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Stono Rebellion
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Crispus Attucks killed in Boston Massacre
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Phillis Wheatley's book poems on the various subjects, religious and moral in published, making her the fist African American to do so.
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Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory. The US Constitution states the congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808.
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Mexican War 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.
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Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin greatly increases the demand of slave labor.
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Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved African-American blacksmith, organizes a slave riot intending to march on Richmond, Virginia.
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The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri.
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Denmark Vesey
An, enslaved African-American carpenter who had purchased his freedom, plans a slave revolt with the intent to say siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot is discovered, and Vesey and 34 conspirators are hanged. -
Nat Turner
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, Virginia. The Militia quells the rebellion, and Turner in eventually hanged. As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws. -
William Lloyd Garrison
Publisher of the Liberator, a weekly paper that advocates the complete abolition of slavery. He becomes one of the most famous figures in the abolitionist movement. -
The Wilmot Proviso
Introduced by Democratic representatives 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. -
Fredrick 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.
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A federal fugitive law in enacted, providing for the return slaves who had escaped and crossed state lines.
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Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, Uncle Toms Cabin is published
It becomes one of the most influential works to stir anti-slavery sentiments. -
Congress passes the Kansas-Nebraska Act
The legislation repeals the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and renews tensions between anti- and pro slavery. -
Lucy Terry, Bar's Fight, in not published until 1855.
An enslaved person in 1746, becomes the earliest known black american poet when she writes about the last american Indian attack on her village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. -
The Dred Scott case holds that congress does not have the right to ban slavery in states and, furthermore, that slaves are not citizens
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John Brown and 21 followers capture the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, VA in an attempt to launch a slave revolt.
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The confederacy founded when the deep south secedes, and the civil war begins
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President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation
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Congress establishes the freedman's bureau to protect rights of newly emancipated blacks.
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The Civil War ends
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Lincoln was assassinated
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The Ku Klux Klan in formed in Tennessee by ex-Confederates.
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Slavery in the US is effectively ended when 250,000 slaves in Texas finally receive the news that the civil war had ended two months earlier.
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Thirteenth Amendment to the constitution is ratified, prohibiting slavery.
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Black codes are passed by southern states.
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A series of Reconstruction acts are passed.
Carving the former confederacy into five military districts and guaranteeing the civil rights to freed slaves. -
Fourteenth amendment to the constitution is ratified, defining citizenship.
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Hiram revels of Mississippi is elected the country's first African-American senator.
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Fifteenth amendment to the constitution is ratified, giving blacks the right to vote.
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Booker T. Washington founds the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama.
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Reconstruction ends in the south. Federal attempts to provide some basic civil rights for African Americans quickly erode.
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Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa.
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Plessy V. Ferguson
The landmark Supreme Court Decision holds that racial segregation is constitutional, paves the way for the repressive Jim Crow Laws in the South. -
NAACP
The NAACP 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 organization, dedicated to political equality and social justice in 1910, -
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey and the UNIA 1916. -
The Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance flourishes in the 1920's and 1930's. The literary, artistic, and intellectual movement fosters a new black cultural identity. -
African Americans in WWI
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Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball's color barrier when he is signed to the Brooklyn Dodgers by Branch Rickey. -
The Integration of African-Americans into 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. -
Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka
Brown V. Board of education of Topeka, Kansas declares that racial segregation in school is constitutional. -
Emmett Till
A young black boy Emmett Till is brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white women 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. -
Rosa Parks
Rosa Parks refuses to giver up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger (Dec 1). In response to her arrest in Montgomery's black community launched a successful year-long bus boycott. Montgomery's buses are desegregated on December 21, 1956. -
Little Rock Nine
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 became known as the "Little Rock Nine" mange to graduate from Central High. -
Sit-in Movement and founding of SNCC
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Greensboro Four
Four black students in Greensboro, NC, begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolsworth's lunch counter (Feb 1.). Six months later the "Greensboro Four" are served lunch at the same Woolsworth's counter. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South. -
CORE and Freedom rides
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Freedom Riders
Over the spring and summer, student volunteers begin taking 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 mobs along the way. The program, sponsored by the (CORE) and the (SNCC), involves more than 1,000 volunteers, black and white. -
Birmingham Church bombed
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I have a dream
The march on Washington for jobs and freedom is attended by about 250,000 people, the largest demonstration ever seen in the Nation's capitol. MLK delivers his famous "I have a dream" speech. The march builds momentum for civil rights legislation, -
MLK receives the Nobel Peace Prize
Martin Luther King receives the nobel peace prize. -
The signing of 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. -
Malcolm X shot to death
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The founding of The Black Panthers
The Black Panthers are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, -
The appointing of Thurgood Marshall
President Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. He becomes the first Supreme Court Justice. -
The signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968
President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. -
Fair Housing Act
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The assassination of MLK Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tn. -
Bloody Sunday
State troopers violently attack peaceful demonstrators led by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr, as they try to cross Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. Fifty marchers are hospitalized on "Bloody Sunday", as 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. -
Rodney King
The first riots in decades erupt in south-central LA after a jury acquits four white police officers after the videotaped beating of African-American Rodney King. -
Electing Barack Obama as President of the U.S.
Barack Obama, becomes the first African American to be elected president of the United States, defeating Republican candidate, Sen, John McCain.
