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Stono Rebellion
The deadliest revolt in Colonial America. Armed slaves start marching to Florida and towards freedom, but they are put down and at least 20 whites and more than 40 blacks were killed. -
Black Protestantism
Protestant evangelists converted hundreds of African Americans. Black preachers adapted the teachings of white Protestant churches to their own needs. Black Christians generally ignored the doctrines of original sin and Calvinist predestination as well as biblical passages that encouraged unthinking obedience to authority. Some converts envisioned the Christian God as a warrior who liberated the Jews from Egypt. Many of them looked forward to emancipation from slavery seen through scripture. -
Haitian slave revolt
Former slave Toussaint L'Ouverture leads a slave revolt in Haiti, West Indies. He is captured in 1802, but the revolt continues and Haitian independence is declared. Southerners were terrified by this because they discouraged the importation of slaves into the United States. -
Nat Turner’s Revolt
Nat Turner planed a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, the only effective, sustained slave rebellion in U.S. history. Sixty whites were killed before Turner and his followers were captured and hung. -
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The Underground Railroad
Approximately 75,000 slaves escape to the North and to freedom via the Underground Railroad, a system in which free African American and white "conductors," abolitionists, and sympathizers help guide and shelter the escaped slaves. -
Frederick Douglass escapes
Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery in Baltimore. -
Harriet Tubman escapes
Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland. She became one of the best-known "conductors" on the Underground Railroad, returning to the South 19 times and helping over 300 slaves escape to freedom. -
Abolition of Slavery
Slavery was abolished, but it took a few days for the word to spread to all of the plantation farms and their former slave workers. Did not by any means end segregation and inequality. -
United Negro Improvement Association
Led by Marcus Garvey. Represents the largest mass movement in African-American history. Supported Garvey's “Back to Africa”. -
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Great Migration
Movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West. -
Harlem Renaissance
Cultural, social, and artistic explosion that took place in Harlem between the end of World War I and the middle of the 1930s. Many black writers, artists, musicians, photographers, poets, and scholars came from the south, fleeing the caste system and wanting to express themselves freely. -
Nation of Islam
African American political and religious movement, founded in Detroit, Michigan, United States, by Wallace D. Fard Muhammad on July 4, 1930. A group of militant Black Americans who profess Islamic religious beliefs and advocate independence for Black Americans. Racist against whites. -
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African American Civil Rights movement
Goal was to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and to secure legal recognition and federal protection. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Against segregation on public buses. -
Browder v. Gayle
Ended segregation on buses. -
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Founded by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy. Had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. Is an African American civil rights organization. -
Freedom Riders
The interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized a series of “freedom rides” in 1961 on interstate buses throughout the South. The aim was to call attention to blatant violation of recent Supreme Court rulings against segregation in interstate commerce. -
March on Washington
Civil rights leaders proposed a march on Washington in order to show support of Kennedy’s civil rights bill. Martin Luther King ended up becoming the public face of the march and delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. -
March on Birmingham
April 1963 thousands of black demonstrators marched downtown to picket Birmingham’s department stores. They were met by Eugene “Bull” Connor, the city’s commissioner of public safety, and his police, who used excessive force. Television news cameras captured the scene. Kennedy was horrified and went on TV to denounce racism and announce a new civil rights bill.