Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
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In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy's Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida. In response to the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957, the U.S. restarted the Explorer program, which had been proposed earlier by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA). Privately, however, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and President Dwight D. Eisenhower were aware of progress being made by the Soviets on Sputnik from secret spy plane imagery. Together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), ABMA built Explorer 1 and launched it on 1 February 1958 (UTC). Before work was completed, however, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on 3 November 1957. Meanwhile, the spectacular failure of Vanguard TV3 on 6 December 1957, deepened American dismay over the country's position in the Space Race. On 17 March 1958, Vanguard 1 became the second artificial satellite successfully placed in a low Earth orbit by the United States. It was the first solar-powered satellite. Just 15.2 cm (6.0 in) in diameter and weighing 1.4 kg (3.1 lb), Vanguard 1 was described by then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as, "The grapefruit satellite". Vanguard 1, and the upper stage of its launch vehicle, are the oldest artificial satellites still in space, as Vanguard's predecessors, Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1, have decayed from orbit.
Vanguard 1 (Harvard designation: 1958-Beta 2, COSPAR ID: 1958-002B) is an American satellite that was the fourth artificial Earth-orbiting satellite to be successfully launched, following Sputnik 1, Sputnik 2, and Explorer 1. It was launched 17 March 1958. Vanguard 1 was the first satellite to have solar electric power. Although communications with the satellite were lost in 1964, it remains the oldest artificial object still in orbit, together with the upper stage of its launch vehicle. Vanguard 1 was designed to test the launch capabilities of a three-stage launch vehicle as a part of Project Vanguard, and the effects of the space environment on a satellite and its systems in Earth orbit. It also was used to obtain geodetic measurements through orbit analysis. Vanguard 1, being small and light enough to carry with one hand, was described by the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, as "the grapefruit satellite".
Vanguard 2 (or Vanguard 2E before launch) is an Earth-orbiting satellite launched 17 February 1959 at 15:55:02 GMT, aboard a Vanguard SLV-4 rocket as part of the United States Navy's Project Vanguard. The satellite was designed to measure cloud cover distribution over the daylight portion of its orbit, for a period of 19 days, and to provide information on the density of the atmosphere for the lifetime of its orbit (about 300 years). As the first weather satellite and one of the first orbital space missions, the launch of Vanguard 2 was an important milestone in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Vanguard 2 remains in orbit.
Vanguard 3 (Harvard designation: 1959 Eta 1) is a scientific satellite that was launched into Earth orbit by the Vanguard SLV-7 on 18 September 1959, the third successful Vanguard launch out of eleven attempts. Vanguard rocket: Vanguard Satellite Launch Vehicle-7 (SLV-7) was an unused Vanguard TV-4BU (TV-4BU=Test Vehicle-Four BackUp) rocket, updated to the final production Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV). Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), and designed and built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed Martin), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket. as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Vanguard 3 was an important part of the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.