Events Calendar

April 4, 1968: Civil Rights icon, Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee. James Earl Ray is convicted of the murder in 1969

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 became law on April 9, 1866. President Andrew Jackson, a Democrat, attempted to veto the bill, but it was overruled by the Republican controlled Congress. The act granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States “without distinction of race or color, or previous condition

April 11, 1968: President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act, providing equal housing opportunity regardless of race, religion or national origin.