1960-1969 - 1960-1969

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