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The beginning of American slavery started in Jamestown when 20 Angolans where brought to the colony. While they were not regarded as slaves at the time, this would be the origins of slavery in America that would grow into the profitable market it would become.
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Vermont becomes the first state to abolish slavery within the United States. This sets a precedent, especially for other Northern states, to start following in their footsteps and also begin to abolish slavery.
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The three fifths clause is passed during the Constitutional Convention. The clause states that slaves will be counted as 3/5ths of a person for both representation of people in a state, as well as for tax purposes. This compromise was created because slaveowners wanted their slaves to be counted as people to increase their representation, while people in the north did not want that. The slaveowners also did not want their slaves to be counted for tax purposes.
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The passing of the Northwest Ordinance set a precedent moving forward for the United States. The Ordinance prevented slavery from being allowed in the northwest territories that were to become states. While slavery was still allowed in the Southern region, this showed that Congress was serious about preventing slavery from expanding beyond where it already was in place as well as stopping slave owners from legally bringing their slaves up north. -
Haiti gains independence from France after being a colony of the country run by slaves. Haiti now becomes the first nation in the world to be run by former slaves. The leader of the rebellion, Toussaint Louverture, becomes an inspiration for slaves all around the world, especially in America. -
Dred Scott has filed a law suit claiming he was a freeman after his master had brought him to a state in which slavery was prohibited. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, but Scott ended up losing because Roger Taney made the court decide on two major questions; could Scott sue since he was a slave, and was he actually free if he was taken to a free state? The court claimed he could not sue because slaves were not considered citizens, and because of that, he had not become free. -
John Brown was a white abolitionist who believed he could rid the world of slavery. He had gathered a group of men, white and black, to raid the weapons at Harpers Ferry, but when they became surrounded by militia, Brown was captured and later executed and labeled a traitor by the South and a martyr by the North, pushing the country closer to a Civil War. -
The 13th amendment is passed stating that the United States of America will finally abolish slavery.
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After Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson took over the presidency. This was a major step back for African Americans in the country. Johnson was a staunch believer that African Americans were inferior and did everything he could throughout his presidency to keep them in a secondary position to white people. -
The 14th amendment stated that any person born in the United States was a legal citizen and was born with certain rights that could not be taken away, which were the rights to life, liberty, and due process. This gave every individual who was a citizen of the country equal rights and protections under the law.
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The Plessy v. Ferguson case came about after trains in Louisiana had separate train cars for African Americans. A group of African Americans, one of them being Plessy, sued that this infringed on their 14th amendment rights. The case reached the Supreme Court who ruled that the segregation was constitutional, as long as it was equal to the white cars, which was not the case. -
The NAACP stands for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. W.E.B. Dubois was one of the cofounders of the organization. The NAACP is a civil rights organization created with the purpose of pushing for equal rights for African Americans. -
The Harlem Renaissance was a period of time during the 1920s and 30s in which African American creatives, particularly in and around Harlem, began creating art, literature, music, dance, etc. that was able to portray their feelings about their lives as African Americans in a country that had relegated them to a secondary position. -
The Tuskegee study was done in order to follow the lives of people with untreated syphilis. Around 400 black men with syphilis were part of the study, but they were never given consent forms and even once Penicillin was found to be a readily available cure, they were never given the treatment. It took until 1997 for a formal apology from the government to be given. -
This Supreme Court Case actually combined 5 different cases, all relating to public school segregation. Thurgood Marshall was in charge of the case, and made the argument that because the schools were segregated through the separate but equal clause, white schools garnered much more attention and care than black schools, going against the 14th amendment. The result was the dismantling of segregation in the public school system. -
Emmett Till was a 14 year old boy that was visiting family in Money Mississippi. There are conflicting reports about whether Till whistled at, spoke to, or did not even acknowledge, a young white women while in a shop. Due to this so called transgression, that night a group of white men came and took Till from his home and he was lynched. The men who killed Till were later acquitted of all charges. -
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 eliminated any type of segregation or discrimination against anyone based on sex, race, religion, color, or national origin. This would eliminate all of the Jim Crow era laws that had been in place to continue segregation between whites and blacks. -
This march began in Selma and followed a route down to Montgomery. The marches were in protest of African Americans being prevented from voting. Two times previously the protesters had tried to march but had been stopped by police brutality, and this became the successful march, led by Martin Luther King Jr. This march helped lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. -
The Black Panther party was formed by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The party was created with the intention to protect African Americans from police brutality. They also wanted to overthrow capitalism in America, because the party was founded on Black nationalist ideals. -
The riots began after police illegally raided a party going on for Vietnam war vets and everyone in attendance was taken away. People witness to the event began looting and rioting, resulting in one of the country's most violent riots in history, with 43 African Americans dead.