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Slavery comes to North America and quickly spread throughout the colonies
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Abraham Lincoln issued an emancipation proclamation that freed up around 5 million slaves
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The 15th Amendment was adopted that officially abolished slavery
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Although African-Americans were free, there were still laws and rules that had separated whites and blacks.
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NAACP was founded. Political protests broke out as people demanded civil rights for African-Americans
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Marcus Garvey and the UNIA appealed to racial pride of African-American, exalting blackness as strong and beautiful
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The Great Migration of Black Americans from the rural South to the urban North sparked an African-American cultural renaissance that took its name from the New York City neighborhood of Harlem
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Around three million African-Americans enlist in WWI to fight for freedom despite not being 100% free in their own country
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An African-American baseball player named Jackie Robinson joined a baseball team despite the segregation laws. This was a step towards ending segregation in sports.
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An African-American woman named Rosa Parks refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man. She is then arrested and protests ensue that would further help in ending segregation and accomplishing civil rights
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Black Power was a form of both self-definition and self-defense for African-Americans; it called them to stop looking to the institutions of white America--and act for themselves, by themselves to seize the gains they desired. While its original mission was to protect Black people from white brutality, The Panthers soon developed into a Marxist group that promoted Black Power by urging African-Americans to arm themselves.
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CORE and Freedom Rides were staged in a sit-in at a Chicago coffee shop and organized a "Journey of Reconciliation" in which a group of Black and White activists rode together on a bus through the upper South after the U.S. Supreme Court had banned segregation in interstate bus travel.
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250,00 people-both Black and White-participated in the March on Washington for jobs and Freedom, the largest demonstration in the history of the Nation's capital and the most significant display of the civil rights movements growing strength
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John F. Kennedy made passage of new civil rights legislation part of his presidential campaign platform; he won more than 70% of African-American votes.
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U.S. district court ordered Alabama to permit the Selma-Montgomery march, some 2,000 marchers set out on the three-day journey, this time protected by U.S. Army troops and Alabama National Guard forces under federal control. "No tide of racism can stop us"
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Malcolm X soon became an influential leader of the NOI, which combined Islam with Black nationalism and sought to encourage disadvantaged young Black people searching for confidence in segregated America. During a speaking engagement in Harlem, three members of the NOi rushed the stage and shot Malcolm 15 times at close range.
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Less than a week after the Selma-Montgomery marchers were beaten and bloodied by Alabama state troopers in March 1965. President Lydon Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress, calling for federal legislation to ensure the protection of the voting rights of African-Americans
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Originally intended to extend federal protection to civil rights workers, it was later expanded to address racial discrimination in the sale, rental, or financing of housing units.
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The term "affirmative action" was used to refer to policies and initiatives aimed at compensating for past discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national religion
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After King allegedly resisted arrest and threatened them, four LAPD officers tased him with a taser gun and severely beat him. Caught on videotape by an onlooker and broadcast around the world, the beating inspired widespread outrage in the city's African-American community, which had long condemned the racial profiling and abuse its members suffered at the hands of police force