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An overview of segregation and integration, cultural and gender diversity in American history, from the 1600s through today.
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1619
| A year before the Mayflower, the first 20 African slaves are sold to settlers in Virginia as "indentured servants."
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1789
| The Constitution is adopted. Slaves are counted as 3/5 of a person for means of representation.
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1818
| African American slave, Molly Williams, is the first-known woman firefighter. Owned by a member of Oceanus Engine Company #11 in New York City, Williams helped the crew during blizzards.
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1831
| Nat Turner leads slave revolt in Virginia.
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1838
| Over 18,000 Cherokees are forcibly removed from their land and resettled west of the Mississippi.
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1848
| First Women's Rights Convention meeting in Seneca Falls, N.Y. Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposes a constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.
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1851
| Sojourner Truth, an African American woman, gave her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The Women's Rights Movement grew in large part out of the antislavery movement.
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1861
| The Civil War begins.
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1863
| President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declares "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free."
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1865
| The Civil War ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The Freedmen's Bureau is established to help former slaves. Ku Klux Klan forms in Tennessee. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, stating that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist".
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