Ten Interfaith Riders go on trial after being arrested for seeking service at a segregated airport restaurant in Tallahassee, Florida, and face $500 in fines or 30 days in jail.
June 21, 1940
Jesse Thornton, a Black man in Luverne, Alabama, is lynched for referring a to a white police officer by his name, without using “Mr.”
June 20, 1940
After NAACP members try to register to vote in Brownsville, Tennessee, a mob of white men retaliates by abducting and lynching local NAACP secretary, Elbert Williams.
June 19, 1963
NAACP field secretary and World War II veteran Medgar Evans, who was assassinated by a white supremacist, is buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors as thousands mourn.
June 18, 2015
In Charleston, South Carolina, a white teen who embraced racist ideology and wanted to start a “race war” is arrested for shooting nine Black people attending Bible study at Emanuel AME Church.
June 17, 1971
President Richard Nixon declares “War on Drugs,” contributing to 700% increase in the U.S. prison population by 2007.
June 17, 1958
In California, 14 Mexican migrant workers die in a burning bus.
June 16, 1944
South Carolina electrocutes George Stinney Jr., a 90-pound Black 14 year-old boy, after he is falsely accused of rape and murder. He is the youngest person executed in 20th century America.
June 15, 1920
Three Black circus workers are accused of raping a white woman and lynched by a mob of 10,000 in Duluth, Minnesota.
June 14, 2010
EJI (Equal Justice Initiative) argues to overturn the death-in-prison sentence imposed on a 13 year old child in Mississippi.