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Crispus Attucks dies in Boston Massacre
The indictment for the death of Crispus Attucks describes how he died and accuses William Warren for his death by firing two bullets that hit him in the chest. -
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. Enacted by Congress in 1793, the first Fugitive Slave Act authorized local governments to seize and return escaped slaves to their owners and imposed penalties on anyone who aided in their flight. -
Nat Turners Rebellion
Nat Turner's Rebellion was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, during August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, rebel slaves killed anywhere from 55 to 65 people, the highest number of fatalities caused by any slave uprising in the American South. The rebellion was put down within a few days, but Turner survived in hiding for more than two months afterwards. -
Amistad Revolt
On August 29, 1839, the Amistad was towed into New London, Connecticut. -
Fugitive Slave Law
The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers. -
Scott vs Sandford
Dred Scott v. Sandford, was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether slave or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court, and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. -
John Brown Raid
John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by the white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt in 1859 by seizing a United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. -
SC Secedes from the Union
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first Southern state to declare its secession and later formed the Confederacy. The first shots of the Civil War were fired in Charleston by its Citadel cadets upon a civilian merchant ship Star of the West bringing supplies to the beleaguered Federal garrison at Fort Sumter January 9, 1861. -
Emancipation Proclomation
The Emancipation Proclamation was a presidential proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, as a war measure during the American Civil War, directed to all of the areas in rebellion and all segments of the Executive branch of the United States. It proclaimed the freedom of slaves in the ten states that were still in rebellion, thus applying to 3 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. at the time. -
13th Amendment
The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. -
End of Civil War
In an event that is generally regarded as marking the end of the Civil War, Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of Confederate forces west of the Mississippi, signs the surrender terms offered by Union negotiators. With Smith's surrender, the last Confederate army ceased to exist, bringing a formal end to the bloodiest four years in U.S. history. -
Assassination of Lincoln
United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday,[1] April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant. -
14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. -
15th Amendment
The Fifteenth Amendment (Amendment XV) to the United States Constitution prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude". It was ratified on February 3, 1870, as the third and last of the Reconstruction Amendments. -
Plessy vs Ferguson
Plessy v. Ferguson is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in the jurisprudence of the United States, upholding the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal". -
Phoenix Election Riot
The Phoenix Election Riot in 1898 was a riot by white South Carolinians in the name of Redemption in Greenwood, South Carolina. Over a dozen prominent black leaders were murdered and hundreds were injured by the white mob. -
Wilmington, NC Riot
The Wilmington Coup d'État of 1898, also known as the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina starting on November 10, 1898 into the following days; it is considered a turning point in North Carolina politics following Reconstruction. Originally described as a race riot, it is now observed as a coup d'etat with insurgents having overthrown the legitimately elected local government. -
Rosewood Massacre
The Rosewood massacre was a racially-motivated mob atrocity in Florida during January 1-7, 1923. In the violence at least six blacks and two whites were killed, and the town of Rosewood was abandoned and destroyed in what contemporary news reports characterized as a race riot. -
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenagers accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial. The case included a frameup, an all-white jury, rushed trials, an attempted lynching, and an angry mob; it is frequently given as an example of an overall miscarriage of justice. -
McLaurin vs Oklahoma
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, was a United States Supreme Court case that reversed a lower court decision upholding the efforts of the state-supported University of Oklahoma to adhere to the state law requiring African-Americans to be provided graduate or professional education on a segregated basis. -
Sweatt vs Painter
The case involved a black man, Heman Marion Sweatt, who was refused admission to the School of Law of the University of Texas, whose president was Theophilus Painter, on the grounds that the Texas State Constitution prohibited integrated education. At the time, no law school in Texas would admit black students, or, in the language of the time, "Negro" students. -
Brown vs Board
The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." -
Death of Emmett Till
Emmett Louis Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. -
Little Rock 9
The plan would be implemented during the fall of the 1957 school year, which would begin in September 1957. By 1957, the NAACP had registered nine black students to attend the previously all-white Little Rock Central High, selected on the criteria of excellent grades and attendance. -
Ruby Bridges
Ruby was sent to William Frantz Public School with the white kids. She was tortured everyday and she had to be in a class alone with just her teacher. -
James Meredith
After being barred from entering on September 20, on October 1, 1962, he became the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi. Some white students and segregationists, many who had driven in for the event, protested his enrollment by rioting on the Oxford campus. -
March on Washington
On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 demonstrators descended upon the nation’s capital to participate in the “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” Not only was it the largest demonstration for human rights in United States history, but it also occasioned a rare display of unity among the various civil rights organizations. -
16 St. Church Bombing
The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of white supremacist terrorism. The explosion at the African-American church, which killed four girls, marked a turning point in the United States 1960s Civil Rights Movement and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. -
Assassination of Malcolm X
In New York City, Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity at the Audubon Ballroom in Washington Heights. -
March on Selma
They marched from Selma to Montgomery to raise awareness for voters in the south. -
Voting Rights Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the American Civil Rights Movement on August 6, 1965, and Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections. -
Watts Riots
The Watts Riots (or Watts Rebellion) was a race riot that took place in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles from August 11 to 17, 1965. The six-day unrest resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, 3,438 arrests, and over $40 million in property damage. It was the most severe riot in the city's history until the Los Angeles riots of 1992. -
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 near South Carolina State University on the evening of February 8, 1968. Of the 150 protestors in the crowd that night, three African American males were killed and twenty-eight other protestors were injured. -
Assassination of MLK, Jr.
At 6:01 p.m. on April 4, 1968, civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was hit by a sniper's bullet. 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. The .30-caliber rifle bullet entered King's right cheek, traveled through his neck, and finally stopped at his shoulder blade. -
Arrest of Angela Davis
Davis had become a strong supporter of three prison inmates of Soledad Prison known as the Soledad brothers (they were not related). These three men -- John W. Cluchette, Fleeta Drumgo and George Lester Jackson -- were accused of killing a prison guard after several African-American inmates had been killed in a fight by another guard. Some thought these prisoners were being used as scapegoats because of the political work within the prison. -
Lucy is Discovered
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on the November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. -
ROOTS was Published
The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent and sold into slavery in the United States, and follows his life and the lives of his alleged descendants in the U.S. down to Haley. -
Beating of Rodney King
Rodney Glen King was an African-American construction worker who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles police officers, following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local witness, George Holliday, videotaped much of it from his balcony. -
Barack Obama Becomes the 1st Black President
Barack was elected president. Obama is the first black president.
