I 
112TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 3866 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal in honor of the pioneers and 
participants of the Civil Rights movement. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 1, 2012 
Mr. COHEN (for himself, Mr. FILNER, Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas, Ms. 
MOORE, Ms. LEE of California, Mr. DAVIS of Illinois, Mr. AL GREEN of 
Texas, Mr. ISRAEL, Mr. RUSH, Mr. ELLISON, Ms. SEWELL, Mr. CARSON 
of Indiana, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. FALEOMAVAEGA, Ms. CHU, Mr. JACK-
SON of Illinois, Ms. NORTON, Mr. HOLT, Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON 
of Texas, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Mr. PAYNE, Ms. SLAUGHTER, Mr. PASTOR 
of Arizona, Mr. BISHOP of New York, Mr. YARMUTH, Mr. COURTNEY, 
Mr. CARNAHAN, Mr. WELCH, Mr. PERLMUTTER, Mr. HONDA, Mr. 
THOMPSON of Mississippi, Mr. CAPUANO, Mr. DOYLE, Ms. WOOLSEY, 
Mr. TONKO, Mr. CLAY, Ms. RICHARDSON, Mr. BRALEY of Iowa, Mr. 
HOLDEN, Ms. HAHN, Mr. LEWIS of Georgia, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, 
Mr. GRIJALVA, Ms. CLARKE of New York, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. 
FATTAH, and Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addi-
tion to the Committee on House Administration, for a period to be subse-
quently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such 
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To award a Congressional Gold Medal in honor of the 
pioneers and participants of the Civil Rights movement. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
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SECTION 1. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds as follows: 
(1) In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from 
slavery. She was a major conductor on the Under-
ground Railroad and helped free hundreds of slaves. 
She was also a major advocate for Women’s Rights. 
(2) In 1850, the Supreme Court stated in the 
Dred Scott decision that Blacks, freed or enslaved, 
do not have citizenship rights. 
(3) In 1861, the American Civil War began. 
This war was fought because of issues between 
Northern and Southern States, including States’ 
rights versus Federal authority, westward expansion, 
and slavery. The Southern States began to secede 
from the Union. The war ended with the battle of 
Palmito Hill in 1865. 
(4) On January 1, 1863, President Abraham 
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, 
which declared that ‘‘all persons held slaves within 
any States, or designated part of the State . . . 
shall forever be free’’. 
(5) In 1864, Sojourner Truth traveled to Wash-
ington, DC, to help integrate streetcars and was re-
ceived at the White House by President Abraham 
Lincoln. The same year, she was appointed to the 
National Freedmen’s Relief Association where she 
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counseled former slaves, particularly in matters of 
resettlement. 
(6) On January 31, 1865, the 13th Amend-
ment, which abolished any form of slavery in the 
United States, was passed. It was ratified by the 
States on December 6, 1865. 
(7) On June 19, 1865, the news reached Gal-
veston, Texas, stating the war had ended and the 
enslaved were now free. 
(8) In 1892, Ida B. Wells Barnett began her 
anti-lynching campaign. She later wrote ‘‘Southern 
Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases’’. 
(9) In 1896, the Supreme Court established the 
‘‘separate but equal’’ doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson. 
(10) In July 1905, a group led by W.E.B. Du 
Bois, John Hope, Fredrick L. McGhee, and William 
Monroe Trotter met at the Fort Erie Hotel in Fort 
Erie, Ontario, opposite Buffalo, New York, to dis-
cuss full civil liberties, an end to racial discrimina-
tion, and recognition of human brotherhood. These 
29 Black intellectuals founded the ‘‘Niagara move-
ment’’, and the meeting ranks as a major turning 
point in African-American history. 
(11) On February 12, 1909, the National Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Colored People 
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(NAACP) was founded. W.E.B. Du Bois played a 
major role in helping form the NAACP. He was the 
associate director of research and editor of ‘‘The 
Crisis’’. Ida B. Wells and Marcy Church Terrell 
were the only two, Black women allowed to sign 
‘‘The Call’’ and attend the first NAACP meeting. 
(12) In 1909, Ida B. Wells became the founder 
of the Anti-Lynching Crusade. 
(13) In 1915, the NAACP launches a nation-
wide campaign in opposition to the controversial 
film, ‘‘Birth of a Nation’’. 
(14) In 1919, the Memphis NAACP became the 
largest branch in the South. Pioneers of its legal ac-
tivism team included Hosea T. (H.T.) Lockard, 
Maxine and Vasco Smith, Russell Sugarmon, and 
A.W. Willis. Through the courts, they won cases 
that led to the desegregation of public transpor-
tation, of restaurants, and public facilities. 
(15) On August 25, 1925, A. Philip Randolph 
announced the formation of the Brotherhood of 
Sleeping Car Porters. This was the first major all 
Black labor union. 
(16) In February 1926, the second week in the 
month was marked as Negro History Week by Car-
ter G. Woodson, the father of Black history. 
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(17) In 1935, NAACP lawyers Charles Ham-
ilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall won a legal 
battle to admit a Black student to the University of 
Maryland. 
(18) In 1936, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune be-
came the first African-American woman to head a 
Federal office, the Division of Negro Affairs of the 
Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Ad-
ministration. 
(19) On April 3, 1939, in an effort led by civil 
rights leaders, Walter White (NAACP), A. Philip 
Randolph, and Judge William H. Hastie, Public 
Law 18 was passed by Congress. This bill contained 
an amendment that designated funds to train Afri-
can-American pilots. 
(20) In 1941, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Ran-
dolph, and A.J. Muste proposed a march on Wash-
ington to end segregation and racial discrimination 
in the Armed Forces. The march never happened be-
cause President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 
8802 (the Fair Employment Act). 
(21) In March 1941, after years of being pres-
sured by civil rights organizations, an all African- 
American pursuit squadron (99th Pursuit) in 
Tuskegee, Alabama, was formed. These gentlemen 
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were known as the Tuskegee Airmen. The Tuskegee 
Airmen were well respected fighter groups in World 
War II and led the way to the United States mili-
tary being fully integrated. The airmen were led by 
Captain Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. They won their first 
aerial victory on July 2, 1943, against the 
Luftwaffe. 
(22) In 1942, the Congress of Racial Equality 
(CORE) was founded by a group of students at the 
University of Chicago. Founding members included 
James L. Farmer, Jr., George Houser, James R. 
Robinson, and Bernice Fisher. It is the third oldest 
civil rights group in the United States. Roy Innis is 
the current president and has been leading the orga-
nization since 1964. 
(23) In December 1943, Paul Roberson ad-
dressed Major League Baseball owners about inte-
grating their teams. 
(24) In 1946, the NAACP effort to end seg-
regation in interstate bus transportation was sup-
ported by the Supreme Court ruling in Morgan v. 
Virginia. 
(25) On April 9, 1947, CORE tests Morgan v. 
Virginia (outlawing segregation during bus trav-
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eling) and sends a group of Freedom Riders on a 
Journey of Reconciliation around the South. 
(26) On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson be-
came the first Black Major League Baseball player. 
(27) On July 26, 1948, President Truman 
signs into act Executive Order 9981, establishing 
equality in the Armed Forces regardless of race, 
color, religion, or national origin. 
(28) On June 8, 1953, the court ruled segrega-
tion in eating places was unconstitutional in Wash-
ington, DC. Mary Church Terrell, Clark F. King, 
Essie Thompson, Arthur F. Elmer, and Attorney 
Ringgold Hart played an instrumental role in this 
ruling. 
(29) On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court 
ruled in favor of desegregating the school systems in 
the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of 
Topeka, Kansas. The gentlemen that worked on this 
landmark case were: Thurgood Marshall, NAACP 
Legal Defense Fund chief counsel, George E.C. 
Hayes, James M. Nabrit, Jack Greenberg, Robert L. 
Carter, Charles Scott, and Charles E. Bledsoe. 
(30) On May 7, 1955, Rev. George Lee was 
murdered in Belzoni, Mississippi. Rev. Lee was one 
of the first Black people registered to vote in Hum-
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phreys County and used his pulpit and his printing 
press to urge others to vote. He was offered protec-
tion if he agreed to end his voter registration efforts. 
Rev. Lee refused to end those efforts. 
(31) On August 13, 1955, Lamar Smith, who 
had organized Blacks to vote in a recent election, 
was shot and killed by a White man on the court-
house lawn in Brookhaven, Mississippi, while dozens 
of people watched. The killer was never indicted be-
cause no one would admit they saw a White man 
shoot a Black man. 
(32) On August 28, 1955, Emmett Louis Till, 
a 14-year-old boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago, 
was beaten, shot and his body was dumped in the 
Tallahatchie River for reportedly flirting with a 
White woman in a store. Till’s mother had an open 
casket public funeral, which was attended by thou-
sands and images of his mutilated body were pub-
lished in magazines and newspapers, shining light on 
the condition of Black civil rights in the South. 
(33) On October 22, 1955, John Earl Reese, 
16, was shot and killed while dancing in a cafe´ when 
White men shot into the windows. The shootings 
were part of an attempt by Whites to terrorize 
Blacks into giving up plans for a new school. 
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(34) On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was ar-
rested for refusing to give up her seat to a White 
passenger. Her action sparked the Montgomery bus 
boycott, which was led by Dr. King. The buses were 
finally desegregated on December 21, 1956. 
(35) January 23, 1957, Willie Edwards, Jr., a 
truck driver, was forced at gunpoint to jump off a 
bridge by four Klansmen in Montgomery, Alabama. 
The men mistook Edwards for another man who 
they believed was dating a White woman. 
(36) Between January and February 1957, the 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) 
was formed by Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard 
Rustin, Charles Steele, Joseph Lowery, Fred 
Shuttlesworth, Ella Baker, and Rev. Ralph Aber-
nathy. Andrew Jackson Young served as vice presi-
dent and was a top aide to Dr. King. 
(37) In 1957, Dr. Dorothy Irene Height was 
the fourth elected president of the National Council 
of Negro Women and held the position from 1957– 
1998. 
(38) In September 1957, the Little Rock Nine 
integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Ar-
kansas. The Little Rock Nine consisted of Ernest 
Green, Elizabeth Eckford, Jefferson Thomas, Ter-
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rence Roberts, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Minnijean 
Brown, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Thelma Mothershed, 
and Melba Pattillo Beals. 
(39) In 1957, civil rights leader, Maxine Smith 
began her fight for civil rights. She was denied ad-
mission to Memphis State because she was Black. 
This began her relationship with the NAACP where 
she served as a volunteer executive secretary. She 
coordinated sit-ins, protests, and voters’ registration 
drives during her tenure. 
(40) On April 25, 1959, Mack Charles Parker, 
23, was beaten, shot and thrown in the Pearl River 
in Poplarville, Mississippi, by a masked mob. He was 
accused of raping a White woman and was taken 
from his cell three days before his case was set for 
trial. 
(41) In, 1959, Russell Sugarmon ran for public 
works commissioner in a racially charged race. He 
was the first African-American to make a serious bid 
for a major city office in Memphis, Tennessee. 
(42) In 1960, Harry Belafonte was named a 
cultural advisor to the Peace Corps under President 
John F. Kennedy. Belafonte was one of Dr. King’s 
closest confidants. He paid Dr. King’s bail when he 
was in a Birmingham jail. He helped finance the 
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Freedom Rides, voters’ registrations drive, and 
helped organize the March on Washington in 1963. 
(43) On February 1, 1960, four Black students 
(Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., 
and David Richmond) from North Carolina Agricul-
tural and Technical College began the Greensboro 
sit-in. By the end of the first week, other cities were 
participating in the sit-in movement in other cities 
in North Carolina. Many of these sit-ins were suc-
cessful in desegregating lunch counters and public 
places. 
(44) On February 13, 1960, a nonviolent sit-in 
effort began in Nashville, Tennessee, to end segrega-
tion at lunch counters in downtown Nashville. The 
Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville 
Christian Leadership Council coordinated the sit-in 
campaign. The participants endured verbal and 
physical abuse. After weeks of turmoil, store owners 
and protest leaders were able to reach an agreement. 
The Nashville sit-in movement led to it being the 
first major city to begin desegregation of its public 
facilities when several stores desegregated their 
counters on May 10, 1960. 
(45) On March 19, 1960, sit-ins in Memphis 
were launched by students from LeMoyne College 
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and Owen Junior College at the main public library 
and local department stores. Protests in Memphis 
continued throughout the summer of 1960 and re-
sulted in the integration of the local bus lines and 
the City’s parks. It was led by Marion Barry, Grace 
Meacham, and other SNCC members. 
(46) On April 16, 1960, 150 college students in 
the North and the South played an important role 
in forcing the inception of desegregation by forming 
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 
(SNCC) which led to the national sit-in effort, the 
‘‘Freedom Rides’’ in 1961, and the historic March 
on Washington in 1963. Several of the SNCC’s 
chairmen included Marion Barry, Charles F. 
McDew, Julian Bond, Stokely Carmichael, and John 
Lewis led the organization during its early period. 
By the end of April 1960, a sit-in had occurred in 
every Southern State. 
(47) On May 4, 1961, student volunteers began 
a bus movement from Washington, DC, to southern 
States to test out the desegregation laws in inter-
state travel facilities. They were later known as the 
‘‘Freedom Riders.’’ 
(48) On September 25, 1961, Herbert Lee was 
killed in Liberty, Mississippi, by a State legislator 
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who claimed self-defense and was never arrested. He 
worked with civil rights leader Bob Moses to help 
register Black voters. 
(49) In 1961, the ‘‘Memphis 13’’ was the first 
group of Black students to integrate four Memphis 
City Schools: Bruce, Gordon, Rozelle, and Spring-
dale elementary. The 13 students were Joyce White, 
Menelik Fombi (formerly Michael Willis), Dwania 
Kyles, Harry Williams, Sheila Malone Conway, 
Sharon Malone, E.C. Freeman Fentress, Leandrew 
Wiggins, Deborah Holt, Pamela Mayes, Alvin Free-
man, Jacqueline Moore, and Clarence Williams. 
(50) In 1961, Whitney Young became executive 
director of the National Urban League and ex-
panded the organization’s role in the Civil Rights 
movement. He proposed a domestic ‘‘Marshall Plan’’ 
to provide Federal aid to cities and portions of the 
plan were included in President Lyndon B. John-
son’s War on Poverty. Young was also one of the 
March on Washington organizers. 
(51) 
On 
April 
9, 
1962, 
Cpl. 
Roman 
Ducksworth, Jr., a military police officer stationed 
in Maryland, was ordered off a bus by a police offi-
cer and shot to death in Taylorsville, Mississippi. He 
was on leave to visit his sick wife. 
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(52) On September 30, 1962, after a 16-month 
legal battle to integrate the University of Mis-
sissippi, United States marshals escorted James 
Meredith on to the school’s campus to register him 
for the fall semester. Paul Guihard, a reporter for 
a French news service, was shot and killed by a 
White mob during protests over the admission of 
Meredith to the University. 
(53) On April 23, 1963, William Lewis Moore, 
a postman from Baltimore, was shot and killed dur-
ing a one man march against segregation. He was 
planning to deliver a letter to the governor of Mis-
sissippi urging an end to intolerance. 
(54) On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers, Mis-
sissippi’s NAACP field secretary, was murdered out-
side his home in Jackson, Mississippi. 
(55) On June 29, 1963, Malcolm X led the 
Unity Rally in Harlem, which was one of the largest 
civil rights events. 
(56) On August 28, 1963, the March on Wash-
ington for Jobs and Freedom was held in front of 
the Lincoln Memorial. The march was organized and 
coordinated by Bayard Rustin, Dr. Dorothy Irene 
Height, Harry Belafonte, A. Philip Randolph, and 
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others. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his ‘‘I 
Have a Dream’’ speech to nearly 200,000 people. 
(57) On September 15, 1963, four little girls 
(Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, 
and Addie Mae Collins) were murdered when a bomb 
went off at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Bir-
mingham, Alabama. Virgil Lamar Ware, 13, was 
shot to death by White teenagers who had come 
from a segregationist rally held after the church 
bombing. 
(58) On January 31, 1964, Louis Allen was 
killed in Liberty, Mississippi, on the day he was 
making final arrangements to move north. Allen wit-
nessed the murder of civil rights worker Herbert Lee 
and endured years of harassment, threats, and being 
jailed. 
(59) On March 23, 1964, Johnnie Mae Chap-
pell was killed in Jacksonville, Florida, as she 
walked along a roadside while men were looking for 
a Black person to shoot after a day of racial unrest. 
(60) On April 7, 1964, Rev. Bruce Klunder was 
crushed to death when a bulldozer backed over him. 
He was protesting the building of a segregated 
school. 
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(61) In 1964, SNCC helped organize the Mis-
sissippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which 
challenged the legitimacy and seating of Mis-
sissippi’s officially recognized Democratic Party. 
During the ‘‘Freedom Summer’’, Harry Belafonte 
helped fund the SNCC’s voting registration efforts. 
(62) In 1964, Fannie Lou Hamer established 
the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). 
She also delivered a national televised speech to the 
Credentials Committee discussing the hardship activ-
ists were experiencing with voting. 
(63) In 1964, Mr. H.T. Lockard, a Memphis 
civil rights pioneer, was elected to the old Shelby 
County Quarterly Court (County Commission). 
From there he became the first Black man to join 
a governor’s cabinet under Governor Buford Elling-
ton from 1967 through 1971. He served on the Na-
tional Civil Rights Museum Board from 1989 
through 1999. 
(64) On May 2, 1964, Henry Hezekiah Dee and 
Charles Eddie Moore were killed in Meadville, Mis-
sissippi, by Klansmen who believed the two were 
part of a plot to arm Blacks in the area (there was 
no such plot). 
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(65) On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers 
James Chaney (a Mississippian resident), Andrew 
Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were assisting 
with helping African-Americans register to vote dur-
ing Freedom Summer. After being arrested by the 
police and released after several hours, they were 
murdered by the Ku Klux Klan. Their bodies were 
found near Philadelphia, Mississippi. 
(66) On July 2, 1964, President Johnson 
signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 
(67) On July 11, 1964, Lt. Col. Lemuel Penn, 
a Washington, DC, educator was shot to death by 
Klansmen in a passing car when he was driving 
home from United States Army Reserves training in 
Colbert, Georgia. 
(68) In 1965, Benjamin Hooks became the first 
Black criminal court judge in Tennessee history. 
(69) In 1965, Dr. Dorothy Irene Height was 
named the first director of the YWCA’s Center for 
Racial Justice. 
(70) On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was 
shot to death in Harlem, New York. 
(71) On February 26, 1965, Jimmie Lee Jack-
son was beaten and shot by State troopers as he 
tried to protect his grandfather and mother from a 
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trooper attack on civil rights marchers in Marion, 
Alabama. 
(72) On March 7, 1965, ‘‘Bloody Sunday’’ took 
place as 600 marchers tried to cross the Edmund 
Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in support of vot-
ing rights and were attacked by State and local po-
lice. This effort was led by John Lewis of SNCC and 
the Rev. Hosea Williams of SCLC. It took the 
marchers three times to finally cross over the Pettus 
Bridge. 
(73) On March 11, 1965, Rev. James Reeb, a 
Unitarian minister from Boston, was beaten to 
death by White men while he walked down a Selma 
Street. Rev. Reeb was one of the many White clergy-
men who joined the Selma marchers after the attack 
by State troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 
(74) On March 25, 1965, Viola Gregg Luizzo, 
a housewife and mother from Detroit, drove alone to 
Alabama to help with the Selma march after seeing 
televised reports of the attack at the Edmund Pettus 
Bridge. She was driving marchers back to Selma 
from Montgomery when she was shot and killed by 
a Klansman in a passing car. 
(75) On June 2, 1965, Oneal Moore was killed 
when he and his partner were shot from a passing 
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car. Moore was one of two Black deputies hired by 
White officials to appease civil rights demands. 
(76) On July 9, 1965, the Voting Rights Act of 
1965 was passed by Congress. 
(77) On July 18, 1965, Willie Brewster was 
shot and killed by White men on his way home from 
work in Anniston, Alabama. The men belonged to 
the National States Rights Party, a violent neo-Nazi 
group whose members had been involved in church 
bombings and murders of Blacks. 
(78) On August 20, 1965, Jonathan Myrick 
Daniels, an Episcopal Seminary student in Boston, 
was shot and killed by a deputy sheriff in 
Hayneville, Alabama. Daniels came to Alabama to 
help with Black voter registration in Lowndes Coun-
ty. 
(79) On September 24, 1965, President John-
son issues Executive Order 11246 enforcing affirma-
tive action. 
(80) In 1966, Constance Baker Motley becomes 
first African-American female appointed to the Fed-
eral bench. 
(81) On January 3, 1966, Samuel Leamno 
Younge, Jr., a student civil rights activist, was shot 
and killed by a White gas station owner after an ar-
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gument over segregated restrooms in Tuskegee, Ala-
bama. 
(82) On January 10, 1966, Vernon Ferdinand 
Dahmer, a wealthy businessman, died from severe 
burns when his home was firebombed in Hatties-
burg, Mississipi. Dahmer offered to pay toll taxes 
for those who couldn’t afford the fee required to 
vote. 
(83) On June 10, 1966, Ben Chester White, a 
caretaker on a plantation who had no involvement in 
civil rights work, was murdered by Klansmen who 
thought they could divert attention from a civil 
rights march by killing a Black person in Natchez, 
Mississippi. 
(84) On July 30, 1966, Clarence Triggs, a 
bricklayer who attended civil rights meetings spon-
sored by the Congress of Racial Equality, was found 
dead on the roadside with a gunshot through the 
head in Bogalusa, Louisiana. 
(85) On November 8, 1966, Edward Brooke, a 
Republican from Massachusetts, was the first Black 
United States Senator in 85 years. 
(86) On October 15 1966, the Black Panthers 
are founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. 
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(87) On February 27, 1967, Wharlest Jackson, 
treasurer of his local NAACP Chapter in Natchez, 
Mississippi, was killed when a bomb that was plant-
ed in his car exploded. The bomb was planted in his 
car after Jackson was promoted to a position pre-
viously reserved for Whites. 
(88) On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before 
his death, Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered ‘‘Be-
yond Vietnam’’ at the New York City Riverside 
Church. In his speech he condemned the United 
States role in the war. He also stated that the 
United States needed to reconsider their morals. 
King was against the war because the money could 
have been used to fight the war on poverty. He was 
also against African-Americans fighting for a coun-
try that treated them as second-class citizens. 
(89) On May 12, 1967, Benjamin Brown, a 
former civil rights organizer, was killed by stray 
gunshots from police into a crowd when watching a 
student protest in Jackson, Mississippi. 
(90) On August 30, 1967, Thurgood Marshall 
was named the first African-American to the Su-
preme Court. 
(91) On February 8, 1968, Samuel Ephesians 
Hammond, Jr., Delano Herman Middleton, and 
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Henry Ezekial Smith were shot and killed by police 
who fired on student demonstrators at the South 
Carolina State College Campus in Orangeburg, 
South Carolina. 
(92) On March 29, 1968, Martin Luther King, 
Jr., went to Memphis, Tennessee, to help support 
Black sanitary public workers represented by the 
American Federation of State, County and Munic-
ipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 1733 in their fight 
for better wages and treatment. The march that was 
organized for the workers became violent and unsuc-
cessful. 
(93) On April 3, 1968, in an effort to have a 
peaceful march for the sanitation workers, Martin 
Luther King, Jr., returned to Memphis. The night 
before his death he delivered ‘‘I’ve Been to the 
Mountaintop’’ at Mason Temple. 
(94) On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, 
Jr., was murdered outside his room at the Lorraine 
Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. 
(95) On April 11, 1968, President Johnson 
signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968. 
(96) In May 1968, Ralph Abernathy took over 
the SCLC Poor People’s Campaign after the death 
of Dr. King. 
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