1960s Timeline

Latest Podcasts

Oct 20, 2021

Racial Turmoil in McComb, Mississippi

Oct. 20, 1961 - A Negro student revolt has pushed the city of McComb, a segregationist stronghold in southwestern Mississippi, to the...

Oct 20, 2021

Martin Luther King Will Not Appear in Preminger Film

Oct. 20, 1961 - The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said today that he would not portray a Georgia senator in the film version of the novel...

Oct 17, 2021

Five NBA Players, Denied Meal Service at Kentucky Hotel, Sit Out Exhibition Game

Oct. 17, 1961 - Bill Russell (right) and four other Negro players on the Boston Celtics and two on the St. Louis Hawks left Lexington,...

Oct 17, 2021

Alabama Klansman Sentenced for Flogging White Couple

Oct. 17, 1961 - In Talladega, Alabama today, a Ku Klux Klansman was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for dragging a white man and...

Oct 16, 2021

Three Major Railroads End Segregation in Station Facilities

Oct. 16, 1961 - Three major railroads serving the South — the Illinois Central, the Southern, and the Louisville & Nashville — have...

Oct 11, 2021

Jazz Great Dizzy Gillespie Alleges Racial Discrimination in Kansas City

Oct. 11, 1961 - Dizzy Gillespie (pictured), the jazz trumpeter, charged today that he had been denied access to a swimming pool in a...

Oct 7, 2021

Gillespie Performance in New Orleans Canceled Over Racial Prohibition

Oct. 7, 1961 - A concert by Dizzy Gillespie (left) and his band at Tulane University in New Orleans on Tuesday has been canceled because...

Oct 6, 2021

President Kennedy Hails School Desegregation in South

Oct. 6, 1961 - President Kennedy today hailed the progress in desegregating schools in Memphis, New Orleans, and elsewhere. He said that...

Oct 5, 2021

MLK: “Reign of Terror” Being Waged on Mississippi Negroes

Oct. 5, 1961 - The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. charged today that "an apparent reign of terror" was being waged against Negroes taking...

Oct 3, 2021

Memphis Schools Desegregated

Oct. 3, 1961 - A century of segregation ended in Memphis, Tenn., today when 13 Negro first-graders were admitted to white schools. Police...