Slavery TImeline

By soccer.pear

  • 1619

    1619
    In 1619 twenty Africans were brought to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

  • 1793

    1793
    Eli Whitney’s (1765 – 1825) cotton gin increases the need for slaves.

  • 1831

    1831
    Approximately 75,000 slaves escape to the North using the Underground Railroad.

  • 1849

    1849
    Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes an instrumental leader of the Underground Railroad.

  • 1860

    1860
    Abraham Lincoln is elected president, angering the southern states.

  • 1861

    1861
    The Civil War begins.

  • 1863

    1863
    1863 Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation proclaims that all slaves in rebellious territories are forever free.

  • 1865

    1865
    The Civil War ends.

  • 1866

    1866
    1866 The “Black Codes” are passed.

  • 1868

    1868
    The 14th Amendment is ratified, defining citizenship. This overturns the Dred Scot decision.

  • 1870

    1870
    The 15th Amendment is ratified, giving African Americans the right to vote.

  • 1929-1968

    1929-1968
    Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968) and others set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading engine of the Civil Rights Movement.

  • 1955

    1955
    Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white person, standing up for her rights.

  • 1964

    1964
    The Civil Rights Act is signed, prohibiting discrimination of all kinds.

  • 1965

    1965
    The Voting Rights Act is passed, outlawing the practices used in the South to disenfranchise African American voters.

  • 1967

    1967
    Edward W. Brooke (1919 - ) becomes the first African American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction. He serves two terms as a Senator from Massachusetts.

  • 2008

    2008
    Barack Obama (1961 - ) becomes the first African American to win the U.S. presidential race.