The Civil Rights Movement In the 1950s

The Civil Rights Movement can often seem synonymous with the 1960s, especially as many iconic photographs from that decade became enduring symbols. Yet the previous decade was also a fascinating time.

While the Civil Rights Movement may not have been at center of American life in the 1950s, great strides were being made. The cause of a Kansas third-grader forced to attended a segregated school made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the landmark desegregation case Brown vs. Board of Education.

In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in December 1955, and her dedication led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. In Little Rock, Arkansas, federal troops were dispatched in 1957 to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock Central High.

A timeline of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s illustrates the profound changes that were occurring as the stage was being set for the 1960s.

Photograph: Attorney and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, at a 1955 press conference discussing Civil Rights cases/Getty Images