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1619- Slaves Arrive in America 398 Years ago
First African contracted servants arrive in American colonies -
1690- Every American Colony had slaves 327 years ago
By this year, just about every colony in America had slaves brought from Africa -
1739- The Stono Rebellion 278 years ago
Slave rebellion that began on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave uprising -
1808- Slave importing Banned 209 years ago
American congress bans further importation of slaves -
1831- Liberator 186 years ago
Anti-slavery newspaper the Liberator is published and becomes a leading voice in the Abolitionist movement (Movement that eventually saw slavery become illegal) -
1861- Civil War and Emancipation 156 years ago
Emancipation was the freeing of 3 million slaves in the rebel states of the civil war -
1896- Separate but Equal 121 years ago
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 -
1909- NAACP Founded 108 years ago
Establishment of political protest movement who demanded civil rights for blacks -
1941- African Americans in WWII 76 years ago
During World War II, many African Americans were ready to fight for what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the “Four Freedoms”— freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear—even while they themselves lacked those freedoms at home. -
1947- Jackie Robinson 70 years ago
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) -
1954- Brown V. Board of Education 63 years ago
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. -
1955- Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott 62 years ago
On December 1, 1955, an African–American woman named Rosa Parks was riding a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama when the driver told her to give up her seat to a white man. Parks refused, and was arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, which stated that blacks sit in the back of public buses and give up their seats for white riders if the front seats were full. -
1957- Central High School Integrated 60 years ago
Central High School, located in the state capital of Little Rock was integrated -
1961- Core and Freedom Rides 56 years ago
Founded in 1942 by the civil rights leader 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 organized a “Journey of Reconciliation. -
1961- Birmingham Church Bombed 56 years ago
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. -
1963- I Have a Dream 54 years ago
On August 28, 1963, some 250,000 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 movement’s growing strength. The last leader to appear was the Baptist preacher Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. -
1964- Civil Rights Act of 1964 53 years ago
That year, John F. Kennedy made passage of new civil rights legislation part of his presidential campaign platform; he won more than 70 percent of the African-American vote. Congress was debating Kennedy’s civil rights reform bill when he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Dallas, Texas in November 1963. -
1964- Freedom Summer and the”Mississippi Burning” Murders 53 years ago
In the summer of 1964, civil rights organizations including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) urged white students from the North to travel to Mississippi, where they helped register black voters and build schools for black children. The organizations believed the participation of white students in the so–called “Freedom Summer”. -
1965- Voting Rights Act 52 years ago
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.
