1865

13th Amendment outlaws slavery.

1870

15th Amendment establishes the right of black males to vote.

July 11-13, 1905

The Niagara Movement is formed, a forerunner to the NAACP.

1917

Parade on 5th Avenue, New York City, by 10,000 blacks in a protest against lynching and the East St. Louis riots.

1920

19th Amendment gives women the right to vote.

1943

CORE stages its first sit-in at a Chicago restaurant.

1948

President Harry Truman ends segregation in the U.S. military.

Mid 1950's

Bennett College sociology professor Edward Edmonds led delegations of parents to the school board to protest inferior educational facilities. He also demanded the white-only swimming pool at Lindley park be opened to blacks.

December 1, 1955

Rosa Parks refuses to change seats on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.

December 21, 1956

Montgomery bus boycott ends in victory.

1957

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is founded to coordinate localized southern efforts to fight for civil rights.

August 29, 1957

Congress passes the Voting Rights Bill of 1957, the first major civil rights legislation in more than 75 years.

1959

Ezell Blair Sr., father, was a shop teacher at Dudley H.S. He "led a drive to pressure merchants...to employ minority sales personnel in 'non-traditional' jobs."

January 1960

Ezell Blair Jr. is refused service at a Union Bus Terminal station restaurant.

February 2, 1960

Twenty-five men and four women enter Woolworth's and continue the sit-in.

February 3, 1960

Students occupy 63 of the 65 seats available at the Woolworth's lunch counter.

February 5, 1960

More then 300 students are taking part in the protest.

February 6, 1960

Hundreds of students, including the A&T football team, descend on the downtown area. This day becomes known as "Black Saturday."

February 7, 1960

Black students in Winston-Salem and Durham hold demonstrations at lunch counters.

February 9, 1960

Demonstrations begin in Raleigh.

Third week of February, 1960

Demonstrations move to other states throughout the South. Support of picketing has begun in Northern cities against Woolworth's and other chain stores.

1960

Lawsuit. Thomas L. Vickers, and Lattice Vickers (Carborro) sued the Chapel Hill Board b/c their son couldn't attend school nearest his home due to segregation. Just before the sit-ins a Dudley High School teacher had urged students to boycott downtown theatres. The Greensboro Woolworths store ranked 64th in retail out of more than 2000 Woolworth stores.

March 24, 1960

Zane calls together managers from eight downtown stores to force the issue of desegregation.

March 31, 1960

Edward Zane goes to the students at A&T to tell them of the Committee's failure to secure integration.

April 21, 1960

Forty-five young blacks march into the Kress store and refuse to leave the lunch counter. They were the only blacks arrested during the entire demonstration

August 28, 1963

The march on Washington is the largest civil rights demonstrations to date. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech entitled "I Have a Dream."

1964

24th Amendment outlaws poll taxes for national elections. Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

February 21, 1965

Malcolm X is assassinated

1968

Civil Rights Act outlaws discrimination in the sale or rental or housing.

May 6, 1969

Howard Lee is elected mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the first black to hold the position in a predominantly white city.

October 29, 1969

U.S. Supreme Court rules that school districts must end racial segregation at once.

1971

Full desegregation of public schools

February 1, 1980

State historical marker unveiled at corner of Elm & Friendly

August 10, 1989

General Colin L. Powell is named chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff."

1868

14th Amendment grants equal protection of the laws to blacks.

1875

Civil Rights Act grants equal access to public accommodations.

1909

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed

1919

Membership in the NAACP approaches 100,000, despite attempts in some states to make it illegal.

1942

The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is founded in Chicago, a civil rights group dedicated to a direct action of non-violence.

1947

In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a black is elected to the city council.

May 17, 1954

Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

1954

Bob Jones Sandwich Bar - 2 blocks away from Woolworths (100 block of E. Washington St.) was integrated.

December 5, 1955

Blacks begin a boycott of the bus system in Montgomery.

1955

MLK Jr.'s Montgomery bus boycott

December 13, 1956

The U.S. Supreme Court outlaws bus segregation.

1957

President Dwight Eisenhower sends U.S. Army troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation of schools

1959

Blacks are elected to local offices in North Carolina.

February 1, 1960

Ezell Blair Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain launch the Greensboro sit-ins. In just two months the sit-in movement spread to 54 cities in 9 states. After passing by Ralph Johns' store on Market Street, Ezell Blair Jr. (Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain enter the Elm Street Woolworth's at 4 p.m., purchase school supplies and "sundry" items. They then approach the lunch counter and order coffee at 4:30 p.m. They are refused service. The four remain in their seats until closing at 5 p.m.

February 4, 1960

Three white women from the Woman's College join the demonstrations, as do students from other area colleges. Sit-ins begin at the S.H. Kress store across the street.

February 8, 1960

Demonstrations begin in Charlotte.

February 10, 1960

Students participate in sit-ins across the state.

February 19, 1960

The North Carolina Council of Churches endorses the sit-ins.

February 23, 1960

The Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counters reopen.

February 27, 1960

The Zane Committee mails more than 5000 surveys to citizens asking for their opinions.

Mid-March, 1960

Edward Zane receives more than 2000 letters on the sit-ins, with 73 percent favoring equality of service on some basis.

April 1, 1960

Demonstrations resumed.

April 3, 1960

Thurgood Marshall, national counsel for the NAACP, speaks at Bennett College, warning against accepting "token integration".

April 15-17, 1960

The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is formed in Raleigh by a group of Shaw University students>

July 25, 1960

The first black ate a meal, sitting down, at Woolworth's in Greensboro.
After one week, 300 blacks have been customers.

July 26, 1960

Woolworth's is desegregated.

1961

Integrated groups of protesters join Freedom Rides on buses across the South to protest segregation.

August 30, 1964

Beginning in Harlem, serious racial disturbances occur in more than six major cities.

January 2, 1965

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launches a voter drive in Selma, Alabama, escalating into a nationwide protest movement.

August 6, 1965

The Voting Rights Bill becomes law, nullifying local laws and practices that prevent minorities from voting.

June 13, 1967

Thurgood Marshall is appointed an associate justice of the Supreme Court; the first black so designated.

May 1-October 1, 1967

In the worst summer for racial disturbances in U.S. history, more than 40 riots and 100 other disturbances occur.

April 4, 1968

Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated.

February 1, 1980

Reunion of the original four at Woolworths. Served by Woolworth V.P. Aubrey C. Lewis

1800's

Early 1900's

1940's

1950's

Early 1960's

Mid 1960's

Late 1960's

1970's

1980's