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The landing of the first slave ship
The arrival of the “20 and odd” African captives aboard a Dutch “man of war” ship on August 20 in the year 1619 historically marks the early planting of the seeds of the American slave trade. Although American slavery was not a known institution at the time, this group of Africans was the first to go on record to be sold as involuntary laborers. -
Slave Revolts
First serious slave conspiracy in Colonial America
White servants and black slaves conspire to revolt in Gloucester County, VA, but are betrayed by a fellow servant. -
Stono Rebellion
The deadliest revolt in Colonial America takes place in Stono, SC. Armed slaves start marching to Florida and towards freedom, but the insurrection is put down and at least 20 whites and more than 40 blacks are killed. -
Frederick Douglass
Former slave and eminent human rights leader in the abolition movement, was the first black citizen to hold a high U.S. government rank.
Born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland, around 1818. -
Mary McCloud Bethune
In 1896, the National Association of Colored Women was formed to promote the needs of black women. Bethune served as the Florida chapter president of the NACW from 1917 to 1925. She worked to register black voters, which was resisted by white society and had been made almost impossible by a variety of obstacles in Florida law. She was threatened by members of the resurgent Ku Klux Klan in those years. Bethune also served as the president of the Southeastern Federation of Colored Women's Clubs. -
William Lloyd Garrison
An American journalistic crusader who helped lead the successful abolitionist campaign against slavery in the United States.
In 1830 he started an abolitionist paper, The Liberator. In 1832 he helped form the New England Antislavery Society. When the Civil War broke out, he continued to blast the Constitution as a pro-slavery document. When the civil war ended, he at last saw the abolition of slavery. -
Dred Scott v. Sandford Start
Scott is sold to John Emerson, a United States army physician. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Scott and Emerson move to the free state of Illinois. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
In the case, Scott v. Emerson, the defendant, Irene Emerson wins. The presiding judge, Alexander Hamilton provides Scott with a retrial. -
Underground Railroad and leaders
A network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century enslaved people of African descent in the United States in efforts to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause.
Important people: Harriet Tubman -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
At the second trial, the verdict is in Scott's favor. As a result, Emerson files an appeal with the Missouri Supreme Court. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford
The Missouri Supreme Court reverses the lower court's decision. -
Dred Scott v. Sanford Final Ruling
The United States Supreme Court decides that freed African-Americans are not citizens. As a result, they cannot sue in federal court. In addition, enslaved African-Americans are property and as a result, have no rights. In addition, the ruling found that Congress cannot prohibit slavery from spreading into the western territories. -
John Brown
He led 21 men on a raid of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had been killed or captured. -
Start of Civil War
The states that remained loyal and did not declare secession were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. After four years of combat that left over 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed and slavery was abolished. Then began the Reconstruction and the processes of restoring national unity and -
Emancipation Proclamation
The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
End of Civil War
End of slavery in the South. -
Passage of 13th Amendment
Abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
Passage of 14th Amendment
Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by Southern states, which were forced to ratify it in order for them to regain representation in Congress. -
Passage of 15th Amendment
Prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
Booker T. Washington
In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama (now known as Tuskegee University), which grew immensely and focused on training African Americans in agricultural pursuits. A political adviser and writer, Washington clashed with intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois over the best avenues for racial uplift. -
Ida B. Wells
In 1896, Wells founded the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs, and also co-founded the National Afro-American Council. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
In a 7 to 1 decision the "separate but equal" provision of public accommodations by state governments was found to be constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause. -
W.E.B DuBois
He attended the First Pan-African Conference. Du Bois played a leading role, drafting a letter ("Address to the Nations of the World") to European leaders appealing to them to struggle against racism, to grant colonies in Africa and the West Indies the right to self-government and to demand political and other rights for African Americans. Southern states were passing new laws and constitutions to disfranchise most African Americans, exclusion from political system that lasted into the 60s. -
Start of NAACP
During its early years, the NAACP focused on legal strategies designed to confront the critical civil rights issues of the day. They called for federal anti-lynching laws and coordinated a series of challenges to state-sponsored segregation in public schools, an effort that led to the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which declared the doctrine of “separate but equal” to be unconstitutional. -
Marcus Garvey
Founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) with the goal of uniting all of African diaspora to "establish a country and absolute government of their own." -
A. Philip Randolph
he magazine’s intelligent and spirited prose criticized President Woodrow Wilson as readily as Booker T. Washington and Du Bois. Its approval of the Bolshevik Revolution was cited by various government watchdogs during the red scare of 1919, although Randolph always resisted the appeal of the communists. -
Black Muslims
African-American religious movement in the United States, split since the late 1970s into the American Society of Muslims and the Nation of Islam. The original group was founded (1930) in Detroit by Wali Farad (or W. D. Fard), whom his followers believed to be "Allah in person." -
Charles Houston
Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not constitutional to give an African-American student funds to attend an out-of-state law school instead of granting him admittance to the only law school in the state. -
Executive Order 8802
Signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 25, 1941.
Prohibit racial discrimination in the national defense industry. It was the first federal action, though not a law, to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination in the United States. The President's statement that accompanied the Order cited the war effort, saying that "the democratic way of life within the nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups." -
James Farmer and CORE
The Congress of Racial Equality was founded in 1942 as the Committee of Racial Equality by an interracial group of students in Chicago-Bernice Fisher, James R. Robinson, James L. Farmer, Jr., Joe Guinn, George Houser, and Homer Jack. Many of these students were members of the Chicago branch of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a pacifist organization seeking to change racist attitudes. The founders of CORE were deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's teachings of nonviolent resistance. -
Lunch Counter Demonstrations
Weekly protests at dime store & department store lunch counters were a regular sight in downtown St. Louis during the 1950s. Effort to integrate these lunch counters dated back to 1943.On May 15, 1944, a group of black and white women sat down at the Stix, Baer, and Fuller lunch counter and were denied service. The store manager agreed to serve them only if other lunch counters did so first. -
Jackie Robinson's integration of major league baseball
Robinson moved to Florida to begin spring training with the Royals, and played his first game in Ebbets Field for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947—becoming the first black player to compete in the major leagues. -
Executive Order 9981
Issued by President Harry S. Truman. It abolished racial discrimination in the United States Armed Forces and eventually led to the end of segregation in the services. -
African Americans with college degrees
The graph on the left shows the difference between white males, red line, and African American males, light blue line, with a 4-yeaar degree since 1950. -
Brown v. Topeka, KS
When, combined with several other cases, her suit reached the Supreme Court, that body, in an opinion by recently appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren, broke with long tradition and unanimously overruled the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, holding for the first time that de jure segregation in the public schools violated the principle of equal protection under the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. -
Rosa Parks' decision on bus in Montgomery
Rosa Parks, an African American woman, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white person. She was the secretary for the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. -
Little Rock 9
Unaltered Blossom Plan had gerrymandered school districts to guarantee a black majority at Horace Mann High and a white majority at Hall High. Even though black students lived closer to Central, they would be placed in Horace Mann thus confirming the intention of the school board to limit the impact of desegregation. The altered plan gave white students the choice of not attending Horace Mann, but didn't give black students the option of attending Hall. Blossom Plan didn't sit well w/ NAACP. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
The official end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when a federal ruling, Browder v. Gayle, took effect, and led to a United States Supreme Court decision that declared the Alabama and Montgomery laws requiring segregated buses to be unconstitutional. -
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC
An African-American civil rights organization. SCLC, closely associated with its first president, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had a large role in the American Civil Rights Movement. -
John Lewis and SNCC
John Lewis was an influential SNCC leader and is recognized by most as one of the important leaders of the civil rights movement as a whole. -
Freedom Rides
a group of 13 African-American and white civil rights activists launched the Freedom Rides, a series of bus trips through the American South to protest segregation in interstate bus terminals. Freedom Riders, who were recruited by CORE departed from Washington, D.C., & attempted to integrate facilities at bus terminals along the way into the Deep South. African-American Freedom Riders tried to use “whites-only” restrooms & lunch counters. -
James Meredith's integration of the University of Mississippi
He started to apply to the University of Mississippi, intending to insist on his civil rights to attend the state-funded university. Meredith, with backing of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, alleging that the university had rejected him only because of his race, as he had a highly successful record. The case went through many hearings, Meredith had the right to be admitted to the state school. -
James Meredith
District Court entered an injunction directing members of the Board of Trustees & officials of the University to register Meredith. Though Meredith was clearly legally entitled to register, Democratic Governor of Mississippi declared "no school will be integrated in Mississippi while I am your governor". State legislature quickly passed a law that denied admission to any person “who has a crime of moral turpitude against him” or who had been convicted of any felony offense or not pardoned. -
John Lewis and SNCC
When Chuck McDew stepped down as SNCC chairman, Lewis was quickly elected to take over. Lewis helped plan and took part in the March on Washington. -
Project C in Birmingham
In the spring of 1963, activists in Birmingham, Alabama launched one of the most influential campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement: Project C, better known as The Birmingham Campaign. It would be the beginning of a series of lunch counter sit-ins, marches on City Hall and boycotts on downtown merchants to protest segregation laws in the city. -
The death of Medgar Evers
Hours after President John F. Kennedy's nationally televised Civil Rights Address, Evers pulled into his driveway after returning from a meeting with NAACP lawyers. Evers was struck in the back with a bullet fired from an Enfield 1917 rifle; the bullet ripped through his heart, he staggered 30 ft before collapsing. He was taken to the local hospital in Jackson where he was initially refused entry because of his race until it was explained who he was; he died in the hospital 50 minutes later. -
March on Washington
1 of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African Americans. The march is credited with helping to pass the Civil Rights Act (1964) and preceded the Selma Voting Rights Movement which led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965). -
Black Arts Movement
The movement was triggered by the assassination of Malcolm X. Among the well-known writers who were involved with the movement are Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Hoyt W. Fuller, and Rosa Guy. -
Malcom X
To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history. -
John Lewis and SNCC
He led 525 marchers across the Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, later known as "Bloody Sunday". -
Death of Jimmie Lee Jackson
500 people organized by C.T. Vivian, left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion and attempted a peaceful walk to Perry County jail, where James Orange was being held. Marchers planned to sing hymns and return to the church. Police said that they thought the crowd was planning a jailbreak. Jackson died of his wounds at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma, on Feb. 26, 1965. An administrator at Good Samaritan, said there were powder burns on Jackson's abdomen indicating he was shot at close range. -
Selma to Montgomery March
Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights. -
Civil Rights Act of 1965
It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
This act was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson. It outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting. -
Black Power
Political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies aimed at achieving self-determination for people of African/Black descent. -
Black Panthers
Oakland California, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. They practiced militant self-defense of minority communities against the U.S. government, and fought to establish revolutionary socialism through mass organizing and community based programs. -
Thurgood Marshall
He began his 25-year affiliation with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1934 by representing the organization in the law school discrimination suit Murray v. Pearson. In 1936, Marshall became part of the national staff of the NAACP. President Johnson nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." -
Carl Burton Stokes
An American politician of the Democratic party who served as the 51st mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Elected on November 7, 1967, and taking office on January 1, 1968, he was the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city (although he was elected after Richard G. Hatcher). Fellow Ohioan Robert C. Henry was the first black mayor of any U.S. city (Springfield, elected 1966). -
Death of Martin Luther King Jr.
Just after 6 p.m, Martin Luther King Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at theLorraine Motelin Memphis, Tennessee. The civil rights leader was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers’ strike and was on his way to dinner when a bullet struck him in the jaw and severed his spinal cord. King was pronounced dead after his arrival at a Memphis hospital. He was 39 years old. -
Urban Renewal
Program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. -
Urban Blight
Process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude. -
Franklin Raines
Appointed CEO of Fannie Mae, making him the first African American CEO to lead a Fortune 500 company -
Robert L. Johnson
Born on April 8, 1946, in Hickory, Mississippi. Johnson founded Black Entertainment Television (BET) in 1979 with his wife, Sheila. He became the first African-American billionaire after selling the network to Viacom in 2001. -
Barack Obama
The 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004, running unsuccessfully for the United States House of Representatives in 2000. -
African American unemployment
The unemployment rates from 2007-2010 from ages 16-24 show that African Americans are the most unemployed and that white people are the least. -
African Americans in prison
There are around 60,000 more African Americans in prison than white people as of 2011.
