Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.

I invite you to take a slow look at the following timeline regarding Black History in the United States. I linked two additional sites with more historical stuff as well. The highlighted entries are ones I touched on in my teaching.

Questions to think about…

What do you imagine has been the cumulative impact of attitudes and behaviors toward African Americans given the historical record? How do you suppose racism may have influenced laws that were written, as well as laws that were enforced and others that were ignored? What does it say that there was such a flurry of court activity in the 1950’s and 1960’s? Why did it take so long to address obvious freedoms granted by the 13th Amendment that were not really enjoyed by African Americans? What might the impact have been if, for a century, black Americans in the South were not able to vote for leaders they thought represented their voice? What do you think has been the impact of an educational system that still disproportionately favors white Americans over black? How might the historical lack of opportunity for educational, employment , and property ownership contribute to inequality and also serve to fulfill a prophecy of ongoing negative sentiment toward black Americans? If we equal success with educational achievement, good employment with good earning potential, and property ownership, what happens if an entire people group is not given the same chance? How does that feed into and perpetuate classic attitudes of prejudice toward African Americans?

Racism in America was poured into our country’s foundation in 1619, deeming non-whites as “less than”. The decisions made based on this underlying paradigm is what led to what we can now identify as systemic racism. It didn’t happen overnight, and it will not change overnight. As Jesus followers, however, we are called to do our part to insure that all of God’s children are equally loved, expressed by truly equal access to all that God has for their flourishing.

African American History Timeline: 1619 - 2008 

1619 The first African American indentured servants arrive in the American colonies. Less than a decade later, the first slaves are brought into New Amsterdam (later, New York City). By 1690, every colony has slaves. 

1739 The Stono Rebellion, one of the earliest slave revolts, occurs in Stono, South Carolina. 

1793 Eli Whitney’s (1765 – 1825) cotton gin increases the need for slaves. 

1808 Congress bans further importation of slaves. 

1831 In Boston, William Lloyd Garrison (1805 – 1879) begins publication of the anti-slavery newspaper the Liberator and becomes a leading voice in the Abolitionist movement. 

1831 – 1861 Approximately 75,000 slaves escape to the North using the Underground Railroad. 

1846 Ex-slave Frederick Douglass (1818 – 1895) publishes the anti-slavery North Star newspaper. 

1849  Harriet Tubman (c. 1820 – 1913) escapes from slavery and becomes an instrumental leader of the Underground Railroad. 

1850  Congress passes another Fugitive Slave Act, which mandates government participation in the capture of escaped slaves. 

Boston citizens, including some of the wealthiest, storm a federal courthouse in an attempt to free escaped Virginia slave Anthony Burns (1834 – 1862). 

1857 The Dred Scot v. Sanford case: congress does not have the right to ban slavery in the states; slaves are not citizens.

1860  Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) is elected president, angering the southern states. 

1861  The Civil War begins. 

1863 Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation proclaims that all slaves in rebellious territories are forever free. 

1865 The Civil War ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery, is ratified. The era of Reconstruction begins. 

1866 The “Black Codes” are passed by all white legislators of the former Confederate States. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, conferring citizenship on African Americans and granting them equal rights to whites. The Ku Klux Klan is formed in Tennessee. 

1868 The 14th Amendment is ratified, defining citizenship. This overturns the Dred Scot decision. 

1870 The 15th Amendment is ratified, giving African Americans the right to vote. 

1877 The era of Reconstruction ends. A deal is made with southern democratic leaders which makes Rutherford B. Hayes (1822 – 1893) president in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and puts an end to efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans.

1879 Thousands of African Americans migrate out of the South to escape oppression.

1881 Tennessee passes the first of the “Jim Crow” segregation laws, segregating state railroads. Similar laws are passed over the next 15 years throughout the Southern states. 

1896  Plessy v. Ferguson case: racial segregation is ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. The “Jim Crow” (“separate but equal”) laws begin, barring African Americans from equal access to public facilities.

1954  Brown v. Board of Education case: strikes down segregation as unconstitutional.

1955  In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks (1913 – 2005) is arrested for breaking a city ordinance by refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. This defiant act gives initial momentum to the Civil Rights Movement. 

1957 Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968) and others set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading engine of the Civil Rights Movement. 

1964  The Civil Rights Act is signed, prohibiting discrimination of all kinds. 

1965  The Voting Rights Act is passed, outlawing the practices used in the South to disenfranchise African American voters.

1967  Edward W. Brooke (1919 - ) becomes the first African American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction. He serves two terms as a Senator from Massachusetts. 

1968  Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. 

2008 Barack Obama (1961 - ) becomes the first African American to win the U.S. presidential race. 

Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement in the US

 

Timeline of African American History