Internet Enriched Storytelling: Civil Rights Movement
1. The Fight for Civil Rights:
Various Photographers
By: Christina Livingston
2. Young Emmett Till, who was brutally murdered at the age of 14 on August 28,
1955 in Money, Tennessee for supposedly whistling at a Caucasian woman.
His death and public displayed funeral were gruesome events that motivated
the Civil Rights Movement.
3. Photo of Rosa Parks at the police station after being arrested for
not giving up her seat in the “Black Section” of the bus to a white
man in Montgomery, Alabama, 1956. Her arrest sparked the
great event of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
4. Elizabeth Eckford, one of the “Little Rock Nine”, attempts to enter Central
High School (an all white student school) in Little Rock, Arkansas on
September 4, 1957. President Eisenhower had to send the U.S. army to stop
the National Guard, sent by the Governor, from blocking the nine students
from entering the school and to protect them.
5. Students sitting at the Tottie House lunch counter in Atlanta, 1960. These
students faced horrible acts of torture by Caucasian students. Acts such as
getting hot coffee thrown in their faces and being covered in condiments, but
they never moved from their seats. This event eventually led to sit-ins across
southern United States.
6. MLK looking out the bars in jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama in April 1963. He was
arrested for leading marches without a permit. It is this very cell where he
produced his famous published letter, “Letter From a Birmingham Jail”.
7. 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The same church where in
September 15, 1963, four young girls were killed and 20 more were injured in a
bombing. This church was also the sight for civil rights meeting before it was bombed.
8. The leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee gets beaten by State
Troopers for attempting a right-to-vote march with 600 persons from Selma to
Montgomery, Alabama on March 7, 1965. Many protesters were attacked. This day
was then known as “Bloody Sunday”. Because of this President Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 five months later.
9. Volunteers helping with voting registration on
August 9, 1965 after the Voting Rights Act of 1965
has been passed.
10. MLK with other leaders on the Lorraine Motel balcony in Memphis,
Tennessee on April 3, 1968. It was also the same balcony where he
was shot to death the next day, April 4 1968, causing riots in the
street, eventually ending the Civil Rights Movement.
