A Time for Justice
In A Time for Justice, four-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Charles Guggenheim captured the spirit of the civil rights movement through historical footage and the voices of those who participated in the struggle.
Embedded Files
Important Events in the Civil Rights Movement
Important Events in the Civil Rights Movement
May 17, 1954-Brown v. Board of Education –The United States Supreme Court reached a unanimous decision when it ruled that the segregation of public school systems in the United States was unconstitutional.
July 11, 1954-White Citizens' Council- A Network of White Supremacist consisting of 60,000 members across the U.S., mostly in the South, opposed to racial integration of schools and voter registration efforts.
December 1, 1955-Rosa Parks Bus Ride - Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and was arrested. Four days later began the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
December 5, 1955-The Montgomery Bus Boycott – Began with Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat in December 1955 and ended in December 1956 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared Alabama's segregated bus law to be unconstitutional.
September 3,1957-Little Rock Nine – The desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas gained national attention on September 4, 1957 with the first nine African American students to attend Central High School. The Governor of Arkansas used the National Guard to prevent the students from attending. After weeks of rioting and protests, President Eisenhower sent the Army to escort the students to school on September 25,
February 1, 1960-Sit-Ins Begin – A sit-in at a Woolworths in Greensboro, NC launched a wave of anti-segregation sit-ins across the South and increased the awareness of the depth of segregation in the nation, spreading to other cities and targeting Woolworth and other national chains.
May 4, 1961-Freedom Rides – An interracial group of student activists departed Washington D.C. by bus to Southern states to protest segregated bus terminals.
Spring 1963-Birmingham Protests – Martin Luther King Jr. and his colleagues at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launched Project C (for confrontation), which were a series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation laws in the city of Birmingham.
August 28, 1963-March on Washington –Almost 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. Also known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The event aimed to draw attention to continuing challenges and inequalities faced by African Americans a century after emancipation. It was also the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr.'s now-iconic "I Have A Dream" speech.
August 6, 1965-Voting Rights Act of 1965 – This act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many Southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.
For detailed information on these and other events, please visit the Civil Rights Digital Library (crdl.usg.edu/events/)
COMMUNITY CONVERSATION AFTER VIEWING THE FILM
COMMUNITY CONVERSATION AFTER VIEWING THE FILM
Please reflect on the following questions with a partner.
In what ways did the civil rights succeed?
In what ways has the civil rights movement failed?
What remains to be done?
What steps do we need to take toward a more just society?
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