Howard
Pyle illustrated many historical and adventure stories for periodicals,
including Harper's Weekly. In 1917, he created this depiction of the 1619
arrival of Virginia's first blacks.
August 20. Twenty Africans
arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, aboard a Dutch ship. They were the first blacks
to be forcibly settled as involuntary laborers in the North American British
Colonies.
1641
Massachusetts was the first colony
to legalize slavery by statute.
1663
September 13. The first
documented attempt at a rebellion by slaves took place in Gloucester County,
Virginia.
1664
Maryland was the first state to try
to discourage by law the marriage of white women to black men.
1688
February 18. The Quakers of
Germantown, Pennsylvania, passed the first formal antislavery resolution.
1712
April 7. A slave insurrection
occurred in New York City, resulting in the execution of 21 African Americans.
1739
September 9. The Cato revolt
was the first serious disturbance among slaves. After killing more than 25
whites, most of the rebels, led by a slave named Cato, were rounded up as they
tried to escape to Florida. More than 30 blacks were executed as participants.
1770
Crispus Attucks
March 5. Crispus Attucks, an
escaped slave, was among the five victims in the Boston Massacre. He is said to
have been the first to fall.
1772
Jean Baptiste Point DuSable decided
to build a trading post near Lake Michigan, thus becoming the first permanent
resident of the settlement that became Chicago.
1775
April 19. Free blacks fight
with the Minutemen in the initial skirmishes of the Revolutionary War at
Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.
Salem Poor
June 17. Peter Salem and
Salem Poor were two blacks commended for their service on the American side at
the Battle of Bunker Hill. Peter Salem has been credited with killing Major
Pitcairn the leader of the British forces storming the hill. According to the
story, the colonial troops were near defeat, and British Major John Pitcairn
ordered them to surrender. Salem then stepped forward and shot Pitcairn. The
British were temporarily stunned, and the Americans were able to retreat.
Pitcairn later died of the wound.
1777
July 2. Vermont was the first
state to abolish slavery.
New
York African Free School
November 1. The African
Free School of New York City was opened.
December 31. George
Washington reversed previous policy and allowed the recruitment of blacks as
soldiers. Some 5,000 would participate on the American side before the end of
the Revolution.
1787
Richard Allen and
Absalom Jones
April 12. Richard Allen and
Absalom Jones organized the Free African Society, a mutual self-help group in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
July 13. The Continental
Congress forbade slavery in the region northwest of the Ohio River by the
Northwest Ordinance.
September. The
Constitution of the United States allowed a male slave to count as three-fifths
of a man in determining representation in the House of Representatives.
1791
Benjamin Banneker, was a free
African American mathematician, astronomer, clockmaker, and publisher., published the
first almanac by a black.
1793
February 12. Congress passed
the first Fugitive Slave Law.
March 14. Eli Whitney
obtained a patent for his cotton gin, a device that paved the way for the
massive expansion of slavery in the South.
1794
June 10. Richard Allen
founded the Bethel African Methodist Church in Philadelphia.
1797
August 30. A slave revolt
near Richmond, Virginia, led by Gabriel Prosser and Jack Bowley, was first
postponed and then betrayed. More than 40 blacks were eventually executed.
1804
January 5. The Ohio
legislature passed "Black Laws" designed to restrict the legal rights
of free blacks. These laws were part of the trend to increasingly severe
restrictions on all blacks in both North and South before the Civil War.
1808
January 1. The federal law
prohibiting the importation of African slaves went into effect. It was largely
circumvented.
1810
The Underground Railroad refers
to the effort--sometimes spontaneous, sometimes highly organized--to assist
persons held in bondage in North America to escape from slavery with the aid
of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. The Underground Railroad
was operating between 1810 and 1861
1816
April 9. The African
Methodist Episcopal Church was organized at the first independent black
denomination in the United States.
1818
August 18. General Andrew
Jackson defeated a force of Native Americans and African-Americans to end the
First Seminole War.
1822
May 30. The Denmark Vesey
conspiracy was betrayed in Charleston, South Carolina. It is claimed that some
5,000 blacks were prepared to rise in July.
1829
September. David Walker's
militant antislavery pamphlet, An Appeal to the Colored People of the World,
was in circulation in the South. This work was the first of its kind by a black.
September 20-24. The first
National Negro Convention met in Philadelphia.
1831
August 21-22. The Nat Turner
revolt ran its course in Southampton County, Virginia.
1839
July. The slaves carried on
the Spanish ship, Amistad, took over the vessel and sailed it to Montauk
on Long Island. They eventually won their freedom in a case taken to the Supreme
Court.
1849
July Harriet Tubman escaped
from slavery. She would return South at least twenty times, leading over 300
slaves to freedom.
1850
The Fugitive Slave Law or Fugitive
Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as
part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slaveholding interests and
Northern Free-Soilers.
1852
Daniel A. P. Murray born.
Born in Baltimore on March 3. Murray, an African-American, was assistant
librarian of Congress, and a collector of books and pamphlets by and about
black Americans.
Publication of Uncle
Tom's Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel, published on March 20,
focused national attention on the cruelties of slavery.
1854
January 1. Ashmum
Institute, the precursor of Lincoln University, was chartered at Oxford,
Pennsylvania.
1856
Booker Taliaferro Washington
born. Born in Franklin
County, Virginia, on April 5, Washington was the first principal of Tuskegee
Institute (1881), and was the individual most responsible for its early
development. Washington was considered the leading African-American spokesman of
his day.
1857
March 6. Supreme Court rules
on the Dred Scott case. The Supreme Court decided that an African-American could
not be a citizen of the U.S., and thus had no rights of citizenship. The
decision sharpened the national debate over slavery.
1859
John Brown's raid.
On October 16-17, John Brown raided the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry,
Virginia (today located in West Virginia). Brown's unsuccessful mission to
obtain arms for a slave insurrection stirred and divided the nation. Brown was
hanged for treason on December 2.
The last slave ship arrives.
During this year, the last ship to bring slaves to the United States, the
Clothilde, arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama.
1860
Abraham Lincoln elected
president. Republican
Abraham Lincoln was elected president on November 6, 1860.
Census of 1860.
U.S. population: 31,443,790
Black population: 4,441,790 (14.1%)
1861
August 23. James Stone of
Ohio enlisted to become the first black to fight for the Union during the Civil
War. He was very light skinned and was married to a white woman. His racial
identity was revealed after his death in 1862.
1862
Slavery abolished in the
District of Columbia.
Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia -- an important step on
the road for freedom for all African-Americans.
July 17. Congress allowed the
enlistment of blacks in the Union Army. Some black units precede this date, but
they were disbanded as unofficial. Some 186,000 blacks served; of these 38,000
died.
1863
The Emancipation Proclamation.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect January 1, legally freeing
slaves in areas of the South in rebellion.
New York City draft riots.
Anti-conscription riots started on July 13 and lasted four days, during which
hundreds of black Americans were killed or wounded.
The Fifty-Fourth
Massachusetts Volunteers. On July 18, the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts
Volunteers -- the all-black unit of the Union army portrayed in the 1989
Tri-Star Pictures film Glory -- charged Fort Wagner in Charleston,
South Carolina. Sergeant William H. Carney becomes the first African-American
to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery under fire.
1864
Equal pay.
On June 15, Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay, equipment, arms, and
health care for African-American Union troops.
The New Orleans Tribune.
On October 4, the New Orleans Tribune began publication. The Tribune
was one of the first daily newspapers produced by blacks.
1865
Congress approves the
Thirteenth Amendment.
Slavery would be outlawed in the United States by the Thirteenth Amendment,
which Congress approved and sent on to the states for ratification on January
31.
The Freedmen's Bureau.
On March 3, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to provide health care,
education, and technical assistance to emancipated slaves.
Death of Lincoln. On
April 15, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; Vice President Andrew Johnson, a
Tennessee Democrat, succeeded him as president.
Ratification of Thirteenth
Amendment. The Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery, was ratified on
December 18.
1866
Edward G. Walker and Charles L.
Mitchell were the first blacks to sit in an American legislature, that of
Massachusetts.
Founding of the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku
Klux Klan, an organization formed to intimidate blacks and other ethnic and
religious minorities, first met in Maxwell House, Memphis. The Klan was the
first of many secret terrorist organizations organized in the South for the
purpose of reestablishing white authority.
Buffalo Soldiers is a nickname
originally applied to the members of the U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment of the
United States Army by the Native American tribes they fought, which was formed
on September 21, 1866 at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The term eventually
encompassed these units: U.S. 9th Cavalry Regiment U.S. 10th Cavalry Regiment
24th Infantry Regiment 25th Infantry Regiment 27th Cavalry Regiment 28th
Cavalry Regiment.
The "Buffalo Soldiers"
were established by Congress as the first peacetime all-black regiments in the
regular U.S. Army.
1867
Reconstruction begins.
Reconstruction Acts were passed by Congress on March 2. These acts called for
the enfranchisement of former slaves in the South.
1868
July 6. The South Carolina
House became the first and only legislature to have a black majority, 87 blacks
to 40 whites. Whites did continue to control the Senate and became a majority in
the House in 1874.
July 28 The Fourteenth
Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, granting citizenship to any person
born or naturalized in the United States.
1870
Census of 1870
U.S. population: 39,818,449
Black population: 4,880,009 (12.7%)
The first African-American
senator Hiram R. Revels (Republican) of Mississippi took his seat February
25. He was the first black United States senator, though he served only one
year.
Fifteenth Amendment ratified
The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on March 30
1875
March 1. Congress passed a
Civil Rights Bill which banned discrimination in places of public accommodation.
The Supreme Court overturned the bill in 1883.
Tennessee passed a law requiring
segregation in railroad cars. By 1907 all Southern states had passed similar
laws.
1877
The first African-American
to graduate from West Point. On June 15, Henry Ossian Flipper became the first black
American to graduate from West Point.
The end of Reconstruction
A deal with Southern Democratic leaders made Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican)
president, in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and
the end of federal efforts to protect the civil rights of African-Americans.
1881
President Garfield
assassinated. President Garfield was shot on July 2; he died on
September 19. Vice President Chester A. Arthur (Republican) succeeded
Garfield as president.
Tuskegee Institute founded.
Booker T. Washington became the first principal of Tuskegee Institute in
Tuskegee, Alabama, on July 4. Tuskegee became the leading vocational
training institution for African-Americans.
Segregation of public
transportation. Tennessee segregated railroad cars, followed by Florida
(1887), Mississippi (1888), Texas (1889), Louisiana (1890), Alabama,
Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia (1891), South Carolina (1898), North
Carolina (1899), Virginia (1900), Maryland (1904), and Oklahoma (1907).
1882
Lynchings. Forty-nine
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1882.
1883
Civil Rights Act
overturned. On October 15, the Supreme Court declared the Civil Rights
Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The Court declared that the Fourteenth
Amendment forbids states, but not citizens, from discriminating.
Sojourner Truth dies.
Sojourner Truth, a courageous and ardent abolitionist and a brilliant
speaker, died on November 26.
A political coup and a race
riot. On November 3, white conservatives in Danville, Virginia, seized
control of the local government, racially integrated and popularly elected,
killing four African-Americans in the process.
Lynchings. Fifty-three
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1883.
1884
Cleveland elected
president. Grover Cleveland (Democrat) was elected president on November
4.
Lynchings. Fifty-one
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1884.
1885
A black Episcopal bishop.
On June 25, African-American Samuel David Ferguson was ordained a bishop of
the Episcopal church.
Lynchings. Seventy-four
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1885.
1886
The Carrollton Massacre.
On March 17, 20 black Americans were massacred at Carrollton, Mississippi.
Labor organizes. The
American Federation of Labor was organized on December 8, signaling the rise
of the labor movement. All major unions of the day excluded black Americans.
Lynchings. Seventy-four
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1886.
1887
Lynchings. Seventy
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1887.
1888
Two of the first
African-American banks. Two of America's first black-owned banks -- the
Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of the Reformers, in
Richmond Virginia, and Capital Savings Bank of Washington, DC, opened their
doors.
Harrison elected president.
Benjamin Harrison (Republican) was elected president on November 6.
Lynchings. Sixty-nine
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1888.
1889
Lynchings. Ninety-four
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1889.
1890
Census of 1890.
U.S. population: 62,947,714
Black population: 7,488,676 (11.9%)
The Afro-American League.
On January 25, under the leadership of Timothy Thomas Fortune, the militant
National Afro-American League was founded in Chicago.
African-Americans are
disenfranchised. The Mississippi Plan, approved on November 1, used
literacy and "understanding" tests to disenfranchise black
American citizens. Similar statutes were adopted by South Carolina (1895),
Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1901),
Georgia (1908), and Oklahoma (1910).
A white supremacist is
elected. Populist "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman was elected governor
of South Carolina. He called his election "a triumph of ... white
supremacy."
Lynchings. Eighty-five
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1890.
1891
Lynchings. One hundred
and thirteen black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1891.
1892
Grover Cleveland elected
president. Grover Cleveland (Democrat) was elected president on November
8.
Lynchings. One hundred
and sixty-one black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1892.
1893
Lynchings. One hundred
and eighteen black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1893.
1894
The Pullman strike. The
Pullman Company strike caused a national transportation crisis. On May 11,
African-Americans were hired by the company as strike-breakers.
Lynchings. One hundred
and thirty-four black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1894.
1895
Douglass dies.
African-American leader and statesman Frederick Douglass died on February
20.
A race riot. Whites
attacked black workers in New Orleans on March 11-12. Six blacks were
killed.
The Atlanta Compromise.
Booker T. Washington delivered his famous "Atlanta Compromise"
address on September 18 at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition. He said the
"Negro problem" would be solved by a policy of gradualism and
accommodation.
The National Baptist
Convention. Several Baptist organizations combined to form the National
Baptist Convention of the U.S.A.; the Baptist church is the largest black
religious denomination in the United States.
Lynchings. One hundred
and thirteen black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1895.
1896
Plessy v. Ferguson.
The Supreme Court decided on May 18 in Plessy v. Ferguson that
"separate but equal" facilities satisfy Fourteenth Amendment
guarantees, thus giving legal sanction to Jim Crow segregation laws.
Black women organize.
The National Association of Colored Women was formed on July 21; Mary Church
Terrell was chosen president.
McKinley elected president.
On November 3, William McKinley (Republican) was elected president.
George Washington Carver.
George Washington Carver was appointed director of agricultural research at
Tuskegee Institute. His work advanced peanut, sweet potato, and soybean
farming.
Lynchings.
Seventy-eight black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1896.
1897
American Negro Academy.
The American Negro Academy was established on March 5 to encourage
African-American participation in art, literature and philosophy.
Lynchings. One hundred
and twenty-three black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1897.
1898
The Spanish-American War.
The Spanish-American War began on April 21. Sixteen regiments of black
volunteers were recruited; four saw combat. Five black Americans won
Congressional Medals of Honor.
The National Afro-American
Council. Founded on September 15, the National Afro-American Council
elected Bishop Alexander Walters its first president.
A race riot. On
November 10, in Wilmington, North Carolina, eight black Americans were
killed during white rioting.
Black-owned insurance
companies. The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Insurance Company and
the National Benefit Life Insurance Company of Washington, DC were
established. Both companies were black-owned.
Lynchings. One hundred
and one black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1898.
1899
A lynching protest. The
Afro-American Council designated June 4 as a national day of fasting to
protest lynchings and massacres.
Lynchings. Eighty-five
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1899.
1900
Census of 1900.
U.S. population: 75,994,575
Black population: 8,833,994 (11.6%)
Lynchings. One hundred
and six black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1900.
A World's Fair. The
Paris Exposition was held, and the United States pavilion housed an
exhibition on black Americans. The "Exposition des Negres d'Amerique"
won several awards for excellence. Daniel A. P. Murray's collection of works
by and about black Americans was developed for this exhibition.
1901
The last African-American
congressman for 28 years. George H. White gave up his seat on March 4.
No African-American would serve in Congress for the next 28 years.
President McKinley
assassinated. President McKinley died of an assassin's bullet on
September 14, a week after being shot in Buffalo, New York. Vice President
Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him as president.
Washington dines at the
White House. On October 16, after an afternoon meeting at the White
House with Booker T. Washington, President Theodore Roosevelt informally
invited Washington to remain and eat dinner with him, making Washington
the first black American to dine at the White House with the president. A
furor arose over the social implications of Roosevelt's casual act.
Jazz great Louis Armstrong
is born in New Orleans.
Lynchings. One
hundred and five black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1901.
1902
Lynchings. Eighty-five
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1902.
1903
The Souls of Black Folk.
W. E. B. Du Bois's celebrated book, The Souls of Black Folk, was
published on April 27. In it, Du Bois rejected the gradualism of Booker T.
Washington, calling for agitation on behalf of African-American rights.
Lynchings.Eighty-four
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1903.
1904
College founded.
Educator Mary McCleod Bethune founds a college in Daytona Beach, Florida,
known today as Bethune-Cookman College.
Lynchings. Seventy-six
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1904.
1905
The Niagara Movement.
On July 11-13, African-American intellectuals and activists, led by W. E. B.
Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter, began the Niagara Movement.
Lynchings. Fifty-seven
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1905.
1906
Soldiers riot. In
Brownsville, Texas on August 13, black troops rioted against segregation. On
November 6, President Theodore Roosevelt discharged three companies of black
soldiers involved in the riot.
A race riot. On
September 22-24, in a race riot in Atlanta, ten blacks and two whites were
killed.
Lynchings. Sixty-two
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1906.
1908
Thurgood Marshall born.
Born in Baltimore on July 2, Thurgood Marshall, was the attorney for the
NAACP in the famous case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), in
which the Supreme Court found segregated schools to be inherently unequal.
He later became the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court.
A race riot. Many were
killed and wounded in a race riot on August 14-19, in Abraham Lincoln's home
town of Springfield, Illinois.
Taft elected president.
On November 3, William Howard Taft (Republican) was elected president.
Lynchings. Eighty-nine
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1908.
1909
The NAACP is formed. On
February 12 -- the centennial of the birth of Lincoln -- a national appeal
led to the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, an organization formed to promote use of the courts to
restore the legal rights of black Americans.
Lynchings. Sixty-nine
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1909.
1910
Census of 1910.
U.S. population: 93,402,151
Black population: 9,827,763 (10.7%)
Crisis debuts.
The first issue of Crisis, a publication sponsored by the NAACP and
edited by W. E.B. Du Bois, appeared on November 1.
Segregated neighborhoods.
On December 19, the City Council of Baltimore approved the first city
ordinance designating the boundaries of black and white neighborhoods. This
ordinance was followed by similar ones in Dallas, Texas, Greensboro, North
Carolina, Louisville, Kentucky, Norfolk, Virginia, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
Richmond, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, and St. Louis, Missouri. The Supreme
Court declared the Louisville ordinance to be unconstitutional in 1917.
Lynchings. Sixty-seven
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1910.
1912
Wilson elected president.
Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) was elected president on November 5.
Lynchings. Sixty-one
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1912.
1913
Jubilee year. The
fiftieth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation was celebrated
throughout the year.
Harriet Tubman dies.
Harriet Tubman -- former slave, abolitionist, and freedom fighter -- died on
March 10.
Federal segregation. On
April 11, the Wilson administration began government-wide segregation of
work places, rest rooms and lunch rooms.
Lynchings. Fifty-one
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1913.
1914
Lynchings. Fifty-one
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1914.
World War I. World War
I began in Europe.
1915
Booker T. Washington
dies. Renowned African-American spokesman Booker T. Washington died on
November 14.
Lynchings. Fifty-six
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1915.
1916
Lynchings. Fifty black
Americans are known to have been lynched in 1916.
1917
World War I. America
entered World War I on April 6. 370,000 African-Americans were in military
service -- more than half in the French war zone.
A race riot. One of the
bloodiest race riots in the nation's history took place in East St. Louis,
Illinois, on July 1-3. A Congressional committee reported that 40 to 200
people were killed, hundreds more injured, and 6,000 driven from their
homes.
NAACP protest.
Thousands of African-Americans marched down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on July
28, protesting lynchings, race riots, and the denial of rights.
A race riot. On August
23, a riot erupted in Houston between black soldiers and white citizens; 2
blacks and 11 whites were killed. 18 black soldiers were hanged for
participation in the riot.
The Supreme Court acts.
On November 5, the Supreme Court struck down the Louisville, Kentucky
ordinance mandating segregated neighborhoods.
Lynchings. Thirty-six
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1917.
1918
A race riot. On July
25-28, a race riot occurred in Chester, Pennsylvania. 3 blacks and 2 whites
were killed.
A race riot. On July
26-29, a race riot occurred in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 3 blacks and 1
white were killed.
World War I ends. The
Armistice took effect on November 11, ending World War I. The northern
migration of African-Americans began in earnest during the war. By 1930
there were 1,035,000 more black Americans in the North, and 1,143,000 fewer
black Americans in the South than in 1910.
Lynchings. Sixty black
Americans are known to have been lynched in 1918.
1919
"Red Summer."
This was the year of the "Red Summer," with 26 race riots between
the months of April and October. These included disturbances in the
following areas:
May 10 Charleston, South Carolina.
July 13 Gregg and Longview counties, Texas.
July 19-23 Washington, D. C.
July 27 Chicago.
October 1-3 Elaine, Arkansas.
Lynchings. Seventy-six
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1919.
1920
Census of 1920.
U.S. population: 105,710,620
Black population: 10,463,131 (9.9%)
The Harlem Renaissance.
The decade of the Twenties witnessed the Harlem Renaissance, a remarkable
period of creativity for black writers, poets, and artists, including these
authors:
Claude McKay, Harlem Shadows, 1922
Jean Toomer, Cane, 1923
Alaine Locke, The New Negro, 1925
Countee Cullen, Color, 1925
The rise of Marcus Garvey.
On August 1, Marcus Garvey's Universal Improvement Association held its
national convention in Harlem, the traditionally black neighborhood in New
York City. Garvey's African nationalist movement was the first black
American mass movement, and at its height it claimed hundreds of thousands
of supporters.
Harding elected president.
On November 3, Warren G. Harding (Republican) was elected president.
Lynchings. Fifty-three
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1920.
1921
A race riot. On May
31-June 1, in a race riot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 21 whites and 60 blacks were
killed. The violence destroyed a thriving African American neighborhood and
business district.
Lynchings. Fifty-nine
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1921.
1922
An anti-lynching effort.
On January 26, a federal anti-lynching bill was killed by a filibuster in
the United States Senate.
Lynchings. Fifty-one
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1922.
1923
President Harding dies.
President Warren Harding died on August 3; Vice President Calvin Coolidge
succeeded him as president.
Lynchings. Twenty-nine
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1923.
1924
Lynchings. Sixteen
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1924.
1925
Malcolm X born. On May
19, in Omaha, Nebraska, civil rights leader Malcolm X was born.
Sleeping car porters
organize. On August 25, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was
organized. A. Philip Randolph was chosen president.
Lynchings. Seventeen
black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1925.
Daniel A. P. Murray dies.
Assistant Librarian of Congress and African-American historian Daniel A. P.
Murray died in Washington, DC, on March 31.
1926
Pianist, composer, and self-proclaimed inventor of jazz Jelly Roll Morton
records several of his masterpieces, including "Black Bottom
Stomp" and "Dead Man Blues."
1928
Poet and novelist Claude McKay publishes Home to Harlem, the first
fictional work by an African-American to reach the best-seller lists.
1930
Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. becomes the first black colonel in the U.S. Army.
He later oversees race relations and the morale of black soldiers in World
War II and becomes the first black general in 1940.
1936
August 9. Jesse Owens won
four gold medals at the Summer Olympics in Berlin.
1937
June 22. Joe Louis defeated
James J. Braddock to become heavyweight boxing champion of the world.
1940
October 16. Benjamin O.
Davis, Sr., became the first black general in the United States Army.
1941
June 25. President Franklin
D. Roosevelt issued an executive order forbidding discrimination in defense
industries after pressure from blacks led by A. Philip Randolph.
1942
June. Some blacks and whites
organized the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago. They led a sit-in at a
Chicago restaurant.
1943
Pilots
of the 332nd Fighter Group, "Tuskegee Airmen," the elite, all-African
American 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli, Italy., from left to right, Lt.
Dempsey W. Morgran, Lt. Carroll S. Woods, Lt. Robert H. Nelron, Jr., Capt.
Andrew D. Turner, and Lt. Clarence P. Lester. (U.S. Air Force photo)
"The Tuskegee Airmen"
are a group of African American pilots who flew with distinction during World
War II. The Tuskegee Airmen included pilots, navigators, bombardiers,
maintenance and support staff, instructors, and all the personnel who kept the
planes in the air. Four hundred and fifty of the pilots who were trained at
Tuskegee Institute served overseas in either the 99th Pursuit Squadron (later
the 99th Fighter Squadron) or the 332nd Fighter Group. The 99th Fighter Squadron
trained in and flew aircraft in combat in North Africa, Sicily and Italy from
April 1943 until July 1944 when they were transferred to the 332nd Fighter Group
in the 15th Air Force They .flew theP-40 Warhawk, briefly with P-39 Airacobras
(March 1944), later with P-47 Thunderbolts (June-July 1944), and finally with
the airplane that they would become most identified with, the P-51 Mustang (July
1944).
By the end of the war, the
Tuskegee Airmen were credited with 109 Luftwaffe aircraft shot down, a patrol
boat run aground by machine-gun fire, and destruction of numerous fuel dumps,
trucks and trains. The squadrons of the 332nd Fighter Group flew more than
15,000 sorties on 1,500 missions. The Tuskegee Airmen were awarded several
Silver Stars, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 8 Purple Hearts, 14 Bronze Stars
and 744 Air Medals.
Col.
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., commander of the Tuskegee Airmen 332nd Fighter Group, in
front of his P-47 Thunderbolt in Sicily.(U.S. Air Force photo)
1944
April 24. The United Negro
College Fund was founded.
October 2. The first
working, production-ready model of a mechanical cotton picker was demonstrated
on a farm near Clarksdate, Mississippi.
1947
April 19. Jackie Robinson
became the first black to play major league baseball.
1950
Hazel Scott was the first African
American woman to have her own television show, The Hazel Scott Show, which
premiered on the DuMont Television Network on 3 July 1950.
September 22. Ralph J.
Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a mediator in Palestine.
1954
May 17. Brown v. Board of
Education: In the 1950’s, school segregation was widely accepted throughout
the nation. In fact, law in most Southern states required it. In 1952, the
Supreme Court heard a number of school-segregation cases, including Brown v.
Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. This case decided unanimously in 1954 that
segregation was unconstitutional, overthrowing the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
ruling that had set the “separate but equal” precedent.
1955 Montgomery Bus
Boycott: Rosa Parks, a 43-year-old black seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery,
Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat near the front of a bus to a white
man. The following night, fifty leaders of the Negro community met at Dexter
Ave. Baptist Church to discuss the issue. Among them was the young minister, Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The leaders organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which
would deprive the bus company of 65% of its income, and cost Dr. King a $500
fine or 386 days in jail. He paid the fine, and eight months later, the Supreme
Court decided, based on the school segregation cases, that bus segregation
violated the constitution.
December 1. Rosa Parks
refused to change seats in a Montgomery, Alabama, bus. On December 5 blacks
began a boycott of the bus system which continued until shortly after December
13, 1956, when the United States Supreme Court outlawed bus segregation in the
city.
1957 Desegregation at
Little Rock: Little Rock Central High School was to begin the 1957 school year
desegregated. On September 2, the night before the first day of school, Governor
Faubus announced that he had ordered the Arkansas National Guard to monitor the
school the next day. When a group of nine black students arrived at Central High
on September 3, they were kept from entering by the National Guardsmen. On
September 20, judge Davies granted an injunction against Governor Faubus and
three days later the group of nine students returned to Central High School.
Although the students were not physically injured, a mob of 1,000 townspeople
prevented them from remaining at school. Finally, President Eisenhower ordered
1,000 paratroopers and 10,000 National Guardsmen to Little Rock, and on
September 25, Central High School was desegregated.
February 14. The Southern
Christian Leadership Conference was formed with Martin Luther King, Jr.,, as
president.
August 29. Congress passed
the Voting Rights Bill of 1957, the first major civil rights legislation in more
than 75 years.
November 5 The
Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV. Initially begun as a 15-minute show
on Monday night, the show was expanded to a half hour in July 1957.
1959
Motown Records, Inc., also known
as Tamla-Motown incorporated on January 12, 1959
by Berry Gordy, Jr.
1960 Sit-in Campaign:
After having been refused service at the lunch counter of a Woolworth's in
Greensboro, North Carolina, Joseph McNeill, a Negro college student, returned
the next day with three classmates to sit at the counter until they were served.
They were not served. The four students returned to the lunch counter each day.
When an article in the New York Times drew attention to the students' protest,
more students, both black and white, joined them, and students across the nation
were inspired to launch similar protests. “In a span of two weeks, there were
sit-ins in eleven cities”. Despite beatings, being doused with
ammonia, heavy court fines, arrest and imprisonment, new waves of students
appeared at lunch counters to continue the movement through February and March.
“By late March, the police had orders not to arrest the demonstrators because
of the national publicity the sit-ins were attracting”. Senator
John F. Kennedy, one of the candidates in the presidential election that year,
sent a statement to the sit-in students in Atlanta expressing the sentiment that
“they have shown that the new way for Americans to stand up for their rights
is to sit down”. This represented one of the few times
that either presidential candidate addressed a civil rights issue during the
campaign.
Ronald
Martin, Robert Patterson, and Mark Martin stage sit-down strike after being
refused service at an F.W. Woolworth luncheon counter, Greensboro, N.C. 1960
February 1. Sit-ins in
Greensboro, North Carolina, initiated a wave of similar protests throughout the
South.
April 15-17. The Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina.
1961-Freedom Rides: In
1961, busloads of volunteers of mixed races waged a cross-country campaign to
try to end the segregation of bus terminals. Their plan was to test the Supreme
Court’s ruling that segregated seating on interstate buses and trains was
unconstitutional. Their legal action, however, was met with violence at many
stops along the way. Local segregation laws were frequently used to arrest and
try the freedom riders. But as one group was arrested, more arrived to take
their place. Throughout the summer, more than 300 Freedom Riders traveled
through the deep south in an effort to integrate the bus terminals. When freedom
riders were savagely beaten in Montgomery, Alabama, one of President Kennedy’s
representatives was also knocked unconscious and left lying in the street for
half an hour. Kennedy felt this gave him justification to send in 600 federal
marshals in a showdown between the state of Alabama and the federal government.
After this confrontation, Kennedy made a deal with Democratic governors and
congressmen who held power in the South. He would not send in federal troops as
long as they made sure there was no mob violence against the riders.
1963 Birmingham: In May
1963, Dr. King, the Reverend Abernathy and the Reverend Shuttlesworth lead a
protest march in Birmingham. The protestors were met with policemen and dogs.
The three ministers were arrested and taken to Southside Jail. Dr. King was held
in solitary confinement for three days, during which he wrote, smuggled out of
jail, and had printed his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” a profoundly moving
justification for the moral necessity of non-violent resistance to unjust laws.
June-August. Civil rights
protests took place in most major urban areas.
August 28. The March on
Washington was the largest civil rights demonstration ever. Martin Luther King,
Jr., delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
In
September 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church,
killing four little girls who, dressed in the “Youth Sunday” best, were
preparing to lead the 11:00 am adult service. The bombing came without warning.
Since 1911, this church had served as the center of life for Birmingham’s
African American community. By the end of the day, riots and fires had broken
out throughout Birmingham and another 2 teenagers were dead. This murderous act
shocked the nation and galvanized the civil rights movement.
The crater and other
damage caused by the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which
killed four little girls.
1964
January 23. The Twenty-fourth
Amendment forbade the use of the poll tax to prevent voting.
March 12. Malcolm X
announced
his split from Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam.
April 3- Malcolm
X gives his speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” at the Cory Methodist Church
in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cleveland chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE) sponsored the event.
July 2- The
Civil Rights Act of 1964: In his first address to Congress and the nation as
president, Johnson called for passage of the civil rights bill as a monument to
the fallen Kennedy. While the House of Representatives passed the measure by a
lopsided 290-130 vote, every one knew that the real battle would be in the
Senate, whose rules had allowed southerners in the past to mount filibusters
that had effectively killed nearly all civil rights legislation. But Johnson had
the civil rights leaders mount a massive lobbying campaign, including inundating
the Capitol with religious leaders of all faiths and colors. The strategy paid
off, and in June the Senate voted to close debate; a few weeks later, it passed
the most important piece of civil rights legislation in the nation's history,
and on July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed it into law. The heart of the law
deals with public accommodations, so that African Americans could no longer be
excluded from restaurants, hotels and other public facilities.
July 18-August 30.
Beginning in Harlem, serious racial disturbances occurred in more than six major
cities.
1965 Selma: Outraged over
the killing of a demonstrator by a state trooper in Marion, Alabama, the black
community of Marion decided to hold a march. Martin Luther King agreed to lead
the marchers on Sunday, March 7, from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital,
where they would appeal directly to governor Wallace to stop police brutality
and call attention to their struggle for suffrage. When Governor Wallace refused
to allow the march, Dr. King went to Washington to speak with President Johnson,
delaying the demonstration until March 8. However, the people of Selma could not
wait and they began the march on Sunday. When the marchers reached the city
line, they found a posse of state troopers waiting for them. As the
demonstrators crossed the bridge leading out of Selma, they were ordered to
disperse, but the troopers did not wait for their warning to be headed. They
immediately attacked the crowd of people who had bowed their heads in prayer.
Using tear gas and batons, the troopers chased the demonstrators to a black
housing project, where they continued to beat the demonstrators as well as
residents of the project who had not been at the march.
Bloody Sunday received
national attention, and numerous marches were organized in response. Martin
Luther King led a march to the Selma Bridge that Tuesday, during which one
protestor was killed. Finally, with President Johnson's permission, Dr. King led
a successful march from Selma to Montgomery on March 25. President Johnson gave
a rousing speech to congress concerning civil rights as a result of Bloody
Sunday, and passed the Voting Rights Act within that same year. John Lewis,
former freedom rider and voting rights registration organizer, and one of the
young men beaten on the Selma Bridge that Sunday, currently serves as a U.S.
Congressman for the State of Georgia.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
prohibits literacy tests and poll taxes which had been used to prevent blacks
from voting. According to a report of the Bureau of the Census from 1982, in
1960 there were 22,000 African-Americans registered to vote in Mississippi, but
in 1966 the number had risen to 175,000. Alabama went from 66,000
African-American registered voters in 1960 to 250,000 in 1966. South Carolina's
African-American registered voters went from 58,000 to 191,000 in the same time
period.
January 2. The SCLC launched
a voter drive in Selma, Alabama. which escalated into a nationwide protest
movement.
February 21. Malcolm X is assassinated
in Harlem by members of the Nation of Islam.
August 11-21. The Watts
riots left 34 dead, more than 3,500 arrested, and property damage of about 225
million dollars.
1966
August On August 23, 1966,
Muhammad Ali applied with the Selective Service for conscientious objector status on
religious grounds (as a minister with the Nation of Islam).
"I
ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong-No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help
murder kill and burn other people to simply help continue the domination of
white slavemasters over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when
such evil injustice must come to an end." —Muhammad Ali
October. The Black Panther
Party For Self Defense was founded to promote civil rights and
self-defense by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California.
Bobby
Seale and Huey Newton Black Panther Party
Original
six Black Panthers (November, 1966) Top left to right: Elbert "Big
Man" Howard; Huey P. Newton (Defense Minister), Sherman Forte, Bobby Seale
(Chairman). Bottom: Reggie Forte and Little Bobby Hutton (Treasurer).
1967
May 1-October 1. This was the
worst summer for racial disturbances in United States history.
1968
April 4. Martin Luther King,
Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. In the following week riots occurred
in at least 125 places throughout the country.
October
16 at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, Mexico two American track and field
runners, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, made a stand against racism in the
United States.
Smith
and Carlos were both competitors in the 200-meter race. Smith won the gold with
the time of 19.5 seconds and Carlos won the bronze. At the medal ceremony, Smith
and Carlos stood on the platform wearing black socks without shoes, they both
wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge, and Smith wore a black scarf
around his neck. As the American flag was raised and the National Anthem was
played, Smith and Carlos bowed their heads and each raised a gloved fist in the
black power salute. Because of their actions, the Olympic Committee barred them
from competing in other events. John
Carlos and Tommie Smith are true heroes.
1969
October 29. The Supreme Court
ruled that racial segregation in schools had to end at once and that unitary
school systems were required.
1970
July 1. Kenneth Gibson became
the first black mayor of an Eastern city in Newark, New
Jersey.
The Flip Wilson Show, debuted on
NBC in 1970. Flip Wilson played host to many entertainers and performed in
comedy sketches. His characters included Reverend Leroy, pastor of the Church of
What’s Happening Now; and Geraldine, whose line “The devil made me do it”
became a national expression. In its first two seasons, the series hit the
number two spot in overall ratings.
The show aired through 1974, gaining
high ratings and great popularity. Wilson won a Golden Globe award for best
actor in a television series, and the show won eighteen Emmys in the 1972 and
1973 seasons.
Flip
Wilson, Richard Pryor and Buddy Hackett
1971
March 24. The Southern
Regional Council reported that desegregation in Southern schools was the rule,
not the exception. The report also pointed out that the dual school system was
far from dismantled.
Soul Train began airing in
selected cities across the United States, on a weekly basis, on October 2,
1971.During the heyday of Soul Train in the 1970s and 1980s, the program was
widely influential among younger black Americans, many of whom turned to it not
only to hear the latest songs by well-known black artists but also for clues
about the latest fashions and dance trends. Moreover, for many white Americans
in that era who were not living in areas that were racially diverse, Soul Train
provided a unique window into black culture.
Don Cornelius, creator, executive
producer and the host introduced the world to "The Soul Train
Dancers" and the "Soul Train Scramble Board", where two dancers
are given sixty seconds to unscramble a set of letters which form the name of
that show's performer or a famous person in African American history. Near
the program's conclusion, there is also the popular "Soul Train Line",
in which all the dancers form a two lines with space in the middle for
individual dancers to strut down and dance in consecutively. Sometimes, new
dance styles or moves are featured or introduced by particular dancers.
1973
May 29. Thomas Bradley was
elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles.
October 16. Maynard H.
Jackson was elected the first black mayor of Atlanta.
1974
April 8. Henry Aaron hit his
715th home run to become the all-time leading hitter of home runs.
1977
February 3. This was the
eighth and final night for the miniseries based on Alex Haley's Roots.
This final episode achieved the highest ratings ever for a single program.
1979
In
1979 "Rapper's Delight" by The Sugarhill Gang became a Top 40 hit on
the U.S. Billboard pop singles chart.
1980
May 18. Racial disturbances
beginning on May 17 resulted in 15 deaths in Miami, Florida. This was the worst
riot since those in Watts and Detroit in the 1960s.
1982
May 23. Lee P. Brown was
named the first black police commissioner of Houston, Texas.
1983
February 23. Harold
Washington won the Democratic party nomination for mayor of Chicago. On April 12
he would win the election for mayor.
June 22. The state
legislature of Louisiana repealed the last racial classification law in the
United States. The criterion for being classified as black was having 1/32nd
Negro blood.
November 2. President
Ronald Reagan signed the bill establishing January 20 a federal holiday in honor
of Martin Luther King, Jr.
August 30. Guion (Guy) S.
Bluford, Jr. was the first black American astronaut to make a space flight on
board the space shuttle Challenger.
1986
January 16. A bronze bust of
Martin Luther King, Jr., was the first of any black American in the halls of
Congress.
January 20. The first
national Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday was celebrated.
September 8 The Oprah
Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history broadcasts
nationally .
1988
January 31 Doug Williams,
first African-American to start and win a Super Bowl at Quarterback. Williams
engineered a 42-10 rout, in which the Redskins set an NFL record by scoring five
touchdowns in the second quarter. Williams completed 18 of 29 passes for 340
yards, with four TD passes, and was named Super Bowl MVP
In
1988, Public Enemy released It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, which
focused on politics, corporate control, structural racism and police brutality.
1989
October
1 General Colin Powell became Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, the
highest military position in the Department of Defense.
1992
Riots
break out in Los Angeles, sparked by the acquittal of four white police officers
caught on videotape beating Rodney King, a black motorist. The riots cause at
least 55 deaths and $1 billion in damage.
Carol
Moseley Braun becomes the first African American woman elected to the U.S.
Senate, representing the state of Illinois.
1993
Joycelyn
Elders becomes the first African American woman to serve as the U.S. surgeon
general.
1995
October
16 “Million Man March” advocating "unity, atonement and
brotherhood". The event included efforts to register African
Americans to vote in US Elections and increase black involvement in volunteerism
and community activism.
The
Million Man March on the Mall, looking towards the U.S. Capitol as seen from the
top of the Smithsonian Castle Building's Clock Tower. Photo by Jim Wallace
Smithsonian
Organized
by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the march also drew participants from
other churches, as well as many schools and social organizations. Many of the
participants said they were optimistic that the peaceful day of praying, singing
and speechmaking would lead to more understanding between the races.
1997
Tiger
Woods becomes the first African American golfer to win the Masters Tournament
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UNEP, EPA and
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