Video: 'President John F. Kennedy's 55th News Conference, May 8, 1963'
(Wednesday, May 8, 1963, 4:00 p.m. EDT; during the Birmingham Campaign, part of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–68)) — U.S. President John F. Kennedy today at his news conference hailed what looked like a compromise in the tense racial situation in Birmingham, Alabama — the halt of African-American demonstrations in exchange for “steps to meet the justifiable needs of the Negro community.”
Video: 'Birmingham 1963' (May 2, 1963, at 0:53)
(Thursday, May 2, 1963; during the American Civil Rights Movement‘s Birmingham Campaign) — The Children’s Crusade began today in Birmingham, Alabama, as more than 1,000 black schoolchildren skipped classes and marched downtown to protest racial segregation; hundreds were arrested. During another march the following day, authorities unleashed police dogs and fire hoses on the young protesters.
Video: 'Harold Washington campaign for Chicago mayor, 1983'
(Friday, April 29, 1983) — Democrat Harold Washington was sworn in today as the first African-American mayor of Chicago, having defeated Republican Bernard Epton 51.7% to 48.0% on April 12.
(Friday, April 12, 1963, Good Friday; during the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–68)) — Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and jailed today in Birmingham, Alabama, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit for his part in the Birmingham campaign, a planned non-violent protest against racial segregation by Birmingham’s city government and downtown retailers.
During his time behind bars, King wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”; he was released on bond on April 20.
Video: 'Rosa Parks - Mini Bio'
(Tuesday, February 4, 1913) — Rosa Parks, a black woman whose 1955 refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus to a white man touched off the modern civil rights movement in America, was born Rosa Louise McCauley today in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Video: 'Malcolm X' trailer
(Monday, September 14, 1992) — Malcolm X, a biographical motion picture about the African-American figure Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little), was released in the U.S. today.
Directed by Spike Lee, the film starred Denzel Washington, Christopher Plummer, Spike Lee, Angela Bassett, Albert Hall, Al Freeman, Jr. and Delroy Lindo.
(Wednesday, May 22, 2002) — A jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicted former Ku Klux Klansman Bobby Frank Cherry of murder today in a 1963 church bombing that killed four black girls: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Denise McNair.
Video: Lincoln's distress on Jan. 10, 1862, letter (at 12:13)
(Friday, January 10, 1862, during the American Civil War) — U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in great distress, entered the office of Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs today.
Meigs later wrote: “He took a chair in front of the open fire and said, ‘General, what shall I do? The people are impatient: Chase has no money and he tells me he can raise no more; the General of the Army has typhoid fever. The bottom is out of the tub. What shall I do?’”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XGe9oAaTc
(Saturday, May 20, 1961) — A white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, Alabama, today prompting the federal government to send in U.S. marshals to restore order.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwgqsXTvQns
This video tells the story of the integration of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system during the 1960's and 70's.
(Tuesday, April 20, 1971) — The U.S. Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, today unanimously upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools.
