December 13, 2019

Tomorrow, on December 14, the southern state of Alabama celebrates its 200th birthday. Alabama entered the Union as the 22nd state in 1819, and celebrations and events have commemorated the bicentenary throughout the year.

Alabama’s Gulf Coast is the site of numerous resorts and vacation homes. This long, sandy peninsula extends into the Gulf of Mexico between Mobile and Perdido bays. Credit: © Jeff Greenberg, Alamy Images

The cities of Birmingham, Huntsville (site of the 1819 Alabama Constitutional Convention), and Montgomery (the capital) hosted special art and history exhibitions, concerts, and dances. A traveling exhibit, “The Cases and Faces that Changed a Nation,” detailed landmark civil rights court cases that originated in Alabama and profiled the three United States Supreme Court justices from the state.

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Alabama. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

The Alabama region was the home of Native Americans for thousands of years before Spanish explorers arrived in the first half of the 1500’s. Spain, France, and Great Britain alternately controlled the area before it became part of the United States in 1795.

The Alabama state quarter features an image of Helen Keller, an untiring supporter of people with disabilities. The banner “Spirit of Courage” lies beneath her portrait. The coin includes Keller’s name in the Braille alphabet, a writing system that can be read by touch. The coin also contains borders of magnolias and branches of the longleaf pine, the state tree. Alabama became the nation’s 22nd state 200 years ago on Dec. 14, 1819. Credit: U.S. Mint

Alabama, a state that allowed slavery, seceded from the Union in 1861 and fought with the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Alabama reentered the Union in 1870, but racial strife in the state continued for another 100 years. Many important events of the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s took place in Alabama.

The State Capitol of Alabama is in Montgomery, which has been the capital of the state since 1846. Credit: WORLD BOOK illustration

April 4, 2018

Fifty years ago today, on April 4, 1968, American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The killing shocked the world and dealt a major blow to the civil rights movement in the United States. Numerous events are being held to remember King’s life and legacy, including a solemn 50th anniversary commemoration at the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built around the Lorraine Motel where King was killed. The commemoration is part of a yearlong program of events at the museum called MLK 50.

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated 50 years ago today on April 4, 1968. Credit: © Flip Schulke, Corbis

Martin Luther King, Jr., was the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement, which sought to end discrimination against African Americans. While organizing a campaign against poverty, King went to Memphis to support a strike of black garbage workers. At about 6 p.m. on April 4, 1968, King stood on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. A bullet struck King in the neck, killing him. James Earl Ray, a white drifter and escaped convict, pleaded guilty to the crime in 1969.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, is built around the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in 1968. The wreath on the balcony outside room 306 marks the spot where King was shot. Credit: © F11 Photo/Shutterstock

People throughout the world mourned King’s death. The assassination produced immediate shock, grief, and anger. African Americans rioted in more than 100 cities. A few months later, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibited racial discrimination in the sale and rental of most housing in the nation.

In March 1969, Ray pleaded guilty to killing King. Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He later tried to withdraw his plea, but his conviction was upheld. Ray died in 1998. Although Ray confessed to King’s killing, many people doubted that Ray had acted alone.

Following the shooting, the owner of the Lorraine Motel kept King’s room, 306, as a memorial. In 1991, the motel became the centerpiece of the National Civil Rights Museum. The Memphis museum preserves King’s room in period detail. Events at the museum marking King’s death began at 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 2017, and will continue through the end of April 2018.

September 26, 2017

Yesterday, September 25, marked the 60th anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. On Sept. 25, 1957, nine African American students—remembered as the Little Rock Nine—were escorted into the previously all-white school by United States Army troops. Three years earlier, in 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States had ordered states with segregated schools to open them to all races. Many Southern communities, however, including Little Rock, acted slowly in desegregating their public schools. Central High School’s integration came after numerous legal challenges, heated racial tensions, and the open defiance of Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus. The Little Rock Nine gained worldwide attention, and the event was a landmark moment of the civil rights movement in the United States.

On Sept. 25, 1957, U.S. Army troops escort nine African American students into the previously all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The event was an important moment in the civil rights movement in the United States. Credit: © United Press Int.

To mark the event’s 60th anniversary, a special commemoration ceremony took place at Central High, and a new sculpture called United was dedicated on the school’s front lawn. A “Reflections of Progress” symposium was held at the Clinton Presidential Center, and numerous other panel discussions, fundraisers, and religious services also took place.

In the 1954 decision of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The next year, the court ordered that public school desegregation be carried out “with all deliberate speed.” The Little Rock School Board adopted a plan to begin integrating Central High School in the fall of 1957.

By August 1957, school authorities had selected 17 black students from a group of about 80 students who had applied to integrate Central High. Of the 17 students selected, 8 decided to attend the all-black Horace Mann High School. The remaining 9 were Minnijean Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed, Melba Pattillo, Gloria Ray, Terrence Roberts, Jefferson Thomas, and Carlotta Walls. All of the members of the Little Rock Nine had previously attended all-black schools.

On the morning of Sept. 4, 1957, the Little Rock Nine were scheduled to enter Central High. However, Arkansas National Guardsmen blocked their way on orders from Governor Faubus. Faubus had warned that “blood will run in the streets” if the black students tried to enter the school. The students planned to attempt to enter the school together, but one of the students, Elizabeth Eckford, did not receive word of the plans. She tried to enter the school on her own but could not. Photographs of Eckford, who appeared calm in the face of threats and taunts from a white mob, made her a symbol of the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

White protesters jeer 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford as she attempts to enter Little Rock’s Central High School on Sept. 4, 1957. Credit: © Everett Collection/Alamy Images

On September 24, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put the National Guard troops of Arkansas under federal control and sent the U.S. Army to enforce the court-ordered integration of Central High. The following day, troops of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division escorted the students into the school. Protests continued, however, and Army troops remained at the school for two months to keep peace. The Little Rock Nine endured much hostility at Central High, which closed the following year during further attempts to stop integration.

Central High School reopened in 1959, but segregation continued in other schools and public facilities in Little Rock. It was not until the 1970’s that all public schools in Arkansas were integrated. In 1999, the members of the Little Rock Nine received the Congressional Gold Medal. The medal is one of the nation’s highest civilian awards.

June 22, 2016

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party supporters demonstrate outside the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Some hold portraits of slain civil rights workers James Earl Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
Credit: Library of Congress

On June 20, after an investigation that continued for more than half a century, federal and Mississippi authorities officially closed the books on one of the most heinous, racially motivated criminal cases in the history of the United States civil rights movement. Known as the “Freedom Summer” murder case or the “Mississippi Burning” murder case, it was notable as the first successful federal prosecution of a civil rights case in Mississippi. Outrage over the case helped gain passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In June 1964, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, two white civil rights volunteers from New York City, and James Chaney, a black volunteer from Meridian, Mississippi, were working together in Meridian as part of the “Freedom Summer” campaign to help African Americans register to vote. The campaign was organized primarily by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a civil rights organization. At that time, many Southern States had used various methods to deprive blacks of their voting rights. On June 21, the three men were on their way to investigate the burning of an African American church in Neshoba County when they were taken into custody for speeding by a sheriff deputy. After the men were released from county jail in Philadelphia, Mississippi, a Ku Klux Klan mob followed their car, forced it off the road, and shot the men to death. The volunteers’ station wagon was found three days later. Initially classified as a missing persons case, the men’s disappearance sparked national outrage and an investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI found the bodies of the three men 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam.

In 1967, 18 men were tried on federal civil rights charges in the case. An all-white jury convicted seven of them of violating the civil rights of the Freedom Summer volunteers. At the time, no federal murder statutes existed, and the state never brought charges. None of the convicted men served more than six years in prison. The plot leader, Edgar Ray Killen, a Baptist minister, avoided a trial due to a hung jury. Killen was finally convicted in a 2005 trial based on new evidence unveiled in 2000. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 60 years in prison, where he remains today at age 91.

In 2010, federal authorities reopened the investigation in search of evidence to allow them to convict the remaining suspects. However, that investigation came to a halt 18 months ago after a witness backed out at the last minute after pledging to sign a sworn statement that would have implicated a suspect, according to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood.

Monday’s decision means that no other suspects in the case will be prosecuted. “It has been a thorough and complete investigation,” Hood said. “I am convinced that during the last 52 years, investigators have done everything possible under the law to find those responsible and hold them accountable; however, we have determined that there is no likelihood of any additional convictions… Our state and our entire nation are a much better place because of the work of those three young men and others in 1964 who only wanted to ensure that the rights and freedoms promised in our Constitution were afforded to every single one of us in Mississippi.” In 2014, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner Presidential Medals of Freedom.

Other World Book articles

• Evers, Medgar
• Freedom riders
• Meredith, James

June 6, 2016

Muhammad Ali, right, slugs Joe Frazier during their 1975 title bout in Manila, the Philippines. Ali was often referred to as “the Champ,” or, simply, “the Greatest.”
CREDIT: AP Photo

Late on Friday, June 3, former U.S. heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali died at an Arizona hospital. Ali was perhaps the most colorful and controversial boxing champion in the history of the sport. Prior to becoming a three-time professional world champ, Ali won gold at the 1960 Summer Olympic Games. He was also a giant cultural figure, standing up for political, religious, and social causes regardless of their popularity. In the 1960′s, Ali refused to be drafted into the army during the Vietnam War. He rejected racial integration at the height of the civil rights movement. He joined the Nation of Islam (later converting to traditional Islam), and changed his name from Cassius Clay (what Ali called his “slave” name) to Muhammad Ali. Conservatives considered Ali a serious threat to the establishment at the time, while liberals often saw courage and nobility in his acts of defiance. Ali became an icon of the 20^th century itself, and was well known throughout the world. After a long fight with Parkinson disease, a chronic nervous ailment that inhibits movement and speech, Ali died at the age of 74.

Ali was born Cassius Marcellus Clay on Jan. 17, 1942, in Louisville, Kentucky. He became a professional boxer after winning the 1960 Olympic light heavyweight title. Ali’s famous ring opponents included Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and Larry Holmes. Ali last fought professionally in 1980, and he was diagnosed with Parkinson disease in 1984. In 1999, Ali was named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated magazine and Sports Personality of the Century by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Ali’s daughter Laila became a professional boxer in 1999, fighting other women. In 2005, Ali received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country’s highest civilian honors. Also that year, the Muhammad Ali Center opened in Louisville. This museum and cultural center is dedicated to Ali’s life in and out of boxing.

December 29, 2015

Today, Tuesday, December 29, 2015, marks the fourth day in the 49^th annual observation of Kwanzaa, a uniquely African American celebration. The celebration begins on December 26 and lasts for seven days. This year, millions of people in the United States will take part in Kwanzaa festivities and observe the seven principles upon which it is founded. As the fourth day of Kwanzaa, today is dedicated to Ujamaa (cooperative economics), and people are asked to support local small businesses in their community.

Kwanzaa is an African American holiday that begins on December 26 and lasts for seven days. The holiday centers on seven principles. Each evening, families exchange gifts, light one of the seven candles, and discuss the day’s principle. This child is shown lighting one of the seven candles. Credit: © Corbis

Kwanzaa centers on the Nguzo Saba, seven principles of black culture. On each day of the holiday, one of the principles is emphasized. Each evening, families light one of the seven candles in the kinara (a candleholder) and reflect on the day’s principle. The principles of Kwanzaa are Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity), and Imani (faith).

Kwanzaa festivities usually end with a joyous feast called karamu. Among families, karamu usually involves traditional African American foods, ceremonies honoring ancestors, and reflection on the old year and commitments for the new. Many cities across the United States hold public Kwanzaa observances. These often include performances, music, and dancing. The traditional colors of Kwanzaa are red, black, and green. These three colors have long represented Africa and are found on the flags of many African countries. Green represents the fertile land of Africa. Black represents the people of Africa, and red represents the blood that has been shed in the struggle for freedom for African nations.

Kwanzaa was developed in 1966 in the United States by Maulana Karenga, a black cultural leader and professor of Pan-African studies at California State University in Long Beach. The 1960’s, at the height of the civil rights movement, were a time of social upheaval and change for many African Americans. Karenga wanted to create a celebration that would honor the values of African cultures and inspire African Americans to strive for progress. Karenga based this celebration on harvest festivals common in many African societies at this time of year that had existed for thousands of years. He called the celebration Kwanzaa, sometimes spelled Kwanza, based on the phrase matunda ya kwanza, which means first fruits in Swahili (also called Kiswahili). He chose to use Swahili terms for the celebration because this language is widely used by various peoples in East Africa.

Other World Book articles: 

• Christmas
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December 1, 2015

Sixty years ago today, Rosa Parks decided she’d had enough. The African American seamstress, tired after a long day’s work, decided to break the law by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. A city law at the time required blacks to leave their seats in the next rows when all seats in the front rows were taken and other whites still wanted seats. Parks was arrested, triggering a boycott of the Montgomery bus system that lasted over a year. Her action helped bring about the civil rights movement in the United States.

Rosa Parks sits toward the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, soon after the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that segregation on city buses was unconstitutional. Credit: © Underwood Archives/Getty Images

Rosa Louise McCauley was born on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Alabama. She attended Alabama State Teachers College. In 1932, she married Raymond Parks, a barber. She held a variety of jobs and, in 1943, became one of the first women to join the Montgomery Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). She served as the organization’s secretary from 1943 to 1956.

Parks lost her job as a seamstress as a result of the Montgomery boycott. She moved to Detroit in 1957. From 1967 to 1988, she worked on the Detroit staff of John Conyers, Jr., a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1979, she won the Spingarn Medal for her work in civil rights. In 1996, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1999, she was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. Parks died on Oct. 24, 2005. A statue of Parks was dedicated at Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol in 2013.

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• Emmett Till case
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• Detroit (1994) - A Back in Time article

July 10, 2015

On Friday morning, July, 10, the Confederate battle flag (also known as the Flag of Dixie) was removed from the State House grounds in Columbia, South Carolina, where it had flown for more than half a century.

A crowd cheers as a South Carolina Highway Patrol honor guard lowers the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds on July 10, 2015, in Columbia, South Carolina. Governor Nikki Haley presided over the event after signing the historic legislation the day before. Credit: © John Moore, Getty Images

The flag has long been a polarizing symbol in South Carolina, and many people demanded that it be taken down. In the years since the American Civil War (1861-1865), the flag had become a racist symbol of slavery to many African Americans and others. Later, in the early 1960′s, the flag became a symbol of opposition to the U.S. civil rights movement. However, many  Southerners have used the Confederate battle flag as an expression of Southern heritage and pride. Some believe the flag honors Confederate soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

The battle over the flag reignited last month after a white gunman allegedly killed nine African American worshippers at a historic black church in Charleston. Among the victims was the church’s pastor, South Carolina Senator Clementa Pinckney. Soon after the attack, photos surfaced of the suspect, Dylann Roof, 21, posing with the Confederate battle flag. Roof, who apparently considered the flag a symbol of white supremacy, confessed to the killings, saying he wanted to start a race war.

Early Thursday morning, the South Carolina House of Representatives voted 94-20 to take down the flag, giving final approval to a bill that passed the state senate earlier in the week. Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley signed the bill into law Thursday afternoon. She used nine pens to sign the bill and said the pens would be given to the families of the nine victims of the Charleston church massacre. “It is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state,” Haley said. The legislation called for the flag to be taken down within 24 hours of Haley’s signing it into law and moved to the state’s Confederate Relic Room & Military Museum for display.

At around 10 a.m. Friday, crowds cheered and broke out into song as a South Carolina Highway Patrol honor guard slowly reeled the flag down and folded it. The flag was then handed to Department of Public Safety Director Leroy Smith, one of the state’s most prominent African American officials. Smith delivered the flag to the steps of the State House and handed it to a state archivist.

Other World Book articles:

• Flag
• Confederate States of America
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March 6, 2015

Police use force to break up a peaceful demonstration against voter discrimination in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. (AP/Wide World)

March 7 is the 50^th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” an important event in the civil rights movement in the United States. On that day in 1965, U.S. civil rights activists made the first of three attempts to march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital, Montgomery, in support of African American voting rights. Police attacked the marchers, injuring as many as 100. The Selma marches contributed to the U.S. Congress passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 1965, 100 years after the American Civil War ended, unlike most white Americans, many blacks still lacked access to the political process. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and other discriminatory measures, as well as violence and intimidation, continued to prevent many blacks from voting. In January, two civil rights groups, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led an effort to register blacks to vote in southern states. They also led peaceful protests in the state. An all-white police force attacked the SCLC and SNCC activists. On February 18, a state trooper shot and killed Jimmie Lee Jackson, a black protester.

On Sunday, March 7, about 600 marchers met in Selma to protest the voting policies and Jackson’s murder. The marchers hoped to go to the state capital to present Governor George Wallace with their grievances. The protesters marched only six blocks before local and state authorities stopped them at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and ordered them to disband. The marchers stood their ground. The police then attacked the marchers with clubs, whips, and tear gas. As many as 100 protesters were injured and 17 were hospitalized. Reports of the event on television news programs helped gain sympathy and political support for the marchers and their cause.

On March 9, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who had organized the original Selma march, led about 1,500 marchers to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for a prayer service. Three white ministers marching with King were beaten by segregationists (people who support racial segregation). One of the ministers died two days later. On March 15, President Lyndon B. Johnson proposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act was designed to establish protections to guarantee African Americans the right to vote.

On March 21, nearly 3,200 protesters gathered with King in Selma to march again. This time, federal troops protected them. By the time the marchers reached the Montgomery State Capitol on March 25, the crowd had grown to 25,000. At the Capitol, King demanded that African Americans be given the right to vote without unjust restrictions. On August 6, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. The act gave the vote to hundreds of thousands of Southern blacks who had never voted. It also led to a large increase in the number of African American elected officials.

A “Bridge Crossing Jubilee,” commemorating the Selma marches, is taking place in Selma on March 5-9, 2015. It will feature over 50 events, including an address by President Barack Obama and a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Other World Book articles:

• Civil rights (a Back in time article-1965)
• President of the United States (a Back in time article-1965)
• Selma marches

April 11, 2014

At a summit celebrating the 50th anniversary of the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964, United States President Barack Obama praised President Lyndon Baines Johnson for “opening new doors of opportunity and education” for him and millions of other Americans. Johnson “knew that he had a unique capacity as the most powerful white politician from the South to not merely challenge the convention that had crushed the dreams of so many but to ultimately dismantle for good the structures of legal segregation,” President Obama said. The summit was held in Austin, Texas, at the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum. Johnson, who served as president from 1963 to 1969, signed the landmark measure on July 2, 1964, the day it was finally passed by Congress. The law was a major accomplishment of the civil rights movement, the main domestic issue in the United States in the 1950′s and 1960′s. Other speakers at the summit included former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (AP/Wide World)

One of the nation’s strongest civil rights laws, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed to address the widespread political, economic, and educational oppression of African Americans and other minority groups. Beginning in the late 1800′s, blacks in the South increasingly suffered from segregation, the loss of voting rights, and other forms of discrimination. These practices were designed to keep the vast majority of African Americans in the South in a form of slavery known as peonage. This was especially true of blacks who worked as sharecroppers. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 transformed American society by banning discrimination because of a person’s color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. It opened to all Americans hotels, motels, restaurants, and other businesses that serve the public. At that time, many businesses, especially in the South, refused to serve blacks.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act also outlawed discrimination against minority voters, which included numerous state and local laws as well as violent intimidation, and guaranteed equal job opportunities for all. Johnson, a former U.S. senator skilled in dealing with legislators, pushed the law through Congress, overcoming fierce opposition by some members.

Additional World Book articles:

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• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Voting Rights Act of 1965
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