This document provides a timeline of key events in the civil rights movement between 1954-1963, including Brown v. Board of Education, the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr., and sit-ins at Woolworth's in Greensboro. It highlights MLK's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" written in 1963 while imprisoned for protesting segregation, as well as violence against civil rights activists like the bombing of a church in Birmingham that killed four girls. The document also provides context about Michigan's automobile industry and Motown music in the 1960s.

1. Welcome to Literature Class!
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4. Timeline
1954
1955
1957
1960
1962
 Brown v. Board of Education
 Emmett Till murdered while visiting
Mississippi.
 Montgomery Bus Boycott begins.
 Integration of schools in Little Rock,
Arkansas is blocked.
 Sit-ins begin at Woolworth’s in
Greensboro, North Carolina.
 James Meredith becomes first black
student to enroll in University of
Mississippi. Kennedy sends 5,000
federal troops to quell resulting violence.

5. 1963
April
Martin Luther King is arrested and
jailed during anti-segregation
protests. He writes his “Letter
from a Birmingham Jail.”
For years now I have heard the
word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of
every Negro with a piercing
familiarity. This "wait" has almost
always meant "never." We must
come to see with the distinguished
jurist of yesterday that justice too
long delayed is justice denied.

6. 1963
May
During protests in Birmingham, Eugene “Bull” Connor
orders the use of police dogs and fire hoses.

7. 1963
June
Medgar Evers, Mississippi’s
NAACP field secretary,
is murdered outside his
home.

8. 1963
August
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers
his “I Have a Dream” speech
at The March on Washington.

9. 1963
September
A bomb explodes at the
16th Street Baptist Church
in Birmingham, Alabama.
The explosion kills four
young girls. Riots erupt.

10. Michigan in the 1960s
American automobile industry was successful, and labor unions
were strong.
Berry Gordy founded Motown in 1962.