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The first slaves arrive in Virginia.
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Lucy Terry becomes the earliest known black American poet when she writes about the last American Indian attack on her village.
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Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory.
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Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa.
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The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri.
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Denmark Vesey, an enslaved African-American, plans a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina.
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Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective and celebrated leaders of the Underground Railroad.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin is published. It becomes one of the most influential works to stir anti-slavery responses.
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The Dred Scott Case holds that Congress does not have the right to ban slavery in states and that slaves are not citizens.
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President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring "that all persons held as slaves within the Confederate states" are and shall be free.
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Congress establishes the Freedmen's Bureau to protect the rights of newly emancipated blacks.
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Howard University's law school becomes the country's first black law school.
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The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving blacks the right to vote.
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The NAACP is founded in New York led by W.E.B. Du Bois.
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Jackie Robinson becomes the first African-American to play Major League Baseball when he is signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey.
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Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam.
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Rosa Parks starts the Civil Rights Movement.
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Civil Rights Movement Ended.
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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights group, is established by Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth.
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James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi.
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The March on Washington is attended by about 250,000 people, the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital. Martin Luther King delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
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Congress passes Civil Rights Act.
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Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is assassinated.
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The Black Panthers are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.
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President Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. He becomes the first black Supreme Court Justice.
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Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Sen. Barack Obama becomes the first African American to be nominated as a major party nominee for president.
