Our friend Emmett Till was a boy from Chicago, Illinois. One day, on his way to visit relatives, a white woman named Carolyn Bryant said Emmett was being rude to her at her family's grocery shop. Back then, African American boys were not allowed to talk to white women, so Emmet got into a lot of trouble. Carolyn called her husband, and he lynched Emmett. He was found in a river three days later, but he was already dead. His mother, our friend Mamie Till Bradley, held a funeral service with an open casket. This was to show everyone what it was like living as an African American.

At Little Rock Central High School, nine of our friends were enrolled in a white school in Little Rock, Alabama. The Little Rock Nine, as they were called, were supposed to start on September 4th, 1957. Governor Orval Faubus made an effort to keep them out of the school. He called the Arkansas National Guard to keep the Little Rock Nine out. But President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent federal troops to finally let our nine friends into the school!

In Greensboro, North Carolina, 1960, four of our friends decided to peacefully protest at a Woolworth Store. They sat at the counter until they received service from the employees, who did not serve them at first. When the four students got everyone's attentions, the Woolworth Store's employees would have to serve them. Our friends, the Greensboro Four, started a movement called "peaceful protest" and inspired people like Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 1961, a group called Freedom Riders decided to peacefully protest public transit. Because buses were segregated, our friends, both white and black, sat together to show unity. The buses were interstate buses, so they travelled from the North to the South. When the Freedom Riders got to the South, many bad peoples wanted to hurt them. The mean southerners included the Klu Klux Klan, a group of white Americans that didn't want African Americans to have rights.

On October 1st, 1962, the University of Mississippi accepted its first black student, our friend James Meredith. But after the racist school found out James was a colored man, they did not want him to attend. He took the case to court and the Constitution ruled it as discrimination. When he first showed up to the school, it was blocked by riots and protests. Our friend James persisted, and graduated to become a politician!

The March on Washington took place on August 28th, 1963. Our friend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous dream starting with "I have a dream". About 250,000 people listened as he spoke about inequality and racism. Before the march, President John F. Kennedy met with civil rights leaders like Martin and asked them to cancel the event. But they carried on and made sure to make a statement about the treatment of African Americans in the United States.