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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston L.S. Churchill sign the Atlantic Charter, calling for the freedom of nations. Africans would interpret the charter as a call to end colonialism.
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Martin Luther King Jr. leads a successful campaign against racial discrimination on public buses in Montgomery, Alabama, beginning his career as a world-renowned civil rights leader.
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President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon to Africa for a visit that leads to establishment of the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. State Department.
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President Eisenhower deploys U.S. Army soldiers to provide security for African-American students integrating a previously white-only school in Little Rock, Arkansa
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The U.S. State Department creates the Bureau of African Affairs. Joseph Satterthwaite, the first assistant secretary of state for African affairs
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Newly elected President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps on March 1
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An effort to strengthen basic education in Africa is created in July.
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President Bush announces an important new effort to combat famine and hunger worldwide, recognizing that 30 million people in Africa are at risk of starvation or are facing severe food shortages, including 14 million people in Ethiopia alone.
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The U.S. Department of Defense announces the creation of a new Africa Command (AFRICOM) to coordinate U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent, promote security partnerships in the region and support humanitarian aid efforts.
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Barack Obama, whose father was from Kenya, becomes the first African-American presidential nominee of a major political party. The campaign is watched closely around the world as a sign of a major change in U.S. racial attitudes. Africans especially follow the campaign, which tends to reinforce already strong pro-American opinions in the region.
