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.