- 1512
| Dec 27 | The laws of Burgos give New World natives legal protection against abuse and authorize Negro slavery. | Ref: 2 |
- 1526
| Apr 22 | First slave revolt occurs in South Carolina. | Ref: 5 |
- 1619
| Aug 01 | First black Americans (20) land at Jamestown, Virginia. | Ref: 5 |
- 1622
| Jan 01 | Isaac Sweers Dutch Admiral/General/Civil rights activist, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1624
| Aug 05 | William Jamestown Va, first black child born in English America, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1651
| Jul 24 | Anthony Johnson, a free black, receives grant of 250 acres in Va. | Ref: 5 |
- 1652
| May 10 | John Johnson, a free black, is granted 550 acres in Northampton VA | Ref: 2 |
| May 18 | A law is passed in Rhode Island banning slavery in the colonies but it causes little stir and seems unlikely to be enforced. | Ref: 2 |
- 1654
| Nov 21 | Richard Johnson, a free black, granted 550 acres in Virginia. | Ref: 5 |
- 1663
| Sep 13 | First serious slave conspiracy in colonial America (Virginia). | Ref: 5 |
- 1664
| Sep 20 | Maryland enacts first anti-amaglmation law to prevent widespread intermarriage of English women & black men. | Ref: 5 |
- 1667
| Sep 23 | In Williamsburg, Virginia, a law was passed, barring slaves from obtaining their freedom by converting to Christianity. | Ref: 5 |
- 1670
| Oct 13 | Virginia passes a law that blacks arriving in the colonies as Christians cannot be used as slaves. (The law was repealed in 1682.) | Ref: 2 |
- 1695
| Nov 20 | Zumbi dos Palmares, the Brazilian leader of a 100-year-old rebel slave group, is killed in an ambush. | Ref: 2 |
- 1700
| May 07 | William Penn began monthly meetings for Blacks advocating emancipation. | Ref: 5 |
- 1704
| May 20 | Elias Neau forms school for slaves in New York. | Ref: 5 |
- 1708
| Feb 28 | (Long Island) Slave revolt, Newton, Long Island NY, 11 die. | Ref: 5 |
- 1712
| Apr 06 | Slave revolt in New York. Six commit suicide, 21 are executed. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 07 | The Pennsylvania Assembly bans the importation of slaves. | Ref: 2 |
- 1739
| Sep 09 | Slave revolt in Stono SC is led by Jemmy (25 whites killed). | Ref: 5 |
- 1740
| Sep 11 | The first mention of an African American doctor or dentist in the colonies is made in the PA Gazette. | Ref: 2 |
- 1753
| Jul 18 | Birth of Lemuel Haynes, colonial American Congregational clergyman. In 1785, Haynes, 32 and an escaped slave, was ordained to a church in Torrington, Connecticut, making him the firstvAfrican-American to pastor a white church. | Ref: 5 |
- 1758
| Apr 17 | Frances Williams, the first African-American to graduate for a college in the western hemisphere, publishes a collection of Latin poems. | Ref: 2 |
- 1760
| Feb 14 | Richard Allen, the first black ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church (1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816, is born in slavery in Philadelphia. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 25 | Jupter Hammon, New York slave, publishes poetry in "An Evening Thought". | Ref: 5 |
- 1772
| Jun 22 | Slavery is outlawed in England. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 23 | Slavery is abolished in England. | Ref: 62 |
- 1773
| Jan 06 | Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for freedom. | Ref: 5 |
- 1774
| Jun 13 | Rhode Island becomes first colony to prohibit importation of slaves. | Ref: 5 |
- 1775
| Apr 14 | The first American society for the abolition of slavery (Society for Relief of Free Negroes Held in Bondage) was organized by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 08 | Officers decide to bar slaves & free blacks from Continental Army. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 23 | Continental Congress approves resolution barring blacks from army. | Ref: 5 |
- 1777
| Jul 02 | Vermont becomes first American colony to abolish slavery. | Ref: 5 |
- 1783
| Oct 23 | Virginia emancipates slaves who fought for independence during the Revolutionary War. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 31 | Import of African slaves banned by all of the Northern states. | Ref: 5 |
- 1787
| Jan 28 | Philadelphia's Free Africa Society organizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 12 | Philadelphia's Free African Society forms. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | First Black Masonic Lodge (African #459) forms at Prince Hall, Boston. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | English slave ship Sisters, from Africa to Cuba, capsizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 17 | Boston blacks, petition legislature for equal school facilities. | Ref: 5 |
- 1788
| Jan 01 | Quakers in Pennsylvania emancipate their slaves. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | Gustavus Vassa petitions Queen Charlotte, to free enslaved Africans. | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | English parliament accepts abolishing of slave trade. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 22 | British settlement in Sierra Leona founded as asylum for slaves. | Ref: 10 |
- 1790
| Feb 11 | Society of Friends petitions Congress for abolition of slavery. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 23 | Slaves revolt in Haiti (later suppressed). | Ref: 5 |
- 1791
| Aug 01 | Robert Carter III, a Virginia plantation owner, frees all 500 of his slaves in the largest private emancipation in U.S. history.An 1839 mutiny aboard a Spanish ship in Cuban waters raised basic questions about freedom and slavery in the United States. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 12 | Black slaves on the island of Santo Domingo rise up against their white masters. | Ref: 2 |
-
- 1792
| Jan 28 | Rebellious slaves in Santo Domingo launch an attack on the city of Cap. | Ref: 2 |
| May 16 | Denmark abolishes slave trade. | Ref: 5 |
- 1793
| Feb 12 | The first US Fugitive Slave Law law passed; requires return of escaped slaves. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | Slavery is abolished in Santo Domingo. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 23 | Thomas Jefferson warned of slave revolts in West Indies. | Ref: 5 |
- 1794
| Mar 22 | Congress passes laws prohibiting slave trade with foreign countries although slavery remains legal in the United States. | Ref: 2 |
- 1796
| Mar 28 | Bethel African Methodist Church of Philadelphia is 1st US-African church | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 08 | Boston African Society establishes with 44 members. | Ref: 5 |
- 1797
| Jan 30 | Congress refuses to accept first petitions from American blacks. | Ref: 5 |
- 1799
| Mar 28 | New York State abolishes slavery | Ref: 5 |
- 1800
| Jan 02 | Free black community of Philadelphia PA petitions Congress to abolish slavery. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 02 | Nat Turner Virginia, leader of major slave rebellion, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1804
| Jan 05 | Ohio legislature passes 1st laws restricting free blacks movement. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 28 | Ohio passed law restricting movement of Blacks, 1804 | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 29 | Thousands of Whites are massacred in Haiti | Ref: 5 |
- 1805
| May 01 | The state of Virginia passes a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk either imprisonment or deportation. | Ref: 2 |
- 1807
| Mar 02 | Congress bans slave trade effective January 1, 1808. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 25 | British Parliament abolishes the slave trade. | Ref: 5 |
- 1808
| Jan 01 | A U.S. law banning the import of slaves comes into effect, but is widely ignored. | Ref: 2 |
| Jan 01 | African Benevolent Society (education) forms. | Ref: 5 |
- 1810
| Feb 01 | First insurance company managed by blacks (American Insurance Company of Philadelphia). | Ref: 5 |
- 1811
| Jan 08 | Louisiana slave revolt by Charles Deslondes at German Coast. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 10 | An uprising of over 400 slaves is put down in New Orleans. Sixty-six blacks are killed and their heads are strung up along the roads of the city. | Ref: 2 |
- 1812
| May 06 | Martin Robinson Delaney Charlestown VA, first black major in US Medical Corps, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1817
| Feb 14 | Frederick Douglass, "The Great Emancipator," son of a slave and a white father who bought his own freedom and published The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, a memoir of his life as a slave, is born in Maryland. | Ref: 68 |
| Sep 09 | Alexander Lucius Twilight, probably 1st black to graduate from US college, receives BA degree at Middlebury College. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 09 | Paul Cuffe entrepreneur/ civil rights activist, dies at 58. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 22 | Spain ends slave trade by treaty with Britain. | Ref: 10 |
| Sep 27 | Hiram R Revels Fayetteville NC, first black US senator, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1818
| May 04 | Netherlands & England sign treaty against illegal slave handling. | Ref: 5 |
- 1820
| Feb 06 | 86 free black colonists sail from New York NY to Sierra Leone, Africa. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | The US Congress designates the slave trade to a form of piracy. | Ref: 2 |
- 1822
| Feb 04 | Free American Blacks settle Liberia, West Africa. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | House slave betrays Denmark Vesey conspiracy (37 blacks hanged). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 30 | Pioneer church founder James Varick, 72, was consecrated the first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. | Ref: 5 |
- 1827
| Mar 16 | First US black newspaper, "Freedom's Journal" (New York NY), begins publishing. | Ref: 39 |
| Jul 04 | New York State slaves born prior to July 4, 1799 are freed. (Claflin, Edward, "Sojourner Truth and the Struggle For Freedom", 1987, ISBN 0-8120-3919-X) | |
| Aug 10 | Race riots in Cincinnati (1,000 blacks leave for Canada). | Ref: 5 |
- 1829
| Sep 28 | Walker's Appeal, racial antislavery pamphlet, published in Boston. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 14 | John Mercer Langston first black to hold US political office, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1830
| Jan 01 | William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first edition of a journal entitled The Liberator, calling for the complete and immediate emancipation of all slaves in the United States. The most stinging indictment of slavery. | Ref:77 |
| Jan 21 | Portsmouth (Ohio) blacks forcibly deported. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 06 | James Augustine Healy, the first black Roman Catholic bishop in America, is born to an Irish planter and a slave on a plantation near Macon GA. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 20 | The National Negro Convention convenes in Philadelphia with the purpose of abolishing slavery. | Ref: 2 |
- 1831
| Jun 06 | 2nd national black convention (Phila). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 22 | Nat Turner's Revolt. Nat Turner initiates his slave uprising by slaughtering his owner Joseph Travis and Travis's family. Over the next twenty-four hours, Turner and an estimated 70 followers rampaged through Southampton County, Virginia, killing 55 whites, while attempting to incite other slaves into revolt. (Schneider, Dorothy, "Slavery in America", (c) 2000, ISBN 0-8160-3863-5) | |
| Nov 11 | Nat Turner, a slave who led a revolt against slave owners, is hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia at age 31, as are 19 associates. (Schneider, Dorothy, "Slavery in America", (c) 2000, ISBN 0-8160-3863-5) | |
- 1832
| Jan 04 | Insurrection of Trinidad negroes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 06 | New England Anti-Slavery Society organizes (Boston). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 04 | 3rd national black convention meets (Phila). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | First US Negro hospital founded by whites chartered, Savannah GA. | Ref: 5 |
- 1833
| Jun 03 | 4th national black convention meets (Phila). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 27 | Prudence Crandall, a white woman, is arrested for conducting an academy for black women in Canterbury, Conn. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 02 | NY Anti-Slavery Society organized. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | American Anti-Slavery Society formed by Arthur Tappan in Philadelphia. | Ref: 5 |
- 1834
| Jun 02 | 5th national black convention meet (NYC). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 14 | Henry Blair of Glenross MD becomes the first black to obtain a US patent, for a corn planter. | Ref: 5 |
- 1835
| Jun 01 | 6th national black convention (Phila). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 10 | Mob of whites & oxen pulled black school to a swamp out of Canaan NH. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 10 | Noyes Academy is burned to the ground because it enrolls 14 African American students. | |
- 1836
| Jan 08 | Fannie M Jackson pioneer & educator, first US Black woman college grad, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1837
| Mar 04 | Weekly Advocate changes its name to the Colored American. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 01 | Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (the first regiment of black troops from a Northern state) during America's Civil War, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1838
| Sep 03 | Frederick Douglass, a black man, boarded a train in the slave state of Maryland, dressed as a sailor with borrowed ID papers. He rode the train to Wilmington, Delaware. There he caught a steamboat to Philadelphia. Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, was a free city. There he transferred to a train that took him to NY City -- also a free city. It was in NY that he was helped by the underground railway network to freedom. | Ref: 4 |
- 1839
| Nov 13 | First US anti-slavery party, Liberty Party, convenes in NY. | Ref: 5 |
- 1842
| Nov 17 | Fugitive slave George Latimer, captured in Boston. A grim abolitionist meeting is held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts. | Ref: 5 |
- 1843
| Jun 01 | Sojourner Truth leaves NY to begin her career as antislavery activist. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 15 | National black convention meets (Buffalo NY). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 30 | First black participation in natl political convention (Liberty Party). | Ref: 5 |
- 1845
| Apr 29 | Macon B Allen & Robert Morris Jr, first blacks to open law practice. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | First black lawyer (Macon B Allen) admitted to the bar (Massachusetts). | Ref: 5 |
- 1847
| Apr 28 | George B Vashon becomes first black to enter New York State Bar. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 03 | Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney establish the North Star, an anti-slavery paper. | Ref: 2 |
- 1848
| Apr 28 | Free last slaves in French colonies. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | Otto Tank ends slavery in Suriname colony. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 03 | Slaves freed in Danish West Indies (now US Virgin Islands). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 06 | National Black Convention meets (Cleveland). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 26 | William & Ellen Craft escape from slavery in Georgia. | Ref: 5 |
- 1849
| Dec 06 | Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland. | Ref: 5 |
- 1850
| Sep 16 | Slave trade forbidden in District of Columbia. | Ref: 10 |
| Sep 18 | Congress passes the second Fugitive Slave Bill into law (the first was enacted in 1793), requiring the return of escaped slaves to their owners. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 20 | The United States Congress abolished the slave trade in the District of Columbia as part of the legislative package called the Compromise of 1850. Ref | |
- 1851
| Feb 15 | Black abolitionists invade Boston courtroom rescuing a fugitive slave. | Ref: 5 |
| May 06 | New slave regulations go into effect in Suriname. | Ref: 5 |
- 1853
| Apr 09 | First African American newspaper, The Aliened-American is published in Cleveland. | |
| Apr 14 | Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | Harriet Tubman starts Underground Railroad. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 06 | National Black convention meets (Rochester NY). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 06 | William Wells Brown publishes "Clotel," first novel by black American. | Ref: 5 |
- 1854
| May 24 | Lincoln University, PA, first Black college in US forms by Prebyts. | Ref: 5 |
| May 24 | Anthony Burns, slave, arrested by US Deputy marshals in Boston. | Ref: 5 |
- 1855
| May 03 | Macon B. Allen becomes the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 01 | US adventurer Wm Walker conquers Nicaragua, reestablishes slavery. | Ref: 5 |
- 1856
| Apr 23 | Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, KS shoots pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones in the back. | Ref: 2 |
| May 19 | Senator Charles Sumner, Massachusetts, spoke out against slavery. | Ref: 5 |
- 1858
| Jan 30 | William Wells Brown published first Black drama, "Leap to Freedom". | Ref: 5 |
- 1859
| Feb 28 | Arkansas legislature requires free blacks to choose exile or slavery. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 05 | Harriot E. Wilson's Our Nig, is published, the first U.S. novel by an African American woman. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 31 | Dutch colony in Dutch Indies counts 4,800 slaves. | Ref: 5 |
- 1860
| Jan 01 | Slavery ends of in Netherlands Indies. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 23 | Democratic convention in Charleston SC divided over slavery. | Ref: 5 |
- 1861
| Mar 27 | Black demonstrators in Charleston stage ride-ins on street cars | Ref: 5 |
- 1862
| Mar 24 | Abolitionist Wendell Phillips speaks to a crowd about emancipation in Cincinnati, Ohio and is pelted by eggs. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 03 | Slavery is abolished in Washington, D.C. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 16 | President Lincoln signs an Act abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 17 | US army authorized to accept blacks as laborers. | Ref: 5 |
- 1863
| Feb 23 | William Edward Burghardt Du Bois is born in Great Barrington, MA. W.E.B. Du Bois was the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University.He went on to found the National Negro Committee which eventually became the NAACP National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 26 | Voters in West Virginia approve gradual emancipation of slaves | Ref: 2 |
| May 13 | The first all-black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment was mustered into service in the Union Army with Colonel Robert Shaw as its commanding officer. | |
-
- 1864
| Oct 04 | National black convention meets (Syracuse NY). | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 04 | New Orleans Tribune, first black daily newspaper, forms. | Ref: 5 |
- 1865
| Feb 12 | Rev. Henry Highland Garnet became the first African-American to deliver a sermon in the US House of Representatives. (XDG, p 4A, 2/12/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Mar 02 | Freedman's Bureau founded for Black Education, 1865. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 03 | Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, & Abandoned Lands established to help destitute free blacks. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | Several veterans of the Confederate Army formed a private social club in Pulaski, TN, called the Ku Klux Klan. | Ref: 70 |
- 1866
| Apr 09 | Civil Rights Bill passes over President Andrew Johnson's veto. | Ref: 5 |
| May 01 | American Equal Rights Association forms. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | (day unspecified) Race riot in Memphis. | Ref: 87 |
-
- 1867
| Jan 08 | Legislation gives suffrage to DC blacks, despite President Johnson's veto. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | Blacks vote in municipal election in Tuscumbia, Alabama. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 24 | Black demonstrators stage ride-ins on Richmond VA streetcars. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | Blacks stage ride-in to protest segregation in New Orleans. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Blacks vote for first time in a state election in South (Tenn). | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 13 | Gen E R S Canby orders South Carolina courts to impanel blacks jurors. | Ref: 5 |
- 1868
| Feb 23 | W.E.B. [William Edward Burghardt] Du Bois, American sociologist who helped found the N.A.A.C.P., is born in Great Barrington MA. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 09 | First black cabinet member in SC (Francis L Cardozo-sect of state). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 13 | Oscar J Dunn, former slave, installed as lt governor of Louisiana. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 22 | Race riots in New Orleans La. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 28 | Opelousas Massacre at St Landry Parish Louisiana (200 blacks killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 26 | White terrorists kill several blacks in St Bernard Parish La. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 03 | John W Menard of Louisiana becomes the first black is elected to Congress. | Ref: 5 |
- 1869
| Jan 05 | The first Negro Labor Convention is held. (XDG, p 4A, 1/5/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Jan 13 | Colored National Labor Union, first Black labor convention. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 12 | North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan Law. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 16 | Ebenezer Bassett, 1st US Negro diplomat, begins service in Haiti. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 06 | Black candidate for lt governor of Va, Dr J H Harris, defeated. | Ref: 5 |
- 1870
| Feb 26 | Wyatt Outlaw, black leader of Union League in North Carolina, lynched. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 31 | Thomas P Mundy became 1st black to vote in US (Perth Amboy NJ) | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | American Anti-Slavery Society dissolves. | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | Congress passes first Enforcement Act (rights of blacks). | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 19 | First (4) blacks elected to House of Reps. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina took his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming the first black congressman. | Ref: 70 |
- 1871
| Jan 16 | Jefferson Long of Georgia sworn in as 2nd black congressman. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 19 | First Negro lodge of US Masons approved, New Jersey. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | Jefferson Long of Georgia is first black to make an official speech in House of Representatives (opposing leniency to former Confederates). | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Segregated street cars integrated in Louisville KY. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 20 | Ku Klux Klan trials began in federal court in Oxford Miss. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 24 | Mob in LA hangs 18 Chinese. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 28 | Ku Klux Klan trials began in Federal District Court in SC. | Ref: 5 |
- 1872
| Feb 27 | Charlotte Ray, first Black woman lawyer, graduated Harvard U. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 10 | 1st National black convention meets in New Orleans. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 23 | Charlotte E. Ray became the first black woman lawyer -- in ceremonies held in Washington, DC. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 21 | John Henry Conyers of SC becomes first black student at Annapolis. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 21 | The U.S. Naval Academy admits John H. Conyers, the first African American to be accepted. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 11 | America's first black governor took office as Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana. | Ref: 70 |
- 1873
| Mar 22 | Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | Colfax Massacre in Grant Parish Louisiana (60 blacks killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | Sultan of Zanzibar bans slave markets and slave exports. | Ref: 10 |
- 1874
| Apr 27 | White League, Paramilitary white supremacist organization, forms. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Charles Spaulding, the insurance man who built one of America's largest black-owned businesses, is born. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 26 | 16 blacks lynched in Tennessee. | Ref: 5 |
- 1875
| Jan 25 | Anti-slavery society formed in NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 04 | The first Convention of Colored Newspapermen is held in Cincinnati, Ohio. | Ref: 2 |
- 1876
| Jul 08 | White terrorists attack Black Republicans in Hamburg SC, killing 5. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 06 | Race riot in Charleston SC. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 16 | Race riot at Cainhoy SC (5 whites & 1 black killed). | Ref: 5 |
- 1877
| Jun 15 | Henry O. Flipper becomes the first African American to graduate from the US Military Academy at West Point. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 05 | Southern blacks led by Pap Singleton settle in Kansas. | Ref: 5 |
- 1878
| Apr 21 | The ship Azor leaves Charleston with 206 blacks for Liberia. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | Arthur B Spingarn US NAACP-chairman (1940-65), is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1879
| Feb 28 | "Exodus of 1879" southern blacks flee political/economic exploitation. | Ref: 5 |
- 1881
| May 17 | Frederick Douglass is appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C. | Ref: 2 |
- 1883
| Jul 27 | Montgomery Blair lawyer (Dred Scot V Sandford), dies at 70. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | National black convention meets in Louisville, Kentucky. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 03 | Race riots in Danville Virginia (4 blacks killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | Arthur Wergs Mitchell, first African-American to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1884
| Apr 24 | National Medical Association of Black physicians organizes (Atlanta GA). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 03 | John Lynch (R-MS) chosen first black major-party natl convention chair. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 24 | John Lynch is first black elected chairman of Republican convention. | Ref: 5 |
- 1885
| Jan 24 | Martin R Delany politician & black nationalist, dies at 72. | Ref: 5 |
- 1886
| Mar 17 | Twenty African Americans are killed in the Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 07 | Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba. | Ref: 5 |
- 1887
| Aug 17 | Marcus Garvy, Black Nationalist who promoted the departure of African-Americans back to Africa, is born. | Ref: 68 |
| Oct 04 | The Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of "prominent citizens," shot 35 unarmed black sugar workers striking to gain a dollar-per-day wage, and lynched two strike leaders. | Ref: 59 |
- 1888
| May 13 | Princess Isabel of Brazil signs "Lei Auréa" abolishing slavery. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 23 | Abolitionist Frederick Douglass receives one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, effectively making him the first black candidate nominated for the U.S. presidency. (Benjamin Harrison ultimately wins the nomination.) (XDG, p 4A, 6/23/2000) | Ref: 83 |
- 1890
| Jan 25 | National Afro-American League forms in Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
- 1891
| Dec 19 | First Negro Catholic priest ordained in US, Charles Uncles, Baltimore. | Ref: 5 |
- 1892
| Aug 05 | Harriet Tubman receives a pension from Congress for her work as a nurse, spy and scout during the Civil War. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 13 | The first issue of the Afro American newspaper is published in Baltimore, Maryland. | Ref: 2 |
- 1893
| Jan 09 | Mohara Arab ivory/slave trader, dies in battle & is eaten. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 01 | Walter White, who headed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for over 20 years, is born in Atlanta GA. | Ref: 70 |
- 1894
| Feb 08 | Enforcement Act repealed, making it easier to disenfranchise blacks. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 14 | Mary Lucinda Cardwell Dawson, founded the National Negro Opera Company (NNOC) and was appointed to President John F. Kennedy's National Committee on Music, is born. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 16 | Many negro miners in AL killed by striking white miners. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | E. Franklin Frazier, first African-American president of the American Sociological Society, is born. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 17 | Ohio national guard kills 3 lynchers while rescuing a black man. | Ref: 5 |
- 1896
| Jul 21 | National Federation of Afro-American Women & Colored Women's League merge to form National Association of Colored Woman. | Ref: 5 |
- 1897
| Mar 05 | American Negro Academy forms. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 24 | African-American soldiers of the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps arrive in St. Louis, Mo., after completing a 40-day bike ride from Missoula, Montana. | Ref: 2 |
- 1898
| Feb 22 | Black postmaster lynched, his wife & 3 daughters shot in Lake City SC. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Louisiana adopts new constitution with "grandfather clause" designed to eliminate black voters. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 15 | National Afro-American Council forms in Rochester NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 12 | Fourteen were killed, 25 wounded in violence resulting when Virden, Illinois mine owners attempted to break a strike by importing 200 nonunion black workers. | Ref: 59 |
| Nov 10 | Race riot in Wilmington NC (8 blacks killed). | Ref: 5 |
- 1899
| Jun 02 | Black Americans observed day of fasting to protest lynchings. | Ref: 5 |
- 1900
| May 23 | Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner. Writings of an African-American Medal of Honor recipient. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 24 | Race riot in New Orleans, 2 white policemen killed. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 05 | James Augustine Healy black Roman Catholic bishop, dies at 80. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 23 | Booker T. Washington forms the National Negro Business League in Boston, Massachusetts. | Ref: 2 |
- 1901
| Jun 20 | Charlotte M. Manye of South Africa becomes the first native African to graduate from an American University. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 30 | Roy Wilkins civil rights leader: Executive Director of NAACP; is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 28 | Race riots sparked by Booker T. Washington's visit to the White House kill 34. | Ref: 2 |
- 1904
| Dec 24 | German SW Africa abolishes slavery of young children. | Ref: 5 |
- 1905
| Jul 11 | Black intellectuals & activists organize Niagara movement. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 22 | Race riot in Atlanta Georgia (10 blacks & 2 whites killed). | Ref: 5 |
- 1906
| Aug 07 | In North Carolina, a mob defies a court order and lynches three African Americans which becomes known as "The Lyerly Murders." | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 22 | Race riots in Atlanta, Georgia leave 21 people dead. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 22 | 3000 blacks demonstrate & riot in Phila. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | Alpha Phi Alpha, first Black Greek Letter Fraternity, forms. | Ref: 5 |
- 1907
| Dec 29 | Robert C. Weaver is the first African American to serve on a president's cabinet. He was Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of Housing and Urban Development. | Ref: 2 |
- 1908
| Aug 03 | Allan Allensworth files the site plan for the first African-American town, Allensworth, California. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 14 | Race riot in Springfield Illinois. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 29 | Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., politician and Civil Rights leader, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1909
| Feb 12 | National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | National Conference on the Negro is held. | Ref: 5 |
| May 31 | The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) holds its first conference. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 01 | W. E. B. Du Bois, Jane Adams and John Dewey found Nat'l Negro Committee; renamed NAACP next yr. | Ref: 10 |
| Aug 10 | George W. Crockett, first African-American lawyer with the US Department of Labor, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1910
| Mar 10 | Slavery is abolished in China. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 17 | Bayard Rustin, American civil rights leader, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | W. E. B. DuBois' National Negro Committee founded in June 1909 changes name to NAACP. | Ref: 10 |
| May 12 | 2nd NAACP conference (NYC). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 04 | Race riots break out all over the United States after African American Jack Johnson knocks out Jim Jeffries in a heavyweight boxing match. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 19 | First city ordinance requiring white & black residential areas (Baltimore). | Ref: 5 |
- 1911
| Jan 03 | Joseph Rauh civil rights activist: cofounded Americans for Democratic Action; member: executive board of NAACP; general counsel: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 20 | NAACP incorporates (NY). | Ref: 5 |
- 1913
| Jan 02 | Juanita E Jackson Mitchell US head (NAACP), is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 04 | Rosa Lee Parks, the civil rights leader who triggered 1955 boycott of Montgomery AL bus system by refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger, is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 09 | Assn for Study of Negro Life & History organizes in Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 28 | Race riots in Harriston, Mississippi, kill 10 people. | Ref: 2 |
- 1914
| Jul 24 | Kenneth B Clark Canal Zone, civil rights activist (Dark Ghetto), is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | Watkins Lewis black man lynched in Shreveport LA. | Ref: 5 |
- 1915
| May 08 | Henry McNeal Turner 1st US black army chaplain, dies at 82 | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 28 | 10,000 blacks march on 5th Ave (NYC) protesting lynchings. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 14 | Booker T Washington educator/organizer, dies at 59 in Tuskegee AL. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | Ku Klux Klan receives charter from Fulton County GA. | Ref: 5 |
- 1916
| Jan 01 | First issue of "Journal of Negro History" published. | Ref: 5 |
- 1917
| May 27 | Race riot in East St Louis IL, 1 black killed. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 01 | Race riots in East St Louis Illinois (40 to 200 reported killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 23 | Race riot in Houston TX (2 blacks & 11 whites killed) | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 11 | 13 black soldiers hanged for alleged participation in Houston riot. | Ref: 5 |
- 1918
| May 24 | Coleman A Young civil rights leader (Mayor-D-Detroit), is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 11 | Nelson Mandela civil right activist in South Africa, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 25 | Race riot in Chester PA (3 blacks & 2 whites killed) | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 26 | Race riot in Philadelphia (3 whites & 1 black killed). | Ref: 5 |
- 1919
| Feb 19 | The First Pan African Congress (organized by W E B Du Bois) meets in Paris, France. | Ref: 2 |
| May 10 | Race riot in Charleston SC, 2 blacks killed | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 03 | Liberty Life Insurance Co (Chicago) organized by blacks. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 13 | Race riots in Longview & Gregg counties TX. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 24 | Race riot in Washington DC (6 killed, 100 wounded) | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 27 | Chicago race riot (15 whites & 23 blacks killed, 500 injured). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 30 | Federal troops are called out to put down Chicago race riots. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 13 | Race riot at Elaine Arkansas. | Ref: 5 |
- 1920
| Jan 12 | James Farmer Marshall TX, civil rights leader, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 15 | Three African Americans are lynched in Duluth, Minnesota, by a white mob of 5,000. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 20 | Race riots in Chicago, IL leave two dead and many wounded. | Ref: 2 |
- 1921
| May 31 | Oklahoma City mobs call for the lynching of Dick Rowland, a black man who shined shoes, after hearing reports that on the previous day he had assaulted Sarah Page, a white woman, in the elevator she operated in a downtown building. A local newspaper had printed a fabricated story that Rowland tried to rape Page. In an editorial, the same newspaper said a hanging was planned for that night. | |
| Jun 01 | Race riot in Tusla Okla (21 whites & 60 blacks killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 30 | Whitney M Young Jr civil rights leader, head of Urban League, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 28 | 2nd Pan-African Congress meets (London, Brussels & Paris). | Ref: 5 |
- 1922
| Apr 15 | Harold Washington mayor: Chicago (D, 1983-87): instrumental in tearing apart Chicago’s Democratic Machine of the Richard Daley administration; is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 11 | Charles Evers civil rights leader (Amazing Grace), is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1923
| Jan 02 | Ku Klux Klan surprise attack on black residential area Rosewood FL, 8 killed (compensation awarded in 1995). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 02 | Sam Carter black resident of Rosewood FL, lynched by KKK. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 07 | Baltimore Sun warns of Ku Klux Klan. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 15 | Josephine B Willson Bruce US black theorist, dies at 69. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 19 | The Oklahoma State Senate ousts Governor Walton for anti-Ku Klux Klan measures. | Ref: 2 |
- 1924
| May 01 | Patricia Roberts Harris first US black woman cabinet member, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1925
| Jan 31 | Benjamin Hooks civil rights leader, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | American Negro Congress organizes. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), Black Muslim leader, is born in Omaha NE | Ref: 68 |
| Aug 08 | 40,000 Ku Klux Klanspersons stage public march down Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C. | Ref: 10 |
| Aug 08 | The first national congress of the Ku Klux Klan opens. | Ref: 2 |
- 1926
| Feb 07 | Negro History Week, originated by Carter G. Woodson, is observed for the first time. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 10 | Johnnie Tillmon civil rights activist (National Welfare Rights Association), is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 20 | Mordecai W Johnson becomes first black president of Howard University. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 02 | Medgar Evers, American civil rights activist, is born. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 25 | International slavery convention signed by 20 states. | Ref: 5 |
- 1927
| Apr 27 | Coretta Scott King, civil rights activist, wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., is born in Marion AL. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 21 | Carl Stokes politician: first black elected mayor of a major city: Cleveland [1967, 1969]; Cleveland Municipal Court Judge, is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 21 | 4th Pan-African Congress meets (NYC). | Ref: 5 |
- 1928
| Apr 15 | Norma Merrick Sklarek first black woman architect in New York & California, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 13 | Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., first African-American chief justice of a state supreme court, is born. | Ref: 2 |
- 1929
| Mar 12 | Lupe Anguiano Mexican-American civil rights activist, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1930
| Jun 07 | NY Times agrees to capitalize the n in "Negro". | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 19 | James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of NAACP. | Ref: 5 |
- 1931
| Aug 15 | Roy Wilkins joined NAACP as asst secretary. | Ref: 5 |
- 1932
| Apr 17 | Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia ends slavery. | Ref: 5 |
- 1933
| Mar 15 | NAACP begins coordinated attack on segregation & discrimination. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | Louis Farrakhan minister (black islam nation, million man march), is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 03 | Joe Lilliard QBs Chicago Cardinals; last NFL black until 1946. | Ref: 5 |
- 1934
| Jun 06 | Roy Innes civil rights leader: National Chairman of Congress of Racial Equality [CORE], is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 26 | W E B Du Bois resigns position at NAACP. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 07 | Arthur L Mitchell, becomes first black Democratic congressman (Ill). | Ref: 5 |
- 1935
| Aug 15 | Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr, civil rights activist, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 31 | Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther turned Republican, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 05 | Maryland Court of Appeals orders U of M to admit (black) Donald Murray. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 05 | National Council of Negro Women forms by Mary McLeod Bethune (NY NY). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | National Council of Negro Women forms. | Ref: 5 |
- 1936
| Feb 14 | National Negro Congress organizes in Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 20 | Political activist, cofounder of the Black Panthers Bobby Seale is born. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 08 | NAACP files suit to equalize the salaries of black & white teachers. | Ref: 5 |
- 1937
| Mar 26 | William H Hastie becomes 1st black federal judge (Virgin Islands) | Ref: 2 |
- 1939
| Aug 20 | The National Bowling Association is founded in Detroit, MI. It is the first bowling association in the U.S. for African-Americans. | Ref: 4 |
- 1940
| Jan 11 | Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. becomes the U.S. Army's first black general, his son would later follow in his footsteps. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 05 | American Negro Threater organizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 10 | Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican-born founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, dies. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 27 | Black leaders protest discrimination in US armed forces. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 29 | First US merchant ship "Booker T Washington" commanded by a black captain (Hugh Mulzac), launched at Wilmington Delaware. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 16 | Benjamin O. Davis becomes the U.S. Army's first African American Brigadier General. | Ref: 2 |
- 1941
| Jun 25 | FDR issues Executive Order 8802 forbidding discrimination. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 29 | Kwame Toure (Stokeley Carmichael) U.S. civil rights activist: SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee], Black Panthers, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party [founder/chairman]; credited w/creating phrase ‘Black Power’; emigrated to Africa; married to South African singer Miriam Makeba; even as he was dying of prostate cancer [died Nov 15, 1998], he continued working to bring the African-American community into coalition ... answering the telephone, “ready for the revolution.” | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 19 | First US Army flying school for black cadets dedicted (Tuskegee Ala). | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 12 | Madame Lillian Evanti and Mary Cardwell Dawson establish the National Negro Opera Company. | Ref: 2 |
- 1942
| Feb 28 | Race riot, Sojourner Truth Homes, Detroit. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | The US Navy commissions its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 01 | John H Johnson publishes first issue of Negro Digest. | Ref: 5 |
- 1943
| May 25 | Riot at Mobile AL shipyard over upgrading 12 black workers. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | First president of a black country to visit US (Edwin Barclay, Liberia). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 16 | Race riot in Beaumont Texas (2 die). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 20 | National Congress of Racial Equality organizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 20 | Race-related rioting erupted in Detroit; federal troops were sent in two days later to quell the violence that resulted in more than 30 deaths. | Ref: 94 |
| Aug 01 | Race-related rioting erupted in New York City's Harlem section, resulting in several deaths. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 06 | Michael Schwerner civil rights worker, murdered in 1964, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 22 | WEB Du Bois elected first black member, National Institute of Arts & Letters. | Ref: 5 |
- 1944
| Jan 04 | Ralph Bunche appointed first Negro official in US State Department. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 08 | The first black reporter accredited to the White House is Harry McAlpin. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | South Carolina rejects black suffrage. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | Tommie Smith US sprinter (Olympic-gold-1968); gave black power salute, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Adam Clayton Powell elected first black congressman from East. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 10 | Race riots in Athens AL. | Ref: 5 |
- 1945
| Jun 05 | John Carlos track star (Olympic bronze 1968); gave black power salute, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 21 | Alton Maddox NY black activist/attorney (Tawana Brawley case), is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 18 | 1000 whites walk out of Gary Ind schools to protest integration. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 01 | John H. Johnson publishes the first issue of Ebony magazine. | Ref: 2 |
- 1946
| Feb 26 | 2 killed & 10 wounded in race riot in Columbia TN. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | William H Hastie inaugurated as first black governor of Virgin Islands. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 05 | President Truman creates Committee on Civil Rights by Executive Order #9808. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 18 | Stephen (Steve) Biko South African anti-apartheid activist, is born. | Ref: 5 |
- 1947
| Jan 03 | William Dawson becomes first black to head congressional committee. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 03 | Percival Prattis of Our World in New York City became the first black news correspondent admitted to the House and Senate press gallery in Washington, DC. | Ref: 4 |
| Mar 15 | John Lee appointed 1st black commissioned officer in US Navy. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 23 | NAACP petition on racism, "An Appeal to the World" presented to UN. | Ref: 5 |
- 1948
| May 01 | Glenn Taylor, Idaho Senator, arrested in Birmingham AL for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes". | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 08 | John Rudder becomes first negro commissioned officer in US marines. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 26 | President Harry S. Truman signs Executive Order No. 9981 prohibiting discrimination in the U.S. armed forces and federal employment. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 26 | First black host of a network show-CBS' Bob Howard Show. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 24 | Edith Mae Irby becomes the University of Arkansas' first African-American student.
Edith Mae Irby becomes the University of Arkansas' first African-American student. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 01 | CA Supreme Court voids state statute banning interracial marriages. | Ref: 5 |
- 1949
| Jan 14 | Black/Indian race rebellion in Durban, South Africa; 142 die. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | The first all-black-cast variety show was presented on WENR-TV in Chicago, IL. The show was called "Happy Pappy". | Ref: 4 |
| Jun 03 | First negro to graduate from US Naval Academy (Wesley Anthony Brown). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 29 | The government of South Africa enacted a ban against racially mixed marriages. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 03 | WERD, first black-owned radio station, opens in Atlanta. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 04 | American Contract Bridge League votes 58% to keep blacks out. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 29 | Alonzo G. Moron of the Virgin Islands becomes the first African-American president of Hampton Institute, Hampton, Virginia. | Ref: 2 |
- 1950
| Jan 15 | 4,000 attend National Emergency Civil Rights Conference in Washington DC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 29 | Riots break out in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the policy of Apartheid. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 22 | Charles H Houston architect of NAACP legal campaign, dies at 54. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 27 | South Africa passes the Group Areas Act, formally segregating races. | Ref: 2 |
| May 12 | The American Bowling Congress abolished its white males-only membership restriction after 34 years. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 19 | Edith Sampson becomes the first African-American representative to the United Nations. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 21 | Althea Gibson admitted to U.S. Lawn Tennis Assn.;will become first Black to compete. | Ref: 10 |
| Aug 24 | 1st US Negro delegate to UN appointed-ES Sampson. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 03 | First black lead (Ethel Waters) on TV (Beulah). | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 15 | The first black man in organized hockey suits up. Arthur Dorrington became a member of the Atlantic City Seagulls of the Eastern Amateur Hockey League. | Ref: 4 |
| Dec 03 | Muntu Myeza South African anti-apartheid activist, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | The University of TN defies court rulings by rejecting five Negro applicants. | Ref: 2 |
- 1951
| May 24 | Racial segregation in Washington DC restaurants ruled illegal. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 28 | A TV version of the radio program "Amos 'N' Andy" premiered on CBS. (While criticized for racial stereotyping, it was the first network TV series to feature an all-black cast.) | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 30 | NAACP begins attack on school segregation & discrimination. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 12 | Mob tries to keep black family from moving into all-white Cicero Ill. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 26 | Last segregated U.S. Army unit disbanded the all-Black 24th Infantry Regiment. | Ref: 10 |
| Oct 01 | 24th Infantry Regiment, last all-black military unit, deactivated. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 01 | Jet magazine founded by John H Johnson. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 25 | Harry T Moore Florida NAACP official, killed by bomb. | Ref: 5 |
- 1952
| Mar 24 | Great demonstrations against apartheid in South-Africa. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Charles Spaulding, the insurance man who built one of America's largest black-owned businesses, dies. | Ref: 4 |
- 1953
| Jun 08 | The Supreme Court ruled that restaurants in the District of Columbia could not refuse to serve blacks. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 03 | Harry Belafonte was shown with actress Janet Leigh and film star Tony Curtis on the cover of Ebony magazine. It was the first time a black person and two Caucasians were seen together on a US magazine cover. | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 04 | Black families move into Trumbull Park housing project in Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
- 1954
| Jan 20 | The National Negro Network was formed on this date. Some 40 radio stations were charter members of the network. | Ref: 4 |
| May 24 | Dr Peter Murray Marshall becomes first black to head an AMA unit. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 07 | Charles Mahoney becomes first US black to serve as a full UN delegate. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 18 | Assistant Secretary of Labor James E. Wilkins became the first black to attend a meeting of a president's Cabinet as he sat in for Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 07 | Integration of public schools begins in Washington D.C. and Maryland. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 07 | Marian Anderson became the first black singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera in NY. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 27 | B O Davis Jr becomes 1st black general in USAF. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 30 | Defense Department announces elimination of all segregated regiments. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 02 | Charles C Diggs Jr elected Michigan's first black congressman. | Ref: 5 |
- 1955
| Mar 02 | Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat in Montgomery, Alabama, nine months before Rosa Parks' famous arrest for the same offense. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 21 | Walter White, who headed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for over 20 years, dies. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 09 | First black executive on White House staff (E Frederic Morrow). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 28 | Emmett Till, a black teen-ager from Chicago, was abducted from his uncle's home in Money, MS., by two white men after he supposedly whistled at a white woman. He was found murdered three days later. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 07 | Supreme Court of Baltimore bans segregation in public recreational areas. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 20 | The Maryland National Guard is ordered desegregated. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 25 | The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 01 | Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refuses to sit in the back of a Montgomery AL, bus, defying the South's segregationist laws and launching the Civil Rights movement in the United States. In response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott, which will last for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated Dec. 21, 1956.Ref | |
| Dec 05 | A bus boycott begins under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Montgomery, AL. | Ref: 2 |
- 1956
| Jan 30 | Martin Luther King Jr's home bombed. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 21 | A grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicts 115 in a Negro bus boycott. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 22 | Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and 80 others arrested for continuing 3 month old bus boycott. | Ref: 10 |
| Apr 11 | Singer Nat Cole attacked on stage of Birmingham theater by whites. | Ref: 5 |
| May 02 | The General Conference of the Methodist Church, held in Minneapolis, demanded abolishment of racial segregation in all Methodist churches. | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | Bus boycott begins in Tallahassee FL. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | Fed court rules racial segregation on Montgomery buses unconstitutional. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 30 | White mob prevents enrollment of blacks at Mansfield HS, TX. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 02 | Tennessee National Guardsmen halt rioters protesting the admission of 12 African-Americans to schools in Clinton. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 10 | Louisville Ky public schools integrate. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 12 | Black students enter & are barred from Clay Ky elementary school. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 17 | Black students enter Clay Ky elementary school. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 19 | First intl conference of black writers & artists meets (Sorbonne). | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 06 | Nelson Mandela & 156 others arrested for political activities in South Africa. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | Montgomery AL, removed race-based seat assignments on its buses. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 24 | African Americans defy a city law in Tallahassee, Florida, and occupy front bus seats. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 28 | Segregation on buses in Tallahassee, Florida is outlawed. | Ref: 2 |
- 1957
| Jan 23 | Willie Edwards US black, murdered by KKK at 25. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | Prayer Pilgrimage, biggest civil rights demonstration to date (District of Columbia). | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | South Africa Government approves race separation in universities. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 17 | Tuskegee boycott begins (Blacks boycotted city stores). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 28 | Sen Thurmond begins 24-hr filibuster against civil rights bill. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) set a filibuster record in the U.S. Senate this day (and part of the previous day). He spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes. Yakety yak! | Ref: 4 |
| Aug 29 | Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1957. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 30 | In an effort to stall the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from passing, Senator Strom Thurmond (D-S.C.) filibusters for over 24 hours. The bill passed, but Thurmond's filibuster becomes the longest in Senate history. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 03 | Nine Black teenagers rebuffed by angry mob in attempt to integrate Central High in Little Rock. | Ref: 10 |
| Sep 04 | Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus calls out the National Guard to prevent nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock. | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 23 | Nine black students who had entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside. Read the original AP story | Ref: 70 |
| Sep 24 | President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect nine black students entering its newly integrated high school. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 25 | With 300 Army troops standing guard, nine black children, previously forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, AR because of unruly white crowds, were escorted to class. (XDG, p 4A, 9/25/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Oct 10 | President Dwight D. Eisenhower apologized to Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, the finance minister of Ghana, after the official had been refused service in a Dover, Del., restaurant. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 27 | Army withdraws from Little Rock AR, after Central HS integration. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 05 | NYC becomes first city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in housing market (Fair Housing Practices Law). | Ref: 5 |
- 1958
| Feb 11 | Ruth Carol Taylor is the first black woman to become a stewardess (flight attendant) by making her initial flight this day on Mohawk Airlines from Ithaca, NY to New York City. | Ref: 4 |
| May 08 | President Eisenhower orders the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green becomes the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school. | Ref: 2 |
| May 27 | Ernest Green & 600 whites graduate from Little Rock's Central HS. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 21 | A federal judge allows Little Rock, Arkansas to delay school integration. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 19 | NAACP Youth Council begin sit-ins at Oklahoma City Lunch counters. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 05 | Martin Luther King is arrested in an Alabama protest for loitering and fined $14 for refusing to obey police. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 20 | Martin Luther King Jr stabbed in chest by a deranged black woman in NYC. | Ref: 5 |
- 1959
| Feb 04 | Zenani Mandela daughter of Nelson & Winnie Mandela, is born. | Ref: 5 |
| May 22 | Benjamin O Davis Jr becomes first black general-major in USAF. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | A Federal Court annuls the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 08 | A Federal Court annuls the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 21 | Citizens of Deerfield IL block building of interracial housing. | Ref: 5 |
- 1960
| Feb 01 | Four black college students began a sit-in protest at a lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where they'd been refused service. (Go to article.) | Ref: 70 |
| Feb 17 | Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested in the Alabama bus boycott. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 23 | Whites join Negro students in a sit-in at a Winston-Salem, N.C. Woolworth store. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 01 | 1,000 Black students pray and sing the national anthem on the steps of the old Confederate Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 21 | The Sharpsville Massacre. In the black township of Sharpeville in Transvaal, South Africa, Afrikaner police open fire on a group of peaceful black demonstrators, killing sixty-nine people and wounding nearly two hundred in a hail of sub-machine gunfire. | Ref: 3 |
| Apr 08 | Senate passes first civil rights legislation. | Ref: 10 |
| Apr 15 | The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizes at Shaw University. | Ref: 2 |
| May 06 | President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 25 | Woolworth lunch counters opened to all races following 2/1/60 sit-in by four Black college students. | Ref: 10 |
| Jul 31 | Elijah Muhammad, leader of Nation of Islam, calls for a black state. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 09 | Race riot in Jacksonville Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 19 | Martin Luther King and 52 others arrested at ‘whites only' restaurant in Atlanta. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 25 | Martin Luther King, Jr., is sentenced to four months in prison for a sit-in. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 14 | New Orleans integrates two all-white schools. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 16 | After the integration of two all-white schools, 2,000 whites riot in the streets of New Orleans. | Ref: 2 |
- 1961
| Jan 11 | Racial riot at University of Georgia. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 11 | Robert C Weaver sworn in as Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency with then highest federal post by a black. | Ref: 5 |
| May 04 | The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins sending out student volunteers, called "Freedom Riders", to test the implementation of new laws prohibiting segregation in interstate travel facilities. One of the first two groups of "freedom riders," as they are called, encounters its first problem two weeks later, when a mob in Alabama sets its bus on fire. The program continues, and by the end of the summer, 1,000 black and white volunteers have participated. Ref | |
| May 04 | A group of Freedom Riders left Washington, D.C., for New Orleans to challenge racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. | Ref: 70 |
| May 14 | A bus carrying black and white civil rights activists is bombed and burned in Alabama. | Ref: 2 |
| May 20 | A white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery, AL, prompting the federal government to send in US marshals to restore order. | Ref: 70 |
| May 24 | 27 Freedom Riders arrested in Jackson MS. | Ref: 5 |
| May 26 | The civil rights activist group, Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee, is established in Atlanta. | Ref: 2 |
| May 31 | Judge Irving Kaufman orders Board of Education of New Rochelle, to integrate. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 01 | Whitney Young Jr named executive director of National Urban League. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 09 | James B Parsons is first black appointed to Federal District Court. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 30 | First Negro judge of a US District Court confirmed-JB Parsons. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 29 | Freedom Riders attacked by white mob at bus station in Miss. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 12 | Martin Luther King Jr & 700 demonstrators arrested in Albany GA. | Ref: 5 |
- 1962
| Feb 05 | Suit to bar Englewood NJ from "racial segregated" schools is filed. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 27 | In Louisiana, Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel ordered all Roman Catholic schools in the New Orleans diocese to end segregation. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 20 | The New Orleans Citizens Committee gives free one-way ride to blacks to move North. | Ref: 2 |
| May 28 | Suit alleging de facto school segregation filed in Rochester NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 10 | Martin Luther King Jr arrested during demonstration in Georgia. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 21 | 160 civil right activists jailed after demonstration in Albany Ga. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 27 | Martin Luther King Jr jailed in Albany Georgia. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 17 | The first federal suit to end public school segregation is filed by the U.S. Justice Department. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 20 | Black student, James Meredith, was blocked from enrolling at the University of Mississippi by Governor Ross R. Barnett; he was later admitted | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 24 | US Circuit Court of Appeals orders Meredith admitted to U of Miss. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 30 | U.S. Marshals escort James H. Meredith into the University of Mississippi; three people died and over fifty were injured in the mob violence that follows. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 01 | James Meredith became first black at U of MS. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 20 | President John F. Kennedy bars religious or racial discrimination in federally funded housing. | Ref: 2 |
- 1963
| Mar 28 | Bernice King daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., is born. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 02 | Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King begins the first non-violent campaign in Birmingham, Alabama. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 12 | Police use dogs and cattle prods on peaceful civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama. | Ref: 2 |
| May 03 | Martin Luther King Jr delivers his "I have a dream" speech. | Ref: 5 |
| May 11 | Racial bomb attacks in Birmingham AL. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Race riot in Birmingham AL. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 01 | Governor George Wallace vows to defy an injunction ordering integration of the University of Alabama. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 11 | Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Florida for trying to integrate restaurants. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 11 | JFK says segregation is morally wrong & that it is "time to act". | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 11 | Gov. George Wallace confronted federal troops at the University of Alabama in an effort to defy a federal court order to allow two blacks to enroll at the school. | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 18 | 3,000 blacks boycot Boston public school. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 18 | James Meredith became the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 27 | W E B Du Bois scholar/founder (NAACP), dies at 95 in Accra Ghana. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 28 | Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech in the shadows of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. Some 250,000 people witnessed one of the most stirring speeches of the century. | Ref: 4 |
| Sep 02 | Alabama Governor George Wallace calls state troopers to Tuskegee High School to prevent integration. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 10 | President John F. Kennedy federalizes Alabama's National Guard to prevent Governor George C. Wallace from using guardsmen to stop public-school desegregation. 20 black students enter Alabama's public schools. | Ref: 2 |
- 1964
| Jan 26 | Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 20 | 86% of black students boycott Cleveland schools. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 24 | KKK burns crosses at 61 separate locations across Mississippi. | |
| Jun 21 | Civil rights workers Michael H. Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James E. Chaney disappeared in Philadelphia, Miss.; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later. | Ref: 64 |
| Jun 25 | President Lyndon Johnson orders 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 28 | Organization for Afo-American Unity forms in NY by Malcolm X. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 02 | President Johnson signs the Civil rights Act of 1964 into law. Ref | |
| Jul 25 | Race riot in Rochester NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 02 | Race riot in Jersey City NJ. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 11 | Race riot in Paterson NJ. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 12 | Race riot in Elizabeth NJ. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 15 | Race riot in Dixmoor (Chicago suburb) Ill. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 28 | Race riot in Philadelphia. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 18 | J Edgar Hoover describes Martin Luther King as a "most notorious liar". | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | Martin Luther King speaks to J Edgar Hoover about his slander campaign. | Ref: 5 |
- 1965
| Jan 02 | Martin Luther King Jr begins a drive to register black voters. | Ref: 5 |
| Feb 01 | Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and 770 others are arrested in protest against voter discrimination in Alabama. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 14 | Malcolm X's home is firebombed. No injuries are reported. | Ref: 2 |
| Feb 26 | Jimmie Lee Jackson civil rights activist, dies of injuries. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 07 | (Selma, Ala.) Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed "Bloody Sunday" by the media. Ref | |
| Mar 09 | Three white Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. James J. Reeb, were attacked with clubs on the streets of Selma, Alabama, while participating in a civil rights demonstration. Reeb later died in a Birmingham, Alabama hospital. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 11 | The Reverend James J. Reeb, a white minister from Boston, dies after being beaten by whites during civil rights disturbances in Selma, AL. | Ref: 70 |
| Mar 20 | President Lyndon B. Johnson orders 4,000 troops to protect the Selma-Montgomery civil rights marchers. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 21 | In Selma, Alabama, a five-day civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, the Alabama state capital, is begun by some 3,200 marchers led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize for Peace. | Ref: 3 |
| Mar 25 | The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led 25,000 marchers to the state capitol in Montgomery AL, to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks. (Go to article.) | Ref: 70 |
| Mar 25 | Viola Gregg Liuzzo US civil rights activist, murdered. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 13 | First US Senate black page, Lawrence W Bradford Jr, 16, appointed by New York Senator Jacob Javits. | Ref: 5 |
| May 07 | A march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, AL, by state troopers and a sheriff's posse. | Ref: 6 |
| May 19 | Patricia R Harris named first US black female ambassador (Luxembourg). | Ref: 5 |
| May 30 | Vivian Malone, is first black to graduate from University of Alabama. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 06 | President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act, outlawing the literacy test for voting eligibility in the South. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 11 | Thirty-four people die, more than 3,000 are arrested and there was over $40 million in damage to property in the Watts area of Los Angeles, this first day of six days of rioting. All of this was the result of a minor confrontation between the California Highway Patrol and two young black men. (XDG, p 4A, 8/11/2000) | Ref: 83 |
| Aug 12 | Race riot in West Side of Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 14 | The first nuclear ship named for an African American, George Washington Carver, is launched at Newport News, Virginia. | |
| Dec 01 | South Africa government says children of white fathers are white. | Ref: 5 |
- 1966
| Jan 03 | Floyd B McKissick, named national director of CORE. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 13 | 1st black selected for Presidential cabinet (LBJ selects Robert C Weaver-HUD). | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 17 | Martin Luther King Jr opens campaign in Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 09 | Andrew Brimmer becomes first black Governor of Federal Reserve Board. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | Racial riots erupt in the Watts section of Los Angeles. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 15 | Racial riots erupt in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Two die, 25 are injured. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 01 | First world festival of black art (Dakar Senegal). | Ref: 5 |
| May 09 | First black member of Federal Reserve Board (A F Brimmer). | Ref: 5 |
| May 16 | Stokely Carmichael named chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 01 | 2,400 persons attend White House Conference on Civil Rights. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 18 | Samuel Nabrit becomes the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 23 | Civil Rights marchers in Mississippi are dispersed by tear gas. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 03 | Race riots in Omaha Nebraska. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 05 | National Guard mobilizes in Omaha after 3rd night of rioting. | Ref: 5 |
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| Jul 19 | Gov James Rhodes declares state of emergency in Cleveland (race riot). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 05 | Martin Luther King Jr stoned during Chicago march. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 07 | Race riot in Lansing Michigan. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 08 | Samuel Nabrit becomes the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 27 | Race riot in Waukegan Illinois. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 06 | Race riot in Atlanta Georgia. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 08 | Republican Edward Brooke of Massachusetts becomes the first African American elected to the Senate in 85 years. | Ref: 2 |
- 1967
| Jan 10 | Lester Garfield Maddox, a restaurant owner who made national headlines for his opposition to desegregation, is sworn in as governor of Georgia. Maddox, a high school dropout, achieved notoriety in 1964 when he employed violence to drive African Americans from his Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia. | Ref: 3 |
| Jan 10 | Massachusetts Republican Edward W. Brooke, the first black elected to the US Senate by popular vote, takes his seat. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 16 | Lucius Amerson, becomes first southern (Alabama) black sheriff in 20th century. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | Black students seize finance building at Northwestern University. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | H Rap Brown replaces Stokely Carmichael as chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 02 | Race riots in Roxbury section of Boston. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 11 | Race riot in Tampa Florida; National Guard mobilizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 12 | Race riot in Cincinnati Ohio (300 arrested). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 27 | Race riot in Buffalo NY (200 arrested). | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 28 | 14 people are shot during race riots in Buffalo, New York. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 30 | Maj Robert H Lawrence Jr named first black astronaut. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 12 | Blacks in Newark, riot, 26 killed, 1500 injured & over 1000 arrested. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 13 | Race-related rioting broke out in Newark, N.J.; by the time the violence ended four days later, 27 people had been killed. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 17 | Race riots in Cairo IL. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 19 | Race riots in Durham NC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 20 | Race riots in Memphis Tenn. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 23 | 43 killed in racial rebellion in Detroit (2,000 injured, 442 fires). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 24 | Race riot in Cambridge Maryland. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 27 | In the wake of urban rioting, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the Kerner Commission to assess the causes of the violence. The same day, black militant H. Rap Brown said violence was "as American as cherry pie." | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 30 | Race riot in Milwaukee (4 killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 13 | Lyndon Johnson signs executive order barring sex descrimination in government. | Ref: 10 |
| Nov 07 | Carl Stokes was elected the first black mayor of a major city - Cleveland, Ohio. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 07 | Democrat Carl Burton Stokes elected first Black mayor of major American city in Cleveland, OH. | Ref: 10 |
- 1968
| Feb 29 | National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission) reports against racism & demands aid given to blacks. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 04 | Martin Luther King Jr announces plans for Poor People's Campaign. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 03 | Less than 24 hours before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers. | Ref: 70 |
| Apr 06 | Bobby Hutton US Black Panther leader, shot to death. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | Murdered civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., is buried in Atlanta GA. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 09 | Ralph Abernathy elected to head Southern Christian Leadership Conference. | Ref: 5 |
| May 03 | The South African House of Assembly votes to abolish parliamentary representation for the nation's blacks. | Ref: 17 |
| May 12 | "March of Poor" under rev Abernathy reach Washington DC. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 19 | Over 50,000 people march on Washington, D.C. to support the Poor People's Campaign. | Ref: 2 |
| Jul 23 | Race riot in Cleveland, 11 including 3 cops killed. | Ref: 5 |
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| Aug 08 | Race riot in Miami Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 05 | Democrat Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn, New York, becomes the first elected black woman to serve in the House of Representatives. | Ref: 2 |
- 1969
| Mar 27 | Black Academy of Arts & Letters forms in Boston | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 14 | Student Afro-American Society seized at Columbia College. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | Race riot in Hartford Connecticut. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 19 | State troopers ordered to Cairo Ill, to quell racial disturbances. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 30 | National Guard mobilizes in racial disturbances in Baton Rouge, La. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 31 | National Guard mobilizes in racial disturbances in Baton Rouge, La. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 30 | Racial disturbances in Fort Lauderdale Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 14 | Race riots in Springfield Mass. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 31 | Race riot in Jacksonville Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 04 | Fred Hampton US Black-Panther leader, murdered. | Ref: 5 |
- 1970
| Jan 01 | Afro-American Historical Calendar Series Established. | Ref: 5 |
| May 12 | Race riots in Augusta GA; 6 blacks killed (5 by cops). | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | Cops kill 2 students in a racial disturbance at Jackson State University, MS. | Ref: 5 |
| May 15 | Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, are killed when police opened fire during student protests. | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 16 | Race riots in Miami Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 02 | Jessie Street Australian civil rights activist, dies. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 04 | 100 injured in race rioting in Asbury Park NJ. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 29 | 6 days of race rioting in Hartford Ct. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 29 | Black Panthers confront cops in Phila (1 cop killed). | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 31 | Lonnie McLucas, a Black Panther activist, convicted. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 13 | Angela Yvonne Davis, a former philosophy professor at the University of California, black militant, and self-proclaimed Communist, is arrested in New York City in connection with a shootout in a San Raphael, California, courtroom on August 7. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 07 | Race riots in Daytona Beach Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 26 | B O Davis Sr first black general, dies at 93 in Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
- 1971
| Jan 04 | Congressional Black Caucus organizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jan 12 | Congressional Black Caucus organizes. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 11 | Whitney M Young Jr leader (National Urban League 1961-71), dies at 49. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 28 | Samuel Lee Gravely Jr becomes first black admiral in US Navy. | Ref: 5 |
| May 05 | Race riot in Brownsville section of Brooklyn (NYC). | Ref: 5 |
| May 18 | President Nixon rejects the 60 demands of Congressional Black Caucus. | Ref: 5 |
| May 25 | Jo Etha Collier young black woman killed by 3 whites in Drew MS. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 15 | Vernon E Jordan Jr, appointed exec director of National Urban League. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 16 | Racial disturbance in Jacksonville Florida. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 19 | Mayor declares state of emergency in Columbus Ga, racial disturbance. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 14 | Two killed in Memphis racial disturbances. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | The U.S. Justice Department sues Mississippi officials for ignoring the voting ballots of blacks in that state. | Ref: 2 |
- 1972
| Feb 23 | Black activist Angela Davis is released from jail where she was held for kidnapping , conspiracy and murder. | Ref: 2 |
| Mar 10 | First black US political convention opens (Gary IN). | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 17 | President Nixon asks Congress to halt busing in order to achieve desegregation. | Ref: 2 |
| May 01 | Radio's Mutual Black Network premieres. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 04 | Black activist Angela Davis is found not guilty of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 12 | 46 sailors are injured in race riot on aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. | Ref: 5 |
- 1973
| May 29 | Tom Bradley was elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles, defeating incumbent Sam Yorty. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | Doris A. Davis becomes the first African-American woman to govern a city in a major metropolitan area when she is elected mayor of Compton, CA. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 28 | Black Sports Hall of Fame forms: Paul Robeson, Elgin Baylor, Jesse Owens, Jim Brown, Wilma Rudolph, Joe Louis & Althea Gibson elected. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 16 | Maynard Jackson elected mayor of Atlanta. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 06 | Coleman Young becomes the first African-American mayor of Detroit, Michigan. | Ref: 2 |
- 1974
| Jun 30 | Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr., and a church deacon were slain by a crazed gunman in Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where her son, the assassinated civil rights leader, once preached. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 15 | National Guard mobilizes to restore order in Boston school busing. | Ref: 5 |
- 1975
| Sep 02 | Joseph W. Hatcher of Tallahassee, Florida, becomes the state's first African-American supreme court justice since Reconstruction. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 08 | Boston's public schools began their court-ordered citywide busing program amid scattered incidents of violence. | Ref: 70 |
- 1976
| Feb 11 | Clifford Alexander Jr confirmed as first black Secretary of Army. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 16 | The Soweto uprising in South Africa results in the death of over 500 Blacks (Soweto Day). | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 01 | Kenneth Gibson, is first black president of US Conference of Mayors. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 06 | Benjamin L. Hooks was chosen to be the new executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, succeeding Roy Wilkins. | Ref: 5 |
- 1977
| Apr 27 | Bloody riots in Soweto South Africa. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 28 | Roy Wilkins turn over NAACP leadership to Benjamin L Hooks. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 12 | Steven Biko, leader of the black consciousness movement in South Africa, is arrested. | Ref: 2 |
| Sep 24 | Rev. John T. Walker was installed as the sixth -- and first African American -- bishop of the Episcopal diocese in Washington, D.C. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 12 | New Orleans elects its first black mayor, Ernest (Dutch) Morial. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 31 | Donald Woods, a banned white editor flees South Africa. | Ref: 5 |
- 1978
| May 01 | First black mayor of New Orleans (Ernest Morial) inaugurated. | Ref: 5 |
- 1979
| Feb 23 | Frank Peterson Jr named 1st black general in Marine Corps. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 22 | 200 black leaders, meet in NY, to support Andrew Young. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 02 | Black militant Joanne Chesimard escaped from a New Jersey prison, where she'd been serving a life sentence for the 1973 slaying of a New Jersey state trooper. (Chesimard, who has since taken the name Assata Shakur, now lives in Cuba.) | Ref: 6 |
- 1980
| Apr 12 | BCMA (Black Consciousness Movement of Azania) forms. | Ref: 5 |
| May 17 | Rioting that claimed 18 lives and $100M in damage erupts in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating a black man. | Ref: 70 |
| Jun 13 | UN Security Council calls for South Africa to free Nelson Mandela. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 09 | Author of "Black Like Me" John (Howard) Griffin dies | Ref: 4 |
| Oct 13 | Unprovoked slayings of 6 blacks in Buffalo, NY. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 01 | US Justice Department sues Yonkers citing racial discrimination. | Ref: 5 |
- 1981
| Mar 21 | Michael Donald, a black teenager in Mobile AL is abducted, tortured and killed in what prosecutors charged was a KKK plot. Subsequently, a lawsuit brought by Donald's mother, Beulah Mae Donald resulted in the bankruptcy on KKK organization. (XDG, p 4A, 3/21/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Apr 03 | Race riots in London's Brixton area. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 11 | Race riot in London area of Brixton. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 08 | Roy Wilkins longtime executive director of NAACP, dies at 80. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 09 | Vernon E Jordan resigns as president of National Urban League. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 28 | Joseph Paul Franklin, avowed racist, sentenced to life imprisonment for killing 2 black joggers in Salt Lake City. | Ref: 5 |
- 1982
| Feb 06 | Civil rights workers begin a march from Carrolton to Montgomery, Alabama. | Ref: 2 |
| Aug 17 | South Bend, Ind jury acquits self-avowed racist Joseph Paul Franklin. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 20 | South Africa backs down on a plan to install black rule in neighboring Namibia. | Ref: 2 |
| Dec 04 | Police & racist demonstrators clash in Antwerp. | Ref: 5 |
- 1983
| Apr 12 | Harold Washington is elected the first black mayor of Chicago. | Ref: 2 |
| Apr 13 | Harold Washington elected first black mayor of Chicago. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 29 | Harold Washington was sworn in as the first black mayor of Chicago. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 02 | President Reagan signed a bill establishing a federal holiday on the third Monday of January in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 08 | Wilson B. Goode is elected as the first black mayor of the city of Philadelphia.
Wilson B. Goode is elected as the first black mayor of the city of Philadelphia. | Ref: 2 |
- 1984
| Jan 02 | Wilson Goode, sworn-in as Philadelphia's first black mayor. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 11 | Rev Martin Luther King Sr dies in Atlanta at 84. | Ref: 68 |
- 1985
| Jan 31 | South African President PW Botha offers to free Mandela if he denounces violence. | Ref: 5 |
| Mar 21 | Police in Langa, South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings, killing at least 21 demonstrators. | Ref: 70 |
| Apr 15 | South Africa will repeal sex & marriage laws against whites & non-whites. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 11 | Yonkers is found guilty of segregating schools & housing. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 11 | Yonkers is found guilty of segregating schools & housing. | Ref: 5 |
- 1986
| Mar 22 | Debi Thomas is 1st black to win world figure skating champ. | Ref: 5 |
| May 10 | Navy Lt. Commander Donnie Cochran became the first black pilot to fly with the celebrated Blue Angels precision aerial demonstration team. | Ref: 4 |
| May 16 | South African President P W Botha sends Coetsee to visit Mandela. | Ref: 5 |
| May 19 | Anti-apartheid activist Hélène Pastoors sentenced to 10 years in South Africa. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 20 | White teenagers beat blacks in Howard Beach NY. | Ref: 5 |
- 1987
| Feb 12 | Survivors of a black man murdered by KKK members awarded $7 million damages. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 25 | Harold Washington, the first black mayor of Chicago (D, 1983-87), died at age 65 after suffering a heart attack in his City Hall office. | Ref: 5 |
- 1988
| Jan 15 | Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder makes racist remarks about black athletes. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 05 | Clarence M Pendleton chairman of comm on Civil Rights (1981-88) dies | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 28 | Winnie Mandella's home in Soweto, South Africa destroyed by arson. | Ref: 5 |
| Jul 29 | South African govt bans anti-apartheid film "Cry Freedom". | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 06 | Lee Roy Young becomes the first African-American TX Ranger in the force's 165-year history. | Ref: 2 |
| Oct 19 | S Afr anti-apartheid leader Sisulu wins $100,000 Human Rights prize. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 26 | Anti African student rebellion in China People's Republic. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 28 | US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirms Yonkers is guilty of racism. | Ref: 5 |
- 1989
| Feb 10 | Ronald Brown becomes the first black chairman of the Democratic Party National Committee. (XDG, p 4A, 2/10/2001) | Ref: 83 |
| Feb 10 | Tony Robinson of Jamaica becomes Nottingham's first black sheriff. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 22 | Huey Newton black activist, shot dead at 47. | Ref: 5 |
| Aug 23 | Yusuf Hawkins, a black teen-ager, was shot dead after he and his friends were confronted by white youths in a Brooklyn neighborhood. | Ref: 70 |
| Aug 27 | 100 march through Bensonhurst protesting racial killings. | Ref: 5 |
| Sep 02 | Rev Al Sharpton leads a civil rights march through Bensonhurst. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 21 | First black owners (Betram Lee & Peter Bynoe) to own a major sports team, purchasing Denver Nuggets for $65m. | Ref: 5 |
| Nov 07 | L. Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor in the US, in Virginia by 7000 votes. (XDG, p 4A, 11/7/2000) | Ref: 83 |
- 1990
| Jan 13 | L Douglas Wilder is sworn in as the first elected African-American governor in the United States, in Virginia. (Ref | |
| May 02 | South Africa & African National Congress open talks to end apartheid. | Ref: 5 |
| Oct 15 | South Africa's Separate Amenities Act, which had barred blacks from public facilities for decades, was formally scrapped. | Ref: 70 |
| Oct 17 | Ralph Abernathy civil rights leader, dies. | Ref: 5 |
- 1991
| Jan 02 | Sharon Pratt Dixon was sworn in as Washington, D.C.'s first black female mayor. | Ref: 70 |
| Apr 28 | Floyd B McKissick US founder (CORE), dies. | Ref: 5 |
| May 13 | South African black activist Winnie Mandela and two co-defendants were convicted of abducting four young black men and keeping them at her Soweto home. (After an appeal, Mrs. Mandela was ordered to pay a fine.) | Ref: 5 |
| May 14 | In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the kidnapping and beating of three black youths and the death of a fourth. | Ref: 2 |
| Jun 17 | The Parliament of South Africa repealed the Population Registration Act. The law, the basis of all apartheid laws in South Africa, required all South Africans to be classified at birth. It was first implemented in 1950, and placed South Africans in separate categories of race: Caucasian, mixed, Asian and black. Other apartheid laws were enforced according to those categories. The Population Registration Act was the final apartheid law to be repealed, except for the one that prevented blacks from voting. | Ref: 4 |
| Jul 19 | The South African government acknowledged that it had been giving money to the Inkatha Freedom Party, the main rival of the African National Congress. | Ref: 6 |
| Sep 04 | F.W. de Klerk proposes new South Africa constitution and opens parliament to all races. | Ref: 10 |
- 1992
| Feb 15 | Benjamin L. Hooks announced plans to retire as executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. | Ref: 6 |
| Apr 30 | Rioting and looting spread from L.A. to Seattle, San Francisco and Atlanta as blacks protest injustice. | Ref: 10 |
| May 12 | Four suspects were arrested in the beating of trucker Reginald Denny at the start of the Los Angeles riots. | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 12 | In an emotional fairwell speech, Benjamin Hooks, the outgoing executive director of the NAACP, urged the group's convention in Nashville TN to show the world it remained vital. (XDG, p 4A, 7/12/2002) | Ref: 83 |
| Aug 03 | Millions of South African blacks join a nationwide strike agains white-led rule. (XDC, p 4A, 8/03/2002) | Ref: 83 |
| Sep 04 | Joseph Rauh civil rights activist: cofounded Americans for Democratic Action; member: executive board of NAACP; general counsel: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; dies. | Ref: 4 |
| Nov 03 | Illinois Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun becomes the first black woman elected to the US Senate. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 04 | Carol Moseley Braun becomes the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate. | Ref: 2 |
| Nov 28 | In King William's Town, South Africa, four people are killed and about 20 injured when black militant gunmen attacked a country club. (XDG, p 4A, 11/28/2002) | Ref: 83 |
- 1993
| Mar 21 | South Africa White Wolves kill 5 year old black girl. | Ref: 5 |
| Apr 09 | The Reverend Benjamin Chavis was chosen to head the NAACP, succeeding Benjamin Hooks. | Ref: 6 |
| Jul 15 | Authorities in Los Angeles announce eight arrests in connection with an alleged plot by white supremacists to ignite a race war by bombing a black church and killing prominent black Americans. Christopher Fisher, leader of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, was later sentenced to more than eith years in federal prison while Daniel Boese was sentenced to nearly five years in prison; both pleaded guilty to arson and conspiracy. (XDG, p 4A, 7/15/2003) | Ref: 83 |
| Sep 23 | The South African parliament votes to allow blacks a role in governing. (XDG, p 4A, 9/23/2003) | Ref: 83 |
- 1994
| Jan 29 | Nelson Mandela kicks off his party's campaign for South Africa's first multiracial elections. (XDG, p 4A, 1/29/2004) | Ref: 83 |
| Aug 20 | Benjamin Chavis Junior was fired as head of the NAACP after a turbulent 16-month tenure. | Ref: 6 |
| Dec 10 | European Campaign against Racism "All different, All equal" begins. | Ref: 5 |
| Dec 31 | Anti Apartheid Group of Netherlands (AABN) disbands. | Ref: 5 |
- 1995
| May 14 | Myrlie Evers-Williams was sworn in to head the NAACP. | Ref: 6 |
| Oct 16 | A vast throng of black men gathered in Washington for the "Million Man March" led by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. | Ref: 70 |
| Dec 09 | Kweisi Mfume (Rep-D-MD), is chosen to head the NAACP. | Ref: 70 |
- 1996
| Mar 10 | Lucius E Burch Jr US civil rights leader, dies at 84. | Ref: 5 |
| May 08 | South Africa took another step from apartheid to democracy by adopting a constitution that guaranteed equal rights for blacks and whites. | Ref: 5 |
| Jun 08 | Declaring racial hostility was behind recent church fires in the South, President Clinton said in his weekly radio address he would devote whatever resources were needed to "smother the fires of hatred." | Ref: 6 |
| Jun 19 | Chief executives from seven states, police, state attorneys general and members of Congress met with President Clinton at the White House to discuss ways of stopping the recent torching of black churches. | Ref: 6 |
| Nov 27 | A federal judge blocked enforcement of a CA initiative to dismantle affirmative action, saying civil rights groups had a "strong probability" of proving it unconstitutional. Evan C. Hunziker, an American jailed by North Korea on spy charges, was set free, ending a three-month ordeal. | Ref: 64 |
- 1997
| Jun 01 | Betty Shabazz, the widow of Malcolm X, was fatally burned in a fire set by her 12-year-old grandson in her Yonkers, NY apartment. (TWA, 1997) | Ref: 95 |
| Jun 23 | Civil rights activist Betty Shabazz, 61, the widow of Malcolm X, dies in New York of burns suffered in a fire set by her 12-year old grandson. | Ref: 70 |
- 1998
| May 01 | Eldridge Cleaver, the fiery Black Panther leader who later renounced his past and became a Republican, dies in Pomona, CA, at age 62. (TWA, 1999) | Ref: 95 |
| Jun 13 | Civil rights leaders and politicians call for the end of racial violence as hundreds of mourners gather in Jasper TX for the funeral of James Byrd Jr, a black man who was brutally killed by white supremacists. (XDG, p 4A, 6/13/2003) | Ref: 83 |
| Oct 29 | South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission condemned both apartheid and violence committed by the African National Congress. | Ref: 70 |
| Nov 15 | Kwame Ture (Stokeley Carmichael) U.S. civil rights activist: SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee], Black Panthers, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party [founder/chairman]; credited w/creating phrase ‘Black Power’; emigrated to Africa; married to South African singer Miriam Makeba, dies of prostate cancer. | Ref: 4 |
- 2000
| Mar 20 | Former Black Panther Jamil Abdulla Al-Amin, once known as H. Rap Brown, is captured in Alabama. He was wanted in a fatal shooting of a sheriff's deputy. Al-Amin maintains his innocence. | Ref: 70 |
| May 17 | Two former Ku Klux Klansmen were arrested on murder charges in the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, AL, that killed four black girls. (Thomas Blanton Junior was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on May 1, 2001. Bobby Frank Cherry was indicted in 2000, but his trial was delayed after evaluations raised questions about his mental competency.) | Ref: 70 |
| Jul 10 | TX Governor George W. Bush, facing a skeptical audience, told the NAACP convention in Baltimore that "the party of Lincoln has not always carried the mantle of Lincoln," and promised to work to improve relations. | Ref: 6 |
| Sep 10 | A federal judge ordered an end to busing and other means of achieving racial balance in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the North Carolina school system that pioneered urban busing in the United States after a landmark Supreme Court ruling three decades earlier. | Ref: 6 |
- 2001
| Apr 12 | Cincinnati Mayor Charles Luken declared a state of emergency amid the worst outbreak of racial violence in the city since 1968. | Ref: 70 |
- 2003
| Jan 16 | The Bush administration urged the Supreme Court to strike down the admissions policies of the University of Michigan and its law school, arguing that university admissions programs that gave an edge to minority students was unconstitutional. (XDG, p 4A, 1/16/2004) | Ref: 83 |
| Mar 31 | Former Heisman Trophy Winner Paul Hornung apologizes for saying during a radio broadcast that his alma mater, Notre Dame, should "ease it up a little bit [to] get the black athelete". (XDG, p 4A, 4/01/2004) | Ref: 83 |
- 2004
| Mar 30 | Former Heisman Trophy Winner Paul Hornung says during a radio broadcast that his alma mater, Notre Dame, should "ease it up a little bit [to] get the black athelete". (XDG, p 4A, 4/01/2004) | Ref: 83 |
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Black History Chronology