1954... Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren rules "separate education facilities are inherently unequal in Brown vs The Board of Education of Topeka.   Dec. 1955... Rosa Parks is arrested in Montgomery, AL when she refuses to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back of the bus. A young black minister, Martin Luther King Jr., leads blacks in a boycott of this public transportation.   Feb. 3, 1956... The federal court in Birmingham orders that the University of Alabama admit their first black student, Autherine Lucy. Lucy is assaulted on campus by an angry mob of segregationists and Klansmen. She is later suspended and expelled by the University's trustees for allegedly enrolling as part of an NAACP conspiracy.   June 1956... Federal court ruling end to intrastate segregation on public transportation.   Dec. 21, 1956... Martin Luther King Jr. boards the first integrated bus in Montgomery.   1957... President Eisenhower calls in the National Guard to protect four black students at Central High in Little Rock as Arkansas' Governor Faubus prohibits integration.   1957... Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC).   Feb. 1, 1960... Students belonging to the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee in Greensboro, NC conduct the first "sit-in" at lunch counters. "Sit-ins" spread throughout the South.   1961... "Freedom Riders" organize and drive to Southern states to test segregation in bus terminals. 600 federal marshals are deployed to protect them.   1962... President John F. Kennedy uses guardsmen to stem riots at the University of Mississippi when James Meredith is admitted as its first black student.

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Sources: Carter, Dan. T. The Politics of Rage. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. Clark, E. Culpepper. The Schoolhouse Door. New York: Oxford Press, 1993. Jost, Kenneth. "Rethinking School Integration," Congressional Quarterly, October 18, 1996. Lesher, Stephen. George Wallace: American Populist. New York: Addison Wesley, 1994. Masugi, Ken. "Anniversaries for Dissenters: 100th Anniversary of Plessy V. Ferguson," World Wide Web, The Claremont Institute, May 16, 1996. Wolter, Raymond. The Burden of Brown. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1984.