REVIEW: BLACKS AND CIVIL RIGHTS


1565,1607 - 1763: SETTLEMENT AND COLONIAL AMERICA

1) 20 Africans landed in Virginia (1619): Considered indentured servants;
legalized slavery in place by 1640.

2) South Carolina Settlement (1670): White planters from Barbados brought
slaves with them. Charleston became the main port of entry for the
slave trade.

3) Georgia (1732): Slavery was initially banned.

4) Slave Codes (1700's-early 1800's): Established in the slave-holding
colonies to control the institution.

5) Stono Rebellion (1739): South Carolina slave insurrection.

6) Quaker John Woolman (1754): Published an anti-slavery pamphlet.


1763 - 1783: REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD

7) Boston Massacre (March, 1770): An escaped slave, Crispus Attucks,
was one of the first to die.

8) Phillis Wheatley (1773): Published a volume of poetry.

9) First Anti-Slavery Society (1775): Founded in Philadelphia.

10) Governor Dunmore of Virginia (1775): Offered freedom to slaves who
fled and joined the British army. Approx. 2000 accepted the offer.

11) Patriots: About 5000 blacks, most of whom were New England freemen,
served in the American army and navy. Slavery virtually ended in the
North during the Revolutionary Period.


1781 - 1789: GOVERNMENT UNDER THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

12) Northwest Ordinance (1787): Forbade slavery in the territory.


1789 - 1824: THE NEW NATION

13) Three-Fifths Compromise (1787): Slaves would be counted as 3/5 for
the purposes of taxation and representation. The foreign slave trade
would be ended in 1808.

14) Benjamin Banneker (1790's): Achievements in mathematics and
astronomy praised by Thomas Jefferson.

15) Cotton Gin (1793): Eli Whitney's invention increased the demand for
slaves in the southern colonies.


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16) Gabriel Prosser (1800): Planned a rebellion in Richmond, Virginia
but was betrayed before it could take place.

17) Foreign Slave Trade: Ended in 1808 but illegal smuggling continued.

18) Underground Railroad: Purpose to aid escape. Harriet Tubman was
a frequent "conductor" on the route.

19) American Colonization Society (1817): Congress appropriated money to
found Liberia on west coast of Africa (1822). Few blacks chose to go.

20) Missouri Compromise (1820): Slavery was prohibited in the Louisiana
Territory north of 36' 30. Missouri would enter as a slave state.
Maine would be admitted as a free state.


1825 - 1849: AGE OF JACKSON

21) William Lloyd Garrison (1831): Established "The Liberator", an
abolitionist newspaper which supported immediate emancipation without
compensation to the slaveowners.

22) Nat Turner (1831): His rebellion resulted in the deaths of 60
whites and over 200 blacks in Virginia. Turner and 19 supporters were
hanged.

23) American Anti-Slavery Society (1833)

24) Gag Rule (1836): Adopted by the House of Representatives to block
abolitionist petitions. It was repealed in 1844 through the efforts of
former President John Quincy Adams.

25) Elijah Lovejoy (1837): Abolitionist editor murdered by a mob in
Alton, Illinois.

26) Liberty Party: Abolitionist platform. Ran James Birney for president
in the election of 1844.

27) Wilmot Proviso (1846): Attempt to ban slavery from any territory
acquired from Mexico. It did not pass the Senate.

28) Free Soil Party: Opposed the extension of slavery. Ran Martin Van
Buren in 1848.


1849 - 1877: SECTIONALISM, CIVIL WAR, RECONSTRUCTION

29) Frederick Douglass (1818-1895): Runaway who taught himself and
became a great orator. He was editor of "The North Star", an
abolitionist newspaper. After the Civil War he promoted assimilation
through self-assertion.

30) Compromise of 1850: Popular sovereignty would decide the slave
question in New Mexico and Utah territories. The slave trade was
abolished in Washington D.C. A stronger Fugitive Slave Law was
enacted.


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31) Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852): Harriet Beecher Stowe.

32) Republican Party (1854): Founded with a platform opposed to the
extension of slavery.

33) Kansas-Nebraska Bill (1854): Slavery in these territories would be
determined by popular sovereignty. This negated the Missouri
Compromise.

34) Bleeding Kansas (1855-56): Free Soilers and Pro-slavery forces fought
it out in Kansas. Kansas was eventually admitted as a free state 1861.

35) Senate Violence (1856): Senator Charles Sumner denounced slavery and
condemned Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. Butler's nephew,
Preston Brooks, beat Sumner with a cane at his Senate desk.

36) The Impending Crisis of the South (1857): Hinton Helper asserted
that slavery hurt poor whites the most.

37) Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857): Roger B. Taney. #1) Court ruled
that Scott was not a citizen and could not sue in a federal court.
#2) Court ruled that a citizen of the U.S. could not be prohibited
from taking his property into the territories. This meant the
Missouri Compromise was null and void.

38) Freeport Doctrine (1858): During the Lincoln-Douglas debates for
the Senate seat in Illinois Lincoln tried to focus on the Dred Scott
decision in relation to popular sovereignty. Stephen Douglas said
that anti-slavery territories could refuse to enact slave codes.

39) Harper's Ferry (1859): John Brown occupied the federal arsenal
hoping to set off a slave rebellion. He was captured, tried for
treason, hanged.

40) Confiscation Act (1861): Encouraged slaves to escape.

41) Civil War Soldiers: Congress authorized recruitment of blacks in
1862. 185,000 blacks served but all officers were white.

42) Emancipation Proclamation (1/1/1863): Freed slaves in areas still
in rebellion.

43) Thirteenth Amendment (1865): Abolition of slavery.

44) Freedmen's Bureau (1865): Purpose to provide for the immediate
needs of freedmen. Established schools, hospitals, legal aid.

45) Fourteenth Amendment (1868): Equal protection of the rights of all
citizens through the guarantee of due process

46) Fifteenth Amendment (1870): Extension of the franchise to blacks.

47) Ku Klux Klan (1865): Resistance to Reconstruction policies.

48) Enforcement Acts (1870-71): Purpose to protect freedmen's right to
vote, supervise elections, and outlaw Klan acitivites.


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49) Civil Rights Act of 1875: Purpose to insure equal access to
accomodations in public places and black participation on juries. No
means of enforcement provided.


1877 - 1901: BIG BUSINESS, INDUSTRY, LABOR, FARMERS, REFORM

50) Crop Lien System, Sharecropping, Tenant Farming (1865+): Economic
systems which developed in the South to replace slavery.

51) Jim Crow Laws (beginning 1881): adopted in the South to control
black activities.

52) Booker T. Washington (1856-1915): Founder of Tuskeegee Institute.
Urged self-improvement for blacks, adoption of white middle-class
ethic. His Atlanta Compromise supported pursuit of economic gains as
a means of gradually acquiring social equality.

53) W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963): Critical of Booker T. Washington. His
Niagara Movement contradicted the accomodationists ideas of
Washington. He and his supporters demanded suffrage and civil rights.
("Talented Tenth" concept)

54) Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): The Court upheld the concept of
"separate but equal". The Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed
political, not social, equality.


1901 - 1913: PROGRESSIVE ERA

55) NAACP (1909): Goal was the attainment of equal rights for blacks
through lawsuits in federal courts.


1913 - 1921: WILSON AND WORLD WAR I
1921 - 1939: BOOM AND BUST AND A NEW DEAL

56) Harlem Renaissance (1920's): Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen,
Claude McKay.

57) Marcus Garvey: Advocated a return to Africa, black capitalism
through business ventures, and sponsored the Black Star Line, a
steamship company to transport cargo between U.S. and West Indies and
to take American blacks to Africa.

58) Scottsboro Trials (1931): Alabama case, 9 blacks arrested for
assault of hoboes and subsequent rape claim by two white women.
Although women were shown to be lying 8 were convicted and sentenced to
death.

59) Black Cabinet (1933+): FDR's black advisors in the White House.


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1939 - 1945: WORLD WAR II

60) March on Washington Movement (1941): FDR issued Executive Order
No. 8802 prohibiting discrimination in war industries and in the
government in order to prevent a scheduled protest march on Washington
DC by A. Philip Randolph and his supporters.

61) World War II: Blacks served in segregated units. The first blacks were trained as pilots at Tuskeegee Institute. Colonel Benjamin O.
Davis became the first black brigadier general (1940). Double V
Campaign was the name for the war abroad and the war at home against
racism.

62) Congress of Racial Equality founded (1942).

63) Race Riots (1943)



1945 - 1989+: COLD WAR AND AFTER

64) President's Committee on Civil Rights (1946): Published "To Secure
These Rights" in 1947. Recommended federal antilynching,
antisegregation, and anti-poll tax laws.

65) Jackie Robinson (1947): Breaks color barrier in major leagues.

66) End of Racial Segregation in Armed Services: Executive Order in
1948. Segregated units phased out by time of Korean War.

67) Invisible Man (1952): Ralph Ellison explored the effect on blacks of
exclusion from the American Dream. (Ellison just died in 1994)

68) Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954): Earl Warren.
The Court reversed its 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson. It stated
that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but
equal has no place. Compliance was directed "with all deliberate
speed" which set the stage for further problems.

69) Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56): Rosa Parks' arrest motivated
this year-long boycott. It was led by Martin Luther King, Jr.

70) Civil Rights Act (1957): Created U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

71) Little Rock School Desegregation (1957): 8 black children were
initially prevented from attending Central High School by order of
Governor Faubus. Ike did nothing at first but later federalized the
Arkansas National Guard to effect the entrance of the children.

72) Voting Rights Act (1960): Ineffective

73) Greensboro Lunchcounter Sit-in (2/1/1960): Inspired similar acts.
Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed.


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74) Malcolm X: By early 1960's he was the spokesman for the Black
Muslims who supported black pride and separatism. Malcolm X was
murdered in February, 1965 by Black Muslims who felt he had betrayed
the cause.

75) Freedom Rides (1961): Initiated by Congress of Racial Equality to
desegregate interstate transportation.

76) James Meredith (1962): First black student at University of
Mississippi.

77) University of Alabama (1963): Desegregated against the wishes of
Governor George Wallace.

78) March on Washington (8/28/1963): Martin Luther King makes his
"I have a dream" speech.

79) Medgar Evers (1963): Evers was the director of the Mississippi
NAACP. He was murdered.

80) Birmingham Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (9/1963): The Church was
bombed and four black girls were killed.

81) Civil Rights Act of 1964: Outlawed discrimination in public
accomodations and in employment.

82) Watts Race Riot (1965)

83) Voting Rights Act of 1965: Increased black voter registration.

84) Black Power (1966): Stokely Carmichael urged black control of
their own institutions.

85) Thurgood Marshall (1967) becomes the first black Supreme Court
justice.

86) Civil Rights Act of 1968: Banned racial and religious
discrimination in the sale and rental of housing.

87) Assassination of Martin Luther King (1968): James Earl Ray. Riots
resulted.

88) Swan v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971): Warren
Burger. Court sanctioned busing, redrawing district lines, racial
balancing to achieve desegregation.

89) Bakke v. Board of Regents (1978): Warren Burger. Bakke charged
reverse discrimination at the University of California. The Court
outlawed quotas but upheld the concept of affirmative action.