-
Crispus Attucks dies in the Boston Massacre
Crispus Attucks, a fugitive slave who had escaped his master and worked for twenty years as a merchant seaman was one of the first men to die for the American Revolution. -
Fugitive Slave Law
Under the Fugitive Slave Law, an accused runaway was to stand trial in front of a special commissioner, not a judge or a jury, and that the commissioner was to be paid $10 if a fugitive was returned to slavery but only $5 if the fugitive was freed. -
Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner led a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, him and a group of followers killed about sixty white men, women, and children on the night of August 21. -
Amistad Revolt
A 25-year-old slave broke out of his shackles and released the other Africans. The slaves then revolted, killing most of the crew of the Amistad. -
Scott vs. Sandford
In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court ruled that African Americans, whether free or slave, were not American citizens and could not sue in federal court. -
John Brown's Raid
On October 16, 1859, John Brown led a small army of 18 men into the small town of Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to instigate a major slave rebellion in the South. -
SC Sucedes from the Union
The force of events moved very quickly upon the election of Lincoln. South Carolina acted first, calling for a convention to secede from the Union. -
Emancipation Proclamation
On January 1 Lincoln presented the Emancipation Proclamation which was suppose to free all slaves but it did not free all slaves in the United States. Rather, it declared free only those slaves living in states not under Union control. -
Fugitive Slave Act
The Fugitive Slave Acts were a pair of federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway slaves within the territory of the United States. -
13th Amendment
The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. -
End of Civil War
Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. -
Assassination of Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. -
14th Amendment
The 14th Amendment granted citizenship and legal rights to African Americans and slaves who had been emancipated after the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
The Constitution granted African American men the right to vote by declaring that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. -
Plessy vs. Ferguson
The Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which indicated that the federal government would officially tolerate the "separate but equal" doctrine. -
Phoenix, AZ riot
A riot was caused in Greenwood County because of elections on this day. -
Wilmington, NC riot
This riot was a white supremacist movement, which overthrew the legitimately elected biracial government of Wilmington, North Carolina and replaced it with officials who instituted the first Jim Crow laws in North Carolina. -
Rosewood Massacre
It all started with a rumor from Fanny Taylor that she was raped in her home which caused a massacre in the small town of Rosewood. -
Scottsboro Boys
On this day nine young boys got in an altercation with some other boys on a train and later on were accused of raping two females. -
McLaurin vs. Oklahoma
When Plaintiff McLaurin first applied to the graduate school at the University of Oklahoma, an Oklahoma statute prevented the school from admitting him. McLaurin sued to challenge the denial of his admission. -
Sweatt vs. Painter
Heman Sweatt, a black man, applied for admission to the University of Texas Law School. State law restricted access to the university to whites, and Sweatt's application was automatically rejected because of his race. -
Brown vs. Board
Brown v. Board of Education declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. -
Death of Emmett Till
14 year-old Emmett Till went into a store owned by Roy Bryant and flirted with his wife because his friends made a bet with him. Days later Carolyn Bryant told her husband about it and out of spite him and his brother in law took Emmett's life. -
Little Rock 9
Nine African-American teenagers faced great obstacles and angry mobs in September 1957 to desegregate Little Rock Central High School. -
Ruby Bridges
Ruby Nell Bridges Hall is an American activist known for being the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. She attended William Frantz Elementary School. -
James Meredith
James Meredith was one of the pioneers of the civil rights movement. In 1962 he became the first black student to successfully enroll at the University of Mississippi. -
March on Washington
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. It was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital, and one of the first to have extensive television coverage. -
16th St. Church Bombing
On Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four girls. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
At a speaking engagement in the Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965, three gunmen rushed Malcolm onstage. They shot him 15 times at close range. -
March on Selma
On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama. -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, aimed to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. -
Watts Riot
The Watts Riot, which raged for six days and resulted in more than forty million dollars worth of property damage, was both the largest and costliest urban rebellion of the Civil Rights era. -
Orangeburg Massacre
The Orangeburg Massacre refers to the shooting of protestors by South Carolina Highway Patrol Officers that were demonstrating against racial segregation at a local bowling alley in Orangeburg, South Carolina. -
Assassination of MLK, Jr.
King had been standing on the balcony in front of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, when, without warning, he was shot. -
Arrest of Angela Davis
Angela Davis, radical black activist and philosopher, was arrested as a suspect in the attempt to free George Jackson from a courtroom in Marin County, California. -
Congressional Hearings end for Tuskegee Study
On July 25, 1972 the results of an investigation of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male were published. The response was broad-based public outrage, which finally brought the Study to an immediate end. -
LUCY is discovered
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray. -
ROOTS was published
In 1976, after twelve years of research, Alex published Roots, a novel based loosely on his family's history. -
Beating of Rodney King
Rodney King was caught by the Los Angeles police after a high-speed chase on March 3, 1991. The officers pulled him out of the car and beat him brutally. -
Barack Obama becomes 1st Black President
Senator Barack Obama of Illinois defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona to become the 44th U.S. president, and the first African American elected to the White House.
