Voices of History
Significant events of 1960-1969

1961 : Testing desegregation practices in the South, the CORE-sponsored Freedom Rides encounter overwhelming violence, particularly in Alabama, leading to federal intervention.

1961 : Whitney Young is appointed executive director of the National Urban League. He builds a reputation for his behind-the-scenes work to bridge the gap between white political and business leaders and poor blacks.

1962 : The New Yorker magazine publishes a long article by author James Baldwin on aspects of the civil-rights struggle. The article becomes a best-seller in the book, The Fire Next Time.

1963 : The Civil Rights Movement reaches its climax with a massive march on Washington, D.C. The march "for jobs and freedom" also demanded passage of the Civil Rights Act.

1963 : Medgar Evers, the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary, is shot and killed in an ambush in front of his home, after a historic broadcast about civil rights by President John F. Kennedy.

1963 : Birmingham Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor uses water hoses and dogs against civil-rights protesters, many of whom are children, increasing pressure on President Kennedy to act.

1964 : The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. writes "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" to eight clergymen who attacked his role in Birmingham. Widely reprinted, it becomes a classic of protest literature.

1963 : President Kennedy is assassinated in Texas. Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as president.

1963 : Sidney Poitier wins the Academy Award as best actor for his performance in Lilies of the Field. In 1967, he stars in two films concerning race relations, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night.

1964 : Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam and forms his own religious organization. His pilgrimage to Mecca modifies his views on black separatism.

1964 : LeRoi Jones' off-Broadway play Dutchman wins critical acclaim and exposes the suppressed anger and hostility of American blacks toward the dominant white culture.

1964 : President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, giving federal law enforcement agencies the power to prevent racial discrimination in employment, voting and the use of public facilities.

1964 : The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway.

1964 : U.S. begins bombing in Vietnam. U.S. forces peak at 543,400 in 1969.

1965 : The Voting Rights Act is passed following the Selma-to-Montgomery March, which garnered the nation's attention when state troopers beat marchers mercilessly. Watts explodes into violence following the arrest of a young male motorist charged with reckless driving. The riot left 34 dead, 1,032 injured and 3,952 arrested.

1965 : Malcolm X is assassinated.

1966 : The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is founded in Oakland, Calif., by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, with the original purpose of protecting residents from police brutality. Charting a new course for the Civil Rights Movement, Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the SCLC, chooses to use the phrase "black power" at a rally during the James Meredith March that summer in Mississippi.

1966 : Bill Russell becomes the first black coach of a National Basketball Association team (the Boston Celtics) in the U.S.

1966 : The Kwanzaa holiday, patterned after various African harvest festivals, is created by Maulana Karenga.

1967 : Civil rights activist Julian Bond is finally sworn in after being denied the seat he won in the Georgia state legislature (after being duly elected) for opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

1967 : Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the armed forces. Convicted of violating the Selective Service Act, Ali is barred from the ring and stripped of title.

1967 : Thurgood Marshall is sworn in as the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice.

1967 : Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, is convicted on a charge of manslaughter in the death of an Oakland policeman, leading to the rapid expansion of the party nationwide.

1968 : Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panther Party's minister of information, publishes his autobiographical volume, Soul on Ice .

1968 : The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis. A week of rioting follows in at least 125 U.S. cities, including Washington, D.C. Ralph Abernathy succeeds King as president of the SCLC, carrying out the SCLC's Poor People's Campaign.

1968 : After winning the gold medal, sprinter Tommie Smith and teammate John Carlos give a black-power salute during the awards ceremony, prompting their suspension by the U.S. Olympic Committee.

1968 : Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. Richard Nixon is elected president.

1969 : Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale is ordered bound and gagged by the judge in the Chicago "conspiracy trial" after protests by Seale that he was being denied his constitutional right to counsel.

- Compiled by Charlotte Jones