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History Timeline

1963 - MLK in Charlotte

May 31, 1963 - A young, energetic black preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks in Charlotte to a gathering of six black high schools. Just 10 days earlier, Johnson C. Smith University students marched downtown to protest segregation, laws that separate people according to race. Black and white civic leaders responded to the protest by agreeing to have lunch together. Dr. King commends the solution that has begun to chip away at segregation in Charlotte's public places.

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1942 - War Industry

December 1941 - Production begins at the U.S. Rubber plant near York Road. With 15 miles of railroad access and 30 miles of gravel road, at the height of World War II the factory will employ 10,000 men and women. In 1958, the site will be developed as part of the Arrowood-Westinghouse-Carowinds area. 

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1955 - Ovens Auditorium

September 11, 1955 - Named for outspoken civic leader David Ovens, the auditorium honoring him opens. Ovens once convinced Enrico Caruso, the world-renowned opera singer, to perform in the Queen City. Caruso claimed he had never sung anywhere smaller than Charlotte! The 2,600-seat auditorium adjoins the Charlotte Coliseum, the world's largest unsupported concrete dome. In later years, the coliseum will be known as Independence Arena. 

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1975 - Restoring Fourth Ward

Civic leaders realize the importance of residential living in the center city. Charlotte banks, led by NCNB and First Union, offer low-interest loans to people willing to restore Fourth Ward's older homes and develop new housing in the old neighborhood. The area will become a showplace and will be recognized as the first of Charlotte's local historic districts.

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1944 - The Road to Berlin

June 6, 1944 - France has been invaded and is controlled by the German army. The Allies, countries fighting together to defeat Germany, attack Normandy in northern France. The most massive invasion in world history will be remembered as D-Day. More than 4,000 ships, 10,000 airplanes and 175,000 troops cross a body of water called the English Channel and overwhelm the Germans. Now, the Allies can fight their way eastward across Europe in pursuit of the German army.

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1955 - Strength of One

December 1, 1955 - A black seamstress is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks has refused to give up her bus seat to a white person. To bring attention to the unfairness of racial separation, called segregation, other black citizens refuse to ride the buses unless they are granted the same rights as white citizens. This refusal is called a boycott. It lasts more than a year. 

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1960 - Woolworth's Sit-In

February 1, 1960  - Four black college students refuse to leave Woolworth's whites only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, until they are served. Charlotte's Franklin McCain is one of the young men who takes part in this sit-in. These sit-ins becomes a frequent way to protest unfair segregation laws. Sit-in at Durham

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1945 - FDR dies

April 13, 1945 - Just three months into his fourth term, America's longest-serving president has died. The funeral train carrying the body of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passes through Charlotte as it travels from Warm Springs, Georgia to Washington, D.C. White and black church choirs sing as thousands of mourners pay their respects at the Southern Railway Station.

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1956 - Early integration

January 5, 1956 - Federal law desegregates interstate buses, meaning it will be illegal for these buses to have separate sections for black and white riders. But the law only applies to buses that travel between states. Buses that run within one state can still be segregated. Even in Charlotte, there are separate waiting rooms for white people and black people, called colored. Desegregation of buses and trains

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1963 - JFK Assassinated

November 22, 1963 - Bullets hit the car carrying John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas and kill America's 35th president. Only 46 years old, Kennedy had been a World War II Navy hero and a U.S. senator. He fought to eliminate schools separating students according to their race, called segregation. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, is captured by police and killed the next day by Jack Ruby. But nothing can ease the nation's grief. 

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