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outlawed segregation in public schools and ended on April 4, 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis.

Just as the death of the movement's most famous leader did not mark the end of the struggle for racial equality, however, the story -- and the struggle -- begin much earlier.

The first Europeans who arrived in the New Land murdered and enslaved the peaceful Indians who greated them, and in 1619, the first shipment of 20 slaves from Africa arrived on American shores.

For the next 250 years, the institution of slavery flourished. As slavery grew, so did deep seated feelings of racial superiority adoped by whites to justify owning their fellow men and women. Southern whites insisted Blacks were inferior human beings who were destined to be slaves.

The harshness of the slave system lead to some revolts and many escapes; a brutal system of punishments helped to keep the slave in his place.