1958

Country
United States
Time period
December 20, 1956 to November, 1958
Classification
Change
Cluster
Human Rights
Total points
4 out of 10 points
Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy
Danny Hirschel-Burns, 30/01/2011

In the mid 1950’s, segregation was widespread and legally enforced throughout the American south.  Birmingham, Alabama was a hotspot of black activism in opposition to segregationist policies.  Between December 26, 1956 and November 1958, Birmingham blacks, led by Fred Shuttlesworth and other black ministers, initiated a campaign against the legal segregation of Birmingham buses.