Content Warning: The source material and this study guide discuss rape and anti-Black racism.

Spurred by the Montgomery bus boycott and the outcome of Brown v. Board of Education, which found “separate but equal” laws unconstitutional, this Supreme Court decision ruled that segregation on public transit is illegal. The Montgomery bus boycott continued until desegregation ordinances were officially implemented.

One of the most important trials in the history of the civil rights movement, Brown v. Board of Education was a Supreme Court case that ruled that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. This overruled the doctrine of “separate but equal” that was established in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, laying the ground for desegregation and the end of Jim Crow.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act was the most impactful civil rights legislation since the end of the Civil War. Supported by John F. Kennedy before his 1963 assassination, the act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson the following year. The law outlawed segregation in businesses as well as public facilities, and it created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce anti-discrimination laws in workplaces.