A
Change Is Gonna Come:
A Civil Rights in North Carolina Time Line
Part 3: 1954-1980
| 1954 | The Supreme Court overturns the Plessy v. Ferguson decision by ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregated public schools are unconstitutional. In response to the Brown decision, the Greensboro school board begins an effort to desegregate the city’s public schools. |
| 1955 | The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins in Alabama after NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat in the front section of a bus for a white passenger. The boycott lasts until the buses are desegregated the next year. |
| The Interstate Commerce Commission orders integration of buses and trains and their waiting rooms for interstate travel. | |
| The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill admits the first African American freshmen: Leroy Frasier, John Lewis Brandon, and Ralph Frasier. | |
| The General Assembly adopts a resolution opposing racial integration in the state’s public schools. The legislature gives local school boards control over the desegregation of their schools. | |
| 1956 | The “Southern Manifesto,” signed by 101 congressmen from the South, protests school desegregation. |
| Congress passes the “Lumbee Bill,” which recognizes the Lumbee as an Indian tribe but denies them services from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. | |
| The Supreme Court outlaws the segregation of tax-supported colleges and universities. | |
| The General Assembly adopts the Pearsall Plan, which offers North Carolinians alternatives to attending integrated public schools. | |
| 1957 | Congresses passes a Civil Rights Act aimed at ensuring that all people can exercise their right to vote. It establishes a bipartisan Commission on Civil Rights to investigate and intervene in cases of denial of voting rights and equal protection under the law because of race. This is the first civil rights legislation in 82 years and the first in the 20th century. |
| Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the SCLC to coordinate local efforts in the South to work for civil rights. | |
| Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to enforce desegregation at the formerly all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. They escort the nine African American students who first integrate the school. | |
| The Haliwa Indian School opens in Warren County. It operates until 1968. | |
| Small numbers of African American students enroll in previously white public schools in Greensboro, Charlotte, and Winston-Salem, beginning a period of token integration. | |
| Seven black activists led by Rev. Douglas E. Moore challenge segregation with a sit-in at Durham’s Royal Ice Cream Parlor. | |
| 1958 | A large group of armed Lumbee break up a Ku Klux Klan rally near Maxton. |
| Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. visits North Carolina. He delivers speeches in Raleigh and Greensboro. |
| 1960
North Carolina Census Data |
|
| Total | 4,556,155 |
| Whites | 3,399,285 |
| African Americans | 1,116,021 |
| American Indians | 38,129 |
| Japanese | 1,265 |
| Chinese | 404 |
| Filipinos | 343 |
| Other races | 708 |
| 1960 | Congress passes a Civil Rights Act that establishes penalties for obstructing anyone’s attempt to register to vote or to vote. |
| SNCC forms in Raleigh on the campus of Shaw University. | |
| Four black students from N.C. A&T College stage a peaceful sit-in after they are refused service at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro. The mode of protest used by Ezell Blair, Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Joseph McNeil quickly spreads across the South. | |
| 1961 | CORE sponsors Freedom Rides across the South to enforce the 1955 Interstate Commerce Commission order for integration of interstate public transportation. |
| 1963 | The March on Washington to support civil rights legislation draws some 250,000 people. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. |
| Four young African American girls are killed in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., the site of civil rights mass meetings. Riots follow in the city. | |
| After police arrest Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other ministers demonstrating in Birmingham, Ala., and turn fire hoses and police dogs on the protesters, King pens his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” urging clergy across the country to support the Civil Rights movement. | |
| 1964 | The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlaws the poll tax. |
| Congress passes a Civil Rights Act that outlaws discrimination in employment, public facilities, and education. | |
| COFO, a network of civil rights groups that includes CORE and SNCC, launches a massive effort to register black voters during the “Freedom Summer.” | |
| 1965 | Police attack crowds of men, women, and children as they cross Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on a march toward Montgomery. “Bloody Sunday” inspires a series of protest marches throughout the Southeast. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads a successful march from Selma to Montgomery a few weeks later. |
| Congress passes a Voting Rights Act prohibiting interference in anyone’s right to vote. | |
| Malcolm X, a former minister with the Nation of Islam, a black nationalist, and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is assassinated in Harlem, N.Y. | |
| North Carolina institutes the freedom-of-choice plan, which allows parents to choose the public schools their children attend. | |
| The homes of Charlotte civil rights activists Kelly Alexander, Fred Alexander, Julius Chambers, and Reginald Hawkins are bombed. | |
| The Haliwa receive state recognition as an Indian tribe. | |
| 1965-75 | In the Vietnam War, minorities serve in integrated units. |
| 1966 | The Black Panther Party is founded in Oakland, Calif. |
| 1967 | The Supreme Court overturns a Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage. |
| 1968 | Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. |
| A federal court rules the state’s freedom-of-choice plan unconstitutional. | |
| Congress passes a Civil Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination in the sale or rental of housing. | |
| Henry E. Frye becomes the first African American elected to the N.C. House of Representatives in the twentieth century. | |
| Howard Lee is elected mayor of Chapel Hill, making him the first African American mayor of a predominantly white southern city. | |
| 1968–69 | African American parents and students in Hyde County protest school reassignments with a yearlong boycott of public schools. |
| Cafeteria workers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill go on strike for better wages and opportunities. Black student activists lend their support. | |
| 1969 | The Supreme Court rules that school districts must end racial segregation at once. |
| In Godwin v. Johnston County Board of Education, a federal court declares the Pearsall Plan unconstitutional. | |
| Police and National Guard fire on civil rights demonstrators at N.C. A&T College in Greensboro. One student is killed, and five police officers are injured. | |
| Durham resident Warren Wheeler founds Wheeler Flying Service, becoming the first African American to own a commercial airline. |
| 1970
North Carolina Census Data |
|
| Total | 5,082,059 |
| Whites | 3,901,767 |
| African Americans | 1,126,478 |
| American Indians | 44,406 |
| Japanese | 2,104 |
| Chinese | 1,255 |
| Filipinos | 905 |
| Other races | 5,144 |
| 1970 | The Winston-Salem chapter of the Black Panther Party receives its charter from the national party. The chapter has its beginnings in the East Winston Organization of Black Liberation, a group of African American students advocating community activism to combat police brutality and racial discrimination. Other North Carolina cities also have Black Panther chapters. |
| 1971 | After a federal court in Charlotte orders cross-town busing to achieve integration of the public schools, the Supreme Court upholds the decision in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. |
| A march to save North Carolina’s historically black colleges and universities draws 3,000 students. | |
| The Coharie and Waccamaw-Siouan receive state recognition as Indian tribes. | |
| The General Assembly establishes the N.C. Commission of Indian Affairs with Bruce Jones, a Lumbee, as the first director. | |
| The Lumbee Guaranty Bank in Pembroke is established. It is the first Indian-owned and -operated bank in the nation. | |
| A white-owned grocery store is firebombed during racial violence in Wilmington. Nine African American men and a white woman, known as the Wilmington 10, are convicted of arson and other charges. They have their convictions overturned in 1980. | |
| 1972 | Congress passes the Equal Rights Amendment, and it goes to the states for ratification. Because it is not ratified by the required number of states, it does not become constitutional law. |
| Lumbee Horace Locklear becomes the first American Indian to pass the North Carolina bar exam. | |
| Henry Ward Oxendine, a Lumbee from Robeson County, becomes the first American Indian elected to the General Assembly. | |
| Tuscaroras from Robeson County join other Indians in occupying the Bureau of Indians Affairs building in Washington, D.C., during the Trail of Broken Treaties protest. The Tuscaroras steal 7,200 pounds of records from the building and take them to Robeson County. | |
| Old Main, the oldest brick building at Pembroke State University and a symbol of cultural pride, burns under suspicious circumstances. It is reconstructed in 1979 and eventually houses the Department of American Indian Studies and the Museum of the Native American Resource Center. | |
| 1973 | Clarence Lightner becomes Raleigh’s first African American mayor. He serves until 1975. |
| 1976 | The Waccamaw-Siouan tribe begins governing itself by tribal council and tribal chief. |
| 1977 | The General Assembly repeals the state’s ban on interracial marriage. |
| The General Assembly declines to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. | |
| 1978 | The Supreme Court rules in Bakke v. Regents of the University of California that racial quotas to achieve student body diversity are unconstitutional, but that race can be a factor in university admissions decisions. |
| 1979 | The American Indian Religious Freedom Act guarantees religious freedom to members of Indian tribes, including the right to hold traditional ceremonies. |
| Members of the Communist Party and the Ku Klux Klan clash during an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro. Klan gunfire kills five Communist supporters. A court later clears Klan members of murder charges. |
| 1980
North Carolina Census Data |
|
| Total | 5,881,766 |
| Whites | 4,457,507 |
| African Americans | 1,318,857 |
| American Indians | 64,536 |
| Eskimos | 57 |
| Aleutians | 59 |
| Japanese | 3,186 |
| Chinese | 3,176 |
| Filipinos | 2,542 |
| Koreans | 3,581 |
| Asian Indians | 4,720 |
| Vietnamese | 2,391 |
| Hawaiians | 839 |
| Guamanians | 500 |
| Samoans | 241 |
| Other races | 19,574 |