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The first African American indentured servants arrive in the American colonies. Less than a decade later, the first slaves are brought into New Amsterdam (later, New York City). By 1690, every colony has slaves.
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Period: to
america
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Congress bans further importation of slaves.
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1831-1861 Approximately 75,000 slaves escape to the North using the Underground Railroad.
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Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) is elected president, angering the southern states.
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The Civil War begins.
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Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation proclaims that all slaves in rebellious territories are forever free.
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The Civil War ends. Lincoln is assassinated.
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Thousands of African Americans migrate out of the South to escape oppression.
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Tennessee passes the first of the “Jim Crow” segregation laws, segregating state railroads. Similar laws are passed over the next 15 years throughout the Southern states.
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The “Jim Crow” (“separate but equal”) laws begin, barring African Americans from equal access to public facilities.
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In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005) is arrested for breaking a city ordinance by refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. This defiant act gives initial momentum to the Civil Rights Movement.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968) and others set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading engine of the Civil Rights Movement.
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The Civil Rights Act is signed, prohibiting discrimination of all kinds.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
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Barack Obama (1961 - ) becomes the first African American to win the U.S. presidential race.