Video: 'Plessy v. Ferguson'
(Monday, May 18, 1896) — The U.S. Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, today upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
The decision was handed down by a vote of 7 to 1 with the majority opinion written by Justice Henry Billings Brown and the dissent written by Justice John Marshall Harlan.
The concept was renounced 58 years later in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
Video: 'Bill Russell first African American to coach any professional sport! By: Medina Perocevic'
(Monday, April 18, 1966) — Bill Russell was named player-coach of the Boston Celtics today, becoming the first African-American head coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Video: 'Nat King Cole Is Attacked By White Supremacists - Apr 10 - Today In Music'
(Tuesday, April 10, 1956, early evening CST) — African-American singer Nat “King” Cole was attacked and beaten today by a group of racial segregationists while performing on stage in Birmingham, Alabama.
Video: '1966 NCAA Basketball Championship'
(Saturday, March 19, 1966, at approximately 11:30 p.m. EST); during the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)) — The Texas Western Miners, the first basketball team to start five black players in a national title game, defeated the heavily favored all-white Kentucky Wildcats, 72-65, tonight to win the NCAA Championship played in College Park, Maryland.
Video: 'Clips from Coretta Scott King's funeral'
(Tuesday, February 7, 2006) — Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., was laid to rest today, after a funeral where white-gloved ushers welcomed 15,000 people, including four presidents, three governors, three planeloads of Congress members, celebrities, gospel stars and leading figures of the civil rights movement.
The six-hour service, held in the vast two-tiered sanctuary of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church just outside Atlanta, was marked by elegiac moments, standing ovations, and, with the Clintons and Bushes sharing a podium, some overt political gibes about the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
Video: 'IN REMEMBRANCE of Mrs.Coretta Scott King'
(Monday, January 30, 2006, late evening PST) — Coretta Scott King, known first as the wife of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., then as his widow, then as an avid proselytizer for his vision of racial peace and nonviolent social change, died today at a hospital in Rosarito Beach, Mexico. She was 78. Continue reading Civil rights icon Coretta Scott King, 78, dies 10 years ago tonight (Jan 30 2006)
Video: 'Jan. 20, 1986: First MLK Day'
(Monday, January 20, 1986) — Singing the ballads of the civil rights movement, thousands of people marched slowly through Atlanta today as the nation marked the first Federal holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In Atlanta, where Dr. King was born and where he is buried, and in cities across the country, church bells tolled, choirs sang and citizens paused to remember the slain civil rights leader, eulogized in speeches and services as the nation’s “drum major for justice and peace.”
(Thursday, January 13, 1966, 4:15 p.m. EST; during the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68)) — Robert C. Weaver was nominated today to become the first African American to serve as a member of the U.S. president’s cabinet by President Lyndon B. Johnson, specifically as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Video: 'Ku Klux Klan - A Secret History' (Dec. 24, 1865, at 10:22)
(Sunday, December 24, 1865, Christmas Eve) — Six veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club today in Pulaski, Tennessee, that was the original version of the Ku Klux Klan.
Video: 'The 13th Amendment Explained: The Constitution for Dummies'
(Monday, December 18, 1865) — The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, abolishing slavery, was declared in effect today by Secretary of State William H. Seward, having been ratified by three-quarters of the states (including those in secession) as of Dec. 6, 1865.
Slavery is legally outlawed in the last two slave states of Kentucky and Delaware and the remaining 45,000 slaves are freed.
