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Period: to
This Timespan represents the period between the founding of the United States and Plessy v. Ferguson
To better understand the Civil Rights Era with regard to the battles fought in the 20th Century, we have included the pivotal events that help us to understand how freedom and rights for African-Americans was systematically denied by those who had power over them. -
Ratification of US Constitution
The US Constitution is ratified unanimously by the 13 States. Slavery is left unchanged. In fact, in Article 1, slaves will be counted as three-fifths of a citizen in terms of representation in the House of Representatives. Thus, strengthening the hold of the slave states on the institution of slavery and beginning the long struggle toward freedom. -
The federal fugitive slave law is enacted, providing for the return slaves who had escaped and crossed state lines.
The Fugitive Slave Act decreed that slave owners and their “agents” had the right to search for escaped slaves within the borders of free states. Often they were not too picky about who the apprehended, especially when they could not locate their intended runaway slave. -
Cotton Gin Eli Whitney patents his cotton gin
Cotton Gin Eli Whitney patents his device for pulling seeds from cotton. The invention turns cotton into the cash crop of the American South—and creates a huge demand for slave labor. -
The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of the newly created state of Missouri. -
Dred Scott Supreme Court Decision
Dred Scott, who was born a slave in Missouri, traveled with his master to the free territory of Illinois. Scott later sued his master for freedom. However, when the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, it ruled that Scott would remain a slave because as such he was not a citizen and could not legally sue in the federal courts. In the words of Chief Justice Roger Taney, “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” -
President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." -
President Abraham Lincoln is Assassinated
President Abraham is assassinated by actor, John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater. Lincoln's plan to reunite the nation and welcome the southern states back into the government are put in jeaopardy. -
The Civil War ends.
The Confederate states of the South surrender to Union forces at Appomattox Courthouse, VA. This sets the stage for the Reconstruction Amendments and the renewed oppression of free Africans who have become United States citizens. The rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the Jim Crow Era help define the next century. -
13th Amendment passed by Congress
The United States passes the 13th Amendment just before the end of the Civil War. It ended slavery.
The text reads, "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." -
Reconstruction Ends
As part of the Compromise of 1877, Southern Democrats agreed to not stand in the way of an agreement to put Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House. In exchange, northern troops would be removed from the south, paving the way for a restoration of white power structures for decades to come. -
Plessy v. Ferguson
Homer Plessy, a black man, is denied access to a whites-only rail car. He sued and his case made it to the Supreme Court which ruled that his denial was legal and it established the doctrine of "separate, but equal". This meant that people could be separated by race as long as facilities, schools, transportation, etc. were the ssame. -
Tulsa Race Massacre
Blah, Blah, Blah -
March on Washington
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