1929
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, son of a preacher.

1954
Becomes a preacher in Montgomery, Alabama.

1955
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery. Start of the Montgomery Bus Boycott by Blacks, led by preachers.

1956
US Supreme Court rules bus segregation illegal.

1957
Students in Little Rock, Arkansas, challenge segregation in school.

1960
Martin Luther King arrested, then released through the personal intervention of presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

1961
First 'freedom ride'.

1963
Washington March. Martin Luther King makes his 'I have a dream' speech.

1964
Civil Rights Act makes discrimination against Blacks illegal in the US.

1964
Wins the Nobel Peace Prize - the youngest person ever to do so.

1965
Voting Rights Act gives all American adults the right to vote.

1968
Assassinated.

Key Terms, People and Events

• Civil Rights
• Ku Klux Klan
• American Civil War 1861-5
• Governor George Wallace
• Black Panthers
• Rosa Parks

Civil Rights
Social, economic and political right to participate in all activities of society. In the southern states of the USA, until the Civil Rights Movement, Blacks were not allowed to vote, schools and colleges were segregated and Blacks were forbidden to share many facilities with whites. Only in 1964-5 was racial discrimination outlawed in the US.

Ku Klux Klan
Racist club dedicated to keeping the South white-dominated. Members dress in white hooded costumes, chant around fires, and in the past frequently lynched Blacks they held to have committed crimes or acted against the status quo.

American Civil War 1861-5
Americans call the American Civil War the 'War Between the States' - that is, between the northern States of the Union and the so-called Slave States of the Confederacy (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia). At the end of the war, slavery was abolished. But in the South, segregation, discrimination and social prejudice continued.

Governor George Wallace
Governor of Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement, one of the most prominent and aggressive segregationists. He frequently ordered violent police action against peaceful protests.

Black Panthers
Most prominent of the radical Black groups who thought King's non-violent methods would not work.

Rosa Parks
A Black seamstress who lived in Alabama, and refused to give up her seat on a bus reserved for whites. She was arrested and became one of the early heroines of the Civil Rights Movement. Her action and the boycott which followed did much to arouse international interest in the situation.

1954: US Supreme Court orders desegregation of schools in the South.

1955-6: Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1957: Governor Wallace attempts to bar Black children from white schools.

1957: Desegregation enforced by federal troops.

1963: Marches on Birmingham, Washington.

1963: 'I have a Dream' speech.

1964-5: Civil Rights Acts passed.

1964: King wins Nobel Peace Prize.

1965: Selma-Montgomery March.

The USA has long been plagued with a serious streak of intolerance. In some ways this was to be expected in a nation where the vast majority were either immigrants or descendants of recent immigrants. On the blocks and neighbourhoods of America's great cities, the Irish, French-Canadian and German groups competed for the best jobs and the best available housing. These groups tended to look down on the more recent Eastern European and Italian immigrants. These in turn had nothing but contempt for Blacks and Mexicans, who were firmly at the bottom of the scale. This extract comes from a book by Malden Jones called Destination America, about attitudes to immigrants:

In 1920 two Italian born anarchists, Nicola Sac and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were arrested for armed robbery and murder. They were convicted and eventually executed in 1927 after six years of legal appeals. It was a clear case of discrimination against immigrants with radical beliefs at a time when business and political leaders were deeply worried by the Bolshevik (communist) revolution in Russia.

In response to these concerns the government placed restrictions on immigration into the USA in 1921. In the previous 100 years over 35 million people, almost all from Europe, had emigrated to the USA. By 1929 the figure had fallen to 150,000 per year. In addition the Act meant that the immigrants allowed a larger proportion of North-West Europeans (mainly British, Irish and German) and excluded Southern and Eastern Europeans (mainly Russians, Italians and Jews).

New immigrants suffered, but as was all too often the case, it was America's Black community that suffered the worst of the discrimination. As we have already seen Black people were economically disadvantaged - almost always at the bottom of the pile.

In Chicago it was the blacks who took the brunt of the animosity of longer-established residents ... Attempts by more prosperous Negroes to move out of the black belt to adjacent neighbourhoods produced a hostile reaction from whites, so did attempts by Negroes to use parks, playgrounds and beaches hitherto only used by whites. When Negroes attempted to use recreational areas in the Irish and Polish districts they were set upon by gangs of whites calling themselves 'athletic clubs'.
Maldwyn Jones, Destination America

In the North, Black people had a slightly better chances of getting on and it would be wrong to assume that all Blacks lived in squalor and poverty, but in the North and South of the USA, Black people faced overwhelming prejudice. Some fought back, like the famous singer and actor Paul Robeson. Other campaigners like Eleanor Roosevelt took an interest in the plight of Black people. But these were exceptions and in the 1920s Black people who stood up for their rights could find themselves the victims of the Ku Klux Klan.

It was not entirely depression and woe for Black Americans. There was a small but prosperous Black middle class and Howard University was an exclusively Black institution for higher education. The same time, the popularity of jazz made many Blacks into high profile media figures and the Black neighbourhood of Harlem in New York became a centre of musical creativity. There was also a rise in Black pride in the form of books and poems. Magazines like the Messenger, The Crusader and Challenge Magazine put forward a Black viewpoint on 1920s America. Black poets like Sterling Brown and Lanston Brown raised the profile of Black writers. Marcus Gawey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in New York which spread to most American cities. The UNIA encouraged Blacks to take pride in being Black. It also helped Blacks to set up their own businesses and by the mid-1920s there were UNIA groceries, laundries, restaurants and even a printing workshop.

In many southern states in the years after the First World War, Blacks were actually in a majority. However due to the federal system of government which prevails in the USA, it means that each state is able to conduct its own affairs with little interference from outside, Blacks remained disadvantaged politically, socially and economically. Many Blacks were prevented from voting, as they initially had to perform a literacy test in order to register. This procedure obviously discriminated against people who were poorly educated. Most public facilities, including schools, were segregated (the separation of people usually on the basis of race or religion) on the basis of race. Black schools were generally poorly funded and regarded as inferior to White schools.

A level of economic assistance for the Black population was granted by the New Deal, (a plan set up to bring the nation out of economic depression) introduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Although the Black population welcomed this move, its effectiveness was quite limited, as it was not followed up by changes in the law. This community was helped basically because they were poor and not because of their race.

One of the first presidents to give some serious attention to the issue of civil rights was President Truman. However, rather than integrate the races he sought to promote equality within the races. Truman established a President's Committee on Civil Rights in 1946, which made proposals for far-reaching reforms. These proposals failed due to lack of support from Congress.

Black people remained discriminated against and disillusioned. They had fought in huge numbers in the Second World War (although few Black soldiers appeared in Hollywood war movies). As in Britain, people felt that the post-war years could be a time of renewal and opportunity. In the Northern states of the USA this happened to some degree. However, in the Southern states Black people remained second-class citizens.