Explore Significant Dates in the Movement
![Walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/VA_Farmville_MotonSchool-1024x683.jpg)
Sixteen-year-old Barbara Johns leads a student walkout of Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville, Virginia, in protest of the school’s poor conditions.
![Dexter Avenue Baptist Church](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AL_Montgomery_DexterAveChurch-1024x683.jpg)
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. begins his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
![Brown v. Board of Education](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Experience_page_Schools-1024x501.jpg)
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education that American public schools should integrate.
![Emmett Till’s Murder](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Timeline_EmmettPortrait-1024x683.jpg)
Emmett Till’s funeral and murder trial electrify the civil rights community.
![Rosa Parks’ Arrest](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Timeline_RosaSitting-1024x576.jpg)
Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus.
![Sign of the Green McAdoo Cultural Center with the Clinton 12 statue above it](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/TN_Clinton_GreenMcAdoo.jpg)
A group of African-American students – the Clinton 12 – attended their first day of class at Clinton High School, marking the first integration of a public high school in the South.
![Desegregation of Public Buses](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AL_Montgomery_FrankJohnsonCourthouse-1024x683.jpg)
Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. and the U.S. District Court in Alabama strike down the legality of segregated bus seating. The Montgomery Bus Boycott ends after 12 months.
![Bethel Baptist Church](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AL_Bham_BethelChurch2-1024x576.jpg)
The home of the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, civil rights leader and pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, is bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.
![Formation of SCLC](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Experience_page_MLK-1024x501.jpg)
Dr. King is named president of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1957 into law.
![Little Rock Central High School](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Destination_LittleRock_splitA-1024x576.jpg)
The Little Rock Nine are blocked from entering Central High School by the Arkansas National Guard, and then escorted in by the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division.
![Statue of the February One freshman](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/NC_Greensboro_FebOneMonument-1024x683.jpg)
Four Black students stage the first sit-in at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
![Nashville Sit-Ins](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/TN_Nashville_FifthAve-1024x683.jpg)
Under the training of activist James Lawson, students begin nonviolent sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee.
![House Bombing Protest Ends at the Davidson County Courthouse](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/CRT_Nashville_DavidsonCourthouse-1024x576.jpg)
A bomb thrown at civil rights attorney Z. Alexander Looby’s house set off a protest in Nashville. The protest ended at the Davidson County Courthouse and in response to protestor questions, the mayor conceded that segregation was immoral and that the city’s lunch counters should be integrated.
![Integration of Woolworth’s Lunch Counter](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/NC_Greensboro_InternatCRMuseum-1024x683.jpg)
Staff at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, serve their first Black customers.
![William Frantz Elementary](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/LA_NewOrleans_WillFrantzSchool-1024x683.jpg)
Six-year-old Ruby Bridges becomes the first Black student to attend William Frantz Elementary in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The United States Supreme Court holds that racial segregation of bus terminals is illegal in that it violates the Interstate Commerce Act.
![Freedom Rides](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Experience_link_FreedomRiders-1-1024x512.jpg)
Freedom Riders are attacked by angry mobs across the South, including in the Alabama cities of Anniston, Birmingham and Montgomery.
![Desegregation of the University of Mississippi](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MS_Oxford_Lyceum-1024x683.jpg)
Desegregation sparks a violent riot on the University of Mississippi campus after Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black orders Ole Miss to admit James Meredith, a Black student, to the university.
![The Birmingham Campaign](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Experience_page_Birmingham-1024x501.jpg)
Organized by the SCLC and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, the Birmingham Campaign protests segregation in the city with daily gatherings and demonstrations. Protesters are arrested and attacked with tear gas, fire hoses and police dogs.
Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” is issued to the public.
![Stand in the Schoolhouse Door](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/AL_Tuscaloosa_FosterAud-1024x683.jpg)
Alabama Gov. George Wallace stands in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to prevent the registration and enrollment of African-American students.
![Medgar Evers’ Murder](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MS_Jackson_MedgarEversHouse-1024x683.jpg)
NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers is shot in front of his Jackson, Mississippi, home. He dies in a hospital a short time later.
![March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Timeline_MLKdream-1024x576.jpg)
Dr. King delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech before 200,000 civil rights supporters in Washington, D.C.
![Bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/USCRT_16thStBaptistChurch-1024x576.jpg)
16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham is bombed, killing four young girls
![Freedom Summer](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/MS_Canton_FreedomHouse-1024x683.jpg)
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party forms in April, leading to a large-scale push for voter registration and education in Mississippi.
![Bloody Sunday](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Destination_Selma_splitB-1024x576.jpg)
Marchers for voting rights crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge are met with violence on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama.
![“How Long, Not Long”](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Experience_page_SelmaMarch-1024x501.jpg)
Marchers from across the country successfully complete the journey from Selma to Montgomery, where Dr. King delivers his famous “How Long, Not Long” speech at the state Capitol.
![Thurgood Marshall Swearing In](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/DC_Washington_SupremeCourt-1024x683.jpg)
Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African-American justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
![Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Experience_page_Memphis-1-1024x501.jpg)
Sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, go on strike to protest unfair working conditions for African-American employees.
![Dr. King’s Assassination](https://civilrightstrail.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Destination_Memphis_splitA-1024x576.jpg)
Dr. King is assassinated in Memphis.