Guest Editorials Martin Luther King, Jr. By Gordon Martin

Time line: U.S. Supreme Court decision that the “separate but equal” doctrine is unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. Emmett Till a 14-year old black boy from Chicago,  brutally murdered and mutilated in Mississippi draws national attention and greater recognition for “the Negro cause.”        U.S. Supreme Court rules Montgomery bus segregation unconstitutional; the bus boycott ends after 381 days. President Dwight Eisenhower provides the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division in protection of black students integrating the Little Rock (Arkansas) Central High School. Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC) is formed.   Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes its first president. Black college students stage lunch counter sit-ins at the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth’s. Civil Rights Act of 1960 signed into law. Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed of black and white college students test segregated buses in the Freedom Rides. Further racist violence against them creates more national support for civil rights. President John F. Kennedy federalizes Mississippi National Guard to secure the admission of James Meredith to the University of Mississippi Massive Civil Rights Demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, and the response of the white power structure—the use of fire hoses and police dogs—are seen for the first time on national television. The Montgomery Bus Boycott begins and 89 people are indicted for boycotting city buses including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr..   Source:  The Henry Ford