Key Events of the Civil Rights Movement (Free Packet)

This is a packet on the main events of the Civil Rights period that I made for the kids to add to their history notebook. I wanted them to have a visual way to remember many of the events we’ve read and studied about over the last four or five weeks. We sat together and went over the key events as we read many of the books in this unit. We’ve read more than 25 books! The kids were really amazed that the photos were of real events.

The first five pages goes over some of the main events of the Civil Rights period such as:

• Emmett Till
• Rosa Parks
• Montgomery Bus Boycott
• Little Rock 9: Little Rock Central High School
• Greensboro Sit-Ins
• Ruby Bridges attends a new elementary school
• Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Freedom Rides
• George Wallace, Alabama’s governor gave an inauguration speech: Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail
• Birmingham campaign
• Children’s Crusade (Birmingham)
• March on Washington
• Birmingham Bombing
• JFK killed
• Martin Luther King, Jr. given the Nobel Prize
• Selma
• Voting Rights Act
• Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated
• Civil Rights Act of 1968

You can download this packet for free.  It is eight pages long. If you find it useful, I’d love to hear from you!  😉 Liesl

Free Civil Rights Unit Notebook Pages:

Civil Rights Movement Worksheets – Main Events of the Civil Rights Period

The packet has a worksheet to match some of the photos of these famous events with the name:

There are just three pages where the kids had to write or do anything (the bottom three photos above).  They did page on “What are these Civil Rights Moments?” on the last day of our unit.  They wrote out their own explanations of some of the Civil Rights events (middle page) and they did a short writing assignment on Ruby Bridges after we talked about Norman Rockwell’s famous painting. The kids were amazed that the painting was installed at the White House just a few years ago in 2011. We looked at a photograph of President Obama with (adult) Ruby Bridges in front of the painting which now hangs in the hallway outside the Oval Office.

Photo Courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Other posts in our unit on the Civil Rights Movement: 

**Civil Rights Movement Lessons (Free Packet) – In some ways this is the core of what I want the kids to learn from this unit… what are rights? What is the difference between someone’s rights and a privilege? What is it like to be a part of a group? When can it be hard/painful to be left out? Judging people by what they look like. The power of speeches. This is a 13 page packet of discussion questions and lesson ideas on all that and terms like prejudice, bias, racism, etc.

**Civil Rights Books for Elementary and Middle School Kids: This post highlights the books and movies we used during our Civil Rights unit:

**Free Civil Rights Packet: Timeline of Events Leading to the Civil Rights Movement — This packet covers the 350 year history prior to the Civil Rights Era.  It also includes several pages of photos so kids can make their own timeline.

**Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

** Civil Rights Movement: School Integration, Sit-Ins and Selma — books and movies my kids loved