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March on Washington
200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. -
Crispus Attucks dies in the Boston Massacre
First men to die for American Revolution, was a fugitive slave who had escaped from his master and had worked for twenty years as a merchant seaman -
Nat Turners Rebellion
Was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia -
Amistad Revolt
53 African natives were kidnapped from eastern Africa and sold into the Spanish slave trade. However, three days into the journey, a 25-year-old slave named Sengbe Pieh broke out of his shackles and released the other Africans. The slaves then revolted, killing most of the crew of the Amistad, including her cook and captain. The Africans then forced Montez and Ruiz to return the ship to Africa. -
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. -
Fugitive slave laws
Laws passed by the United States Congress in 1793 and 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory -
Scott vs Sanford (day of SC decision)
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 Browns Raid
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
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. State by state, conventions were held, and the CONFEDERACY was formed. -
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 (including the Army and Navy) of the United States. -
Assassination of Lincoln
United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Friday, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close -
End of Civil War
The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, or simply the Civil War in the United States (see naming), was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865, after seven Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America (the "Confederacy" or the "South"). (It ultimately included a total of eleven states.) -
14th Amendment
U.S. constitution, ratified in 1868, defining national citizenship and forbidding the states to restrict the basic rights of citizens or other persons. -
15th Amendment
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". -
Plessy vs Ferguson (day of SC decision)
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, AZ Riot
About a dozen prominent black leaders were murdered and hundreds were injured by the white mob. -
Wilmington, NC riots
The Wilmington Race riots took place after the democratic party achieved victory in the election of 1898,giving them control of the majority of legislature. -
Rosewood Massacre
The Rosewood massacre was a racially-motivated mob atrocity in Florida during January 1-7, 1923. -
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenagers accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. -
Sweatt vs Painter (day of SC decision)
U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully challenged the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education four years later. -
Mclaurin vs Oklahoma (day of SC decision)
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. -
Brown vs Board (day of SC decision)
A landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. -
Death of Emmett Till
African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. -
Little Rock 9
Little Rock Nine were a group of African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas. They then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower. -
Ruby Bridges
American activist known for being the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. -
James Meredith
James Howard Meredith is an American civil rights movement figure, a writer, and a political adviser. -
16th St. Church Bombing
The Church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed on Sunday, September 15, 1963 as an act of white supremacist terrorism. -
13th Amendment
United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime -
Assassination of Malcolm X
Malcolm X was preparing to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom when someone in the 400-person audience yelled, "Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!" As Malcolm X and his bodyguards tried to quell the disturbance, a man rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun; two other men charged the stage firing semi-automatic handguns. -
March on Selma
The Selma to Montgomery marches, also known as Bloody Sunday and the two marches that followed, were marches and protests held in 1965 that marked the political and emotional peak of the American civil rights movement. -
Voting Rights Act
Landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits discrimination in voting. -
Watts Riots
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 -
Assassination of MLK, Jr.
Martin Luther King was standing on the motel's second floor balcony, King was struck by a single .30-06 bullet fired from a Remington Model 760. The bullet entered through his right cheek, breaking his jaw, and several vertebrae as it traveled down his spinal cord, severing the jugular vein and major arteries in the process before lodging in his shoulder. -
Arrest of Angela Davis
Davis had purchased the firearms used in the attack, including the shotgun used to kill Haley, which had been bought two days prior and the barrel sawed off. Davis was also corresponding with one of the inmates involved -
Congressional Hearings end for Tuskegee Study
In 1932, the Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study to record the natural history of syphilis in hopes of justifying treatment programs for blacks. -
LUCY is discovered
Lucy was found by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray on the November 24, 1974, at the site of Hadar in Ethiopia. Lucy is dated to just less than 3.18 million years old. -
ROOTS was published
Roots is a novel written by Alex Haley and first published in 1976. -
Beating of Robney King
The footage shows five officers surrounding King, several of them striking him repeatedly, while other officers stood by from a highway car chase. -
Barack Obama becomes the 1st black President
The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President took place on January 20, 2009. In his first few days in office, Obama issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military to develop plans to withdraw troops from Iraq.
