African American teenager in St. Louis dies of AIDS like symptoms
Gay men in US and Sweden, and heterosexual men in Tanzania and Haiti, begin showing signs of what will later be called AIDS.
1962: Illinois becomes the first U.S. state to remove sodomy law from its criminal code
1963: Bayard Rustin, noted civil rights activist and gay man, is the chief organizer behind the historic March in DC
The first gay rights demonstration in the USA takes place at the Whitehall Induction Center in NYC, protesting against discrimination in the military
Martin Luther King delivers his landmark “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington
Bomb attack on a black church in Birmingham kills four girls.
1964: The Civil Rights Act is enacted
1965: The Voting Rights Act is passed
Immigration and Nationality Act (Hart-Cellar Act) abolishes “national origins” allocating immigration quotas — Asian countries now on an equal footing with others for the first
1966: Compton Cafeteria riot occurred in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, in response to the violent and constant police harassment of drag queens and trans people, particularly trans women
1966: Black Panther party is formed by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in California
1967: Loving v Virginia, US Supreme Court rules that laws banning interracial marriage violate equal protection & due process clauses
1967: Thurgood Marshall, sworn in as the first African American on the Supreme Court
1968: Hispanic Heritage Week is created
1968: Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis
1968: The Indian Civil Rights Act is signed into law, granting Native American tribes many of the benefits included in
1969: Stonewall Riots took place in NYC, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar located in Greenwich Village
Delano Grape labor strike, started by Filipinos and joined by Mexican farmworkers