From the promise of Reconstruction to the landmark legislation of 1965 — a century of struggle, setback, and breakthrough.
Explore 20 events from 1865–1965. Click any event to read the full story. Use the era filter to focus on one period at a time.
Drag 8 events into the correct category: Legal Milestone, Resistance & Protest, Setback/Backlash, or Federal Policy.
Answer 4 Regents-style multiple choice questions. Use hints if you need them — they won't affect your score.
Answer 3 short-response questions to show what you learned and what questions you still have.
Review your score and save your work as a PDF to turn in. Select which sections to include before saving.
Ratified in December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment formally abolished slavery throughout the United States. It declared that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime" could exist within the country. The amendment was the culmination of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation (1863), which had applied only to Confederate states.
In 1865, the United States added a new rule to the Constitution that made slavery illegal everywhere in the country. This was the 13th Amendment. Before this, the president had only freed enslaved people in the Southern states that were fighting against the Union.
Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands to help formerly enslaved people transition to freedom. The Bureau provided food, housing, medical care, schools, and legal protection. It also worked to negotiate labor contracts between freedpeople and white landowners. Despite limited funding and intense opposition, it established over 1,000 schools in the South.
The government created an agency called the Freedmen's Bureau to help formerly enslaved people start their lives as free citizens. It gave out food and medicine, set up schools, and helped people sign fair work contracts. But it didn't have enough money or power to do everything that was needed.
The Fourteenth Amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including formerly enslaved people. It guaranteed "equal protection of the laws" and "due process" to all citizens. Southern states were required to ratify the amendment as a condition of readmission to the Union.
The 14th Amendment made formerly enslaved people official citizens of the United States. It said that every citizen deserves equal treatment under the law. Southern states had to agree to this new rule before they could rejoin the country.
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited denying the right to vote based on "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." African American men voted in large numbers during Reconstruction, and over 2,000 Black men held public office — including 16 U.S. Congressmen and 2 U.S. Senators — between 1865 and 1880.
The 15th Amendment said the government could not stop someone from voting just because of their race. During Reconstruction, many Black men voted and even got elected to government jobs. This was a huge change from life under slavery.
The Compromise of 1877 ended the disputed presidential election by giving the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South. Without military protection, Reconstruction governments collapsed. White supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan used violence and intimidation to reassert control. Black political gains were rapidly reversed.
In 1877, the federal government made a political deal that ended Reconstruction. Federal soldiers were pulled out of the South. Without protection, African Americans lost most of the rights and political power they had gained. White supremacist groups used violence to take control again.
The Supreme Court ruled 7–1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation was constitutional as long as facilities were "separate but equal." The case arose when Homer Plessy, who was 1/8 Black, was arrested for sitting in a whites-only railroad car in Louisiana. The lone dissent came from Justice John Marshall Harlan, who wrote that "our Constitution is color-blind."
In 1896, the Supreme Court decided that it was legal to keep Black and white people separated in public places, as long as both groups got similar facilities. This became known as the "separate but equal" rule. In reality, Black facilities were almost always inferior. One Justice disagreed and said the Constitution should not care about a person's race.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a coalition of Black activists — including W.E.B. Du Bois — and white progressives in response to the widespread racial violence of the era. The organization focused on legal challenges to segregation and voter suppression, political lobbying, and public advocacy.
The NAACP was created by Black activists and white supporters who wanted to fight for civil rights through the court system and through political pressure. W.E.B. Du Bois was one of its most important founders. The NAACP would go on to win many important legal battles against segregation.
Threatened by A. Philip Randolph's planned March on Washington of 100,000 Black Americans, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which banned discriminatory hiring in the federal government and defense industries. This was the first federal action against employment discrimination since Reconstruction. Randolph called off the march in exchange for the order.
Black labor leader A. Philip Randolph threatened to bring 100,000 Black Americans to march on Washington to protest discrimination in the military and defense industries. To stop the march, President Roosevelt signed an order banning discrimination in defense jobs. This was one of the first times the federal government had taken action against job discrimination.
President Truman signed Executive Order 9981, desegregating the United States Armed Forces. The order declared that "there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin." The military had fought World War II in segregated units; this order began dismantling that system.
President Truman signed an order that ended racial segregation in the U.S. military. Before this, Black and white soldiers served in separate units. This was a major step toward equality because millions of Americans served in the military, and the change showed that integration was possible.
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, directly overturning Plessy v. Ferguson. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall argued the case. The following year, Brown II ordered desegregation "with all deliberate speed."
The Supreme Court ruled 9–0 that it was unconstitutional to have separate schools for Black and white students. The judges said that segregated schools could never be truly equal. This overturned the "separate but equal" rule from 1896. A Black lawyer named Thurgood Marshall won the case — he later became a Supreme Court Justice himself.
After Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery, Alabama bus, the Black community organized a 381-day boycott of the city bus system. Led by a young Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the boycott crippled the bus company financially and culminated in a Supreme Court ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional.
When Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama stopped riding the buses for over a year. This hurt the bus company financially. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead the boycott, which ended when the Supreme Court ruled that bus segregation was illegal.
When nine Black students ("the Little Rock Nine") attempted to integrate Central High School in Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus deployed the National Guard to block them. President Eisenhower responded by federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and sending in the 101st Airborne Division to escort the students into school — the first major federal military intervention to enforce civil rights since Reconstruction.
When nine Black students tried to attend a previously all-white school in Arkansas, the governor sent soldiers to block them. President Eisenhower then sent in Army troops to protect the students and make sure they could go to school. This was a major moment where the federal government directly defended integration.
Four Black college students — Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil — sat down at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina and refused to leave when denied service. The sit-in sparked similar protests across the South within weeks, involving over 50,000 students and resulting in the desegregation of lunch counters in dozens of cities.
Four Black college students sat at a lunch counter that only served white people and refused to leave when the staff wouldn't serve them. Their peaceful protest inspired thousands of other students to do the same across the South. Within months, many lunch counters were desegregated as a result.
Over 250,000 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. in one of the largest political demonstrations in American history. It was here that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. The march demanded civil rights legislation, an end to job discrimination, and federal enforcement of the Constitution. It directly pressured Congress and helped build momentum for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
About 250,000 people came to Washington, D.C. to demand civil rights for Black Americans. It was one of the biggest protests in American history. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the event. The march put pressure on Congress to pass a civil rights law.
Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as part of his Great Society program, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It banned segregation in public accommodations (hotels, restaurants, theaters), prohibited discriminatory employment practices, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce the law.
President Johnson signed a major law that made it illegal to discriminate against people because of their race, religion, sex, or where they were from. It banned segregation in restaurants, hotels, and other public places. It also made it illegal to discriminate against people when hiring them for jobs. This law was a major victory for the civil rights movement.
On March 7, 1965, 600 civil rights marchers were beaten by state troopers with clubs and tear gas as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Television footage of "Bloody Sunday" shocked the nation. A second march was led by Dr. King. A third march, protected by federalized National Guard, reached Montgomery on March 25. The events accelerated passage of the Voting Rights Act.
Civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama were attacked by police with clubs and tear gas when they tried to march for voting rights. The attack was on television and shocked the whole country. After more marches, and with protection from the U.S. military, the marchers eventually reached Montgomery. The violence they faced helped push Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act.
Signed by President Johnson on August 6, 1965, the Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices — specifically literacy tests, poll taxes, and other barriers that had been used to prevent Black Americans from voting since Reconstruction. It also required federal approval before certain states could change their voting laws. Within three years, Black voter registration in the South had more than doubled.
President Johnson signed a law on August 6, 1965 that made it illegal to use literacy tests, poll taxes, and other tricks to stop Black Americans from voting. The law also gave the federal government power to watch over states that had been discriminating. In just a few years, twice as many Black voters registered in Southern states than before the law.
In this activity you traced civil rights in America from the Reconstruction amendments (1865–1870) through the landmark legislation of 1964–1965. You identified four major categories of events: legal milestones that expanded rights on paper, acts of resistance and protest that built political pressure, setbacks and backlash that revealed the depth of opposition, and federal policy decisions that either extended or betrayed those rights.