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further information, call NIE at (614) 461-5213.
To Racial Equality
Many people believe the modern civil rights movement began on Dec. 1, 1955. That’s the day Rosa Parks refused to
give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala., city bus to a white person. Her arrest was the start of a decade of civil rights
boycotts, marches and sit-ins that brought about two landmark acts of Congress: the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the
Voting Rights Act of 1965. With these acts, two American rights were extended to all people regardless of race – the
rights to vote and to enter and be treated equally in any public place.
At the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center in Wilberforce, Ohio, exhibits suggest the civil rights
movement began during World War II. When black soldiers went to Europe to fight, the Europeans treated them like
anyone else. The soldiers could walk into any theater or restaurant, sit in any seat and be served. After fighting for
America’s freedom overseas, the soldiers didn’t want to live with the “No Negroes Allowed” signs that still hung in
public parks, hospitals, ballparks and restrooms across America.
A crowd jeers Elizabeth Eckford at Little Rock’s
Central High School in September 1957.
That decision didn’t change things immediately. Many more protests and marches
followed. When 9 black students tried to attend an all-white school in Little Rock, Ark.,
in September 1957, an angry mob threatened their lives. Soldiers from the U.S. Army
had to escort the students to school. Threats and attacks continued, but the 9 students
were determined. They kept attending and graduated from Little Rock Central High
School.
Reading and Thinking
• Define Equality. For more than 200 years, the
United States has struggled to determine what the
Declaration of Independence means when it says
“All men are created equal.” What do you think this
means? Why have some people been treated
differently in the past? Are all people treated equally
today? Why or why not? Defend your opinion with
examples from history and the newspaper.
• Imagine. Discuss how Rosa Parks, Linda Brown or
one of the Little Rock Nine might have felt and how
they were able to fight discrimination.
• Make a Poster. Using newspaper words and
pictures, create a poster about fairness and equality.
U.S. enters
World War II
Soviets put
first man in
space
Thurgood Marshall
appointed
Supreme Court
Justice
1941
1961
1967
Directions: Put the events underlined in the text in their correct place on the time line.
1940
1945
World War II
ends; first
computer built
1948
Gandhi
assassinated;
apartheid begins
in South Africa
1950
1953
DNA
discovered
1955
1960
1963
1965
President
John F.
Malcolm X
Kennedy assassinated;
assassinated U.S. sends
troops to Vietnam
NIE thanks the staff of the Ohio Historical Society and the National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center for their help in developing this feature. For information on the museum, see www.ohiohistory.org/places/afroam/
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1970
©The Columbus Dispatch
Opportunities to fight that discrimination quickly appeared. On April 16, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first
black to play for a major-league baseball team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Grade-schooler Linda Brown had a role in another
fight, the lawsuit called Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka. Each day, Linda
rode a bus 5 miles even though she lived just 4 blocks from a school. That school was
for whites only. On May 17, 1954, in answer to a lawsuit filed for Linda and others, the
U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools were illegal.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marches in Birmingham, 1963.