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Thirteenth Amendment Ratified
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation -
Black Codes Begin to Appear in the South
Newly elected southern state legislatures passed laws that allowed local officials to arrest African Americans who could not document employment and residence or who were "disorderly" and sentence them to forced labor on farms or road crews. The codes also restricted African Americans to certain occupations, barred them from jury duty and forbade them to possess firearms. -
Fourteenth Amendment is Ratified
Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed every citizen equality before the law by prohibiting states from violating the civil rights of their citizens, thus outlawing black codes. -
Fifteenth Amendment is Ratified
This amendment prohibited the use of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" to disqualify voters anywhere in the United States. -
Congress Passes Civil Rights Act of 1875
The act prohibited discrimination against African Americans in public accommodations such as theaters, parks and trains and guaranteed freedmen's rights to serve on juries. Most judges, however either interpreted the law narrowly or declared it unconstitutional -
Tuskegee Institute Founded.
Booker T. Washington founded this school for African American students in rural Alabama (he started with 40 students in an abandoned shack). He thought that his students would be best served if they learned a trade and workplace discipline. He wanted African Americans to attain economic independence. The school emphasized vocational training rather than liberal arts. -
Supreme Court Decided Civil Rights Cases
In 1883 five cases of violation were examined by the U.S. Supreme Court: African Americans had been denied service in a Kansas City restaurant, a seat in the dress circle of a San Francisco theater, admission to a New York City opera house, accommodations in a Missouri hotel, and a seat in the ladies car of a railroad train in Tennessee. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the 1875 Civil Rights Act was unconstitutional. -
Ida B. Wells Publicizes Lynchings to the World
Ida B. Wells owned an African American newspaper in Memphis, which she used to publicize lynchings in the South. She documented mob violence and mobilized opinion in the US and UK in her works, Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases, and A Red Record -
Booker T. Washington Outlines Atlanta Compromise
Speaking at the Atlanta Cotton States and International Exposition, Washington's address stressed racial accommodation. He said that African Americans would give up the vote and stop insisting on social equality if white leaders would keep violence in check and allow African Americans to succeed in agriculture and business. Behind the scenes, however, Washington helped to finance legal challenges to segregation and disenfranchisement. -
Supreme Court Rules on Plessy v. Ferguson
In 1892 Homer Plessy, an African American, purchased a first-class ticket and occupied a seat in the "white" car. Arrested and convicted, Plessy appealed his case in the Louisiana courts and ultimately the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 7-1, the Court held that Louisiana's railroad segregation law did not violate the Constitution as long as the railroads or the state provided equal accommodations for African Americans. -
The Philadelphia Negro by W.E.B. Dubois is Published
The first study of the effect of urban life on African Americans. Dubois set out to examine crime in Philadelphia. He interview 5,000 people and mapped and classified neighborhood. His statistics suggested that crime was the result of environment and not inborn evil or immorality. The book argued that if you change the environment and people would change also; education was a good way to start change. -
Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Dubois is Published
He openly attacked Booker T. Washington's Atlanta Compromise. Dubois urged African Americans to aspire to professional careers, fight for civil rights and obtain a college education. -
Niagara Movement is Founded
W.E.B. DuBois and 28 other prominent African American leaders met on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls (no hotel on the US side would admit them) to organize a campaign against racial violence, segregation and disfranchisement. -
NAACP is Founded
This interracial organization was co-founded by W.E.B. DuBois and was dedicated to restoring African American political and social rights. In 1915, the NAACP won a Supreme Court decision outlawing the grandfather clause, which denied the vote to descendants of slaves.
