BOSTON — As a Black teenager growing up in Boston, Wayne Lucas vividly remembers joining about 20,000 people to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speak out against the city's segregated school system and the entrenched poverty in poor communities.
Sixty years on, Lucas was back on the Boston Common on Saturday to celebrate the anniversary of what became known as the 1965 Freedom Rally.
Wayne Lucas, who sixty years ago participated at the Freedom Rally on Boston Common, poses at the "The Embrace" sculpture on the common, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
He joined others in calling for continued activism against many of the same injustices and inequities that King fought against, and in criticizing PresidentÌýÌýand his administration for current divisions and fears about race and immigration across the country.
“The message wasÌý… that we still have work to do,†said Lucas, 75. “It was a lot of inspiration by every speaker out there.â€
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The gathering drew several hundred people on a rainy and windy day, conditions similar to those during the 1965 event. It was preceded by a march by a smaller group of people, mostly along the route taken to the Boston Common 60 years earlier. Up to 125 different organizations took part.
Doreen Wade from Cambridge raises her fist in the air at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common on Saturday, April 26, 2025, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Rally on Boston Common which featured Martin Luther King Jr. She was six years old when she marched with her family in 1965. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via AP)
Rally-goers urge activism
King's son, Martin Luther King III, gave a keynote speech, saying he never thought racism would still be around and on the rise like it is today.
“We must quadruple our efforts to create a more just and humane society,†he told the crowd. “We used to exhibit humanity and civility, but we have chosen temporarily to allow civility to be moved aside. And that is not sustainable, my friends.â€
He added, “Today, we’ve got to find a way to move forward, when everything appears to be being dismantled, it seems to be attempting to break things up. Now, you do have to retreat sometimes. But dad showed us how to stay on the battlefield, and mom, throughout their lives. They showed us how to build community.â€
The gathering was near the site of a 20-foot-tall memorial to racial equity, which shows Martin Luther King Jr. embracing his wife, Coretta Scott King.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the work of 1960s civil rights leaders remains unfinished, with too many people still experiencing racism, poverty and injustice.
“We are living through perilous times,†she said. "Across the country, we are witnessingÌý… a dangerous resurgence of white supremacy, of state-sanctioned violence, of economic exploitation, of authoritarian rhetoric."
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is completely surrounded as he leads a civil rights march in Boston, April 23, 1965, en route to historic Boston Common where he will address a crowd. (AP Photo, file)
1965 protest brings civil rights movement to the Northeast
FILE - Civil rights marchers parade down Columbus Ave. in Boston led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., en route to historic Boston Common, April 25, 1965. (AP Photo, file)
The original protest rally in 1965 brought the civil rights movement to the Northeast, a place Martin Luther King Jr. knew well from his time earning a doctorate in theology from Boston University and serving as assistant minister at the city’s Twelfth Baptist Church. It was also the place where he met his wife, who earned a degree in music education from the New England Conservatory.
In his speech, King told the crowd that he returned to Boston not to condemn the city but to encourage its leaders to do better at a time when Black leaders were fighting to desegregate the schools and housing and working to improve economic opportunities for Black residents. King also implored Boston to become a leader that other cities like New York and Chicago could follow in conducting “the creative experiments in the abolition of ghettos.â€
“It would be demagogic and dishonest for me to say that Boston is a Birmingham, or to equate Massachusetts with Mississippi,†he said. “But it would be morally irresponsible were I to remain blind to the threat to liberty, the denial of opportunity, and the crippling poverty that we face in some sections of this community.â€
The Boston rally happened after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and months ahead of the enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed in August.
King and other civil rights movement leaders had just come off the Selma to Montgomery march in Alabama, also referred to as Bloody Sunday, weeks before the Boston rally. The civil rights icon also was successful in the 1963 Birmingham campaign prompting the end of legalized racial segregation in the Alabama city, and eventually throughout the nation.
A woman holds a sign as hundreds of people hold a rally at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common on Saturday, April 26, 2025, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Rally on Boston Common which featured Martin Luther King Jr. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via AP)
DEI comes under threat by Trump administration
Saturday's rally came as the Trump administration is waging war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in government, schools and businesses around the country, including in Massachusetts.
Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has banned diversity initiatives across the federal government. The administration has launched investigations of colleges — public and private — that it accuses of discriminating against white and Asian students with race-conscious admissions programs intended to address historic inequities in access for Black students.
The Defense Department at one point temporarily removed training videosÌýÌýand anÌýÌýof Jackie Robinson. In February, TrumpÌý, a champion of racial diversity in the military, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Brown, in the wake of Floyd’s killing,ÌýÌýas a Black man, and was only the second Black general to serve as chairman.
The administration hasÌýÌýacross government, curtailedÌýÌýof Black History Month and terminated grants and contracts for projects ranging fromÌýÌý³Ù´ÇÌý.
Hundreds of people hold a rally at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common on Saturday, April 26, 2025, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Rally on Boston Common which featured Martin Luther King Jr. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via AP)
King's son: Attacks on diversity make ‘little sense’
Martin Luther King lll adresses the hundreds of people holding a rally at the Parkman Bandstand on Boston Common on Saturday, April 26, 2025, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1965 Freedom Rally on Boston Common which featured his father, Martin Luther King Jr. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via AP)
Martin Luther King III told The Associated Press that the attacks on diversity make little sense, noting, “We cannot move forward without understanding what happened in the past."
“It doesn’t mean that it’s about blaming people. It’s not about collective guilt. It’s about collective responsibility,†he continued. “How do we become better? Well, we appreciate everything that helped us to get to where we are. Diversity hasn't hurt the country.â€
King said opponents of diversity have floated an uninformed narrative that unqualified people of color are taking jobs from white people, when the reality is they have long been denied the opportunities they deserve.
“I don’t know if white people understand this, but Black people are tolerant,†he said. “From knee-high to a grasshopper, you have to be five times better than your white colleague. And that’s how we prepare ourselves. So it’s never a matter of unqualified. It’s a matter of being excluded.â€
Wayne Lucas, right, who sixty years ago participated at the Freedom Rally on Boston Common, talks with Imari Paris Jeffries, the president and CEO of Embrace Boston, at the "The Embrace" sculpture on the common, Tuesday, April 15, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
Imari Paris Jeffries, the president and CEO of Embrace Boston, which along with the city put on the rally, said the event was a chance to remind people that elements of the “promissory note†King referred to in his “I Have A Dream†speech remain "out of reach†for many people.
“We’re having a conversation about democracy. This is the promissory note — public education, public housing, public health, access to public art,†Paris Jeffries said. "All of these things are a part of democracy. Those are the things that are actually being threatened right now.â€
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Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
Major civil rights moments in every state
Major civil rights moments in every state
A land of contradictions from the outset, the United States was founded by enslavers who spoke passionately and eloquently about liberty, freedom, and justice for all. In the beginning, “all†was limited to men of European ancestry who were wealthy enough to own land. The Constitution’s protections did not apply to most of the people living in America for most of the country’s history—at least not in full.
Women—about 50% of the population—were not included in the country’s concept of “all,†likewise millions of slaves—and for a long time, their offspring. The descendants of the original inhabitants of the United States were commonly excluded from the promise of America, as were many immigrants, ethnic groups, and religious minorities.
Despite all the work that remains to be done, all of those groups and many others now enjoy freedoms that had to be won—won through the courts, through the court of public opinion, through mass demonstrations, through legislation, through boycotts, and in many cases, through martyrdom.
Fighting to expand the definition of “all†requires powerless people to challenge the power structures that benefit from their status as second-class citizens. They often do it at great risk to their jobs, their reputations, their homes, and in many cases, their lives. Even so, brave advocates and activists fought the good fight in every state in America. Each state has a unique story to tell about the epic struggles for civil rights that were waged there, as well as those that continue to be waged. The following is a tiny sliver of their collective efforts.
Using a variety of sources, identified a defining moment for civil rights in all 50 states. They stand out for different reasons and led to changes that lifted different groups, but they all prove how much can be achieved—and how much still remains to be accomplished.
Click through to find out your state’s contribution to civil rights.
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Alabama: Rosa Parks takes a stand
The March from Selma to Montgomery took place in Alabama, as did the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church and some of the most important Freedom Rides. One moment, however, stands out as dramatic and consequential, even by the standards of Alabama during the civil rights era. On Dec. 1, 1955, the arrest of 42-year-old seamstress Rosa Parks for on a city bus led to the Montgomery bus boycott, the first great victory of the movement.
Alaska: A night at the movies transforms a culture
Far from Alabama and 11 years before Rosa Parks took her stand, a teenager with a white father and Alaska Native mother named on March 11, 1944, for sitting in the “whites only†section of a movie theater in Nome, Alaska.
Although their plight isn’t as well known as that of Black Americans in the South, Native Alaskans lived under their own version of Jim Crow—“no natives†and “whites only†signs were standard all over Alaska, just as in the South. Schenck’s arrest ignited a burgeoning Indigenous rights movement whose activism led to the passage of the Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, nearly 20 years before Lyndon Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Arizona: Arizonans refuse to show their papers
In 2010, Arizona passed the most restrictive, most sweeping, and—in the eyes of its detractors—most racist immigration law in America. Among other things, SB1070 required immigrants to carry federal registration papers at all times and allowed law enforcement officers to demand to see the papers of anyone they suspected of being here illegally—with or without probable cause—and arrest them without a warrant.
Known as the “papers, please†law, the moment triggered the creation of movement, which fights for vulnerable Arizonans no matter their backgrounds.
Arkansas: Little Rock 9 go to school
In 1957, three years after the Supreme Court struck down school segregation in the Brown v. Board of Education decision, nine African American students attempted to It took several tries—they were physically blocked on the first few attempts by a combination of enraged white mobs and armed National Guard troops. Finally, President Eisenhower federalized the National Guard, ordering them to escort the students to and from the building, and on Sept. 25, 1957, the Little Rock Nine began attending classes at Central High.
California: Immigrant farmworkers stand up
Decades before Cesar Chavez popularized the plight of agricultural laborers in California, a coalition of blazed the trail that Chavez would follow. In 1903 in Oxnard, 1,200 immigrant laborers formed the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association, which would become the first union in California to win a strike against the state’s formidable agriculture industry.
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Colorado: A cultural rainbow gets results
Colorado’s sizable population of not only African Americans but also Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Roman Catholics, and Jewish immigrants all faced discrimination through the first half of the 20th century. Alone, these disparate underclasses did not have enough leverage to demand change—so they joined forces.
A multiracial, multiethnic civil rights coalition protested and petitioned until the state passed a series of in 1957 to protect vulnerable minority groups, outlaw discrimination in housing and employment, and repeal bans on interracial marriage.
Connecticut: Women get some privacy
A Connecticut reproductive rights advocate named Estelle Griswold took the state to court over its 19th-century ban on contraception. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which overturned the ban in the landmark 1965 case . The case was a watershed moment that set the first legal precedent for a constitutional right to privacy.
Delaware: A road to Brown v. Board is paved
The Brown v. Board of Education decision that banned race-based segregation in schools was actually the culmination of five separate lawsuits, all of which were filed to challenge the “separate but equal†doctrine that propped up Jim Crow. One of them, , played out in Wilmington, Delaware, where African Americans faced discrimination and segregation modeled after the Deep South.
Florida: A sea change starts in a swimming pool
On June 18, 1964, civil rights activists went into the whites-only pool of a segregated motel in St. Augustine, a hotbed of racial strife in Florida. The motel’s owner, James Brock, responded by into the water. Although the incident is largely forgotten now, it caused national outrage and helped to end an 83-day Senate filibuster on the Civil Rights Act, which was passed the very next day.
Georgia: A King is born
The America that exists today would certainly look much different had a baby named Michael King not been born in Atlanta on Jan. 15, 1929. When his parents changed his name at 6 years old, the child became the most revered and successful civil rights leader in history. He would go on to lead the Montgomery Bus Boycott, articulate his vision at the March on Washington, become history’s youngest Nobel laureate, and wage his crusade for justice and equality through nonviolence.
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Hawaii: The struggle for Native rights continues
In 1993, the U.S. government to the Indigenous people of Hawaii for the overthrow of their kingdom a century earlier, the annexation of their land, and the subjugation of their people. Although they suffered a fate similar to that of their Indigenous counterparts in North America, Native Hawaiians are still not federally recognized the way Native Americans and Native Alaskans are, nor do they have the same power to negotiate on their own behalf.
Idaho: Idaho beats the country to the punch
Idaho has a long, proud, and often overlooked history of important civil rights achievements dating back to mask-ban laws that challenged the Ku Klux Klan at the height of the group’s power in the 1920s. Idaho’s finest moment, however, came in 1961, when the state three years before the United States as a whole.
Illinois: Chicago takes on Northern racism
Led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other major civil rights figures, the was a sprawling series of protests, meetings, boycotts, rallies, and other nonviolent actions aimed at dismantling racial discrimination and injustice, neither of which were by any means unique to the South. It lasted for two years between 1965–67 and evolved into the biggest civil rights campaign in the North. The grassroots movement laid the groundwork for the Fair Housing Act, which Congress passed in 1968.
Indiana: A state desegregates early
In 1949, Indiana lawmakers passed the which banned racial segregation in schools five years before Brown v. Board. As the adopted home of many relocated white Southerners, however, Indiana was a poster child for Northern racism and a longtime above the Mason-Dixon line. Despite the good intentions of the legislation, attitudes proved harder to change than laws, and de facto segregation continued for decades.
Iowa: Iowa advances in 1868
Iowa’s long record as a pioneering state for civil rights can be traced to 1868, just three years after the close of the Civil War. That year, Iowa lawmakers—all white men— nearly 90 years before Brown v. Board and granted Black men the right to vote. As in so much of the country, however, the laws rarely matched the realities on the ground for African Americans in Iowa, many of whom remained both separate and unequal for generations.
Kansas: Plessy v. Ferguson meets its end
The “separate but equal†doctrine established by the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson ruling of 1896 came crashing down in 1954 when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that separate was inherently unequal in American schools. The case was Ìýone of the most important civil rights case in history and the ruling that laid the legal foundation for the modern civil rights movement.
Kentucky: Breonna Taylor becomes a martyr for the movement
In March 2020, white police officers killed 26-year-old Black EMT in her home during a botched drug raid and a no-knock warrant obtained on flimsy evidence through clumsy police work. Her death kicked off nationwide protests against not only the killing, but police violence in general and the widespread use of no-knock warrants specifically. Further outrage and activism followed when only one officer was indicted—and only for one of his bullets hitting a neighboring structure.
Louisiana: A little girl brings a burden to school
At just 6 years old, tiny became a giant in November 1960 as the first African American child to integrate a Southern elementary school. Born the same year as the Brown v. Board ruling, Bridges began her education at a time when states were using every means at their disposal to resist the court’s ruling and prevent kids like her from attending white schools. Under the escort of U.S. marshals, the little girl braved an angry white mob on the way to her New Orleans school every day, but her courage signaled a point of no return for the civil rights movement, hammering one of the strongest nails yet in the coffin of systemic racism.
Maine: Original Mainers get what’s theirs
Decades of civil rights activism came to fruition when President Jimmy Carter signed the The legislation awarded the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Penobscot tribes of Maine $81.5 million in reparations for land that had been stolen from their people. Equally important to the money, the moment served as a recognition of historical injustices and as an inspiration for Native rights advocates across the country.
Maryland: A suspicious death spotlights police violence
Baltimore became the center of this generation’s civil rights struggle in 2015 when 25-year-old died of a spinal cord injury he suffered under mysterious and suspicious circumstances in the back of a police van after a frivolous arrest. His case ignited protests in Baltimore and around the nation, as the all-too-familiar themes of police brutality, racism, poverty, unequal treatment under the law, and the deep distrust in minority communities of the police sworn to protect them once again surfaced.
Massachusetts: Integration arrives by bus
In 1974, Boston became a symbol of Northern racism when riots broke out over a court order to use as a remedy to the widespread segregation that existed in the city’s schools. Black children bused from the African American enclave of Roxbury to notoriously hostile South Boston were attacked with bricks by angry mobs who screamed racial slurs and spit on them as riot police struggled to hold crowds back. Strikingly similar to the treatment Ruby Bridges received in Louisiana, the moment not only integrated Boston’s schools but forced the country to confront racism outside the South.
Michigan: A white jury delivers justice
Like much of America, Michigan has a long history of using economic and social leverage to ghettoize its African American citizens, but it also has a long history of civil rights achievements that were ahead of their time. When a mob attacked the home of , a Black physician who bought a house in a white neighborhood in 1925, the man and his family fought back, killing a white mob member in the process.
A year later, Sweet was acquitted by an all-white jury for a crime that would have almost certainly gotten him executed elsewhere in the country, proving that sometimes justice could prevail, despite its imperfections.
Minnesota: A final breath triggers a revolution
Echoing Eric Garner, the mantra of the modern civil rights movement remains, “I can’t breathe,†the last words spoken by Garner and then , a 46-year-old Black man who on May 25, 2020, was slowly killed over 8 minutes and 46 seconds by a white Minneapolis police officer who refused to lift his knee from Floyd’s neck. His death set the spark for the most significant social upheaval since the 1960s and triggered global protests that continue to this day.
Mississippi: A boy’s murder galvanizes a movement
The Ìýon Aug. 28, 1955, was by no means unique in Mississippi—Black men and boys there had been killed with impunity for perceived transgressions with white women for generations. The gruesome murder of the baby-faced Chicago 14-year-old, however, put a national spotlight on racial violence and injustice in the South when graphic photos of the child’s mutilated body were published in Jet magazine at the request of Till’s mother. The moment launched the modern civil rights movement.
Missouri: Ferguson erupts
Glimpses of 2020 were evident in the protests that followed by Darren Wilson, a white Ferguson police officer who originally targeted the Black teenager for walking off the sidewalk. When protestors gathered, the Ferguson police and affiliated law enforcement agencies responded with what looked like an army invading a hostile country—images of police in armored vehicles gassing, beating, falsely arresting, and otherwise brutalizing peaceful protestors and journalists alike circled the globe.
The moment triggered a national debate on police militarization, racism and brutality in law enforcement, institutional cover-ups, and the widespread practice of policing for profit in municipalities like Ferguson.
Montana: A woman goes to Washington
In 1916, four years before the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote, , a women’s rights advocate and driving force for suffrage in Montana, was elected to Congress. Paving the way for women lawmakers in the decades to come, she was the first woman ever elected to Congress or any federal office in the U.S.
Nebraska: A victim becomes an activist
A man of Japanese ancestry named Joseph Ishikawa came to Lincoln, Nebraska, after being incarcerated in an internment camp during World War II solely on the basis of his race. Unwilling to stay quiet when he learned to his Black neighbors, he resigned his position as an employee of the recreation department in protest and embarked on a tireless campaign to integrate the city’s facilities. Ishikawa served as an inspiration to countless civil rights activists who risked it all to change an oppressive system, even when they weren’t the ones directly oppressed.
Nevada: A holiday validates a struggle
Every president since 1976 has officially recognized February as Black History Month. That national recognition can be traced to Feb. 11, 1959, when Nevada Gov. Grant Sawyer proclaimed that week to be in the state.
New Hampshire: MLK gets his due
In 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed a law declaring to be a federal holiday, and most states quickly did the same. A few states held out, but none longer than New Hampshire—with its tiny African American population—which refused to budge for the remainder of the 20th century. Despite compromising with Civil Rights Day in 1993, New Hampshire refused to recognize MLK until 2000, when state officials finally conceded to relentless pressure from local activists.
New Mexico: Early Latino lawmakers blaze a trail
New Mexico’s Octaviano Larrazolo became the first Latino U.S. senator in 1928, but 16 years later, a different New Mexico lawmaker, Sen. Dennis Chávez, introduced the in 1944. The first of its kind in the U.S., it would have banned discrimination based on factors like country of origin and race. The bill failed but stands as a primary prototype for the 1964 Civil Rights Act two decades later.
New York: A community pushes back at Stonewall
On June 28, 1969, in New York City’s Greenwich Village, harassing and arresting patrons as they so often did in the city’s gay bars—homosexuality, after all, was listed as a mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association until 1973. That night, however, the patrons rebelled, fought back when the police became violent, and found a deep sense of unity in the moment. It is known as the catalyst of the modern Pride movement and the start of a long quest for equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
North Carolina: The volatile busing strategy is born
By 1971, 17 years had passed since Brown v. Board, but no one would have known that school segregation had been banned by looking at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina. That year, the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case that busing Black children to white schools was a logical remedy to the widespread segregation that still existed. The decision had nationwide implications as out-of-district busing improved racial equity in education but also triggered an enormous backlash.
North Dakota: The Sioux take a stand for water
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, its ancestral burial grounds, and its water supply were in the way of the , but that didn’t stop construction from being approved in 2016. Peaceful protestors converged on the site and were met with a violent response from private energy industry security forces and an assortment of highly militarized police agencies. The moment sparked a movement, as an outraged public learned of tactics like the use of attack dogs, water cannons in subfreezing weather, sound cannons, automatic rifles, and concussion grenades on peaceful protestors exercising their First Amendment rights.
Ohio: A child dies in Cleveland
In 2014, a 12-year-old African American boy in Cleveland named was carrying a realistic-looking toy gun when he was killed by a white police officer, who shot the child before his patrol car had even come to a complete stop. As is so often the case, no officer was indicted, and the incident sparked nationwide protests demanding police accountability and reform.
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Oklahoma: A child gets a burger
In 1958, 13 African American children ages 6–13 and their teacher, Clara Luper, at a segregated lunch counter at Katz Drug in Oklahoma City. Refusing to leave until they’d been served, they were verbally abused, spit on, and had drinks, food, and even hot grease spilled on them by angry crowds until an employee caved in and served a hamburger to one of the children. The moment is remembered as one of the earliest uses of sit-ins as acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience.
Oregon: Portland protests ignite
Loud and radical public activism has been a central theme of Portland culture for decades, and the state of Oregon as a whole has a long and ugly history of often violent state-based racism. Those two dynamics contributed to an that gripped the city for months on end in 2020, as protests for racial justice devolved into a sustained anarchistic outburst.
Pennsylvania: A pool party proves progress can be fleeting
Communal pools, beaches, and lakes have hosted some of the bloodiest and most bitterly contested civil rights battles in history. A swim club in a wealthy Philadelphia suburb, for example, canceled a contract with a summer camp when they realized the group they’d rented the pool to consisted of Black and Latino children. Such an event incredibly , and when the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission determined racism was the motive, activists and advocates were once again reminded of the dangers of complacency.
South Dakota: A government reconsiders holiday honors
In 1990, South Dakota took a great leap forward in reconciling its ugly history with its Indigenous population when the state legislature unanimously approved a measure to change Columbus Day to It was a symbolic victory, but not an empty one, as several states, many universities, and more than 100 cities went on to recognize what’s now called Indigenous Peoples Day. More Americans have become aware of the atrocities of Columbus and the impact his “discovery†of America had on the millions of people who already lived there.
Tennessee: Integration begins in Clinton
In 1956, two years after Brown v. Board, a federal judge ordered the integration of in Anderson County. A large influx of Klansmen and other white supremacist protestors overwhelmed the town, and riots ensued. The governor called in the National Guard, and the Clinton 12 eventually integrated the first public high school in the American South.
Texas: Juneteenth becomes official
News of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation did not reach slaves in Texas for two-and-a-half years when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger marched into Galveston on June 19, 1865, to announce the end of slavery and the Civil War to the last slaves still toiling for their masters on American soil. Also known as “Black Independence Day,†the moment has been enshrined as , one of the most important dates in civil rights history.
In 1980, Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday, and all but a handful of states honor the date, which received renewed attention amid 2020’s racial turmoil.
Utah: LDS church turns a page
In 1978, the Mormon Church on African Americans holding the priesthood. The move had major implications on attitudes and policies across the state. For generations, the ban had given theological cover for the overwhelmingly white state’s long history of racism and segregation.
Vermont: Young Vermonters channel their outrage
In 1968, an assailant fired shots into the home of a Black minister—where a white woman had been staying—and instead of concentrating on the shooting, Vermont State Police officers quickly focused its investigation on the victim and arrested the pair for adultery. The incident sparked widespread outrage and led to the , a race-reconciliation exchange program. The project sent Black teenagers from New York City to Vermont to participate in a wide range of social, educational, and recreational projects designed to foster racial unity.
Virginia: Loving wins in Virginia
In 1958, a white man named Richard Loving married his high school sweetheart—a Black woman named Mildred Jeter—in Washington D.C., and upon returning home to Virginia, the couple were arrested and jailed for violating the state’s miscegenation laws. The Lovings left Virginia but were again arrested five years later when they returned to visit family. The case went to the Supreme Court and—in one of the most aptly named cases in history—the court struck down all laws banning interracial marriage in the landmark case.
Washington: Diversity finds a voice in Seattle
to the racism and segregation that dominated Seattle for much of the city’s history began much earlier than the more famous movements that swept change across the South—and they looked much different, too. Seattle’s location, history, and unique demographic makeup cultivated a diverse civil rights coalition that included people of Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Jewish, Latino, African American, and Native American ancestry as early as the 1910s.
West Virginia: A woman breaks barriers
As the southernmost Northern state, the northernmost Southern state, and the only state created by the outbreak of the Civil War, West Virginia played a unique role in the struggle for civil rights. One of its finest moments came on Jan. 10, 1928, when was appointed to the West Virginia House of Delegates. She was the first African American woman to serve in any legislative body anywhere in the United States.
Wisconsin: Milwaukee rises—and struggles
After World War II, the Second Great Migration increased the African American population of Wisconsin by 600%, and Milwaukee emerged as one of the most segregated cities in America. In 1965, a civil rights activist named challenging segregation in Milwaukee public schools. It worked its way through the courts, and in 1979, the city finally settled and developed a five-year desegregation plan.
Wyoming: Women get a vote and a voice
The 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote in 1920, but had already been making their voices heard at the ballot box for decades. Before it was even a state, the Wyoming Territory granted women’s suffrage in 1869 and confirmed it after securing statehood in 1890, making it both the first territory and the first state to extend the franchise to women.
It launched a trend across the West, with the next five states to give women the vote being Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Washington, and California, with Arizona, Oregon, Montana, and Nevada also beating the 19th Amendment to the punch.
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