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A Dutch ship brings 20 African indentured servants to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia.
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A passage by Thomas Jefferson condemning the slave trade is removed from the Declaration of Independence due to pressure from the southern colonies.
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This made Missouri a slave state and Maine a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation.
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This created a framework for Reconstruction and the readmittance of the Confederate states to the Union. Although Lincoln used a pocket veto to kill it, after his assassination the Republican Congress passed the measure requiring among other things, that southern states give the Negro the right to vote.
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Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States.
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15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote.
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Senate gave final congressional approval to a Civil Rights Act after South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond (then a Democrat) ended a filibuster that had lasted 24 hours.
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On Februry 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated while speaking at a rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
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It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.
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On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot outside of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. King's assassination precipitated marches and rallies across America and riots erupted in over 100 cities. In the melee, 46 people were killed and 20,000 arrested.
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On September 12, 1992, Mae Jemison became the first African-American woman to go into space.
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First African American U.S. Secretary of State.
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Oprah Winfrey becomes a billionare.
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First African American Woman Secretary of State.
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Barak Obama is elected president of the United States.