The first African slaves arrive in Virginia.

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black American poet whenshe writes about the last American Indian

attack on her village of Deerfield, Massachusetts.

Her poem, Bar’s Fight, is not published until 1855.

_____________________________

Phillis Wheatley’s book Poems on Various Subjects,

Religious and Moral is published,making her the

first African American to do so.

_____________________________

The U.S Constitution states that Congress may not

ban the slave trade until 1808.

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demand for slave labor.

A federal fugitive slave law is enacted, providing for the return

slaves who had escaped and crossed state lines.

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organizes a slave revolt intending to march on Richmond, Virginia.

The conspiracy is uncovered, and Prosser and a number of the rebels are hanged.

Virginia’s slave laws are consequently tightened.

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southern boundary of Missouri.

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had purchased his freedom, plans a slave revolt with the intent

to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina.

The plot is discovered, and Vesey and 34 coconspirators are hanged.

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leads the most significant slave

uprising in American history. He and his band of followers launch

a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia.

The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged.

As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws.

_____________________________

William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the Liberator,

a weekly paper that advocates the complete abolition of slavery.

He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist movement.

_____________________________

revolted against their captors, killing all but the ship’s navigator,

who sailed them to Long Island, N.Y., instead of their intended destination, Africa.

Joseph Cinqué was the group’s leader. The slaves aboard the ship became unwitting

symbols for the antislavery movement in pre-Civil War United States.

After several trials in which local and federal courts argued that the slaves

were taken as kidnap victims rather than merchandise, the slaves were acquitted.

The former slaves aboard the Spanish vessel Amistad secured passage home to

Africa with the help of sympathetic missionary societies in 1842.

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The Wilmot Proviso, introduced by Democratic

representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, attempts to ban

slavery in territory gained in the Mexican War.

The proviso is blocked by Southerners, but continues

to enflame the debate over slavery. Frederick Douglass launches his

abolitionist newspaper.

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Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes

one of the most effective and celebrated leaders

of the Underground Railroad.

should be open to slavery is decided in the Compromise of 1850:

California is admitted as a free state, Utah and New Mexico

territories are left to be decided by popular sovereignty, and the

slave trade in Washington, DC, is prohibited. It also establishes

a much stricter fugitive slave law than the original, passed in 1793.

_____________________________

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

is published. It becomes one of the most influential

works to stir anti-slavery sentiments.

_____________________________

of Kansas and Nebraska. The legislation repeals the Missouri Compromise

of 1820 and renews tensions between anti- and proslavery factions.

_____________________________

The Dred Scott case holds that Congress does not have

the right to ban slavery in states and, furthermore,

that slaves are not citizens.

_____________________________

Va. (now W. Va.), in an attempt to launch a slave revolt.

_____________________________

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation,

declaring “that all persons held as slaves” within the

Confederate states “are, and henceforward shall be free.”

of newly emancipated blacks (March).

♦ The Civil War ends (April 9).

♦  Lincoln is assassinated (April 14).

♦  The Ku Klux Klan is formed in Tennessee by ex-Confederates (May).

♦  Slavery in the United States is effectively ended when

250,000 slaves in Texas finally receive the news that the Civil War

had ended two months earlier (June 19).

♦  Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, prohibiting slavery (Dec. 6).

_____________________________

the rights of newly freed slaves.

_____________________________

Confederacy into five military districts and guaranteeing the civil

rights of freed slaves.

_____________________________

Individuals born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens,

including those born as slaves. This nullifies the Dred Scott Case (1857),

which had ruled that blacks were not citizens.

_____________________________

♦  Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified,

giving blacks the right to vote.

♦  Hiram Revels of Mississippi is elected the country’s

first African-American senator. During Reconstruction,

sixteen blacks served in Congress and about 600 served in states legislatures.

_____________________________

basic civil rights for African Americans quickly erode.

_____________________________

African Americans migrated from southern states to Kansas.

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founded by Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles.

♦  Booker T. Washington founds the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama.

The school becomes one of the leading schools of higher learning for

African Americans, and stresses the practical application of knowledge.

In 1896, George Washington Carver begins teaching there as director of

the department of agricultural research, gaining an international

reputation for his agricultural advances.

_____________________________

establishes the colony of Monrovia (which would eventually become

the country of Liberia) in western Africa. The society contends that the

immigration of blacks to Africa is an answer to the problem of slavery

as well as to what it feels is the incompatibility of the races.

Over the course of the next forty years, about 12,000 slaves are voluntarily relocated.

_____________________________

racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws in the South.

_____________________________

The movement is formed in part as a protest to Booker T. Washington’s

policy of accommodation to white society; the Niagara movement

embraces a more radical approach, calling for immediate equality in all areas of American life.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

is founded in New York by prominent black and white intellectuals

and led by W.E.B. Du Bois. For the next half century,

it would serve as the country’s most influential

African-American civil rights organization, dedicated to political equality

and social justice In 1910, its journal, The Crisis, was launched.

Among its well known leaders were James Weldon Johnson,

Ella Baker, Moorfield Storey, Walter White, Roy Wilkins,

Benjamin Hooks, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Julian Bond, and Kwesi Mfume.

_____________________________

an influential black nationalist organization “to promote the spirit of race pride”

and create a sense of worldwide unity among blacks.

_____________________________

This literary, artistic, and intellectual movement fosters a new

black cultural identity.

_____________________________

Nine black youths are indicted in Scottsboro, Ala., on charges

of having raped two white women. Although the evidence

was slim, the southern jury sentenced them to death. The Supreme Court

overturns their convictions twice; each time Alabama retries them,

finding them guilty. In a third trial, four of the Scottsboro boys are freed;

but five are sentenced to long prison terms.

Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball’s

color barrier when he is signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey.

_____________________

Although African Americans had participated in every major U.S. war,

it was not until after World War II that

President Harry S. Truman issues an executive

order integrating the U.S. armed forces.

_____________________________

several years his influence increases until he is one of the two most

powerful members of the Black Muslims (the other was its leader,

Elijah Muhammad). A black nationalist and separatist movement,

the Nation of Islam contends that only blacks can resolve the problems of blacks.

_____________________________

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. declares

that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional (May 17).

_____________________________

A young black boy, Emmett Till, is brutally murdered for

allegedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.

Two white men charged with the crime are acquitted

by an all-white jury. They later boast about committing the murder.

The public outrage generated by the case helps spur the civil rights movement (Aug.).

Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the “colored section”

of a bus to a white passenger (Dec.1). In response to her arrest

Montgomery’s black community launch a successful year-long bus boycott.

Montgomery’s buses are desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956.

_____________________________

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC),

a civil rights group, is established by Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele,

and Fred L. Shuttlesworth (Jan.-Feb.)

Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of

Governor Orval Faubus. (Sept. 24). Federal troops and the

National Guard are called to intervene on behalf of the students,

who become known as the “Little Rock Nine.”

Despite a year of violent threats, several of the “Little Rock Nine”

manage to graduate from Central High.

_____________________________

segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter (Feb. 1). Six months later the

“Greensboro Four” are served lunch at the same Woolworth’s counter.

The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South.

♦  The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

is founded, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement (April).

_____________________________

bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation

in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations.

Several of the groups of “freedom riders,” as they are called,

are attacked by angry mobs along the way.

The program, sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)

and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC),

involves more than 1,000 volunteers, black and white.

_____________________________

James Meredith becomes the first black student

to enroll at the University of Mississippi (Oct. 1).

President Kennedy sends 5,000 federal troops after rioting breaks out.

Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during

anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.

He writes “Letter from Birmingham Jail,”

which advocated nonviolent civil disobedience.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

is attended by about 250,000 people, the largest demonstration ever

seen in the nation’s capital. Martin Luther King delivers his

famous “I Have a Dream” speech. The march builds momentum for civil rights legislation (Aug. 28).

Despite Governor George Wallace physically blocking their way,

Vivian Malone and James Hood register for classes at the University of Alabama.

Four young black girls attending Sunday school are killed

when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church,

a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham,

leading to the deaths of two more black youths (Sept. 15).

_____________________________

♦  President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act,

the most sweeping civil rights legislation since

Reconstruction. It prohibits discrimination of

all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin (July 2).

♦  The bodies of three civil-rights workers are

found. Murdered by the KKK, James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and

Michael Schwerner had been working to register black voters in Mississippi (Aug.).

♦  Martin Luther King receives the Nobel Peace Prize. (Oct.)

♦  Sidney Poitier wins the Best Actor Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field.

He is the first African American to win the award.

_____________________________

Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization

of Afro-American Unity, is assassinated (Feb. 21).

♦  State troopers violently attack peaceful demonstrators

led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., as they try to cross the

Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. Fifty marchers are

hospitalized on “Bloody Sunday,” after police use tear gas, whips,

and clubs against them. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing

through the voting rights act five months later (March 7).

♦  Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier

for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes,

and other such requirements that were used to restrict black

voting are made illegal (Aug. 10).

♦  In six days of rioting in Watts, a black section of Los Angeles,

35 people are killed and 883 injured (Aug. 11-16).

_____________________________

The Black Panthers are founded by

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale (Oct.).

_____________________________

Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student

Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coins the

phrase “black power” in a speech in Seattle (April 19).

♦  Major race riots take place in Newark (July 12-16)

and Detroit (July 23-30).

♦  President Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court.

He becomes the first black Supreme Court Justice.

♦  The Supreme Court rules in Loving v. Virginia that prohibiting

interracial marriage is unconstitutional. Sixteen states still have anti-miscegenation

laws and are forced to revise them.

_____________________________

♦  Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in

Memphis, Tenn. (April 4).

♦  President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968,

prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing (April 11).

♦  Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black female U.S. Representative.

A Democrat from New York, she was elected in November and served from 1969 to 1983.

_____________________________

Service’s 40-year experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis has

been described as an experiment that “used human beings as laboratory animals

in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone.”

_____________________________

constitutionality of affirmative action, but imposed limitations on it to ensure that

providing greater opportunities for minorities did not come at the

expense of the rights of the majority (June 28).

_____________________________

Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the space shuttle Challenger on August 30.

_____________________________

after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of

African-American Rodney King (April 29).

_____________________________

Colin Powell becomes the first African American U.S. Secretary of State.

_____________________________

She takes home the statue for her role in Monster’s Ball.

Denzel Washington, the star of Training Day, earns the

Best Actor award, making it the first year that African-Americans

win both the best actor and actress Oscars.

_____________________________

since the 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court (5–4) upholds the

University of Michigan Law School’s policy, ruling that race can be

one of many factors considered by colleges when selecting their

students because it furthers “a compelling interest in obtaining the

educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.” (June 23)

_____________________________

_____________________________

suffers a setback when a bitterly divided court rules, 5 to 4, that

programs in Seattle and Louisville, Ky., which tried to maintain

diversity in schools by considering race when assigning students

to schools, are unconstitutional.

African American to be nominated as a major party nominee for president.

♦  On November 4, Barack Obama, becomes the first African American

to be elected president of the United States, defeating Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain.

_____________________________

Barack Obama Democrat from Chicago, becomes the

first African-American president and the country’s 44th president.

On February 2, the U.S. Senate confirms, with a

vote of 75 to 21, Eric H. Holder, Jr., as Attorney

General of the United States. Holder is the first

African American to serve as Attorney General.

_____________________________

killed in Ferguson, Mo., by Darren Wilson. On Nov. 24, the grand jury

decision not to indict Wilson was announced, sparking protests in Ferguson

and cities across the U.S., including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Boston.

♦  The protests continued to spread throughout the country after a

Staten Island grand jury decided in December not to indict Daniel Pantaleo,

the police officer involved in the death of Eric Garner.

Garner died after being placed in a chokehold by Pantaleo in July.

_____________________________

House of Representatives and two in the Senate.