Society Timeline

  • Invention Of The Cotton Gin

    Invented by Eli Whitney, the cotton gin is a machine that seperates the seeds from raw cotten fibers. Using a cotton gin operated by water power allowed one worker to clean 1,000 pounds and increase production tremendously. The creation of the cotton gin not only caused a revolution for the cotton productuon but aslo had a large impact on slavery in the U.S. Growing and cultivating cotton now bacame a less labor intense cash crop. As a result, increaded the amount of slaves and slaveholders.
  • Abolishionist Movement

    The abolitionist movement attempted to achieve immediate emancipation of all slaves and the ending of racial segregation and discrimination.Theodore D. Weld, William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and Elizur Wright, Jr., all had taken up the cause of “immediate emancipation".
  • The 13th Amendment

    The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished and continues to prohibit slavery in the Untied States. African Americans recieved legal freedom, but nothing more. The true revolution for African Americans still wasn't until 1954. However the congress did not give any decision for equal rights for whites and African Americans.
  • The 14th Amendment

    The passing of the 14th Amendment gave and extended rights granted by the bill of rights, to former slaves. As a result of the Civil War, congress passed three Amendments as a part of the reconstruction to grant civil and eqaul rights to black citizens. One important part of this Amendment was to grant citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States", including former slaves. Another major point,gave the right to equal protection for both state and federal governments.
  • The 15th Amendment

    The 15th Amendment granted African Americans the right to vote stating that "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude".This amendment was also purposed against the south, that tried to prevent political rights from the blacks.
  • Plessy Vs. Ferguson

    Homer Plessy was arrested and sent to jail for sitting in a white passagner only cart of a train one day. Even though he was only 1/8 black, he was still treated as an African American and was insisted he must sit in the colored section of the train where he belonged. After Plessy lost his case, his appeal made it to the US supreme court and ruled 7-1 that the Lousianna law didn't violate the 13th Amendment. As segregation in the South grew, the idea of "seperate but equal" was questioned.
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    The Great Migration

    This event included more than 6 million African-Americans who moved out of the South to cities across the Northeast, Midwest and West. This migration resulted in huge demographic shifts across the U.S and between 1910 and 1930 many cities such as New York, Chicago and Detroit saw thier African AMerican population grow 40%. This had such an impact on many aspects of our lives inlcuding the music that we listen to, the politics of our country to the ways the cities even look and feel,
  • Booker T. Washington

    Booker T. Washington was one of the most famous black educators in hisrtory who had dedicated his life to a school for Afircan American students and found Tuskegge Institute. Washington taught his students many skills and attitudes he believed would help them succeed in Amercian society. He was a great and powerful influential charecter who inspired many white philanthropists as well as blacks.
  • The 19th Amendment

    The 19th Amendment provided the equal voting rights for both men and women. After 300 years of not only women but the whole country, many years of protesting, and discussions the victory had finally occured. Two major fiqures who helped with the sufferage movement was Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. The Suffrage movement has been going on since the Civil War, but the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments did not cover the rights of women to vote.
  • Sit In's

    CORE, or th econgress of radical eqaulity, created sit in's to desegregate the Jack Spralt cofee hosue in Chicago. The members simply sat down at a segergated lunch counter or other public places, and if they were denied services at first, they stayed. This became a popular form of protest in the early 1960s and was most likely to be successful because of the fact business owners didnt want to jepordize their buisness and lose customers.
  • Malcolm X

    Malcolm Little was an African American leader and a major fiqure in the nation of Islam during the 1950's and 1960's. Malcolm X started as a hustler in Harlem NY, got into alot of trouble with drugs, alcohol, and steeling and was eventually arrested and jailed. While in jail Malcolm X decided to turn his life around and then began to teach lessons at the NOI(Nation of Islam) and worked to keep African Americans from empowering themselves & became one of the orginizations most important speakers.
  • White Flight

    White Flight was a term created in the United States which is referenced from a large population of whites, especially the upper-middle class who migrated from neighborhoods undergoing racial intergration to more of a suburban, same skin color kind of area.
  • Brown V. Board of Education

    This historic event came about when Oliver Brown had sued the Topeka, Kansas board of education to allow his 8 year old daughter, Linda to attend a nearby school for whites only. Thurgood Marshall argued on behalf of Brown and agianst segregation in American schools. One year later court ruled local school boards should move to desegregate.
  • Rosa Parks Bus Boycott

    Rosa Parks was a civil rights activist who one day refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passagner which then became a city wide boycott. Then the city had no choice but to lift the law requiring segregation on public busses. Rosa Parks received many honros during her lifetime, including the NAACP's highest award.With the help of legal action & determination of the African-American community, made the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott one of the largest and most sucsessful mass movements.
  • Little Rock School Desegregation

    This event prevented nine Afican American students from intergrating the high school. After several failed attempts to negotiate with the govenor Orval Faubus, President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the Arkensaw national guard removing the gaurd from government control and ordering 1,000 troops from the United States army to oversee intergration. These troops were sent to protect the students who were then shielded for the remainder of the school year.At the end of the school year.
  • Student Non-Violent Coordination Comitee(SNCC)

    The SNCC was founded by young people who had been leaders of the sit in protest movement. This organization had been hoped to serve as a youth wing to the SCLC but came up with their own specific tactics and projects which made them much more. There primary goal was to get rid of the jim crow seperation in the south and was most successful due to all of the involvment from some of the white society.
  • Freedom Riders

    This historic event consisted of seven African Americans, and six whites who left Washington D.C to travel to the deep South to defy the Jim Crow Laws and desired for a change. Although the Freedom Riders were welcomed with hate and violence, the riders still stood strong and their effort was rewarded and transformed the Civil Rights Movement.
  • W.E.B Du Bois

    W.E.B Du Bois was an African American scholar and leader in the early 1900's. He out of many African American advovates encourged them to develope leaderhsip skills. Born in MA, Du Bois became the first African American to earn a PHD from Harvard.
  • Civil Rights Act

    The Civil RIghts Act was one of the most impotant historic breakthroughs because it was one of the first civil rights bill's to pass through congress in the 20th century. This bill included outlawing discrimination based on race, color, sex or national orgin. This bill aslo required equal access to public places and employment and also enforced desegregation in schools but however did not end discrimination.
  • Black Pride Movement

    After Malcolm X’s death, his original message of race separation, lived on and inspired many students in the SNCC, who also expressed dissatisfaction through peaceful protests. Although the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were landmark laws for the civil rights movement, young activists such as Stokely Carmichael felt they had not done enough to correct centuries of inequality. This event impacted many blacks to join and beome invloved in this movement and stirve for equality.
  • Affirmitive Action

    Affirmitive Action is a result of the Civil Rights Movement that stive for better opportunities for minorities and women. The efforts of this policy include creating equal access for education and employment and hiring admissions. This is not necesasrily said to gaurnetee eqaul results but to insist that if toal equality opportunity was a reality, groups facing discrimination would be represented in the nations work place and eduacational institions.
  • National Orginization For Women(NOW)

    This organization inlcuded twenty eight prote women established to recieve equal employment opportunities. The primary goal of this organization was to make sure women are inlcuded as a full part of US society and create equal privileges and responsibilities as men. Over time, NOW has become so sucessful that it is the largest feminist activist group in the US and still strives to eliminate discrimination and harassment in all places of society, end all violence aganst women, & secure abortion.
  • Black panthers

    Black Panthers was a party for self defense and demanded immediate equality for all blacks inlcuding fair employment opportunities, exemption from military service, health care, and education services. The black panthers were prepared for a war, and were equiped with handguns and patrolled urban neighborhoods on the lookout for racist violence agianst blacks.
  • Assignation of Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

    Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. was a famous African American civil rights leader and Baptist minister from the mid 1950's who used nonviolent tactics such as marches, boycotts and lagal challenges to win Civil Rights. He had also been a leader of the SCLC and played a vital role in the efforts to ending the legal segregation, the Civil Rights movement as well as the voting rights act of 1965. He had recieved a Noble Peace Prize in 1964 along with many other honros for his role in American history.
  • Equal Rights Amendment(ERA)

    This Amendment was passed that which constitutes that equality of rights under the law will not be denied by the U.S or any state on account of their gender.
  • Roe Vs. Wade

    Roe Vs Wade was a important decision made buy the U.S supreme court which legalized abortion. the justices based thier decision on the constitutional right to have personal privacy. However this still allowed states to restrict abortions during the later stages of pregnancy.
  • Legalization of abortion

    Abortion had been known and perfectly legal in the U.S way before 1973. However in the mid to late 1800's states began passing laws that made abortion illegal.The motivations for the anti-abortion laws varied from state to state. one of the reasons included having fears that the population would be dominated by the children of newly arriving immigrants. Between 1967 and 1973 of the states repealed their criminal abortion laws.