From 2013 to 2015, we will have the opportunity to observe the 50th anniversaries of four of our nation’s seminal civil rights tipping points. Join us in celebrating, educating, and taking action for civil rights!

Kickoff the Campaign

The three-year campaign will kick off with celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington on Wednesday, August 28, 2013. Our event will feature a collaboration with Marcus Shelby Jazz Organization, Zaccho Dance Theatre, and the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre. Read more about the kickoff on our calendar.

Get Involved

We will be sharing information for local Leagues and our members in the coming months. Anticipate a fun educational campaign (reading lists for book clubs and discussion groups, social media information you can share, regional events, webinars, and more) which you can benefit from and help promote! You can also learn more about getting involved:

• The Civil Rights at 50 Campaign Site
• The Civil Rights at 50 Facebook Page
  

Four Important Anniversaries in Civil Rights

1. Aug. 28, 2013: 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington - About 200,000 people join the march and congregate at the Lincoln Memorial to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Medgar Evers is assassinated and four young Black girls are killed in a bomb attack in Birmingham the same year. President Kennedy is assassinated in November 1963.
2. July 2, 2014: 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation. Earlier in 1964, the 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax, originally instituted in 11 southern states to make it difficult for blacks to vote.
3. Aug. 10, 2015: 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 - This Act made it easier for Southern Blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal. This same year, Malcolm X is assassinated, the Selma to Montgomery marches take place, the Watts riots erupt in Los Angeles, and President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces affirmative action for the first time.
4. Oct. 3, 2015: 50th Anniversary of the Immigration & Nationality Act of 1965 - The act marked a radical break from the immigration policies of the past. The law as it stood then excluded Asians and Africans and preferred northern and western Europeans over southern and eastern ones. At the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s the law was seen as an embarrassment by, among others, President John F. Kennedy, who called the then-quota-system “nearly intolerable.” After Kennedy’s assassination, President Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the foot of the Statue of Liberty as a symbolic gesture.