Black History Month

  • Twenty african americans arrive in jamestown.

    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.
  • First Antislavery Resoulution passed

    The Quakers of Germantown, Pennsylvania, passed the first formal antislavery resolution.
  • Execution of 21 African Americans

    A slave insurrection occurred in New York City, resulting in the execution of 21 African Americans.
  • The Cato Revolt

    killing more than 25 whites, most of the rebels, led by a slave named Cato, were rounded up as they tried to escape to Florida. More than 30 blacks were executed as participants.
  • Free blacks fight with minutemen

    Free blacks fight with the Minutemen in the initial skirmishes of the Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.
  • two blacks commended for their service on the American side at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

  • Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery.

  • George Washington reversed previous policy and allowed the recruitment of blacks as soldiers.

  • Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organized the Free African Society

  • The Continental Congress forbade slavery in the region northwest of the Ohio River by the Northwest Ordinance.

  • Congress passed the first Fugitive Slave Law

  • he Ohio legislature passed "Black Laws" designed to restrict the legal rights of free blacks

  • Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery

  • The Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves in states in rebellion against the United States.

  • I have a dream speech

  • Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.