Civil Rights Movement

Stories 1 - 20 |  Next >>

Bernard LaFayette Laid Groundwork for Selma
Bernard LaFayette Laid
Groundwork for Selma
obituary
Mar 5, 2026 7:06 PM CST

Bernard LaFayette Laid Groundwork for Selma

Civil rights organizer was 'a global prophet of nonviolence,' Andrew Young said

(Newser) - Bernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died. He was 85. His son, Bernard LaFayette III, said the civil rights activist died Thursday of a heart...

She Helped Launch the Civil Rights Movement at Age 15

Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up bus seat at start of civil rights movement, dies at 86

(Newser) - Claudette Colvin, whose 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus helped spark the modern civil rights movement, has died. She was 86. Her death was announced Tuesday by the Claudette Colvin Legacy Foundation. Ashley D. Roseboro of the organization confirmed she died of...

Trump Team Nixes Slavery, Suffrage Anniversary Quarters

Instead, coins for America's 250th birthday to show Founding Fathers, may also include $1 Trump coin

(Newser) - A planned set of quarters marking America's 250th birthday will look different than originally envisioned. An earlier proposal to spotlight the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, and the Civil Rights Movement has been shelved by the Trump administration in favor of designs centered on the Mayflower Compact, the...

Unseen Photos of Rosa Parks Discovered

Exhibition of Selma to Montgomery photos led to an emotional reunion

(Newser) - Seven decades after Rosa Parks was thrust indelibly into American history for refusing to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, new photos of the Civil Rights Movement icon have been made public for the first time, and they illustrate aspects of her legacy that are often overlooked. The...

'Sacred' Site for Emmett Till to Open, Thanks to a Big Name

Shonda Rhimes donates $1.5M to help turn Miss. barn where teen was murdered in 1955 into a tribute

(Newser) - The barn in Mississippi where 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and killed will open to the public as a "sacred" memorial site by 2030, the new owner announced. The Emmett Till Interpretive Center disclosed late Sunday that it had purchased the barn located in a rural area outside the...

Mississippi Museum Puts Gun in Emmett Till Case on Display

'I've never had an artifact affect me quite like this," says museum official

(Newser) - Seventy years after a murder that helped spark the civil rights movement, the gun believed to have killed Emmett Till is going on public display. The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson has acquired the .45-caliber pistol thought to have been used in the 1955 killing, reports NPR . The...

Malcolm X's Daughters File $100M Suit Over Assassination

Civil rights leader's family says DOJ, CIA, FBI, NYPD all knew of 1965 death plot and did nothing

(Newser) - Three of Malcolm X's daughters have filed a $100 million suit against some of the nation's top law enforcement and intelligence agencies, alleging those groups knew of threats against their father's life and did nothing to stop his assassination at age 39. Per the AP , the complaint...

Teacher's Video on Target Item Goes Viral: 'Need to Be Pulled'

Issa Tete says pictures of 3 civil rights icons were mislabeled in Black History Month activity book

(Newser) - It wouldn't be Black History Month without cringeworthy gaffes regarding Black History Month. The latest misstep comes courtesy of an item sold in Target, which has now been pulled off shelves after a customer complaint went viral. NPR reports that Issa Tete, a high school history teacher, decided to...

Emmett Till Takes His Place in Greenwood
City Unveils
Emmett Till
Statue
Oct 22, 2022 3:00 PM CDT

City Unveils Emmett Till Statue

Applause, tears greet tribute to 1955 Mississippi lynching victim

(Newser) - Hundreds of people applauded—and some wiped away tears—as a Mississippi community unveiled a larger-than-life statue of Emmett Till on Friday, not far from where white men kidnapped and killed the Black teenager over accusations he had flirted with a white woman in a country store. "Change has...

FBI Spied on Aretha Franklin for Years, 270-Page File Shows
FBI Spied on Aretha Franklin
Oct 12, 2022 4:24 PM CDT

FBI Spied on Aretha Franklin

During civil rights movement, agency looked for connections to Black Panthers

(Newser) - Spying on the leaders and organizers of the civil rights movement was a regular FBI practice, but a recently released file shows the extent of the surveillance of Black entertainers, including singer Aretha Franklin. Comedian Dick Gregory and singer Harry Belafonte were being monitored as well, the New York Times...

She Wouldn't Give Up Her Seat. 65 Years Later, a Clean Record

Claudette Colvin, 82, has arrest wiped for making move as a teen that Rosa Parks did months later

(Newser) - Update: A judge in Montgomery, Ala., has finally granted an elderly great-grandmother her wish to have an arrest from her teen years scrubbed from her record. "I'm no longer a juvenile delinquent at 82," Claudette Colvin said Thursday on CBS Mornings . "My record was expunged."...

Activist, Algebra Project Founder Robert Moses Dies
Civil Rights Icon Who
Taught Math, Too, Dies
OBITUARY
Jul 25, 2021 5:54 PM CDT

Civil Rights Icon Who Taught Math, Too, Dies

Robert Parris Moses was 86

(Newser) - Robert Parris Moses, a civil rights activist who was shot at and endured beatings and jail while leading Black voter registration drives in the American South during the 1960s and later helped improve minority education in math, has died. He was 86, per the AP . Moses, who was widely referred...

Files Open to Public on Civil Rights Workers' Slayings

Victims were in Mississippi to look into church fire and register voters

(Newser) - Never-before-seen case files, photographs, and other records documenting the investigation into the infamous slayings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi are now open to the public for the first time, 57 years after their deaths. The 1964 killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Neshoba County...

Jimmy Allen Ruth Drove Freedom Riders to Jackson
Jimmy Allen Ruth
Delivered Freedom Riders
obituary
Jun 5, 2021 3:35 PM CDT

Jimmy Allen Ruth Delivered Freedom Riders

Bus driver knew the risk he was taking, family says

(Newser) - Jimmy Allen Ruth had just started driving for Trailways in 1961 when a group of Freedom Riders wanted a bus to take them from Nashville to Jackson, Mississippi. Every driver turned the assignment down but the 23-year-old Ruth, who was white. "He agreed to drive the students and never...

Rosa Parks' Story Wasn't So Simple
Rosa Parks'
Story Wasn't
So Simple
OPINION
Feb 2, 2021 4:52 PM CST

Rosa Parks' Story Wasn't So Simple

Bus arrest was part of a long struggle for civil rights

(Newser) - The Rosa Parks of textbooks—a tired Alabama bus passenger whose small, solitary act of defiance helped ignite the civil rights movement—leaves a lot out. The distorted fable misleads us at a time when the real story could help the nation understand its history and find a way past...

Mom Walked Her Daughter to School—and Into History

Lucille Bridges, 'a Mother of the Civil Rights Movement,' dies at 86

(Newser) - Lucille Bridges, the mother of civil rights activist Ruby Bridges, who walked with her then-6-year-old daughter past crowds screaming racist slurs as she became the first Black student at her all-white New Orleans elementary school, has died at the age of 86, per the AP . "Today our country lost...

Governor Apologizes to Woman Who Survived '63 Church Bomb

Ivey agrees to talks on compensation over attack at Birmingham church

(Newser) - The governor of Alabama has extended an apology and a promise to meet with attorneys of a survivor of the Ku Klux Klan's 1963 bombing of a church in Birmingham. Sarah Collins Rudolph, who was blinded in one eye in the attack, is seeking compensation from the state; her...

Fellow Icons Honor CT Vivian for His Courage and Humility

Civil rights pioneer was 'a giant for justice,' Oprah Winfrey says

(Newser) - The nation paid its final respects Thursday to the Rev. CT Vivian, a pioneer of the civil rights movement who helped end segregation across the South and left an abiding imprint on US history. Vivian, a close ally of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., was mourned by civil rights...

Remembering John Lewis: 'We Have Lost a Giant'

Tributes pour in from Obama, MLK Jr.'s family, and more

(Newser) - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has ordered flags at the US Capitol to be flown at half-staff in honor of Rep. John Lewis, who died Friday at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Tributes and statements are now pouring in for the civil rights legend and longtime...

'Titan of Civil Rights Movement' John Lewis Dead at 80
The 'Conscience of
Congress' Has Died 
OBITUARY
Jul 18, 2020 5:28 AM CDT

The 'Conscience of Congress' Has Died

Congressman John Lewis, a giant in the civil rights movement, is gone at age 80 after cancer battle

(Newser) - John Lewis, the son of Alabama sharecroppers who became a giant in the civil rights movement, was arrested dozens of times in his fight for racial and social justice, and served 33 years in Congress, has died at the age of 80. The AP reports that Lewis' death was confirmed...

Stories 1 - 20 |  Next >>
Most Read on Newser