1954
MARCH:
The Army-McCarthy hearings begin in Congress.
In Brown vs Board of Education, the Supreme Court rules that the education of black children in separate public schools from white counterparts is unconstitutional and must be phased out over time “with deliberate speed.”
AUGUST:
The first issue of Sports Illustrated is published.
Average cost of new house is $10,250.00
Average yearly wages are $4,700.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 22 cents
TV programs include “Father Knows Best” while Marlon Brando stars in two of the most popular movies, “On the Waterfront” and “The Wild One.” Elvis Presley cuts his first commercial album.
1955
APRIL:
The Salk polio vaccine is approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
The first McDonald’s opens in Des Plaines, Illinois.
JULY:
Disneyland opens in Anaheim, California.
Emmett Louis Till, aged 14, is lynched in Mississippi. His mother in Chicago brings national attention and outrage to the crime.
SEPTEMBER:
James Dean in killed in an automobile crash.
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus in Alabama, sparking the Montgomery Boycott. It lasts 381 days until local segregation on public buses is lifted.
Average cost of new house is $10,950.00
Average yearly wages are $4,130.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 23 cents
1956
Autherine Lucy is admitted as first African American student at University of Alabama. Riots follow and she is suspended — allegedly for her own safety — then later expelled for criticizing the university.
A special session of the Virginia legislature adopts a program of “massive resistance” to school desegregation that calls for the closing of all schools under desegregation orders.
SEPTEMBER:
Elvis Presley appears on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”
NOVEMBER:
Dwight Eisenhower is elected to a second term as President.
Average cost of new house is $11,700.00
Average yearly wages are $4,450.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 22 cents
1 in 3 high school graduates are now going to college.
Disposable diapers and Tefal non-stick frying pans go on sale.
1957
Martin Luther King Jr., Charles K. Steel and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize a civil rights movement based on principles of nonviolence and civil disobedience.
AUGUST:
“American Bandstand” is nationally broadcast on ABC-TV.
Nine black students in Little Rock, Arkansas are blocked from entering Central High School. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of students, who became know as the “Little Rock Nine.”
OCTOBER:
The US sustains its first combat fatality in Vietnam.
Toyota begins exporting cars to the US.
DECEMBER:
“The Music Man” debuts on Broadway.
Average cost of a new house is $12,220
Average yearly wages are $4,550.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 24 cents
1958
JANUARY:
Fidel Castro’s rebels capture Havana.
MARCH:
Elvis Presley is inducted into the US Army.
JULY:
Congress creates NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
A march for integrated schools is held in Washington, DC and attended by more than 10,000.
Average cost of a new house is $12,750
Average yearly wages are $4,600.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 25 cents
1959
JANUARY:
Alaska becomes 49th State .
FEBRUARY:
“The Day the Music Died.” Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper die in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa.
MARCH:
The Barbie Doll is introduced.
Mack Charles Parker, an African American, is lynched by a white mob in Mississippi. Despite FBI investigations and several confessions, no one is indicted.The second march in Washington, DC for integrated schools is attended by 26,000. It is said that President Eisenhower is “just as anxious as they are to see an America where discrimination does not exist, where equality of opportunity is available to all.’’ (Report on the Youth March on Washington, 18 April 1959).
NASA announces America’s first astronauts, the “Mercury Seven.”
AUGUST:
Hawaii becomes the 50th state.
OCTOBER:
Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone” premieres on CBS.
Average cost of new house is $12,400.00
Average yearly wages are $5,010.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 25 cents
1960
Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina.
MARCH:
Elvis Presley returns home from military service Germany. The United States announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
JUNE:
Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” is released.
JULY:
To Kill a Mockingbird is published.
NOVEMBER:
John F. Kennedy is elected President.
The US Supreme Court rules that Louisiana’s segregation laws are unconstitutional and in Boynton v. Virginia, the Court declares segregation on public transit to be illegal.
Average cost of new house is $12,700.00
Average yearly wages is $5,315.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 25 cents
1961
APRIL
The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins and ends in failure on April 19.
The Freedom Riders begin taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations.
Astronaut Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.
OCTOBER:
Roger Maris of the New York Yankees hits his 61st home run, beating Babe Ruth’s 34-year-old record.
DECEMBER:
The Vietnam War officially begins as American helicopters and 400 personnel arrive in Saigon.
Average cost of house is $12,500
Average yearly wage is $5,315.00
Cost of gallon of gas is 27 cents
1962
FEBRUARY:
John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth
MARCH:
Bob Dylan releases his debut album, “Bob Dylan”.
JULY:
The first Wal-Mart store opens in Rogers, Arkansas.
AUGUST:
Marilyn Monroe dies at age 36.
James Meredith, accompanied by Federal Marshals, becomes the first black student to register at the University of Mississippi. The violence and riots that follow prompt President Kennedy to send 5,000 Federal troops.
The Cuban Missile Crisis begins, threatening nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that he has ordered the removal of Soviet missile bases in Cuba.
Average cost of a house is $12,500
Average yearly wages is $5,556.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 28 cents
1963
George C. Wallace becomes governor of Alabama and proclaims, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever!”
FEBRUARY:
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is published.
Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Birmingham, Alabama for “parading without a permit”. He issues his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
Birmingham, Alabama Public Safety Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor unleashes fire hoses and police dogs on Civil Rights demonstrators.
Coca-Cola introduces its first diet drink – TAB.
Alabama Governor George C. Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama to protest the enrollment of African American students James Hood and Vivian Malone.Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
JULY:
ZIP codes are introduced.
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington attended by 200,000 students.James Meredith becomes the first black student to graduate from the University of Mississippi.
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is bombed, killing four young girls.
Sam Cooke and his band were arrested in Louisiana for trying to register at a “whites only” motel. Soon after, he records “A Change Is Gonna Come”.
NOVEMBER:
John F. Kennedy is assassinated.
Average cost of house is $12,650
Average yearly wage is $5,807.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 29 cents
1964
JANUARY:
The United States Surgeon General reports that smoking may be hazardous to your health.
FEBRUARY:
The Beatles appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show”.
Three Civil Rights workers, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney, are murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, abolishing racial segregation in the United States.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
NOVEMBER:
Lyndon B. Johnson is reelected President of the United States.
Average cost of new house is $13,050.00
Average yearly wage is $6,000.00
Cost of a gallon of gas is 30 cents
Credits: Events on the above time-line were researched on-line at several sites including :
The Library of America ‘Reporting Civil Rights 1941-1973
ReportingCivilRights.loa.org
www.PeopleHistory.com