The International Civil Rights Museum


1957	FEB. 14 Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King is made the first president. The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to King, it is essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hate mongers who oppose them: "We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline," he urged. SUMMER Monroe, NC NAACP Branch President Robert F. Williams led the successful armed self-defense of the home of the Branch Vice President and Monroe’s black community from an armed attack by a Ku Klux Klan motorcade. At a time of high racial tension, massive Klan presence, and official rampant abuses of the black citizenry, Williams was recognized as a dynamic leader and key figure in the American South where he promoted.the combining of non-violence with armed sel-defense, authoring the widely read “Negroes With Guns” in 1962. SEPT. 2 (Little Rock, Ark.) Formerly all-white Central High School learns that integration is easier said than done. Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students, who become known as the “Little Rock Nine.” A federal judge granted an injunction against the Governor's use of National Guard troops to prevent integration and they were withdrawn on September 20. When school resumed on Monday, September 23, Little Rock policemen surrounded Central High. About 1,000 people gathered in front of the school. The police escorted the nine black students to a side door where they quietly entered the building as classes were to begin. When the mob learned the blacks were inside, they began to challenge the police and surge toward the school with shouts and threats. Fearful the police would be unable to control the crowd, the school administration moved the black students out a side door before noon.
1960	FEB.1 (Greensboro, N.C.) Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, and other public facilities. MARCH 6 President Kennedy issues Executive Order 10925, prohibiting discrimination in federal government hiring on the basis of race, religion or national origin and establishing The President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity , the EEOC, that was directed immediately to scrutinize and study employment practices of the Government of the United States, and to consider and recommend additional affirmative steps which should be taken by executive departments and agencies to realize more fully the national policy of nondiscrimination within the executive branch of the Government. APRIL (Raleigh, N.C.) The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded at Shaw University, providing young blacks with a more prominent place in the civil rights movement. The SNCC later grew into a more radical organization, under the leadership of Stokely Carmichael (1966–1967) and H. Rap brown (1967-1998) and changed it's name to the Student National Coordinating Commitee.
1962	OCT. 1 James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.
1963	JUNE 12 (Jackson, Miss.) Mississippi's NAACP field secretary, 37-year-old Medgar Evers is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted of murdering Evers.