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Twenty Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, aboard a Dutch ship. They were the first blacks to be forcibly settled as involuntary laborers in the North American British Colonies.
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Massachusetts was the first colony to legalize slavery by statute.
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The first documented attempt at a rebellion by slaves took place in Gloucester County, Virginia.
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Maryland was the first state to try to discourage by law the marriage of white women to black men.
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The Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, passed the first formal antislavery resolution.
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The national convention of Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Society met in New York City. Garvey would be charged with mail fraud in 1923. He was convicted in 1925 and deported in 1927 after serving time in prison.
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In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court completed overturning legal school segregation at all levels.
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Rosa Parks refused to change seats in a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. On December 5 blacks began a boycott of the bus system which continued until shortly after December 13, 1956, when the United States Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation in the city.
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Sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, initiated a wave of similar protests throughout the South.
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Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., blacks began a campaign against discrimination in Birmingham.
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The Cosby Show" broadcast the final original episode of its highly successful eight season run. A prominent show that , displayed black culture and family
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The Million Man March, the idea of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, called the event, held in Washington, D.C., "A Day of Atonement and Reconciliation." The march was described as a call to black men to take charge in rebuilding their communities and show more respect for themselves and devotion to their families.
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Now an annual observance, the New York Stock Exchange closed, for the first time, in honor of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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he first inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The inauguration, which set a record attendance for any event held in Washington, D.C., marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Barack Obama as President and Joe Biden as Vice President. Based on the combined attendance numbers, television viewership, and Internet traffic, it was among the most-observed events ever by the global audience.
