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Slaves Arrive in America
First African contracted servants arrive in American colonies -
Every American Colony had slaves
By this year, just about every colony in America had slaves brought from Africa -
The Stono Rebellion
Slave rebellion that began on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising -
Slave importing Banned
American congress bans further importation of slaves -
Liberator
Anti-slavery newspaper the Liberator is published and becomes a leading voice in the Abolitionist movement (Movement that eventually saw slavery become illegal) -
Civil War and Emancipation
Emancipation was the freeing of 3 million slaves in the rebel states of the civil war. -
Separate but Equal
Legislation was introduced (Laws)in the southern states which eventuated in separate schools for blacks and whites, “persons of colour” were required to be separate from whites in railroad cars, hotels, theatres, restaurants, hairdressing salons and other establishments -
NAACP Founded
Establishment of political protest movement who demanded civil rights for blacks -
Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out - Bessie Smith
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Black, Brown and White - Big Bill Broonzy
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Hard Time Killin Floor Blues - Skip James
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Trouble So Hard - Vera Hall
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At Last - Etta James
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Jackie Robinson
By 1900, the unwritten color line barring blacks from white teams in professional baseball was strictly enforced. Jackie Robinson, a sharecropper’s son from Georgia, joined the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League in 1945, after a stint in the U.S. Army (he earned an honorable discharge after facing a court–martial for refusing to move to the back of a segregated bus) -
Didn't it Rain - Sister Rosetta Tharpe
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Mississippi Delta Blues - Muddy Waters
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Brown V. Board of Education
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its verdict in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment’s mandate of equal protection of the laws of the U.S. Constitution to any person within its jurisdiction. -
Mannish Boy - Muddy Waters
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Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Rosa Parks was riding a bus in Montgomery when the driver told her to give up her seat to a white man. She refused, and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws: blacks sit in the back of public buses and give up their seats for white riders if the front seats were full. Parks was a secretary the NAACP. she said “I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed.I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.” -
Central High School Integrated
Central High School, located in the state capital of Little Rock was integrated. -
Core and Freedom Rides
Founded in 1942 by James Farmer, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sought to end discrimination and improve race relations through direct action. In its early years, CORE staged a sit–in at a Chicago coffee shop (a precursor to the successful sit–in movement of 1960) and organised a “Journey of Reconciliation,” in which a group of blacks and whites rode together on a bus through the upper South in 1947, a year after the U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in interstate bus travel. -
Birmingham Church Bombed
In mid-September, white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama during Sunday services; four young African-American girls were killed in the explosion. The church bombing was the third in 11 days, after the federal government had ordered the integration of Alabama’s school system. -
I Have a Dream
250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the largest and most significant display of the civil rights movement’s growing strength. The last leader to appear was Martin Luther King Jr. of the SCLC, who spoke of the struggle facing black Americans. “I have a dream,” King said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” -
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Thanks to the Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign of nonviolent resistance, the civil rights movement had begun to gain momentum in the US. John F. Kennedy made passage of new civil rights legislation part of his presidential campaign. Congress was debating Kennedy’s civil rights reform bill when he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas. It was left to Lyndon Johnson to push the Civil Rights Act–the momentous act of legislation supporting racial equality in US history–through Congress. -
Freedom Summer and the "Mississippi Burning” Murders
In the summer, civil rights organisations urged white students to travel to Mississippi where they helped register voters and build schools for children. The organisations believed the participation of white students in the Freedom Summer. The summer had barely begun, when three volunteers—Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney disappeared from investigating the burning of a church by the KKK. After a massive FBI investigation their bodies were discovered buried in an earthen dam. -
Voting Rights Act
Voting Rights Act, which Congress passed in August 1965. The Voting Rights Act sought to overcome the legal barriers that still existed at the state and local level preventing blacks from exercising the right to vote given them by the 15th Amendment. -
Everything Gonna Be Alright - Big Mama Thornton
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Shot on James Meredith - J.B. Lenoir
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Da Thrill is Gone From Here - Chris Thomas King
