eace.On May 20, the Supreme Court rules Birmingham's segregation ordinances unconstitutional.When black students Vivian Malone and James Hood attempt to register at the University of Alabama on June 11, Alabama governor George Wallace carries out a 1962 campaign promise to "stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent integration of Alabama's schools. Wallace confronts Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, who brought a proclamation from President Kennedy. At a second confrontation later the same day, Wallace withdraws and allows the black students to register.The following day, June 12, in Jackson, Mississippi NAACP state chairman Medgar Evers is shot to death as he returns home. Byron de la Beckwith of Greenwood, Mississippi is later charged with the murder, but his two trials both result in mistrials.The March on Washington, on August 28, becomes the largest and most dramatic civil rights demonstration in history. More than 250,000 marchers, including 60,000 whites, fill the mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. King and other civil rights leaders meet with President Kennedy in the White House. King's "I Have A Dream" Speech is the high point of the event.On September 15, a bomb explodes during Sunday school in Birmingham's sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church, killing four little girls, aged eleven to fourteen. This is the twenty-first bombing incident against blacks in Birmingham in eight years. No perpetrators are found.President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22. Upon assuming office, President Johnson urges the speedy passage of Kennedy's civil rights bill as a fitting tribute to the murdered president.1964Time magazine names King "Man of the Year" in its January 3 issue.In April, demonstrations begin in St. Augustine, Florida. Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, the mother of the governor of Massachusetts, is arrested. In May, King is jailed for demonstrating in St. Augustine, where protests meet vio...
