Date: Tuesday, August 30, 2005
By: Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Civil Rights and Voting Rights laws, the Freedom Riders and the Montgomery bus boycott are among the events commemorated on a set of stamps dedicated Tuesday by the U.S. Postal Service.
The 10 37-cent stamps commemorate milestones in the civil rights movement and were dedicated at ceremonies in several cities across the country.
The set, entitled "To Form a More Perfect Union," includes stamps commemorating:
* The 1965 Selma, Ala., civil rights marches demanding voting rights.
* Montgomery Bus Boycott, the 1955 protest against Montgomery, Ala.'s segregated public transportation system.
* Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter sit in, when a group of four black students refused to leave a lunch counter in 1960 after they had been denied service.
* Freedom Riders, men and women who traveled to the South to test the 1960 Supreme Court ruling outlawing racial segregation in interstate public transit.
* Little Rock Nine, the African-American students blocked from attending high school in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957..
* Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination in public facilities, jobs and government.
* Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision outlawing segregated public schools.
* Executive Order 9981 integrating the armed forces.
* March on Washington in 1963 in which thousands demonstrated for jobs and equality and Martin Luther King Jr., made his "I Have a Dream" speech.
* Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawing literacy tests to vote and protecting the voting rights of minorities.
Dedication ceremonies for the stamps were held in Greensboro, Little Rock, Montgomery, Selma, Topeka, Kan., and Washington. Ceremonies scheduled for Memphis, Tenn., and Jackson, Miss., were canceled because of Hurricane Katrina.
Posted By:
Wednesday, August 31st 2005 at 6:56PM
You can also
click
here to view all posts by this author...
