Civil Rights Movement

In 1955, a 14-year-old Black boy was lynched in Mississippi. Till tells the story of Mamie Till-Mobley, whose insistence on an open-casket funeral helped ignite the civil rights movement.

One of the first lunch counter sit-ins of the civil rights movement took place in Oklahoma City in 1958. This weekend, the city remembers the protest and its organizer, Clara Luper.

Robert and his wife Jeannie Graetz faced bombs and KKK death threats for their role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, but their Black friends and neighbors protected them.

Lowery got his start as an activist organizing bus boycotts in 1950s Alabama. He led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for two decades and prayed at Barack Obama's first inauguration.