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First African Slaves Arrive to VA And Seek Freedom
First Black slaves arrive to America and are sold to White landowners in the 1600s. Slaves were considered property just like livestock and cattle, and could be bought and sold at any time the owner chose to Slaves were cruelly mistreated so they continually tried to runaway to seek freedom and equality. -
Black Seminoles
The Black Seminoles were runaway slaves who lived in organized communities in Florida and established the first free, legal black community before the Civil War. Later free blacks and fugitive slaves forged a strategic alliance with Seminole Indians in Spanish Florida during the early 1800s. -
Black Family--Foundation of the Black Consciousness
Millions of Blacks endured slavery by making a world for themselves in the midst of their bondage. hey used the family environment as a refuge and as a source of cultural endurance. They also perfected an African based dance and music that reproduced the rhythms and cadences of African drumming. Much of their musical expression occurred while worshipping, at funerals and weddings, and while socializing in the evening after work. -
Runaway Slaves
Members of the Society of Friends called Quakers actively assisting runaway slaves as early as the 1780s. Before the American Civil War, countless numbers of slaves ran away. Many passed through Ohio because it was the site of the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places connecting the slaveholding South to freedom in Canada. White and Black "conductors" served as guides along the way. -
Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest
The Ordinance of 1787 or (“Freedom Ordinance ") was an act of the Congress of the Confederation of the United States. It stated: "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory".[3] The language of the ordinance seems to ban slavery, but it continued almost until the Civil War. -
Gabriel Prosser-Slave Revolt in Virginia
Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved African-American blacksmith, organized a slave revolt and march on Richmond Virginia. -
Largest Armed Slave Rebellion in New Orlens
In January 1811, a group of around 500 enslaved men dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the slave plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city. They decided that they would die before they would work another day of back—breaking labor in the hot Louisiana sun. Ethnically diverse, politically astute, and highly organized, this slave army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also American expansion -
Nat Turner Leads the Most Significant Slave Uprising in American History
An enslaved African-American preacher leads the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of followers launch a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, VA. -
Reverend John Rankin and Wife - Estabished the historic Ripley College and enrolled the first African American Student
The life of John Rankin represents a deep belief in the right to freedom for all people regardless of race. As a Presbyterian minister, Rankin started an anti-slavery society in Carlisle, Kentucky, amidst angry slave owners. He eventually moved to Ripley, Ohio, where slavery was illegal although many whites in the area remained strong pro-slavery supporters, and risked working as a conductor & station keeper on the Underground Railroad. Rankin lectured across the northern states for the America. -
Dred Scott Case
Congress does not have the right to ban slavery in the states and, slaves aren't citizens. -
The National Afro-American Council founded on September 15
The National Afro-American Council elected Bishop Alexander Walters its first president. Walters emerged from slavery to become a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and a civil rights leader. The Afro-American Council was the largest national civil rights organization at the time. It challenging racially discriminatory legislation, particularly the “separate but equal” Plessy vs.Ferguson U.S. Supreme Court ruling of 1896. -
Blacks In Congress
Blacks held seats in Congress that were previously held by White landowners from 1860-1901, battling racial prejudice e until they were systematically and ruthlessly excluded from it. Blacks re-emerged on the political scene in the 1930's to present day. First Black Senator and Representatives served in the 41st and 42nd Congress of the United States. -
Congress Passes The Second Confiscation and Militia Act, Freeing Slaves
The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War
On July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. Black leaders such as Frederick Douglass encouraged black men to become soldiers to ensure eventual full citizenship. In May 1863 the Government established the Bureau of Colored Troops. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation declaring "that all persons held as slaves" within the confederate states “are, and henceforward shall be free." -
Equal Pay Bill
Equal pay! On June 15, Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay, equipment, arms, and health care for African-American Union troops. -
Freedmens Bureau
It was established to protect the right s of newly emancipated blacks. -
13th Amendment
Congress approves the Thirteenth Amendment. Slavery would be outlawed in the United States by the Thirteenth Amendment, which Congress approved and sent on to the states for ratification on January 31. It was ratified on Dec 18, 1965. -
Blacks Granted Citizenship Status
Civil Rights Act of 1866 is approved granting Blacks citizenship status
Congress passed the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and it was ratified on July 9, 1868. It provided Blacks with citizenship and guaranteed that federal and state laws applied equally to Blacks and Whites. Black Codes were eliminated. -
Resconstruction Acts Passed
A series of Reconstruction acts are passed, carving the former confederacy into five military districts and guaranteeing the civil rights of freed slaves -
First Black Vote in 1867
First Black vote is cast by Ar Waud in 1867. The passage and ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th, and 15th) between 1865 and 1870 catapulted former slaves from property to voters and candidates for public office. -
Fourteenth amendment
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, defining citizenship. It stated that people born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens, including those born as slaves. This nullified the Dred Scot Caser of 1857 which had ruled that blacks were not citizens, -
Fifteenth Amendment
The 15th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving blacks their right to vote. -
Hiram Revels
Hiram Revels of Mississippi is elected the country’s first African American senator. During Reconstruction, 16 blacks served in Congress and about 600 served in states legislatures. -
Slaughterhouse cases - Supreme Court Interpretation on 14th Amendment
Slaughterhouse cases overrule the 1857 Supreme Court ruling on the Dred Scott Case that said that blacks were not citizens. The court ruled that 14th Amendment protected the "privileges or immunities" of all people in the federal United States, but of state citizenship. Ruling viewed by Blacks as a step towards equality and the abolishment of slavery. -
The Black Exodus
The Black Exodus takes place and tens of thousands of African American migrate from southern states to Kansas. -
Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute is established in Alabama
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. -
U.S. Supreme Court Ruled That The Civil Rights Act of 1875 is Unconstitutional
In 1883, The United States Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights act of 1875, forbidding discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public spaces, was unconstitutional and not authorized by the 13th or 14th Amendments of the Constitution. The ruling read in part: "The XIVth Amendment is prohibitory upon the States only, and the legislation authorized to be adopted by Congress for enforcing it is not direct legislation on the matters respecting which the States are prohibited from making or -
First Black-owned bank - The Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers
The first Black-owned bank in the United States was the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of True Reformers in 1888, representing the developing economic power and unity of the Black community. Black-owned banks were important to the African-American community because White banks often refused to loan money to Blacks, or loaned money at high interest rates. With the rise of Black banks, African-Americans could secure loans to purchase homes and start businesses. -
Abolitionist Frederick Douglas Fights for Black Voting Rights and Civil Liberties
Frederick Douglass served as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and fought for the adoption of constitutional amendments that guaranteed voting rights and other civil liberties for blacks. He published an antislavery paper called the North Star and provided a powerful voice for human rights. -
The Pullman Strike
The Pullman Company strike caused a national transportation crisis. African Americans were hired by the company as strike-breakers. -
The Atlanta Compromise
Booker T Washington delivered his famous "Atlanta Compromise" address on Sept 18 at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition. He said the "Negro problem” would be solved by a policy of gradualism and accommodation -
Black-owned insrance companies established
North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, the first Black-owned insurance company, was established and assisted the Black community with helping itself build businesses, schools and homes. -
Niagra Movement
W.E.B. DuBois founds the Niagara movement, a forerunner to the NAACP. 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 -
Soldiers Riot in Brownsville, Texas
Black soldiers rioted against segregation in Brownsville, Texas, Aug 13, 1906 -
NAACP Founded
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, Moorefield Storey, Walter White, Roy Wilkins, Benjamin Ho -
Marcus Garvey-Universal Negro Improvement Association
Marcus Garvey, the most popular black leader in America in the early 1920s, establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association, an influential black nationalist organization "to promote the spirit of race pride" and create a sense of worldwide unity among blacks. -
WW I Ends
The Armistice took effect on November 11, ending World War I. The northern migration of African-Americans began in earnest during the war. By 1930 there were 1,035,000 more black Americans in the North, and 1,143,000 fewer black Americans in the South than in 1910 with a new socials identify and desire for equality. -
Red Summer
The summer of 1919 saw a national racial frenzy of massacres, clashes and lynchings in the South and North started by Whites - 26 in total. The root cause of most of the riots was the vast social dislocation caused by World War I. Black veterans had returned in uniform with a new sense of self-confidence that made them less inclined to accept the humiliations of segregation and white supremacy. Whites felt threatened. -
The Great Migration
The Great Migration was a grass-root, leaderless movement of millions of Blacks from the South to the urban North between 1916 and 1930 to escape sharecropping, worsening economic conditions, and the lynch mob. They sought higher wages, better homes, and political rights. A steady migration out of the South lasted until the 1970s; -
Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance flourishes in the 1920s and 1930s. Originally called the New Negro Movement, the Harlem, this literary, artistic, and intellectual movement fostered a new Black cultural identity in the 1920s and 1930s and promoted equality. With racism still rampant and economic opportunities scarce, creative expression was one of the few avenues available to African Americans in the early twentieth century. -
The First Black American mass movement
Marcus Garvey's Universal Improvement Association held its national convention in Harlem. Garvey's African nationalist movement was the first Black American mass movement, and at its height claimed hundreds of thousands of supporters in the U.S., Canada, Caribbean and Africa. His motto was that Blacks should be free to determine their own destiny and should return to Africa. -
Philip Randoph-Labor Activisum
Randolph lobbied for shorter hours & higher pay. He formed the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters Union, the first organized union of black workers to be granted a charter by the American Federation of Labor in 1937. He organized the 'March on Washington' in1941 to protest job discrimination and African American workers being denied jobs in the industries that manufactured war supplies. His march prompted then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt to sign the Fair Employment Practices Committee. -
Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball's color barrier when he is signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey. -
Harry S. Truman Integrates The Armed Forces
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. -
Malcom X Becomes Minister of the Nation of Islam
Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam. Over the next 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 vs. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. declares that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional (May 17). -
Montgomery Buses are desegregated
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 buss boycott. -
Martin Luther King Establishes The Southern Christian Leadership Conference-SCLC
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights group, is established by Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttles worth (Jan.-Feb.) -
Little Rock Niine
Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. 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. Another step towards desegregating schools through the U.S. -
Sit-in at Segregated Woolworth's Lunch Counter
Four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, begin a sit-in at a 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. -
Freedom Riders Seek Integration
The Freedom Riders of the early 1960s, organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), rode through the South seeking integration of the bus, rail, and airport terminals seeking full citizenship for Blacks. -
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee-SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement (April). -
Thurgood Marshall Works Through The Courts to Stop Racism in the U.S.
President Kennedy appointed him as a Federal appeals court judge in 1961. Prior to this position, he was a lawyer and became famous for successfully arguing the 1954 Brown V. The Board of Education case in front of the Supreme Court. This landmark case desegregated schools in the U.S. President Johnson appointed him to the office of U.S. Solicitor General in 1965 and then appointed him to U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. He worked through the courts to eradicate the legacy of slavery and destroy -
March on Washington
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). -
President Lyndon Johnson Signs the Civil Rights Act
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. -
Bloody Sunday
State troopers violently attack peaceful demonstrators led by by John Lewis of SNCC and the Reverend Hosea Williams of SCLC., 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. This march & the second March led by Martin Luther King Jr roused support for U.S. civil right & are considered to be the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later -
Voting Rights Act of 1965
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. The Act of 1965 strengthened the Civil Rights acts of 1957, 1960, and 1964 and eliminate voter discrimination at the state and local levels. Disenfranchisement is no longer legal. De Jure segregation ends - Jim Crowe and Black Codes overruled. -
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