Timeline: the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s

The American civil rights movement started in the mid-1950s. A major catalyst in the push for civil rights was in December 1955, when NAACP activist Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. Read about Rosa Parks and the mass bus boycott she sparked.

Events that initiated social change during the civil rights movement

• 1955 — Montgomery Bus Boycott.
• 1961 — Albany Movement.
• 1963 — Birmingham Campaign.
• 1963 — March on Washington.
• 1965 — Bloody Sunday.
• 1965 — Chicago Freedom Movement.
• 1967 — Vietnam War Opposition.
• 1968 — Poor People’s Campaign.

• 1955–6: The Montgomery bus boycott.
• 1957: The Little Rock school crisis.
• 1961: Freedom rides.
• April–June 1963: The Birmingham Campaign.
• August 1963: The March on Washington.
• 1964: Mississippi Freedom Summer.
• 1968: King is assassinated.

Forty-five years ago today, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Board of Education, which held that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional, sparked the civil rights movement’s push toward desegregation and equal rights.

The 1950s were a decade marked by the post-World War II boom, the dawn of the Cold War and the Civil Rights movement in the United States. For example, the nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exposed the underlying divisions in American society.

The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States.

As African American rage at unemployment, urban disinvestment and police brutality exploded into civil unrest in several major cities during the late 1960s – virtually all of these uprisings touched off by an incident of police violence against African American victims – white politicians and newspaper editorial boards …

In contrast, the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement chose the tactic of nonviolence as a tool to dismantle institutionalized racial segregation, discrimination, and inequality. Civil rights leaders had long understood that segregationists would go to any length to maintain their power and control over blacks.

The goal of nonviolent resistance is not to defeat anyone, but to create friendship and understanding. Instead of destroying the opponent, the nonviolent resister tries “to awaken a sense of moral shame… The end is redemption and reconciliation.

Nonviolence or ahimsa is one of the cardinal virtues and an important tenet of Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. It is a multidimensional concept, inspired by the premise that all living beings have the spark of the divine spiritual energy; therefore, to hurt another being is to hurt oneself.

The Gandhian concept of nonviolence is not merely confined to resisting the practice of violence. It involves removal of hatred, animosity, revengefulness and any thought of violence from the mind. Non-violence is an expression of tremendous power of mind and soul over brute force.

The Non-cooperation movement was withdrawn after the Chauri Chaura incident. Although he had stopped the national revolt single-handedly, on 10 March 1922, Mahatma Gandhi was arrested. On 18 March 1922, he was imprisoned for six years for publishing seditious materials.