Civil Rights Movement Timeline
Civil Rights MovementLong before Martin Luther King Jr. walked onto the civil rights stage, many important events took place in the civil rights movement for equality and peace. Many civil rights leaders went before Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech and many came after. Kidzworld has highlighted some of the important dates and events that took place over the past few hundred years that made America the country it is today.
July 2,1777
Vermont is the first American state to abolish slavery.
March 3, 1820
The Missouri Compromise is enacted; slavery is banned everywhere north of Missouri, but is still legal in the southern United States.
September 17, 1849
Harriet Tubman escapes slavery in Maryland and spends the next several years helping more than 300 people escape to free territory by way of the Underground Railroad.
April 12, 1861
The Civil War begins.
July 17, 1862
Congress gives President Abraham Lincoln the green light to allow black people to join the military.
January 31, 1865
The Thirteenth Amendment is passed and slavery is officially abolished from the United States.
April 15, 1865
President Abraham Lincoln, the president who abolished slavery, is assassinated.
June 13, 1868
Ex-slave Oscar Dunn becomes Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana.
July 28, 1868
The Fourteenth Amendment is passed giving black citizens in America full citizenship.
March 30, 1870
The right to vote is granted to all American males (other than Native Americans), regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude (so even men who had previously been slaves could now vote).
March 1, 1875
Civil Rights Act is passed giving all black citizens the right to equal treatment in public and on any public transportation.
November 26, 1883
US Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act to be unconstitutional because laws covered by the Civil Rights Act should be left up to individual states, not the federal government. Individual states now again allowed to discriminate in any way they want against black citizens.
Click here for more important dates in the Civil Rights Movement.
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