4, Dec. 1952, pp. In 1959, he becomes the first Black American to reach major general status. For . This policy is what drew American forces into the Korean War in July 1950. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/african-american-history-timeline-1950-1959-45442. Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson died in a plane crash over Clear Lake, Iowa, in what became known as The Day The Music Diedan event immortalized in Don McLeans 1972 song American Pie.. "History - Brown v. Board of Education Re-enactment." Malcolm X preaches Black nationalist beliefs and becomes a civil rights icon in New York. From the 1950s through the 1970s, movements for civil and social rights, equality, and justice swept the United States. Sinclair, Dean. Between 1945 and 1960, the gross national product more than doubled, growing from $200 billion to more than $500 billion, kicking off the Golden Age of American Capitalism. Much of this increase came from government spending: The construction of interstate highways and schools, the distribution of veterans benefits and most of all the increase in military spendingon goods like airplanes and new technologies like computersall contributed to the decades economic growth. Schweikart, Larry. Freeman is inducted into the National Bar Association's Hall of Fame in 1990 and she receives the 2011 NAACP Spingarn Medal., May 18: Harry Belafontes album "Calypso" is released. The Great Migration of blacks to Chicago from the 1920s through the 1950s ushered in a major period of transformation for the city. Ellison cites George Bernard Shaw, T. S. Eliot, and O. O. McIntyre as influences that spurred his interest in writing and he draws on many personal experiences to write the narrator for his acclaimed novel. 2011. This documentary is called "The Hate That Hate Produced." Another shows Panthers Communications Secretary Kathleen Cleaver, wife of author Eldridge Cleaver, talking to the prosecution. Members of this community try to keep the family from moving in, which creates tension throughout the play. In the 1950s, as new suburbs prospered and spread across postwar America, cities suffered. The less than 2 percent of Chicago's 1890 population who were African American also worked primarily in domestic and personal service jobs. The Abstract Expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning signaled a new age in art, paving the way for the Pop Art of artists like Andy Warhol in the 1960s. Sardis Baptist Church is the site of the first meeting, which draws a crowd of about 1,000 participants. A growing group of Americans spoke out against inequality and injustice during the 1950s. Then, on May 31, 1955, a year after the case is resolved, the dourt rules that all public schools must proceed with desegregating immediately. in Chicago's African-American community from the 1930s through the 1950s, the Chicago Black Renaissance yielded such acclaimed writers and poets as Richard Wright (1908-1960) and Gwendolyn . (In her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, womens rights advocate Betty Friedan argued that the suburbs were burying women alive.) This dissatisfaction, in turn, contributed to the rebirth of the feminist movement in the 1960s. The British Journal of Sociology, vol. Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brooks: Gwendolyn Brooks receives the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. A year after he is hired, he works with CBS News' Mike Wallace to produce a documentary series about Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X. Malcolm X only agrees to be interviewed by a Black journalist. "Executive Order 10730: Desegregation of Central High School (1957)." December 20: The Montgomery bus boycott ends. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater dancers perform Revelations. Popular Music, vol. Many people in the United States worried that communists, or subversives, could destroy American society from the inside as well as from the outside. v. the St. Louis Housing Authority trial. During the initial wave the majority of migrants moved to major northern cities such as Chicago, Illiniois, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York, New York. She is awarded the Citizens Medal Award for distinguished service in 1989 from President Ronald Reagan, the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004, and over 20 honorary degrees from various colleges and universities. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city's first black community in the 1840s, with the population nearing 1,000 by 1860. The Little Rock Nine students are Minniejean Brown-Trickey, Ernest Green, Carlotta Walls, Elizabeth Eckford, Melba Patillo, Terrence Roberts, Thelma Mothershed, Gloria Ray, and Jefferson Thomas. On June 24, the bus company and city agree to Ordinance 251, a measure that gives Black riders the right to occupy any bus seat except for those in the first two rows, which are reserved for White riders, and Jemison calls for an end to the boycott and the free-ride system on June 25. Some reports suggest that Till committed suicide when he "offended" Carolyn Bryant. "About Us: A History of Masjid Malcolm Shabazz." Till's cousins Simeon Wright and Wheeler Parker witness this. (2023, April 5). They both die within the week. ThoughtCo. This is the first legislative act protecting the rights of Black people since the Reconstruction period. During the boycott, Dr. King is tried and convicted for violating Alabama anti-boycott legislation., December 27: Frankie Muse Freeman becomes the first Black woman to win a major civil rights case after serving as the lead attorney for the NAACP in the Davis et al. Participants in the boycott are mostly satisfied, but many are still frustrated that the buses are segregated. His music ushers in a new era of jazz in which musicians improvise based on scales rather than chords, allowing for greater variation and more melodic interpretations. Freeman becomes the first woman to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights when President Lyndon Johnson appoints her in 1964. The FBI, directed by J. Edgar Hoover, investigates the assassination, but no one is ever convicted of the murder. The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America. She wants the crime made as public as possible. They then take him by force out of his cell and lynch him near Poplarville, Mississippi, throwing his chained body into the Pearl River. Other works by Wells include "Shadow and Act," a collection of essays about Black culture and race relations, and "Juneteenth," a book about the nuances of Black identity, published in 1999 posthumously by his executor, John Callahan., University of Southern California / Getty Images. 110. May 18: James Baldwin publishes his first novel, "Go Tell It on the Mountain." "An Interview With Ralph Ellison." Mayor Jesse Webb approves this resolution, Ordinance 222, on March 11, 1953. Middle-class people had more money to spend than everand, because the variety and availability of consumer goods expanded along with the economy, they also had more things to buy. This accomplishment is significant because the song's success signals a degree of acceptance of Black musicspecifically in the case of "Calypso," Caribbean and Black folk music. White-collar and professional sector jobs began to open up for African Americans, as shown by the photograph of commercial artist Berry Weeks . Other titles by Brooks include "Maud Martha," "The Bean Eaters," and "In the Mecca," and she publishes more than 17 collections in her lifetime. The ACMHR drafts a declaration vowing to continue fighting for Black rights and for the "removal from our society any forms of Second Class Citizenship." July 11: An estimated 4,000 White people riot in Cicero, Chicago, when news of the community's first Black familyHarvey Jr. and Johnetta Clark and their two childrenmoving into an apartment in the neighborhood spreads. In 1956, more than 100 Southern congressmen even signed a Southern Manifesto declaring that they would do all they could to defend segregation. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. A statue is erected in his honor at his alma mater, Valley High School, and he is inducted into the Westmoreland County Sports Hall of Fame in 1979.. The woman shown standing outside her apartment was just one of many people affected. Later that year, anger and desperation fueled by years of discriminatory practices and police brutality exploded into violence in the Los Angeles African American neighborhood of Watts. In fact, the booms of the 1950s had a particularly confining effect on many American women. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. They withdrew their children from public schools and enrolled them in all-white segregation academies, and they used violence and intimidation to prevent blacks from asserting their rights. However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict. As the 20th century began, southern states succeeded in passing new constitutions and laws that disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites. In Alabama in 1961, Freedom Riders protesting segregated transportation adopt the tune of "Calypso" but change the lyrics and sing "Freedom's Coming and It Won't Be Long" in their jail cells., June 5: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) is established in Birmingham by local Black activists five days after the NAACP is banned in Alabama by Attorney General John Patterson. African Americans Certificates of Freedom, 1844 Beginning with John Baptiste Point DuSable's trading activities in the 1780s, blacks have had a long history in Chicago. Although African Americans were regularly denied regular jobs in factories, they were frequently hired to break strikes, as employers manipulated racial hostilities to stymie worker demands . In all, by the time the boom finally tapered off in 1964, there were almost 77 million baby boomers.. Motown Records is the first Black-owned record label. The G.I. 3, summer 1998, pp. "Berry Gordy Jr. and the Original 'Black Label.'" Fred Shuttlesworth, a local reverend, is appointed president. African Americans had been fighting against racial discrimination for centuries; during the 1950s, however, the struggle against racism and segregation entered the mainstream of American life. Throughout the novel, readers take in the effects of racial prejudice on Black Americans through a story that is as much social commentary as it is fiction. The text of this exhibition is available under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. Till's murder is widely covered in the media, especially by the popular Black-owned Jet, which publishes an image of Till from his funeral. Masjid Malcolm Shabazz. National Museum of African American History & Culture. November 1: Johnson Publishing Company prints its first issue of Jet. 24, no. Almost as soon as World War II ended, developers such as William Levitt (whose Levittowns in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania would become the most famous symbols of suburban life in the 1950s) began to buy land on the outskirts of cities and use mass production techniques to build modest, inexpensive tract houses there. As the movement gained ground, however, it created a backlash of racism in many parts of the country, including California. He hosts famous Black artists like Ella Fitzgerald, Mahalia Jackson, and Pearl Bailey. 1, winter 1988, pp. This comes to be known as the Montgomery bus boycott, and it begins on December 5, 1955, and ends on December 20, 1956. Other Supreme Court cases that made Brown v. Board of Education possible include Murray v. Maryland in 1936 and Sweat v. Painter in 1950. 7399, when he is found guilty of violating anti-boycott legislation during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After King's death the urgency for a different kind of protest emerged. After whistling at her and perhaps making a joke, he is accused of harassing her. All articles are regularly reviewed and updated by the HISTORY.com team. Meetings organized to spread the word about the boycott draw thousands of attendees.