| February 12, 1936 |
John Wesley Dobbs calls for a "political reawakening" of Atlanta's black voters from the pulpit of Big Bethel A. M. E Church.
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The Road to Integration
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| June 25, 1941 |
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issues Executive Order 8802, making it illegal for defense contractors to discriminate against employees based on race, color(?), or religion. This executive order also established the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), overseeing the practices of the contractors
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The Road to Integration
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| July 1, 1941 |
Philip Randolph and Baynard Rustin had a March on Washington scheduled on this date to protest the discrimination in defense industries. The march is called off when Roosevelt issued an Executive Order on June 25, 1941, barring discrimination based on race or religion.
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The Road to Integration
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt |
| April 3, 1944 |
In Smith v. Allwright the U. S. Supreme Court holds that restrictions against blacks voting in primaries are unconstitutional. |
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The Road to Integration
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Primus King |
| July 4, 1944 |
Rev. Primus King, enters the courthouse in Columbus, Georgia and attempts to vote in the "white only" Democratic primary. King was black.
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The Road to Integration
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Columbus, Georgia |
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Primus King |
| October 12, 1945 |
In King v. Chapman federal district court judge T. Hoyt Davis rules that King had the right to vote in the Muscogee County Democratic Primary. |
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The Road to Integration
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| March 6, 1946 |
Judge Samuel Sibley rules against the Georgia Democratic Party in the U. S. Circuit Court. They had argued that the Democratic Party Primary was neither funded by or controlled by the state and was exempt from exempt from Constitutional rules regarding disenfranchisement |
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The Road to Integration
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| April 1, 1946 |
The U. S. Supreme Court declines a request to overturn Sibley's ruling |
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The Road to Integration
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| June 3, 1946 |
U. S. Supreme Court bans segregation on interstate buses
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The Road to Integration
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| August 6, 1946 |
The Atlanta Constitution publishes Martin Luther King's letter to the editor in which the future civil rights leader calls for "basic rights and opportunities" for blacks.
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The Road to Integration
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Martin Luther King
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| April 9, 1947 |
The "Journey of Reconciliation" began, testing the adherence to new integrated interstate bus rules throughout the South, including Georgia. First of a number of "Freedom Rides", as they would later be known, sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
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The Road to Integration
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| July 28, 1948 |
President Harry Truman issues Executive Order 9981, banning segregation in all branches of the armed forces
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The Road to Integration
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| December 11, 1953 |
In a front page editorial appearing in the Atlanta Constitution, Ralph McGill predicts the Supreme Court will declare school segregation unconstitutional. In the editorial, McGill states that the Court had no option other than interpreting the 14th amendment the way it was written.
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The Road to Integration
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| May 17, 1954 |
Brown vs. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas. The U. S. Supreme Court holds that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional
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The Road to Integration
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| February 18, 1956 |
Dr. Thomas H. Brewer, who help create a Columbus chapter of the NAACP in 1937 and was an important figure in the Primus King case, is murdered by Lucio Flowers, a white policeman. Brewer was shot 7 times in front of his office in Columbus
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The Road to Integration
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Columbus, Georgia |
| March 12, 1956 |
Declaration of Constitutional Principles, also known as the "Southern Manifesto," is released to the press. Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell wrote the final draft of the Manifesto, which attacked the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education Topeka. Only three southern Senators refused to sign it: Estes Kefauver, Albert Gore (Sr.) and Lyndon Johnson.
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The Road to Integration
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Richard B. Russell, Jr. |
| July 23, 1956 |
U. S. House of Representatives passes Civil Rights legislation. The Senate refuses to take up the issue in an election year.
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The Road to Integration
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| January 11, 1957 |
Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Bayrd Rustin and others meet at Ebeneezer Church in Atlanta to form the group that will become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King becomes its president and Abernathy becomes treasurer
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Martin Luther King
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Ralph David Abernathy, Jr. |
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The Road to Integration
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Atlanta, Georgia (1900-2000) |
| February 12, 1957 |
Federal judge Frank Hooper dismisses Horace Ward's case to integrate the University of Georgia on the grounds that he had failed to reapply when he was rejected and that he had been accepted to another law school |
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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The Road to Integration
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| June 18, 1957 |
The U. S. House passes Civil Rights legislation proposed by the Eisenhower administration, and backed by the President himself.
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The Road to Integration
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| August 7, 1957 |
The Senate passes the 1957 Civil Rights Bill. Because of differences between the House and Senate version, the bill goes to committee.
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The Road to Integration
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| August 29, 1957 |
The 1957 Civil Right Act is passed in the Senate by a vote of 60 to 15. It was the first Civil Rights legislation passed in the United States in 79 years.
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The Road to Integration
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| June 16, 1959 |
United States District Court Judge Frank H. Hooper rules that although he does not have the power to order integration, he does have the power to end segregation. He orders the Atlanta City Schools to desegregate
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Frank A. Hooper |
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The Road to Integration
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| January 18, 1960 |
City of Atlanta approves plan to desegregate schools
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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The Road to Integration
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| February 1, 1960 |
Four students walk up to the lunch counter at F. W. Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina. After trying to order lunch they are asked to leave. The students begin a "sit-in," passively demanding equal treatment. The students are black; the lunch counter only served whites.
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The Road to Integration
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| February 29, 1960 |
In response to a filibuster organized by Georgia Senator Richard Russell, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson announces he will keep the Senate in session continuously until a new Civil Rights bill proposed by the Eisenhower administration is passed. A watered-down version of the bill will pass later in the year.
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Richard B. Russell, Jr. |
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The Road to Integration
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| March 16, 1960 |
Carolyn Quilloin was arrested after she sat down at the whites only counter in Levy's Department Store in Savannah. She was black.
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City of Savannah, Georgia |
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The Road to Integration
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| May 9, 1960 |
Judge Hooper sets a deadline for the desegregation of Atlanta schools at May 1, 1961
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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Frank A. Hooper |
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The Road to Integration
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| October 19, 1960 |
During a sit-in at a Rich's lunch counter in Atlanta, Rev. Martin Luther King is arrested.
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The Road to Integration
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Martin Luther King
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| October 26, 1960 |
Robert Kennedy calls Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver seeking King's release from Reidsville Prison
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The Road to Integration
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Martin Luther King
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Ernest Vandiver, Jr. |
| January 6, 1961 |
Macon judge William Bootle instructs the University of Georgia to admit Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes to the University, finding that they had been excluded from admission simply because they were black
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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University of Georgia, Athens (UGA) |
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The Road to Integration
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| January 9, 1961 |
Bootle stays his ruling forcing the University of Georgia to desegregate. Bootle's stay is ruled "improvidently granted" by an Atlanta judge. Vernon Jordan is told to escort Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes to UGA to register for class. Georgia Governor Earnest Vandiver, who is required by law to close integrated schools does so in a way that UGA can keep operating at least for a few days: He cuts off state funding.
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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University of Georgia, Athens (UGA) |
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Ernest Vandiver, Jr. |
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The Road to Integration
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| January 11, 1961 |
Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes attend their first classes at UGA. Following a nighttime basketball game, a rowdy group surrounds Hunter's dorm and is broken up by Athens police. Hunter and Holmes are suspended "for their own protection."
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University of Georgia, Athens (UGA) |
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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The Road to Integration
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| January 12, 1961 |
Judge Bootle orders UGA to readmit Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes and charges Governor Ernest Vandiver with the responsibility of protecting them
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Donald L. Hollowell |
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The Road to Integration
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Ernest Vandiver, Jr. |
| January 19, 1961 |
In an attempt to deal with federal pressure to integrate schools, Gov. Earnest Vandiver proposes an amendment to the Georgia constitution that ends all laws designed to maintain segregated schools. In order to have it pass the overwhelmingly pro-segregation legislature, he includes a local option to close schools or integrate. This date is often noted as January 18.
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The Road to Integration
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Ernest Vandiver, Jr. |
| September 15, 1961 |
W. W. Law is fired from his job as a Savannah postal worker after the election of G. Elliot Hagan of Sylvania, (Screven County) GA. who made it a campaign promise to have the NAACP leader fired from his job as a postal worker.
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City of Savannah, Georgia |
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The Road to Integration
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Screven County, Georgia |
| November 20, 1962 |
John F. Kennedy orders an end to racial discrimination in federal housing (Executive order 11063)
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The Road to Integration
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| April 12, 1963 |
Dr. Martin Luther King, representing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, is arrested in Birmingham, AL, for contempt of court and parading without a permit. He had come to Birmingham in an attempt to integrate public facilities in accordance with Supreme Court rulings. While in jail he composed his response to a public letter from 8 clergymen (who were white) criticizing him for breaking the law. King responded that We have waited 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. ...it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait."
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The Road to Integration
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Martin Luther King
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| April 24, 1963 |
W. W. Law calls for an end to the "night marches" in Savannah, used to encourage blacks to vote because of violence attributed to non-participants during the marches.
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City of Savannah, Georgia |
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The Road to Integration
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| June 3, 1963 |
Vice-president Lyndon Baines Johnson tells advises President John F. Kennedy (through a staff member) that "blacks are tired of this patience stuff..." and that Kennedy ought to "sit-down with Russell" and answer every argument he made against civil rights
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Richard B. Russell, Jr. |
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The Road to Integration
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| June 10, 1963 |
The Senate votes on cloture on a Civil Rights debate, passing it 71 to 29. This is the first time that the "Southern Bloc" of segregationist senators was defeated trying to block Civil Rights legislation
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The Road to Integration
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Richard B. Russell, Jr. |
| October 1, 1963 |
Georgia, eight months ahead of the National Civil Rights Act comprehensively desegregates virtually every public facility
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The Road to Integration
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| January 23, 1964 |
The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, elimination of poll tax, becomes law. Georgia does not ratify.
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The Road to Integration
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Georgia, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution
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| March 7, 1965 |
Georgians Hosea Williams and John Lewis lead a peaceful group of about 600 civil rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery. It is brutally stopped on the Edmund Pettus Bridge just outside the city limits by Alabama State Troopers. Today the beating of these peaceful marchers is known simply as "Bloody Sunday".
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The Road to Integration
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| September 6, 1966 |
Atlanta, The City Too Busy to Hate erupts in race riots resulting from a century of black oppression
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The Road to Integration
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| January 17, 1987 |
A small group of Atlantans march to protest lack of blacks in Cumming, Georgia (Forsyth County). Led by Rev. Hosea William the march is disrupted by militant white racists, many from outside the county.
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Forsyth County, Georgia |
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The Road to Integration
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| January 24, 1987 |
A crowd of 20,000 racially mixed people from the metropolitan Atlanta area join Rev. Hosea Williams and others in a unity march in Cumming, Georgia (Forsyth County). A march the previous week had been turned back by racists.
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Forsyth County, Georgia |
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The Road to Integration
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