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Slavery comes to North America
20 African indentured servants were brought to Jamestown, Virginia by Dutch ships. -
Boston Massacre
Crispus Attucks was an African American man killed during the Boston Massacre and believed to be the first casualty of the American Revolution. -
First fugitive slave act
Passed by congress, the first fugitive slave act makes it a crime to harbor an escaped slave. Authorized local governments to size and return escapees to their owners. -
The Missouri compromise
A legislation that admitted Maine to the united states as a free state but with Missouri as a slave state in attempts to maintain balance of power between the North and South. -
Freedoms journal
First news paper own and operated by African Americans in the United States. Founded by Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm and based in New York City. -
Nat Turners Rebellion
Nathaniel Turner was an enslaved man who led a rebellion of slaves seeking freedom. Turner told 6 of is most trusted friends and decided to kill all white people connected to slavery. -
Fredrick Douglas
After escaping slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader in the abolitionist movement. In 1845 he publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass which is one of the classics in American literature. -
Harriet Tubman
Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and made about 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. -
The compromise of 1850
A series of bills to mainly address issues related to slavery. The bills provided for slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, settled a Texas boundary dispute, and established a stricter fugitive slave act. -
Dred Scott v Sanford
Often referred to as the Dred Scott decision was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court held that the US Constitution was not meant to include American citizenship for black people therefore, could not expect any protection from the Federal Government or the courts. -
The Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War, announcing on September 22, 1862, that if the rebels did not end the fighting and rejoin the Union by January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states would be free. -
13th amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by congress to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
Civil rights act
The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first United States federal law to define citizenship and affirm that all citizens are equally protected by the law. Intended to protect the civil rights of persons of African descent born in or brought to the United States. -
First Jim Crow Segregation Law Passed
Tennessee passes the first of the Jim Crow laws which were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. -
Brown v Board of Education
The Supreme Court ruled that separating children in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. It signaled the end of legalized racial segregation in the schools of the United States. -
Obama Election
Barack Obama elected as America’s first Black president on November 4, 2008.
