1. Since the first slaves arrived from Africa in 1619, there was
a tremendous need for the protection and enforcement of a
person's civil rights. 2. In 1808, Congress bans the importation
of slaves from Africa. 3. In 1863, President Lincoln issues the
Emancipation Proclamation, declaring "that all persons held as
slaves" within the Confederate states "are, and henceforward
shall be free." 4. On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme
Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, declares
that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional. 5. On
December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat at the
front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger. In
response to her arrest Montgomery's black community launched a
successful year-long bus boycott. Montgomery's buses were
desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956. 6. In early 1957, The Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights group, is
established by Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred
L. Shuttlesworth. 7. Marti