Findings

The Congress finds as follows: (1)In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery. She was a major conductor on the Underground Railroad and helped free hundreds of slaves. She was also a major advocate for Women’s Rights. (2)In 1850, the Supreme Court stated in the Dred Scott decision that Blacks, freed or enslaved, do not have citizenship rights. (3)In 1861, the American Civil War began. This war was fought because of issues between Northern and Southern States, including States' rights versus Federal authority, westward expansion, and slavery. The Southern States began to secede from the Union. The war ended with the battle of Palmito Hill in 1865. (4)On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that all persons held slaves within any States, or designated part of the State … shall forever be free. (5)In 1864, Sojourner Truth traveled to Washington, DC, to help integrate streetcars and was received at the White House by President Abraham Lincoln. The same year, she was appointed to the National Freedmen's Relief Association where she counseled former slaves, particularly in matters of resettlement. (6)On January 31, 1865, the 13th Amendment, which abolished any form of slavery in the United States, was passed. It was ratified by the States on December 6, 1865. (7)On June 19, 1865, the news reached Galveston, Texas, stating the war had ended and the enslaved were now free. (8)In 1892, Ida B. Wells Barnett began her anti-lynching campaign. She later wrote Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. (9)In 1896, the Supreme Court established the separate but equal doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson. (10)In July 1905, a group led by W.E.B. Du Bois, John Hope, Fredrick L. McGhee, and William Monroe Trotter met at the Fort Erie Hotel in Fort Erie, Ontario, opposite Buffalo, New York, to discuss full civil liberties, an end to racial discrimination, and recognition of human brotherhood. These 29 Black intellectuals founded the Niagara movement, and the meeting ranks as a major turning point in African-American history. (11)On February 12, 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded. W.E.B. Du Bois played a major role in helping form the NAACP. He was the associate director of research and editor of The Crisis. Ida B. Wells and Marcy Church Terrell were the only two, Black women allowed to sign The Call and attend the first NAACP meeting. (12)In 1909, Ida B. Wells became the founder of the Anti-Lynching Crusade. (13)In 1915, the NAACP launches a nationwide campaign in opposition to the controversial film, Birth of a Nation. (14)In 1919, the Memphis NAACP became the largest branch in the South. Pioneers of its legal activism team included Hosea T. (H.T.) Lockard, Maxine and Vasco Smith, Russell Sugarmon, and A.W. Willis. Through the courts, they won cases that led to the desegregation of public transportation, of restaurants, and public facilities. (15)On August 25, 1925, A. Philip Randolph announced the formation of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first major all Black labor union. (16)In February 1926, the second week in the month was marked as Negro History Week by Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black history. (17)In 1935, NAACP lawyers Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall won a legal battle to admit a Black student to the University of Maryland. (18)In 1936, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune became the first African-American woman to head a Federal office, the Division of Negro Affairs of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration. (19)On April 3, 1939, in an effort led by civil rights leaders, Walter White (NAACP), A. Philip Randolph, and Judge William H. Hastie, Public Law 18 was passed by Congress. This bill contained an amendment that designated funds to train African-American pilots. (20)In 1941, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and A.J. Muste proposed a march on Washington to end segregation and racial discrimination in the Armed Forces. The march never happened because President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 (the Fair Employment Act). (21)In March 1941, after years of being pressured by civil rights organizations, an all African-American pursuit squadron (99th Pursuit) in Tuskegee, Alabama, was formed. These gentlemen were known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee Airmen were well respected fighter groups in World War II and led the way to the United States military being fully integrated. The airmen were led by Captain Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. They won their first aerial victory on July 2, 1943, against the Luftwaffe. (22)In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was founded by a group of students at the University of Chicago. Founding members included James L. Farmer, Jr., George Houser, James R. Robinson, and Bernice Fisher. It is the third oldest civil rights group in the United States. Roy Innis is the current president and has been leading the organization since 1964. (23)In December 1943, Paul Roberson addressed Major League Baseball owners about integrating their teams. (24)In 1946, the NAACP effort to end segregation in interstate bus transportation was supported by the Supreme Court ruling in Morgan v. Virginia. (25)On April 9, 1947, CORE tests Morgan v. Virginia (outlawing segregation during bus traveling) and sends a group of Freedom Riders on a Journey of Reconciliation around the South. (26)On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first Black Major League Baseball player. (27)On July 26, 1948, President Truman signs into act Executive Order 9981, establishing equality in the Armed Forces regardless of race, color, religion, or national origin. (28)On June 8, 1953, the court ruled segregation in eating places was unconstitutional in Washington, DC. Mary Church Terrell, Clark F. King, Essie Thompson, Arthur F. Elmer, and Attorney Ringgold Hart played an instrumental role in this ruling. (29)On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of desegregating the school systems in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The gentlemen that worked on this landmark case were: Thurgood Marshall, NAACP Legal Defense Fund chief counsel, George E.C. Hayes, James M. Nabrit, Jack Greenberg, Robert L. Carter, Charles Scott, and Charles E. Bledsoe. (30)On May 7, 1955, Rev. George Lee was murdered in Belzoni, Mississippi. Rev. Lee was one of the first Black people registered to vote in Humphreys County and used his pulpit and his printing press to urge others to vote. He was offered protection if he agreed to end his voter registration efforts. Rev. Lee refused to end those efforts. (31)On August 13, 1955, Lamar Smith, who had organized Blacks to vote in a recent election, was shot and killed by a White man on the courthouse lawn in Brookhaven, Mississippi, while dozens of people watched. The killer was never indicted because no one would admit they saw a White man shoot a Black man. (32)On August 28, 1955, Emmett Louis Till, a 14-year-old boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago, was beaten, shot and his body was dumped in the Tallahatchie River for reportedly flirting with a White woman in a store. Till’s mother had an open casket public funeral, which was attended by thousands and images of his mutilated body were published in magazines and newspapers, shining light on the condition of Black civil rights in the South. (33)On October 22, 1955, John Earl Reese, 16, was shot and killed while dancing in a café when White men shot into the windows. The shootings were part of an attempt by Whites to terrorize Blacks into giving up plans for a new school. (34)On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a White passenger. Her action sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, which was led by Dr. King. The buses were finally desegregated on December 21, 1956. (35)January 23, 1957, Willie Edwards, Jr., a truck driver, was forced at gunpoint to jump off a bridge by four Klansmen in Montgomery, Alabama. The men mistook Edwards for another man who they believed was dating a White woman. (36)Between January and February 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was formed by Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, Charles Steele, Joseph Lowery, Fred Shuttlesworth, Ella Baker, and Rev. Ralph Abernathy. Andrew Jackson Young served as vice president and was a top aide to Dr. King. (37)In 1957, Dr. Dorothy Irene Height was the fourth elected president of the National Council of Negro Women and held the position from 1957–1998. (38)In September 1957, the Little Rock Nine integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The Little Rock Nine consisted of Ernest Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Terrence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, and Melba Pattillo Beals. (39)In 1957, civil rights leader, Maxine Smith began her fight for civil rights. She was denied admission to Memphis State because she was Black. This began her relationship with the NAACP where she served as a volunteer executive secretary. She coordinated sit-ins, protests, and voters’ registration drives during her tenure. (40)On April 25, 1959, Mack Charles Parker, 23, was beaten, shot and thrown in the Pearl River in Poplarville, Mississippi, by a masked mob. He was accused of raping a White woman and was taken from his cell three days before his case was set for trial. (41)In, 1959, Russell Sugarmon ran for public works commissioner in a racially charged race. He was the first African-American to make a serious bid for a major city office in Memphis, Tennessee. (42)In 1960, Harry Belafonte was named a cultural advisor to the Peace Corps under President John F. Kennedy. Belafonte was one of Dr. King’s closest confidants. He paid Dr. King’s bail when he was in a Birmingham jail. He helped finance the Freedom Rides, voters’ registrations drive, and helped organize the March on Washington in 1963. (43)On February 1, 1960, four Black students (Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond) from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College began the Greensboro sit-in. By the end of the first week, other cities were participating in the sit-in movement in other cities in North Carolina. Many of these sit-ins were successful in desegregating lunch counters and public places. (44)On February 13, 1960, a nonviolent sit-in effort began in Nashville, Tennessee, to end segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville. The Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council coordinated the sit-in campaign. The participants endured verbal and physical abuse. After weeks of turmoil, store owners and protest leaders were able to reach an agreement. The Nashville sit-in movement led to it being the first major city to begin desegregation of its public facilities when several stores desegregated their counters on May 10, 1960. (45)On March 19, 1960, sit-ins in Memphis were launched by students from LeMoyne College and Owen Junior College at the main public library and local department stores. Protests in Memphis continued throughout the summer of 1960 and resulted in the integration of the local bus lines and the City’s parks. It was led by Marion Barry, Grace Meacham, and other SNCC members. (46)On April 16, 1960, 150 college students in the North and the South played an important role in forcing the inception of desegregation by forming the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which led to the national sit-in effort, the Freedom Rides in 1961, and the historic March on Washington in 1963. Several of the SNCC’s chairmen included Marion Barry, Charles F. McDew, Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, and John Lewis led the organization during its early period. By the end of April 1960, a sit-in had occurred in every Southern State. (47)On May 4, 1961, student volunteers began a bus movement from Washington, DC, to southern States to test out the desegregation laws in interstate travel facilities. They were later known as the “Freedom Riders.” (48)On September 25, 1961, Herbert Lee was killed in Liberty, Mississippi, by a State legislator who claimed self-defense and was never arrested. He worked with civil rights leader Bob Moses to help register Black voters. (49)In 1961, the Memphis 13 was the first group of Black students to integrate four Memphis City Schools: Bruce, Gordon, Rozelle, and Springdale elementary. The 13 students were Joyce White, Menelik Fombi (formerly Michael Willis), Dwania Kyles, Harry Williams, Sheila Malone Conway, Sharon Malone, E.C. Freeman Fentress, Leandrew Wiggins, Deborah Holt, Pamela Mayes, Alvin Freeman, Jacqueline Moore, and Clarence Williams. (50)In 1961, Whitney Young became executive director of the National Urban League and expanded the organization’s role in the Civil Rights movement. He proposed a domestic Marshall Plan to provide Federal aid to cities and portions of the plan were included in President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. Young was also one of the March on Washington organizers. (51)On April 9, 1962, Cpl. Roman Ducksworth, Jr., a military police officer stationed in Maryland, was ordered off a bus by a police officer and shot to death in Taylorsville, Mississippi. He was on leave to visit his sick wife. (52)On September 30, 1962, after a 16-month legal battle to integrate the University of Mississippi, United States marshals escorted James Meredith on to the school’s campus to register him for the fall semester. Paul Guihard, a reporter for a French news service, was shot and killed by a White mob during protests over the admission of Meredith to the University. (53)On April 23, 1963, William Lewis Moore, a postman from Baltimore, was shot and killed during a one man march against segregation. He was planning to deliver a letter to the governor of Mississippi urging an end to intolerance. (54)On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers, Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, was murdered outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi. (55)On June 29, 1963, Malcolm X led the Unity Rally in Harlem, which was one of the largest civil rights events. (56)On August 28, 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was held in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The march was organized and coordinated by Bayard Rustin, Dr. Dorothy Irene Height, Harry Belafonte, A. Philip Randolph, and others. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his I Have a Dream speech to nearly 200,000 people. (57)On September 15, 1963, four little girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) were murdered when a bomb went off at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Virgil Lamar Ware, 13, was shot to death by White teenagers who had come from a segregationist rally held after the church bombing. (58)On January 31, 1964, Louis Allen was killed in Liberty, Mississippi, on the day he was making final arrangements to move north. Allen witnessed the murder of civil rights worker Herbert Lee and endured years of harassment, threats, and being jailed. (59)On March 23, 1964, Johnnie Mae Chappell was killed in Jacksonville, Florida, as she walked along a roadside while men were looking for a Black person to shoot after a day of racial unrest. (60)On April 7, 1964, Rev. Bruce Klunder was crushed to death when a bulldozer backed over him. He was protesting the building of a segregated school. (61)In 1964, SNCC helped organize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which challenged the legitimacy and seating of Mississippi’s officially recognized Democratic Party. During the Freedom Summer, Harry Belafonte helped fund the SNCC’s voting registration efforts. (62)In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer established the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). She also delivered a national televised speech to the Credentials Committee discussing the hardship activists were experiencing with voting. (63)In 1964, Mr. H.T. Lockard, a Memphis civil rights pioneer, was elected to the old Shelby County Quarterly Court (County Commission). From there he became the first Black man to join a governor’s cabinet under Governor Buford Ellington from 1967 through 1971. He served on the National Civil Rights Museum Board from 1989 through 1999. (64)On May 2, 1964, Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore were killed in Meadville, Mississippi, by Klansmen who believed the two were part of a plot to arm Blacks in the area (there was no such plot). (65)On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney (a Mississippian resident), Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were assisting with helping African-Americans register to vote during Freedom Summer. After being arrested by the police and released after several hours, they were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Their bodies were found near Philadelphia, Mississippi. (66)On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (67)On July 11, 1964, Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn, a Washington, DC, educator was shot to death by Klansmen in a passing car when he was driving home from United States Army Reserves training in Colbert, Georgia. (68)In 1965, Benjamin Hooks became the first Black criminal court judge in Tennessee history. (69)In 1965, Dr. Dorothy Irene Height was named the first director of the YWCA’s Center for Racial Justice. (70)On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was shot to death in Harlem, New York. (71)On February 26, 1965, Jimmie Lee Jackson was beaten and shot by State troopers as he tried to protect his grandfather and mother from a trooper attack on civil rights marchers in Marion, Alabama. (72)On March 7, 1965, Bloody Sunday took place as 600 marchers tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in support of voting rights and were attacked by State and local police. This effort was led by John Lewis of SNCC and the Rev. Hosea Williams of SCLC. It took the marchers three times to finally cross over the Pettus Bridge. (73)On March 11, 1965, Rev. James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Boston, was beaten to death by White men while he walked down a Selma Street. Rev. Reeb was one of the many White clergymen who joined the Selma marchers after the attack by State troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. (74)On March 25, 1965, Viola Gregg Luizzo, a housewife and mother from Detroit, drove alone to Alabama to help with the Selma march after seeing televised reports of the attack at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. She was driving marchers back to Selma from Montgomery when she was shot and killed by a Klansman in a passing car. (75)On June 2, 1965, Oneal Moore was killed when he and his partner were shot from a passing car. Moore was one of two Black deputies hired by White officials to appease civil rights demands. (76)On July 9, 1965, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress. (77)On July 18, 1965, Willie Brewster was shot and killed by White men on his way home from work in Anniston, Alabama. The men belonged to the National States Rights Party, a violent neo-Nazi group whose members had been involved in church bombings and murders of Blacks. (78)On August 20, 1965, Jonathan Myrick Daniels, an Episcopal Seminary student in Boston, was shot and killed by a deputy sheriff in Hayneville, Alabama. Daniels came to Alabama to help with Black voter registration in Lowndes County. (79)On September 24, 1965, President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246 enforcing affirmative action. (80)In 1966, Constance Baker Motley becomes first African-American female appointed to the Federal bench. (81)On January 3, 1966, Samuel Leamno Younge, Jr., a student civil rights activist, was shot and killed by a White gas station owner after an argument over segregated restrooms in Tuskegee, Alabama. (82)On January 10, 1966, Vernon Ferdinand Dahmer, a wealthy businessman, died from severe burns when his home was firebombed in Hattiesburg, Mississipi. Dahmer offered to pay toll taxes for those who couldn’t afford the fee required to vote. (83)On June 10, 1966, Ben Chester White, a caretaker on a plantation who had no involvement in civil rights work, was murdered by Klansmen who thought they could divert attention from a civil rights march by killing a Black person in Natchez, Mississippi. (84)On July 30, 1966, Clarence Triggs, a bricklayer who attended civil rights meetings sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, was found dead on the roadside with a gunshot through the head in Bogalusa, Louisiana. (85)On November 8, 1966, Edward Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts, was the first Black United States Senator in 85 years. (86)On October 15 1966, the Black Panthers are founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. (87)On February 27, 1967, Wharlest Jackson, treasurer of his local NAACP Chapter in Natchez, Mississippi, was killed when a bomb that was planted in his car exploded. The bomb was planted in his car after Jackson was promoted to a position previously reserved for Whites. (88)On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered Beyond Vietnam at the New York City Riverside Church. In his speech he condemned the United States role in the war. He also stated that the United States needed to reconsider their morals. King was against the war because the money could have been used to fight the war on poverty. He was also against African-Americans fighting for a country that treated them as second-class citizens. (89)On May 12, 1967, Benjamin Brown, a former civil rights organizer, was killed by stray gunshots from police into a crowd when watching a student protest in Jackson, Mississippi. (90)On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall was named the first African-American to the Supreme Court. (91)On February 8, 1968, Samuel Ephesians Hammond, Jr., Delano Herman Middleton, and Henry Ezekial Smith were shot and killed by police who fired on student demonstrators at the South Carolina State College Campus in Orangeburg, South Carolina. (92)On March 29, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Memphis, Tennessee, to help support Black sanitary public workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1733 in their fight for better wages and treatment. The march that was organized for the workers became violent and unsuccessful. (93)On April 3, 1968, in an effort to have a peaceful march for the sanitation workers, Martin Luther King, Jr., returned to Memphis. The night before his death he delivered I’ve Been to the Mountaintop at Mason Temple. (94)On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was murdered outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. (95)On April 11, 1968, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. (96)In May 1968, Ralph Abernathy took over the SCLC Poor People’s Campaign after the death of Dr. King. (97)In 1971, Morris Dees, Jr., and Joseph J. Levin, Jr., founded the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Julian Bond was named the first president. With the mission of seeking justice and equality for society’s most vulnerable, SPLC has shut down some of the Nation’s most dangerous hate groups by winning crushing, multimillion-dollar jury verdicts on behalf of their victims. (98)On April 20, 1971, the Supreme Court decision in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, initiates a busing effort to integrate public school systems. (99)In 1972, Benjamin Hooks was appointed as one of the five commissioners of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under the Nixon administration. (100)In February 1976, Negro History Week was expanded to Black History Month. (101)On November 3, 1983, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Federal holiday was established. (102)In 1987, Morris Dees won a $7 million judgment for the mother of Michael Donald, a Black lynching victim in Mobile, Alabama, in a suit against the Ku Klux Klan. (103)On March 22, 1988, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act over President Reagan's veto. (104)On October 1, 1989, Army General Colin Powell becomes the first Black to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (105)On July 5, 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum opens at King’s assassination site in Memphis.