Civil Rights Timeline (1619 - 2000)
1619 Twenty Africans arrive in Jamestown, VA, and are sold as indentured servants.
1626 Dutch West India Co. exports 11 male slaves to New York.
1630 Massachusetts enacts a law protecting enslaved Africans who flee owners because of ill treatment.
1642 Virginia passes a fugitive slave order penalizing those who assist runaway slaves.
1663 Black and white indentured servants plan a rebellion in Gloucester County, VA. The citizens put it down
violently, and display the heads of the slain rebels.
1664 New York and New Jersey recognize legality of slavery.
Boston traders begin to import black slaves directly from Africa.
1668 Virginia enacts law denying legal equality to freed blacks.
1675 100,000 African slaves in the West Indies in Caribbean Sea, south of Florida; 5,000 in North America.
1685 New York law forbids black and Native American slaves from having meetings or carrying firearms.
1688 Germantown, PA, Quakers sign first official written protest against slavery in North America.
1692 Virginia enacts a law making it legal to kill runaway slaves in the course of recapture.
1693 Philadelphia, PA, permits whites to "take up" and imprison any black found without a pass.
1700 1,000 blacks in New England colonies; Boston becomes slave trade center for New England; first antislavery pamphlet published in New England.
1711 Britain's Queen Anne overrules a new Pennsylvania colonial law prohibiting slavery.
1712 Pennsylvania outlaws slave trade.
1721 South Carolina limits the vote to free white Christian men.
1723 Boston, MA, slaves accused of setting a dozen fires in one week. The next year, Boston imposes curfews
on non-whites.
1727 Benjamin Franklin organizes the Junto, an anti-slavery group, in Philadelphia, PA.
1729 Carolina, split over slavery issue, divides into separate colonies, North and South.
1733 Spain promises freedom in Spanish Florida to slaves escaped from English colonies.
1735 South Carolina passes laws requiring slaves to wear clothing identifying them as slaves; newly freed slaves
must leave the state within six months or risk re-enslavement.
1737 Indentured black servant petitions Massachusetts court and wins his freedom after the death of the white
woman he works for.
1739 Slaves revolt in South Carolina.
1741 South Carolina law prohibits teaching slaves to write.
1751 South Carolina law prohibits slaves from learning about medicines or becoming doctors.
1752 Future President George Washington acquires the Mount Vernon, VA, estate and its 18 slaves. Eventually
he owns 200 slaves.
1758 Philadelphia opens schools for black children.
1760 Black population reaches 325,806 in American colonies.
1762 Virginia law restricts vote to white men.
1765 A black woman claims she has been unlawfully enslaved and wins her freedom from Massachusetts courts.
1770 Crispus Attucks, runaway slave and seaman, is first American killed in Boston Massacre battle between
British and colonists.
1773 Massachusetts slaves petition legislature for their freedom.
1774 Continental Congress bars importation of slaves; import continues in defiance of law.
Thomas Jefferson declares abolition of slavery as one of the goals of the colonists and accuses Britain of blocking
efforts to end slave trade.
1775 Philadelphia Quakers organize the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Benjamin Franklin
elected president.
Blacks fight in various ways for Colonial freedoms, participate as Minutemen, join Ethan Allen and the Green
Mountain Boys, fight at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
George Washington, the new commander of American troops, forbids officers to recruit blacks for the military. He
soon reverses his position.
At least 100,000 slaves run away from their masters.
1776 Second Continental Congress forbids importation of slaves into 13 colonies. Import continues illegally.
1780 Pennsylvania passes emancipation law; Massachusetts constitution abolishes slavery; black Massachusetts
taxpayers demand the right to vote, arguing "taxation without representation".
1783 Revolutionary War ends; 10,000 blacks have served
Elizabeth '"Mum Bett" Freeman successfully sues for her freedom using a Massachusetts constitution that says all
men are born free and equal.
1784 U.S. Congress rejects Thomas Jefferson proposal to exclude slavery from all western territories after 1800.
Connecticut passes gradual emancipation law; Rhode Island passes similar law and abolishes slavery.
1785
New York slaves who served in Revolutionary Army are freed.
1787 U.S. Constitution adopted, considers one slave equal to three-fifths of a man of another race.
1790 U.S. Census says 757,208 blacks in U.S.; 59,557 are free.
1793 Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, prompting expansion of cotton industry and increased demand for African
slaves.
U.S. Congress adopts first Fugitive Slave Law, making aid to fugitive slaves a criminal offense.
1797 U.S. Congress rejects a petition seeking to overturn a North Carolina law requiring slaves freed by their
Quaker masters be returned to the state and to slavery.
1800 U.S. Congress rejects, 85 to 1, an antislavery petition offered by free Philadelphia blacks.
1802-1805 Ohio constitution abolishes slavery, then prohibits free blacks from voting and passes the first Black
Laws, restricting rights of blacks in North.
1807 U.S. Congress prohibits importation of new slaves into U.S., effective Jan. 1, 1808. Between 1808 and
1860, approximately 250,000 slaves are illegally imported.
1809 New York legally recognizes marriage within black community.
1810 U.S. Congress prohibits blacks from carrying mail for postal service.
1814 Two black regiments formed in New York to fight in War of 1812; the African Free School in New York City
is burned.
1815
Levi Coffin establishes Underground Railroad.
1820 Missouri Compromise enacted—Maine enters union as a free state; Missouri as a slave state. Slavery
banned in Louisiana Purchase territory.
1821 Missouri law disenfranchises blacks—takes away voting rights; New York restricts black male voting.
1822 Denmark Vesey, free black carpenter, organizes plot to seize Charleston, SC.
Land now known as Liberia colonized by black American settlers from American Colonization Society.
1827 Slavery officially abolished in New York; 10,000 blacks freed.
1828 William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist writer, attacks slavery in Bennington, VT,
periodical.
1830 Rise of slave revolts prompts restrictions on education, particularly in the South.
1832 Nat Turner and five other slaves revolt in Virginia. Turner captured and hanged.
William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing the Liberator in Boston, MA.
1836 John B. Russwurm becomes governor of a colony of emigrant black Americans in Liberia.
1838 Pennsylvania takes away voting rights of blacks.
1841 Frederick Douglass successfully campaigns in Rhode Island against the Dorr Constitution, which would
repeal black voting right.
1842 First fugitive slave case involving George Latimore, an escaped slave, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Abolitionists purchase Latimore's freedom.
1843 Sojourner Truth begins abolitionist work; William Wells Brown begins anti-slavery lectures.
1845 Frederick Douglass publishes "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass".
1847 Dred Scott files suit for his freedom in St. Louis, MO, testing Missouri Compromise.
New Jersey takes away black voting rights.
Frederick Douglass speaks to women's rights meeting in Seneca Falls, NY.
Henry "Box" Brown escapes to freedom by climbing into a box and shipping himself to Philadelphia.
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland.
Benjamin Roberts files first integration suit on behalf of daughter who is denied admission to a Boston school.
1850 Congressional compromise upholds and strengthens 1793 Fugitive Slave Act; California enters union as a
free state.
1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals Missouri Compromise and permits admission of Kansas and Nebraska
territories to union, whether or not they allow slavery.
Republican Party is formed to oppose extension of slavery into the territories.
1856 California court affirms freedom of Biddy Mason, who stayed in California when her master returned South.
1857 In Dred Scott v. Sanford case, U.S. Supreme Court rules that Dred Scott cannot sue for his freedom in a
free state because he is property.
Maine and New Hampshire continue to grant freedom and citizenship to blacks.
1859
John Brown raids federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, WV to undermine slavery. He and 18 other men are captured
and executed.
1861 Civil War begins when Confederates attack Fort Sumter, SC.
1866 First Civil Rights Act declaring freed blacks to be U.S. citizens and nullifying black codes passes in
Congress, which overrides President Andrew Johnson's veto.
Ku Klux Klan begins campaign of terror against blacks and white Republicans.
1862 U.S. Congress bans slavery in the District of Columbia and U.S. territories; slaveholders compensated for
their lost "property".
Harriet Tubman serves as a spy, scout and guerrilla for Union Army.
1863 Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in those states rebelling against
union.
54th Massachusetts Volunteers formed, the first northern black regiment.
1865 Civil War ends.
U.S. Congress ratifies 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.
1868 U.S. Congress passes 14th Amendment, granting blacks full citizenship and equal
civil rights.
1870 Congress passes first Enforcement Acts to control Ku Klux Klan and guarantee civil and political rights to
blacks through federal courts.
15th Amendment passes, granting male suffrage regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
1873 U.S. Supreme Court rules that the "due process" clause of the 14th Amendment protects national—not
state—citizenship.
1875 Civil Rights Act gives blacks right to equal treatment in inns, public conveniences, public amusement places
and prohibits their exclusion from jury duty.
1881 Tennessee enacts a law requiring racial segregation in railroad cars.
1883 U.S. Supreme Court rules that Civil Rights Act of 1875 is unconstitutional, on grounds U.S. Congress had
gone beyond its authority by making laws that only states had right to make.
1890 Mississippi state constitution restricts black votes by requiring a rigged test of "understanding".
1895 W.E.B. DuBois receives first doctorate degree awarded to a black from Harvard University in
Massachusetts.
1896 U.S. Supreme Court rules "separate but equal" facilities are constitutional.
1898 Louisiana begins restricting the vote to those males whose grandfathers were eligible to vote on or before
January 1, 1867.
1900 Booker T. Washington organizes the National Negro Business League.
1905 W.E.B. DuBois and others meet in Niagara Falls, NY, to discuss actions on behalf of blacks. This and
subsequent meetings lead to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP).
Nashville, TN, blacks boycott streetcars to protest new Jim Crow laws.
1911 Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a grass-roots Pan-Africanist
organization.
1915 U.S. Supreme Court declares the "grandfather clauses," used in Southern states to block black voting, are
unconstitutional.
NAACP protests D.W. Griffith's film, "Birth of a Nation" for its portrayal of African-Americans.
1917 Anti-black riots break out in East St. Louis, IL, leaving 100 blacks dead or injured. Nearly 10,000 black New
Yorkers protest the violence in a Silent Protest Parade.
1919 West Virginia State Supreme Court rules that a black man was denied equal protection under law because
his jury had no black members.
1922 A bill making lynching a federal offense passes in the U.S. House of Representatives but fails in the U.S.
Senate.
1926 A group of black women is beaten by election officials while attempting to register to vote in Birmingham,
AL.
1933 NAACP begins seeking civil rights through legal suits.
1936 NAACP sues to make pay for black and white teachers equal.
1938 U.S. Supreme Court rules that states must provide equal educational facilities for blacks. The plaintiff, Lloyd
Gaines of Missouri, mysteriously disappears after the court's decision.
1939 NAACP begins seeking one million signatures supporting an anti-lynching bill.
1941 U.S. Supreme Court rules that separate facilities on railroads must be equal.
Union organizer A. Philip Randolph proposes a march on Washington to protest discrimination in federal
programs. The march is called off after President Franklin D. Roosevelt forbids racial and religious discrimination
in defense industries and government training programs.
1943 Congress of Racial Equality stages the first successful sit-in at a Chicago restaurant.
Blacks protest exclusion from civilian defense jobs in Detroit, MI. Violence results in 34 deaths.
1944 U.S. Supreme Court rules that blacks cannot be denied the right to vote in primary elections.
Navy orders all naval vessels integrated.
1945 White students in Gary, IN, walk out of classes to protest integration.
1946 Supreme Court bans segregation in interstate bus travel.
1947 Congress on Racial Equality sends an interracial group on a southern bus trip to test compliance with
Supreme Court ruling.
1948 President Harry Truman creates the Fair Employment Board, to eliminate racial discrimination in federal
jobs.
1950 U.S. Supreme Court rules against classroom and social segregation at the University of Oklahoma. The
Court also strikes down an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling requiring black railroad passengers to eat
behind a partition in dining cars.
1951 Gov. Adlai Stevenson of Illinois orders the National Guard to suppress a race riot after whites protest a
black family's attempt to occupy a home in an all-white neighborhood of Cicero, IL.
1953
Supreme Court bans segregation in Washington, D.C., restaurants.
1954 U.S. Supreme Court rules in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (Kansas) that segregated schools are
"inherently unequal." Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, MD., begin desegregating schools.
1955 Supreme Court prohibits segregation of recreation facilities like playgrounds. Interstate Commerce
Commission bans segregation in interstate buses, waiting rooms and railroad coaches.
Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, AL,
than a year.
spurring a boycott lasting more
Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old Chicago boy is murdered in Mississippi after allegedly wolf-whistling at a white woman.
1956 Montgomery bus boycott ends after federal court rules that racial segregation on the Alabama city's buses is
unconstitutional. Bus segregation is outlawed in Tallahassee, FL.
101 Southern members of Congress urge states to resist the Brown Supreme Court decision.
NAACP forces the University of Alabama to enroll its first black student, Autherine Lucy.
1957 Civil Rights Act, permitting the federal government to sue on behalf of citizens and creating the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, is signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Nine students integrate Central High School in Little Rock, AR. Eisenhower sends para-troopers to enforce the
desegregation.
1960 President Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960, giving federal government responsibility in civil
rights issues.
Homes of Civil Rights activists in Nashville, TN, are damaged in a bombing.
1961 Thirteen Freedom Riders begin bus trip through South to force desegregation of terminals. The bus is
bombed and passengers attacked.
1963 NAACP Field Secretary Medgar Evers is killed outside his home in Jackson, MS. In 1994 his killer is finally
convicted.
More than 250,000 civil rights demonstrators march on Washington, D.C., where Martin Luther King delivers his "I
Have a Dream" speech.
1964 24th Amendment, which outlaws the poll tax requirement, is ratified and added to U.S. Constitution.
U.S. Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination in public places, schools, lodging,
federal programs and employment.
Martin Luther King Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize.
1965 King leads 200 marchers from Selma to Montgomery, AL to protest racial discrimination.
Malcolm X is assassinated.
Riots breakout in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles after a clash between black residents and white police.
1966 Civil rights activist James Meredith is wounded by a sniper during a voter registration march. The next day,
nearly 4,000 blacks register to vote.
Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts elected first black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Barbara Jordan becomes first black to serve in Texas state senate since 1883. She later serves in U.S. Congress
before death in January 1996.
1967 In Newark, NJ, delegates at the Black Power Conference call for partitioning the U.S. into two independent
nations, one for whites and one for blacks.
1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated after addressing striking garbage workers in Memphis, TN.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1968 Housing Act prohibiting discrimination in sale, rental or lease of
housing.
Shirley Chisholm of New York is first black woman elected to U.S. Congress.
1969 James Earl Ray pleads guilty to murdering Martin Luther King and is sentenced to 99 years in prison.
1970 Federal court orders the Internal Revenue Service to tax segregated schools in Mississippi.
Senate extends the Voting Rights Act of 1965 banning literacy tests.
1971 Eight blacks claim the test required to become a federal employee is "culturally and racially discriminatory."
U.S. Supreme Court says employers cannot use job tests that discriminate against blacks if those tests are not
related to the work.
1978 Unita Blackwell, founding member of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, becomes the first black
woman mayor in the history of Mississippi in city of Mayersville. She had once been denied to vote there.
1980 U.S. Supreme Court rules that intentional discrimination must be proven in order to declare a local election
unconstitutional.
1983 President Ronald Reagan approves law making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday
Vanessa Williams is crowned first black Miss America
Guion S. Bluford Jr. becomes the first black American astronaut in space
1984 Robert N.C. Nix Jr. of Pennsylvania is voted first black to head a state Supreme Court.
1985 Congressman John Conyers pushes part of Anti-Apartheid Act, to impose sanctions on South Africa for its
refusal to grant civil rights to its black residents.
1988 Juanita Kidd Stout of Pennsylvania elected first black woman to serve on a state Supreme Court
Rev. Jesse Jackson places second in Democratic presidential race,
winning 13 primaries and caucuses.
U.S. Congress passes a Civil Rights Bill vetoed earlier by President Reagan.
Colin Powell becomes first black Chief of Staff for U.S. Armed Forces. In 1995, he considers and then rejects a
run for U.S. President.
1990 A Georgia state court rules a law keeping Ku Klux Klan members from wearing hooded masks in public is
unconstitutional.
Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, nation's first African-American governor, requires state agencies to divest
themselves of all business dealings with South Africa.
1991 Anita Hill, an African-American law professor, testifies that African-American Supreme Court nominee
Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her, sparking nationwide debate.
1992 Los Angeles police accused of beating African-American motorist Rodney King are found not guilty,
sparking riots across the city.
1995 Former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of murdering his wife after 13-month "trial of the century."
Verdict divides nation on racial lines; most whites feel he is guilty, most African-Americans agree with the notguilty verdict.
1996 Oakland, CA, plan to use black English, or Ebonics, in schools sparks nationwide debate.
1999 NAACP launches campaign against TV networks to increase number of minorities in shows.
2000 Colin Powell becomes the first black U.S. Secretary of State