Key players in the conflict over civil rights 169the burning bus. A second group encountered an angry mob at the bus station in
Birmingham and was severely beaten with baseball bats and iron pipes. When it
became clear that police protection would not be forthcoming, the Freedom Riders
abandoned the trip and regrouped in Nashville. After much internal debate, they
decided to continue the rides.
Following more violence in Montgomery, President Kennedy intervened and
his brother Robert Kennedy, the attorney general, worked out a deal: the Freedom
Riders would receive police protection, federal troops would not intervene, and
they would face the local courts upon their arrest for “disturbing the peace.” The
Freedom Rides continued throughout the summer. Their actions successfully
drew national attention to the continuing resistance in the South to desegregation
rulings, forced the Kennedy administration to take a stand on this issue, and led
to a stronger Interstate Commerce Commission ruling banning segregation in
interstate travel.^51
The next significant events occurred in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963.
Birmingham had more racial violence than any southern city, with 18 unsolved
bombings of black churches and homes in a six-year period. The city had closed its
parks and golf courses rather than integrate them, and there was no progress onSeptember 9
The Federal Civil Rights Act prohibits
discrimination.September 23
President Eisenhower sends troops to escort
black students into a white high school in Little
Rock, Arkansas.August 6
The Federal Voting Rights Act
prohibits denying anyone the
vote on the basis of color or race.July 2
President Johnson
signs the Civil
Rights Act.December 1
Rosa Parks is arrested
for refusing to move to
the back of a bus in
Montgomery, Alabama.February 1
Black college students,
refused service at a lunch
counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina, launch
a sit-in.April 16
Martin Luther King Jr. writes his
“Letter from the Birmingham Jail,”
defending nonviolent civil
disobedience against unjust laws.
August 28
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers
his “I Have a Dream” speech
at the March on Washington.June 21
Three civil rights workers
are murdered outside
Philadelphia, Mississippi.March 7
Six hundred voting rights
marchers are attacked by
police with clubs and whips
on the Edmund Pettus
Bridge outside Selma,
Alabama. On March 21,
about 3,200 marchers
head out again on a
four-day march to
Montgomery in support
of voting rights.September 15
Four girls are killed when
a Baptist church in
Birmingham, Alabama,
is bombed.February 21
Malcolm X is shot and
killed in New York.April 4
Martin Luther King
Jr. is slain in Memphis,
Tennessee.April 11
Fair Housing Act protects
against discrimination
in housing.May 4
Freedom Riders
test a Supreme
Court decision
that integrated
interstate bus
travel, sparking
violence.1957 1965
1960 1963 1965
Social Movement
1954
Government Action
May 17
U.S. Supreme Court
rules segregated schools
are unconstitutional in
the Brown v. Board of
Education decision.19641961 1964 1968
1968
1955
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