Download 1860 -‐ Abraham Lincoln was elected president of

1860 -­‐ Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States. He was the candidate of the northern states where slavery was not legal. However, in the southern states there were millions of black slaves: here slavery was part of the economic and social life. Southerners were afraid that the North now wanted to abolish slavery, so eleven southern states left the Union and formed an alliance called the Confederacy. 1861/1865 It was the American Civil War: fighting began in April 1861 and soon it involved millions of soldiers. The North had a larger population, a bigger army and more industrial power: on 9th April 1865 the Confederate general Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender. Slavery was legally ended in the USA. After the American Civil War there were no more black slaves in the USA. But there was still discrimination against black people. In many southern states there were separate schools for blacks and whites, separate restaurants, black people had to drink from separate water fountains and sit in separate areas on buses. In Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1st a black woman called Rosa Parks refused to give her seat on a bus to a white person. Her action was the start of a great campaign by black people to win their civil rights. 1955 "I had no idea that when I refused to give up my seat on that Montgomery bus that my small action would help put an end to segregation laws in the South," Parks wrote in her autobiography for kids, Rosa Parks: My Story. "I only knew that I was tired of being pushed around." She was arrested and found guilty of violating segregation laws and fined $10 and assessed $4 court fee. On the night that Rosa Parks was arrested Martin Luther King Jr. and other local civil rights leaders planned a citywide bus boycott. The bus boycott was 382 days of walking to work, harassment, violence and intimidation for the Montgomery's African-­‐American community. The African-­‐American community took legal action against the city ordinance: the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it was against the Constitution. After being defeated in several lower court rulings and suffering large financial losses, the city of Montgomery lifted the law mandating segregated public transportation: black people in Montgomery were allowed to sit in any bus seat. That victory led to many other challenges to segregation laws in the United States. 1960 In February a group of African-­‐American students began what became known as the "sit-­‐in" movement in Greensboro, North Carolina. The students would sit at racially segregated lunch counters in the city's stores. When asked to leave or sit in the colored section, they just remained seated, subjecting themselves to verbal and sometimes physical abuse. The movement quickly gained traction in several other cities. 1963 On August 28th a massive demonstration on the nation's capital composed of multiple organizations, all asking for peaceful change, took place. The historic March on Washington drew more than 200,000 people in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that King made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, emphasizing his belief that someday all men could be brothers. 1964 Civil Rights Act: the federal government enforced desegregation of public accommodations and outlawed discrimination in publicly owned facilities. King received the Nobel Peace Prize. 1968 King was assassinated on April 4th while standing on a balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, but continues to be remembered as one of the most lauded African-­‐American leaders in history New laws were made in the 1960s to establish complete equality between blacks and whites, but conflict between races continues to be a major problem in the USA.