-
First Slaves in America
The First African slaves arrive in the Americas. The slaves are put to work in Virginia. -
Slavery in Northwest Territory
Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory, although Congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808 (this was under the 3/5 compromise). -
Fugitive Slave Law
In the Americas, a federal fugitive slave law is passed that requires all escaped slvaes who had crossed state lines to be returned to their owners. -
Slave Trade
Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa. -
American Colonization Society
established in 1816 by Robert Finley. This society sought to support the "return" of free African Americans to what was considered greater freedom in Africa. It helped to found the colony of Liberia in 1821–22 as a place for freedmen. -
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north 36'30 line. This compromise was a step for the abolition of slavery. -
The Liberator
William Lloyd Garrison, the author of the Liberator, was an immediatist. The immediatists, wanted emancipation at once. Most prominent among white immediatists was William Lloyd Garrison. He published a popular abolitionist newspaper called the Liberator. His early subscribers were at first mostly free blacks, but as time progressed, white abolitionist subscribed as well. Garrison's persistence and powerful writing style helped forve the slavery issue to the forefront. -
Nat Turner Rebellion
Turner was an American slave who led a slave rebellion in Virginia on August 21, 1831. The outcome of the rebellion was 56 white deaths and over 50 black deaths. Across Virginia and other southern states, state legislators passed new laws prohibiting education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services. -
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass began publishing his influential newspaper The North Star. Douglass, as escaped slave, gained fame as a gifted writer and eloquent advocate of freedom and equality; his Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass is one of the great American autobiographies -
Underground Railroad
This was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. Harriet Tubman was a very famous abolitionist for her actions in this cause. A worker on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made 13 trips to the South, helping to free over 70 people. -
Compromise of 1850
The issue of slavery became a problem as new states were added to the Union. The Compromise of 1850 added California as a free state. The compromise left Utah and New Mexico territories to decide their own status on slavery using popular sovereignty. The slave trade is prohibited in Washington DC, but there is a stricter fugitive slave law. -
Compromise of 1850
A thing to note is that under this compromise a stronger Fugitive Slave Act was place. This stronger Fugitive slave law outraged Northern public opinion. The Fugitive Slave Law provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another state or territory. -
Uncle Tom's Cabin
This book was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. The novel is about a long-suffering black slave.The novel becomes an influential part of anti-slavery sentiments. This book is credited with helping fuel the abolitionist cause in the 1850s. The impact of this book on was great, this fact is reinforced by a quote Abraham Lincoln said to Stowe at the start of the Civil War, Lincoln declared, "So this is the little lady who started this great war." -
Dred Scott v. Sandford
This ruling revealed that slaves were not protected by the Constitution and could never be U.S. citizens.The court also held that the U.S. Congress had no authority to prohibit slavery in federal territories and that, because slaves were not citizens, so they could not sue in court. -
13th Amendment
prohibits slavery in the US. Lincoln, in a substantial departure from his earlier and more moderate position on slavery, lobbied for it during his re-election bid. It passed in a the Senate and the House by a wide margin, and Lincoln signed it into law on February 1, 1865. -
Freedman's Bureau
This Bureau assisted 4 million freed slaves in making the transition from slavery to freedom. The agency distributed food and clothing provided by the federal government to freed slaves. This Bureau helped built hospitals for the freed slaves and gave direct medical aid to more than 1 million of them. The greatest success of the Freedmen's Bureau was in the field of education. (More than 1,000 negro schools were built and staffed with qualified instructors.) -
Howard University
This college was founded by General Oliver Howard of the Freedman's Bureau. This college was to provide education for newly emancipated slaves. This was the country's first African American law school. -
Colored National Labor Union
The National Labor Union was organized in 1866. The union included skilled workers, unskilled workers, and farmers, but they did little to include women and blacks. Black workers then organized their own Colored National Union as an adjunct. -
Hampton Institute in Virginia
Among Hampton's earliest students was Booker T. Washington. This college was founded for African Americans. -
14th Amendment
This amendement was passed as part of the Congressional Reconstruction plan for the South. The Amendment stated that everyone born in the US is a citizen, prevented states from denying any citizen equal protection under the law, barred prominent Confederates from holding political office, an excused the Confederacy's war debt. The Amendment also decreed that if a state denied freedmen the right to vote, those men would not be counted toward congressional apportionment. -
15th Amendment
The fifteenth amendment stated that the "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." This allowed the blacks to vote, However, the grandfather clasue, literacy test, and poll tax prevented the blacks from practicing this right. -
Blacks Involved in Knights of Labor
The Knights of Labor was a union that included all workers. They included whites and undepriveleged blacks. About 90,000 blacks joined the Knights of Labor and contributed to its success. -
15th Amendment
prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"
The Voting Rights Bill re-enforced this. -
African Institute (later called the Institute for Colored Youth)
Located at Cheyney, Pennsylvania. It is now called Cheyney University, it the oldest institution of higher learning for African Americans. -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed equal accomodations in public places and prohibited racial discrimination in jury selection. -
US vs Reese
This was a voting rights case. "A Kentucky electoral official had refused to register an African‐American's vote in a municipal election." The Court held that the Fifteenth Amendment did not confer the right of suffrage but prohibited exclusion on racial grounds.
The Supreme Court upheld practices such as the poll tax, the literacy test, and the grandfather clause. Becasue of this, it limited many African Americans their rights to vote. (which was just granted by the 15th amendment.) -
laws blockading black's right to vote
Grandfather Clause, Literary Tests, Poll Tax, Jim Crow are only some of the laws Southerrn States enacted to prohibit blacks from voting.
Black Codes were used in the South to limit the basic human rights and civil liberties of blacks. -
Tuskegee Institute
"The South, war-torn and poor, lagged far behind in education, especially for African Americans." Tuskegee Institute was one of the first black universities. It was run by Booker T. Washington. This school taught students useful skills and trades. -
W.E.B. DuBois
W.E.B DuBois was the first black to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard College. He was an advocate for black rights and believed in complete equality for blacks. -
Plessy vs Ferguson
It ruled that "seperate but equal" facilities were constitutional under the "equal protection" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. (This was related to the Jim Crow laws, which mandated racial segeration - this law was enacted between 1876 and 1965.) Blacks were segregated in inferior schools ad separated from whites in almost all public facilities. -
National Association of Colored Women
Many associations limited membership to whites, such as the National American Women Suffrage Association. Ida B. Wells helped launch the black women's club movement. The National Association of Colored Women was established in 1896. -
NAACP
The National Advancement for the Association of Colored People was founded in 1909. The association was led and founded by W.E.B. DuBois. Thier goal was to end racial discrimination and segregation. -
Universal Negro Improvement Association
Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association, an influential black nationalist organization "to promote the spirit of race pride" and create a sense of worldwide unity among blacks. Garvey campaigned against lynching, Jim Crow laws, denial of black voting rights and racial discrimination. -
World War I
US Congress passed a conscription law to get the US prepared to join the war. African Americans served in the armed forces, but they could only serve in strictly segregated units and usually under white officers. The majority of black soldiers were not trained for combat and were assigned to "construction battalions". -
Interracial Violence in Missouri
Explosive riot in East St. Louis, Missouri broke out in July 1917. Nine whites and at least forty blacks were left dead. -
Black Labor during World War I
Tens of thousands of southern blacks travelled to the North during the war because of war-industry development. The sudden rush of appearance of blacks in the northern all-white areas sometimes sparked interracial violence. The growing black population expanded into the white working-class area. -
Interracial reign of terror in Chicago, Illinois
There was an incident at a beach in July 1919, when blacks and whites were competing for jobs during World War I. After the incident, a reign of terror descended on the city for nearly two weeks. Black and white gangs roamed the streats, killing fifteen whites and twenty three blacks. -
Prohibition for Blacks
The 18th Amendment, passed in 1919, called for prohibition. The abolition of alcohol was popular in the Midwest and the South, because the whites were eager to keep stimulants out of the hands of the blacks just in case they act out of "their place". Racism was still strong at this time. -
Jazz Age
Jazz music came with the migrating blacks during World War I. W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" became an instant classic. Blacks such as Handy, "Jelly Roll" Morton, and Joseph ("Joe") King Oliver gave birth to jazz. -
Harlem Renaissance
Racial pride was rampant in northern black communities during and after the war. Harlem, New York City had 100,000 African-American residents in the 1920s. It was one of the largest black communities in the world. Harlem was the home to poet Langston Hughes and political leader Marcus Garvey. -
Mary McLeod Bethune
Mary McLeod Bethune was the daughter of ex-slaves and founder of a college in Florida. She was the highest ranking African-American in the Roosevelt administration when she was appointed director of the Office of Minority Affairs in the National Youth Administration. She organized the "Black Cabinet" to make sure the New Deal programs benefitted both blacks and whites. Her contributions gave blacks more benefits from the New Deal programs and guaranteed that their rights would not be overlooked -
Fair Labor Standards Act
African Americans were excluded from the Fair Labor Standards Act which was established to set up minimum-wage and maximum-hour levels. This was significant because many blacks were still being discriminated in the workforce at this time. -
Negro March on Washington
There was intense tension over employment, housing, and segregated facilities. A black leader called A. Philip Randolph, who was the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a massive "Negro March on Washington" in 1941. This march was intended to demand equal oppurtunities for blacks in war jobs and equal oppurtunities for blacks in the armed forces. FDR responded with an executive order forbidding discrimination in defense industries. -
Fair Employment Practices Commission
In response to African Americans being discrimated in American forces, Roosevelt established an executive order forbidding discrimination in defense industries. He also set up the Fair Employment Practices Commission to monitor compliance with his edict. Blacks were drafted into the armed forces, but they were still not given opportunities in combat units. The FEPC did help the blacks in their struggle for eqality. -
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
U.S. civil rights organization that originally played a pivotal role for African-Americans in the Civil Rights Movement. Membership in CORE is still stated to be open to "anyone who believes that 'all people are created equal' and is willing to work towards the ultimate goal of true equality throughout the world." -
World War 2
Blacks were drafted into the armed forces, though they still generally assigned to service branches rather than combat units. Blacks were also subjected to petty degradations such as segregated blood banks for the wounded. Overall war helped to embolden blacks in thier long struggle for equality. -
NAACP
membership in thier orginazation shot up to the half- million mark.
recap: The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909 by a diverse group composed of Du Bois, Ida B. Wells and other African Americans. -
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kans
The Supreme Court unanimously agreed taht segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The puling paves the way for large scale desegregation. This decision overturned the 1896 Plessy vs Ferguson ruling that sanctioned "seperate but equal" was constitutional. -
Deaths in the Fight for Civil Rights
Fourteen-year old ChicagoanEmmett Till was visiting family in Mississippi when he was brutally kidnapped, beaten, and killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. JW Milam and Roy Bryant were arrested for the murders, but were acquitted by an all white jury.
August 4, 1964: The bodies of three civil rights workers were found in an earthen dam. The civil rights workers had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, were arrested, and released to the Ku Klux Klan -
new civil rights groups
SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)- this groups becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience.
created in 1955- SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinatin Committee) was founded at Shaw University, providing young blacks with a place in the civil rights movement.
created in 1960- The SNCC later grows into a more radical organization, especially under the leadership of Stokely Carmicheal. -
Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA)
Rosa Parks, a NAACP member, refused to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott, which lasted over a year. Buses finally desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956. The MIA was formed in response to this demenstration, and the most well known person that led this association would be Martin Luther King Jr. -
Integration in schools in action
Nine black students were bloched from entering the school on the the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students, who become known as the "Little Rock Nine." In 1962, James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause Pres. Kennedy to send federal troops -
events leading up to the Civil Rights Act
June 12, 1963- NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home.
Aug 28, 1963- March on Washington. People congregated at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as MLK delivers his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
Sept. 15, 1963- Four young girls attending Sunday school were killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings.
Summer of 1963- Freedom Summer. CORE and SNCC members tried to register black voters -
24th Amendment
The 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax, which originally had been instituted in 11 southern states after Reconstruction to make it difficult for poor blacks to vote. -
"March on Washington"
JFK delivered a memorable televised speech to the nation on June 11, 1963. Kennedy called for a new civil rights legislation to protect black citizens, JFK called the situation a "moral issue". In August, Martin Luther King jr. Led 200,000 black and white demonstrators on a peaceful "March on Wahington" in support of the proposed legislation. During this march is where Martin Luther King had his famous, "I had a dream" speech. -
Democratic National Convention
Summer 1963: The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) a network of civil rights groups launches a massive effort to register black voters during the Freedom Summer at the Democratic National Convention -
Malcolm X and "Black Power"
Malcolm X was a black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American University. October 1966: Militant Black Panthers group are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale April 1967 Sokely Carmichael coins the term "black power" in a speech in Seattle, defining it as an assertion of black pride and "the coming together of black people to fight for liberation by any means necessary" -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in July 1964. This act outlawed major forms of discrimination against blacks and women (including racial segregation). The Civil Rights Act ended racial segregation in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public. Powers given to enforce this act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. It also created a federal Equal Employment Oppurtunity Commission to eliminnate discrimination in hiring. -
Voting Rights Law
The Voting Rights Act outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S. -
Executive Order 11246
President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246 which enforces affirmative action for the first time. it requires government contractors to "take affirmative action" toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring and employment. -
Assassination of Martin Luther King JR
Martin Luther King is shot on his balcony outside his hotel at the age of 39. James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime. His death marks a symbolic end to the momentous civil rights movement. -
Swann v Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education
This Supreme Court case upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. It is largely unwelcome in local school districts, but court ordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continue.
