What progress was made for the rights of black americans during the 1950s

it was in the 1950s and 1960s that the Civil Rights Movement - led by Martin Luther King Jr - challenged white supremacy:

In 1954, Rev Brown won the right to send his child to a white school. In a huge and unprecedented decision, (Brown v Board of Education, 1954) the Supreme Court finally ruled that segregation could not ever be equal.

In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white person, inspiring the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

In 1957, nine black students, with military protection, went to a white school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

The 1950's witnessed the overturning of Plessy v. Ferguson in the Brown v. Board of Education. The Civil Rights movement also began in earnest in this decade. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955-1956 as well as the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) occurred in this period as well.