Timeline of African-American history

This is a timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Early 1800s

• unknown - first Black Codes enacted.

1849

• unknown - Roberts v. Boston was a lawsuit seeking to end racial discrimination in Boston public schools.

1852

• March 20 - The book Uncle Tom's Cabin published.

1857

• March 6 - In Dred Scott v. Sandford the Supreme Court upholds slavery. This decision is regarded as a key cause of the American Civil War.

1862

• September 22 - Announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

1863

• January 1 - The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect.
• May 22 - U.S. Army recruits United States Colored Troops.

1865

• December 18th - The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolishes slavery in the U.S.

1866

• April 9 - Civil Rights Act of 1866 passed over presidential veto. All persons born in the United States were now citizens.
• unknown - The Second Freedmen's Bureau Act would have provided many additional rights to ex-slaves, but it was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson.

1868

• July 9 - The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution's Section 1 requires due process and equal protection.

1870

• February 3 - The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the right of citizens of the United States to vote.

1873

• April 14 - In the Slaughterhouse Cases the Supreme Court voted 5-4 for a narrow reading of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court also discussed dual citizenship: State Citizens and U.S. Citizens.

1875

• March 1 - Civil Rights Act of 1875 signed.
• unknown - Mississippi Plan to intimidate Black voting.

1880

• unknown - In Strauder v. West Virginia a federal court ruled that African-Americans could not be excluded from juries.

1890s

• varied - First Jim Crow laws.

1896

• May 18 - In Plessy v. Ferguson the Supreme Court approved de jure racial segregation (see Jim Crow laws for historical discussion).

1905

• July 11 - First meeting of the Niagara Movement.

1909

• February 12 - First National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) meeting scheduled.

1910

• September 29 - National Urban League founded.

1915

• June 21 - In Guinn v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled against grandfather clauses used to deny Blacks the vote.

1919

• summer - Red Summer of 1919 riots.
• September 28 - Omaha Race Riot of 1919.
• October 1 - Elaine Race Riot: many Blacks were convicted or plead guilty, but the Supreme Court overturned six convictions in 1923 in Moore v. Dempsey.

1921

• May 31 - Tulsa Race Riot

1923

• February 19 - In Moore v. Dempsey, the Supreme Court held that mob-dominated trials violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

1925

• unknown - Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized.

1929

• The League of United Latin American Citizens, the first organization to fight for the civil rights of Hispanic Americans, was founded in Corpus Christi, Texas.

1931

• March 25 - Scottsboro Boys arrested. All were later freed, pardoned or paroled. The film Heaven's Fall was made about the incident.

1940

• February 12 - In Chambers v. Florida, the Supreme court freed three Black men who were coerced into confessing to a murder.

1941

• early 1941 - U.S. Army forms African-American air combat units, the Tuskegee Airmen
• June 25 - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issues Executive Order 8802, the "Fair Employment Act".

1943

• unknown - Congress of Racial Equality founded.

1944

• April 25 - United Negro College Fund incorporated.
• July 17 - Port Chicago disaster, which led to the Port Chicago Mutiny.

1945

• unknown - Freeman Field Mutiny, where Black officers attempted to desegregate an all-white officers club.

1947

• April 9 - The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sends 16 men on the Journey of Reconciliation.

1948

• May 3 - In Shelley v. Kraemer the Supreme Court upheld the use of restrictive covenants on private property but not public property.
• July 12 - Hubert Humphrey makes a controversial speech in favor of American Civil rights at the Democratic National Convention
• July 26 - President Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981 ending segregation in the armed forces.

1950

• June 5 - In McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents the Supreme Court ruled that a public institution of higher learning could not provide different treatment to a student solely because of their race.
• June 5 - In Sweatt v. Painter the Supreme Court ruled that a separate-but-equal Texas law school was actually unequal, partly in that it isolated the students from the majority of other future lawyers.

1951

• April 23 - High school students in Farmville, Virginia go on strike: the case Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County is heard by the Supreme Court in 1954 as part of Brown v. Board of Education.

1952

• January 28 - Briggs v. Elliott: after a District Court orders separate but equal school facilities in South Carolina, the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case as part of Brown v. Board of Education.

1954

• May 17 - The Supreme Court overturns "separate but equal" in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans. and in Bolling v. Sharpe.
• The Supreme Court of the United States decides in Hernandez v. Texas that Mexican Americans and all other racial groups in the United States are entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

1955

• August 28 - Teenager Emmett Till is killed for whistling at a white woman.
• December 1 - Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus, starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1956

• unknown - Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission formed.
• unknown - Southern Manifesto signed by Southern state congressmen opposing integration.

1957

• January - Southern Christian Leadership Conference formed.
• September 4 - The governor of Arkansas calls out the National Guard to block integration of Little Rock Central High School.
• September - Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas is integrated. Federal and National Guard troops escort the Little Rock Nine.
• unknown - Civil Rights Act of 1957 signed.

1960

• February 1 - Four Black students sit at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, sparking six months of the Greensboro Sit-Ins.
• April - The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is formed in Raleigh, North Carolina.
• May 6 - Civil Rights Act of 1960 signed.
• May - Nashville sit-ins.
• December 5 - In Boynton v. Virginia the Supreme Court held that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal because such segregation violated the Interstate Commerce Act.
• unknown - To Kill a Mockingbird published.

1961

• May 4 - The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sends student volunteers on bus trips: these are labelled the Freedom Rides and the students Freedom Riders.

1962

• September 20 - James Meredith barred from becoming the first Black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Federal troops are sent and he enrolls.

1963

• April 16 - Letter from Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King.
• June 11 - "The Stand In The Schoolhouse Door": Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in front of a schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop desegregation of that institution by the enrollment of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. Wallace only stood aside after being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard. Later in life he apologized for his opposition to racial integration at that time.
• June 11 - President John F. Kennedy (JFK) made his historic civil rights speech, promising a bill to Congress the next week. About civil rights for "Negroes," in his speech he asked for "the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves."^[1]
• June 12 - Medgar Evers murdered in Jackson, Mississippi. (His killer was convicted in 1994.)^[2]
• June 19 - President Kennedy sent to the Congress (H. Doc. 124, 88th Cong., 1st session.) his proposed Civil Rights Act.^[3]
• August 28 - March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom held, Dr. Martin Luther King gives his I have a dream speech.^[4],^[5]
• September 15 - 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama kills four young girls. Spike Lee will later make the 1997 documentary, "Four Little Girls" [6].
• November 22 - President Kennedy is assassinated. The new President Lyndon Johnson decides that accomplishing JFK's legislative agenda is his best strategy, which he pursues with the results below in 1964-1965.^[7]

1964

• January 23 - 24th Amendment abolishes the poll tax.
• Summer - Mississippi Freedom Summer.
• June 21 - Mississippi Civil Rights Workers Murders.
• June 28 - Organization of Afro-American Unity founded by Malcolm X, lasted until his death.
• July 2 - Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed.^[6]
• August - Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act which, among other things, provided federal funds for legal representation of Native Americans in both civil and criminal suits. This allowed the ACLU and the American Bar Association to represent Native Americans in cases that later won them additional civil rights.
• December 10 - Martin Luther King awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.^[8]
• December 14 - In Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States the Supreme Court upheld the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

1965

• February 21 - Malcolm X shot to death in Manhattan, New York, probably by members of the Black Muslim faith.
• March 7 - "Bloody Sunday" on the Selma to Montgomery marches: civil rights workers in Selma, Alabama begin a march to Montgomery but are stopped by a massive police blockade as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Many marchers are severely injured and one killed.
• March 15 - President Lyndon Johnson used the phrase "We shall overcome" in a speech before Congress on the voting rights bill.^[9]
• July 2 - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission opens.
• August 6 - Voting Rights Act of 1965 signed.^[8]
• August 11 - Watts riots erupt.^[8]
• September 24 - Executive Order 11246 signed, requiring Equal Employment Opportunity by federal contractors.

1966

• October - Black Panthers founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California.

1967

• June 12 - In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional.
• unknown - The movie In the Heat of the Night released.
• unknown - The movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner released.

1968

• February 8 - Orangeburg Massacre during university protest.
• April 4 - Dr. Martin Luther King shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.
• April 11 - Civil Rights Act of 1968 signed. The Fair Housing Act is Title VIII of this Civil Rights Act.
• unknown - In Powe v. Miles a federal court held that the portions of private colleges that are funded by public money are subject to the Civil Rights Act.
• October - Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists to symbolize black power and unity after winning the gold and bronze medals, respectively, at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games.

1969

• unknown - United Citizens Party formed in South Carolina when Democratic Party refused to nominate African-American candidates.
• unknown - Control of segregationist TV station WLBT given to a bi-racial foundation.
• unknown - Congress passed the Indian Civil Rights Act, which prohibited state governments from assuming jurisdiction over Native American lands and extended to Indians the same rights that non-Native whites had had since the addition of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

1971

• unknown - The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds desegregation busing of students to achieve integration.

1974

• July 25 - In Milliken v. Bradley, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision held that outlying districts could only be forced into a desegregation busing plan if there was a pattern of violation on their part. This decision reinforced the trend of white flight.

1978

• unknown - Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.

1988

• unknown - Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988.

1991

• March 3 - four white police officers videotaped beating African American Rodney King.
• unknown - Civil Rights Act of 1991

1992

• April 29 - 1992 Los Angeles riots erupt after officers accused of beating Rodney King are acquitted.

1995

• October 16 - Million Man March in Washington, D.C.

1997

• unknown - Director Spike Lee releases his documentary "Four Little Girls" about the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

2003

• June 23 - Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger upholds the University of Michigan Law School's admission policy. However, in the simultaneously-heard Gratz v. Bollinger the University was required to change a policy.

2005

• October 15 - the Millions More Movement held a march in Washington D.C.
• October 25 - Rosa Parks dies at the age of 92. She was famous for starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.

Footnotes

1. ^ Transcript from the JFK library.
2. ^ Medgar Evers.
3. ^ proposed Civil Rights Act.
4. ^ March on Washington.
5. ^ MLK's famous speech.
6. ^ ^a Presidency book excerpt.
7. ^ Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech.
8. ^ ^{a b} LBJ's speech to Congress on voting rights + bkgnd.

See also

• American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)
• American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)
• African American history
• African American literature section on Civil Rights Movement Literature
• Black pride
• Equal Protection Clause
• Grandfather clause
• Lynching in the United States
• Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America
• Racism in the United States
• Uncle Tom
• Wednesdays in Mississippi

External links

Civil Rights Timeline 1619-2000
Civil Rights Timeline, sections on Martin Luther King, Jr.