Timeline

Early Days & Slavery (1400s - 1865)

1492: A black navigator, Pedro Alonso Niño, travels with Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the New World.

1619: A Dutch ship brings 20 African indentured servants to the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

Learn more - American Slavery
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1011259
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

Learn more - The Terrible Transformation
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/title.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1739: One of the earliest slave revolts takes place in Stono, South Carolina. A score of whites and more than twice as many blacks slaves are killed as the armed slaves try to flee to Florida.

Learn more - The Stono Rebellion
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p284.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1746: Lucy Terry, a slave, composes "Bars Fight," the first known poem by an African American. A description of an Indian raid on Terry's hometown in Massachusetts, the poem will be passed down orally and published in 1855.

Learn more - Lucy Terry Prince
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p15.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1758: The African Baptist or "Bluestone" Church is founded on the William Byrd plantation near the Bluestone River, in Mecklenburg, Virginia, becoming the first known black church in North America.

1770: Crispus Attucks, an escaped slave, becomes the first Colonial soldier to die for American independence when he is killed by the British in the Boston Massacre.

Learn more - Crispus Attucks
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2p24.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1773: The first book by an African American is published (in England) when Phillis Wheatley, then a slave, publishes "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral."

Learn more - Phillis Wheatley's Writings
http://www.pbs.org/ktca/litandlife/chapters/chapter1.html
From Literature and Life, PBS

1775: George Washington changes a previous policy and allows free blacks to enlist in the Continental Army. Approximately 5,000 do so. The British governor of Virginia promises freedom to slaves who enlist with the British.

Learn more - What the Revolution Meant for African Americans
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr4.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1776: A passage condemning the slave trade is removed from the Declaration of Independence due to pressure from the southern colonies. The northern states will, however, one by one outlaw slavery, in a very gradual process that will extend although the last will not do so until.

Learn more - Declarations of Independence
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2narr3.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1787: The U.S. Constitution is ratified. It provides for the continuation of the slave trade for another 20 years and required states to aid slaveholders in the recovery of fugitive slaves. It also stipulates that a slave counts as three-fifths of a man for purposes of determining representation in the House of Representatives.

Learn more - Slavery and Patriotism
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1125367
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - The Constitution
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h63.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1787: Free blacks in New York City found the African Free School, where future leaders Henry Highland Garnett and Alexander Crummell are educated.

1791: Benjamin Banneker publishes the first almanac by an African-American and is appointed by President George Washington to help survey Washington, D.C.

Learn more - Benjamin Banneker Profile
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h71.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1791: Slaves revolt in Haiti against the French rulers and slaveowners. Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave, leads them consistently to victory but is betrayed and captured in 1802. The revolt continues, and the independence of Haiti in is declared in 1804. Americans, particularly Southerners, are terrified by these events, which discourage the importation of slaves into the U.S. and probably hasten the end of the slave trade.

Learn more - Toussaint L'Ouverture
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h326.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1793: Congress passes the first Fugitive Slave Act, which makes it a crime to harbor an escaped slave.

Learn more - Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h62.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1793: Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, which makes cotton cultivation on a huge scale possible in the South and thus greatly increases the need for slaves, whose numbers skyrocket.

Learn more - Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h1522.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1794: Richard Allen founds in Philadelphia what would become the Mother Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, and Absalom Jones becomes the rector of the Saint Thomas African Episcopal Church.

Learn more - Richard Allen
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h474.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1800: Gabriel Prosser tries to organize the first large-scale slave revolt in the U.S., gathering more than 1,000 armed slaves in Virginia. The revolt fails, and Prosser and more than 35 other slaves are executed.

Learn more - Gabriel's Conspiracy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1576.html
From African's in America, PBS

1800: The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is founded in New York City.

Learn more - The Black Church
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=990510
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

1807: Congress bans the importation of slaves into the U.S. The law will be largely ignored in the South.

1809: The Abyssinian Baptist Church, New York City's oldest black church, is founded.

1815: African American businessman Paul Cuffe finances the settlement of 38 African Americans in Sierra Leone.

Learn more - Captain Paul Cuffee's Memoir
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h485.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1816: The U.S.'s first independent African American church denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church, is organized in Philadelphia. By 2002, it will have more than 3 million members.

Learn more - AME Church Elects Its First Female Bishop
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1076562
From All Things Considered, NPR

1821: The first black black theater company in the United States, the African Company, is founded in New York.

1822: Denmark Vesey, a freedman, plans a massive rebellion of thousands of slaves in Charlestown, South Carolina, but his plans are betrayed, and he and 34 others are hanged.

Learn more - Interview with David Robertson, Author of "Denmark Vesey"
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1064594
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - The Vesey Conspiracy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p2976.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1827: The first African American newspaper in the U.S., Freedom's Journal, is published in New York by John Brown Russwurm and Samuel Cornish.

Learn more - Freedom's Journal: A Newspaper Bio
http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/newbios/nwsppr/freedom/freedom.html
From The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords, PBS

1829: In his pamphlet "Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World," African American activist David Walker of Boston calls for a national slave rebellion.

Learn more - David Walker's Appeal
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931.html
From Africans in America

1831-1861: Approximately 75,000 slaves escape to the North and freedom using the Underground Railroad, a system in which free African American and white "conductors," abolitionists, and sympathizers guide, help, and shelter the escapees.

Learn more - Walking the Underground Railroad
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1008194
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

Learn more - The Underground Railroad
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/slavery/es_underground.html
From The Time of the Lincolns, PBS

1831: Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison starts to publish The Liberator, a fiercely anti-slavery newspaper, in Boston.

Learn more - The Liberator
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1831: Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia. Fifty-seven whites are killed, but Turner is eventually captured and executed.

Learn more - Discussion of 1831: Year of Eclipse
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1119113
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Nat Turner's Rebellion
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html
Nat Turner's Rebellion, PBS

1834: Henry Blair is the first African American to receive a patent, for a cotton-planting machine.

1839: Slaves being transported aboard the Spanish ship Amistad take it over and sail it to Long Island. They eventually win their freedom in a Supreme Court case.

Learn more - The New Amistad
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1072039
From All Things Considered, NPR

1845: Frederick Douglass publishes his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, an international bestseller.
Learn more - Frederick Douglass
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1539.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1849: Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She returns to the South and becomes one of the main "conductors" on the Underground Railroad, helping more than 300 slaves to escape.

Learn more - The Story of Harriet Tubman
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1141147
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Harriet Tubman
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1850: Congress passes another Fugitive Slave Act, which mandates government support for the capture of escaped slaves, and spurs widespread protest in the North.

Learn more - LINK: PBS The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1851: Freedwoman Sojourner Truth, a compelling speaker for abolitionism, gives her famous "Ain't I a Woman" speech in Akron, Ohio.

1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes her anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is an immediate bestseller and helps turn public opinion against the Fugitive Slave Act and slavery itself.

Learn more - Uncle Tom Cabin Reconsidered
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=860450
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Slave Narratives and Uncle Tom's Cabin
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2958.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1857: In the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court decides that African Americans are not citizens of the U.S., and that Congress has no power to restrict slavery in any federal territory. This meant that a slave who made it to a free state would still be considered a slave.

Learn more - What Dred Scott Meant for African Americans
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1137595
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Dred Scott's fight for freedom
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2932.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1859: Harriet Wilson publishes Our Nig; Or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, the first novel by an African American woman. The novel will be republished over a century later by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

1861: The Civil War begins when the Confederates attack Fort Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina. The war, fought over the issue of slavery, will rage for another four years. The Union's victory will mean the end of slavery in the U.S.

Learn more - The Civil War
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4narr5.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1863: President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation legally frees all slaves in the Confederacy.

Learn more - June-teenth Declared "African American Independence Day"
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1028889
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - The Emancipation Proclamation
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h1549.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1863: The Union's 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first African American regular army regiment, assaults Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina, losing half its men. The event is memorialized in the 1989 movie Glory. By the war's end, nearly 180,000 African American men will have served in the Union army. Some also served in the Confederate army - both freedmen and conscripted slaves.

Learn more - Morgan Freeman Discusses the 54th Mass. Regiment
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1137653
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - African American Soldiers
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/atwar/es_aaregiments.html
From The Time of the Lincolns, PBS

1863: Eight African American infantry regiments fight on the Union side in the Battle of Port Hudson, attacking heroically despite heavy losses to withering Confederate fire.

Learn more - African American Soldiers
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/atwar/es_aaregiments.html
From The Time of the Lincolns, PBS

1864: Captured African American Union troops are massacred in cold blood after Confederates take the Union-held Fort Pillow in Tennessee.

Learn more - Discussion of Like Men of War
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1001336
From Weekend Edition, NPR

Learn more - African American Soldiers
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/atwar/es_aaregiments.html
From The Time of the Lincolns, PBS

1865: Congress passes the Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery, and establishes the Freedmen's Bureau to assist former slaves. This is the beginning of the Reconstruction era.

Learn more - The Civil War and Emancipation
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2967.html
From Africans in America, PBS

1865: Union Gen. William T. Sherman issues a field order setting aside 40-acre plots of land --"40 acres and a mule" --in Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida for African Americans to settle.

1866: All-white legislatures in the former Confederate states pass the so-called "Black Codes," sharply curtailing African Americans' freedom and virtually re-enslaving them.

Building Democracy: 1866-1953

1866: Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, which confers citizenship on African Americans and grants them equal rights with whites.

1866: The white supremacist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan is founded in Tennessee.

Learn more - The KKK
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1137190
From Weekend Edition, NPR

1867: Five all-black colleges are founded: Howard University, Morgan State College, Talladega College, St. Augustine's College, and Johnson C. Smith College. There will be more than 100 predominantly black colleges by the middle of the next century.

Learn more - The Role of HBCUs
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1137846
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1867: Sculptor Edmonia Lewis sculpts her famous work "Forever Free," which shows an African American couple as they hear that slavery has ended.

Learn more - Edmonia Lewis: Testament to Bravery
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/edmonia_8-5.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1872:P.B.S. Pinchback, the first African American state governor (of Louisiana), is elected to the House of Representatives; the election is disputed. He will be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1873, with the election again disputed.

1873: Armed African Americans surround the county seat in Colfax, Louisiana, fearing whites will illegally overthrow the Republican government. About 300 African Americans are killed in the so-called Colfax Massacre.

1874: The Freedman's Savings and Trust Co., a bank for American-Africans which many thought was guaranteed by the U.S. government, fails and leaves a legacy of mistrust of white-run institutions.

Learn more - Genealogical Research Using the Freedman's Bank
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1119137
From All Things Considered, NPR

1879: Thousands of African Americans migrate from the South to the West to escape exploitation and oppression. Benjamin "Pap" Singleton, a former slave, is a leader of this "Exodus of '79."

Learn more - Profile of "Pap" Singleton
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/singleton.htm
From New Perspectives on the West, PBS

1880: Henry O. Flipper is the first African American to graduate from West Point. In 1889, he will write a book about his experiences, The Colored Cadet at West Point.

1881: Tennessee passes the first of the "Jim Crow" segregation laws, segregating state railroads. Other Southern states pass similar laws over the next 15 years.

Learn more - Sound Portrait of Segregation
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1139466
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1882: The Tuskegee Institute, an historic black university, is founded in Alabama to train African Americans as teachers and in agriculture and industry. Booker T. Washington is the first president.

1882: Black historian George Washington Williams publishes his History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880, the first comprehensive and objective history of African Americans.

1890: Mississippi enacts a poll tax, which most African Americans cannot afford to pay, to try to keep blacks from voting.

1890: Timothy Thomas Fortune, a freed slave and journalist, founds the National Afro-American League, considered a forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

1892: African American journalist Ida B. Wells begins a crusade to investigate the lynchings of African Americans after three of her friends are lynched in Tennessee.

Learn more - Book Discussion: The Lynching of Black America
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1140265
From Fresh Air, NPR

1893: African American physician Daniel Hale Williams performs the world's first successful open-heart surgery.

1895: African American intellectual spokesman Booker T. Washington gives his controversial "Atlanta Compromise" speech at the Cotton Exposition in Georgia, saying that African Americans should focus on economic advancement rather than political change.

Learn more - Profile of Booker T. Washington
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/peopleevents/p_washington.html
From American Experience: Marcus Garvey, PBS

1896: In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that segregated, or "separate but equal," public facilities for whites and blackAfrican-AmericanAfrican Americans are legal. The ruling stands until 1954.

1896: World-famous agricultural researcher George Washington Carver accepts an appointment at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver's research in farming techniques helps to revolutionize farming in America.

1896: Paul Lawrence Dunbar, known as the "poet laureate of the Negro race," publishes Lyrics of a Lowly Life, which contains some of his best and most famous verse.

1898: Robert "Bob" Cole produces "A Trip to Coontown," the first full-length musical written, directed, performed, and produced by African Americans, on Broadway.

1898: Louisiana tries to disenfranchise its African Americans by passing a "grandfather clause" limiting the right to vote to anyone whose fathers and grandfathers were qualified on January 1, 1867. (No African Americans had the right to vote at that time.)

1899: Pianist and composer Scott Joplin publishes "The Maple Leaf Rag," a major hit that helps popularize ragtime music.

1903: African American social scientist, critic and public intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois publishes The Souls Of Black Folk, which presents the "color line" as the major problem of the 20th century. In 1905 he will help found the Niagara Movement, demanding full equality for African Americans.

Learn more - The legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1011255
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

1903: Sarah Breedlove MacWilliams, better known as Madam C. J. Walker, starts an African American hair-care business in Denver and eventually becomes America's first self-made woman millionaire.

1903: Robert S. Abbott begins publishing The Chicago Defender, Chicago's first African American newspaper. Within a decade, it is one of the country's most influential African American weekly papers.

Learn more - The Chicago Defender Newspaper Bio
http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/
From The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords, PBS

1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is founded by a group of African American and white activists, including W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois is the only one of the seven African American activists to serve on the NAACP board.

Learn more - Interview with NAACP President Kwesi Mfume
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1138415
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - 1995 Newsmaker Interview with Kweisi Mfume
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/race_relations/mfume_speech_12-12.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1909: Black explorer Matthew Henson reaches the North Pole along with Admiral Robert Peary. They are the first men known to have reached the North Pole.

Learn more - Profile of Matthew Henson
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1050114
From Morning Edition, NPR

1910-1912: The Great Migration of southern African Americans to northern industrial towns gets underway. Millions of African Americans will have migrated North by the 1960s.

1911: The National Urban League is founded to help the many African Americans who are migrating to the cities find jobs and housing.

Learn more - Urban League's 2000 State of Black America Report
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1118088
From Morning Edition, NPR

1912: W. C. Handy, the so-called "Father of the Blues," publishes his song "Memphis Blues," which becomes a huge hit.

Learn more - Tennessee Blues and Gospel
http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e3-tennessee.html
From River of Song, PBS

1914: Black nationalist Marcus Garvey founds the Universal Negro Improvement Association in Jamaica, advocating black economic and political independence and the founding of a new homeland in Africa. The UNIA soon moves to the U.S.

Learn more - Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/
From American Experience, PBS

1917: Forty African Americans and eight whites are killed in race riots in East St. Louis, Ill., stirred up by white resentment of African Americans working in wartime industry.

Learn more - Marcus Garvey Speech on the East Saint Louis Riots
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/filmmore/ps_riots.html
From American Experience, PBS

1917: Organized by the NAACP, thousands of African Americans march down New York City's Fifth Avenue to protest racial violence and discrimination.

1919: During the so-called "Red Summer," scores of race riots across the country leave at least 100 people dead. These are again sparked by white resentment of African Americans working in industry, and their large-scale migration from South to North.

1919: Oscar Micheaux, a pioneering director-producer of "race movies," produces his first film, The Homesteader, based on his novel.

1920: Mamie Smith records the first blues record, "Crazy Blues," on the Okeh label. It is hugely successful.

1921: "Shuffle Along," with music by Eubie Blake, lyrics by Noble Sissle, and an all-black cast, opens on Broadway. It will become one of the greatest musical comedies in American history.

Learn more - Tribute to Eubie Blake
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1135429
From Fresh Air

1922: Claude McKay publishes a collection of his early poetry, Harlem Shadows. It will be considered one of the important early works of the Harlem Renaissance, a flowering of African-AmericanAfrican American literature and art.

Learn more - The Harlem Renaissance
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/cora/harlem.html
From ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater

1923: Blues diva Bessie Smith records "Down Hearted Blues," which becomes a phenomenal success, revives the dying Columbia Record Company, and earns her the title "Empress of the Blues."

Learn more - Bessie Smith Bio
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_smith_bessie.htm
From JAZZ, PBS

1925: A. Phillip Randolph organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first successful African American trade union.

Learn more - A. Philip Randolph for Jobs and Freedom
http://www.pbs.org/weta/apr/
From WETA, PBS

1925: Countee Cullen, considered one of the finest poets of the Harlem Renaissance, publishes his first collection of poems, Color.

Learn more - The Harlem Renaissance
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/americancollection/cora/harlem.html
From ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater, PBS

1925: Singer and dancer Josephine Baker performs in Paris in "La Revue Negre," and becomes one of the most popular entertainers in France.

Learn more - The Lady Was A Spy
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/apr/spies/index.html
From Morning Edition, NPR

1926: Jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong forms his "Hot Five" band. He will become a jazz legend and a cultural icon.

Learn more - Louis Armstrong's Biography
http://www.npr.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_armstrong_louis.html
From Jazz Profile, NPR

Learn more - Louis Armstrong Bio
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_armstrong_louis.htm
From JAZZ, PBS

1926: Langston Hughes publishes The Weary Blues, his first book of poetry. A pivotal force in the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes will go on to become one of the 20th century's most recognized American writers.

1927: Duke Ellington's jazz group "The Washingtonians" begins a five-year engagement at The Cotton Club in Harlem. Their performances, broadcast on radio, will lay the groundwork for Ellington's rise to national prominence.

1930: W. D. Fard founds the Nation of Islam, a religious movement based on African American separatism, in Detroit. After a few years, he turns the NOI over to follower Elijah Muhammad, who builds it into a major movement.

Learn more - The Nation of Islam's New Message
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1138304
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1931: Nine African American youths are accused of raping two white women, and tried for their lives and quickly convicted in Scottsboro, Alabama. The "Scottsboro Boys" case attracts national attention and will help fuel the civil rights movement.

Learn more - Interview with director of Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1075545
From Weekend Edition, NPR

Learn more - Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/scottsboro/
From American Experience, PBS

1932: The U.S. government begins a 40-year study in Tuskegee, Ala., on the effects of syphilis in 400 African American men, never telling the subjects they have the disease or offering any treatment. President Bill Clinton will apologize in 1997.

Learn more - The Tuskegee Syphilis Study
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/jul/tuskegee/index.html
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - An Apology 65 Years Late
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/may97/tuskegee_5-16.html
From The Online News Hour, PBS

1932: African American sculptor Augusta Savage establishes the Savage Studio of Arts and Crafts in New York, at the time the largest art center in the nation.

1935: Jazz pianist Count Basie forms a band that will become famous as Count Basie and His Orchestra, one of the foremost big bands of the swing era.

Learn more - Count Basie Bio
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_basie_count.htm
From JAZZ, PBS

1936: Track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in the Berlin Olympics, thwarting Adolf Hitler's plan to use the games to demonstrate "Aryan supremacy."

1937: Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston publishes her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, to great acclaim.

Learn more - Ten Plays by Zora Neale Hurston Discovered
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1116431
From Morning Edition, NPR

1937: Joe Louis becomes the heavyweight boxing champion of the world by defeating James J. Braddock.

1939: Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American actor to win an Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind.

Learn more - Hattie McDaniel Memorial
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1065831
From Morning Edition, NPR

1939: Singer Marian Anderson is denied permission by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing at their hall in Washington, D.C., because she is African American. Anderson performs at the Lincoln Memorial instead, before an audience of 75,000.

Learn more - Marian Anderson's Lincoln Memorial Concert
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1138217
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Marian Anderson Profile
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eleanor/peopleevents/pande06.html
From American Experience: Eleanor Roosevelt, PBS

1940: Richard Wright publishes Native Son, a fierce protest novel about race relations in America that becomes a major bestseller.

Learn more - Richard Wright
http://www.pbs.org/rwbb/rwtoc.html
From Black Boy, PBS

1940: Benjamin O. Davis, Sr., becomes the first African American general in the U.S. Army.

1940-1941: Painter Jacob Lawrence mounts a 60-painting exhibition, "Migration of the Negro," that depicts the migration of southern blacks to northern cities. The paintings will rank as among the greatest works in African American art.

Learn more - Profile of Jacob Lawrence
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1025296
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Remembering Jacob Lawrence
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/jan-june00/lawrence_6-13.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1941: The role of African Americans in the military expands as the U.S. enters World War II.

Learn more - One Nation, One Army
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec98/integration_7-31.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1941: The first training program for African American pilots is established at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Tuskegee Airmen serve heroically in World War II.

Learn more - Tuskegee Airmen Reunion
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=828381
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

1942: The interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is formed in Chicago. It will become famous for organizing the Freedom Rides of 1961.

Learn more - C.O.R.E. Reunion
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1067105
From All Things Considered, NPR

1943: Paul Robeson opens on Broadway in the title role in Shakespeare's "Othello," which will break records for number of consecutive performances.

Learn more - Paul Robeson Anniversary
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1122085
From Fresh Air, NPR

Learn more - Paul Robeson
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/robeson_p.html
From American Masters, PBS

1943: Singer Lena Horne and dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson appear in the all-black musical film Stormy Weather.

Learn more - Lena Horne
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/horne_l.html
From American Masters, PBS

1944: Writer Rayford Logan edits What the Negro Wants, an anthology of 14 essays by prominent African Americans demanding racial equality.

1945: Ebony, a magazine about African American life and achievements, is founded and becomes an instant success.

1945: Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, is elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he will serve 11 consecutive terms.

1947: Baseball great Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to break the color barrier and be allowed to play in the major leagues

Learn more - The Lords of Baseball, Revisited
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/apr/dodgers/
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Jackie Robinson: Golden Anniversary
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports/robinson_4-15.html
From the Online NewsHour, PBS

1948: President Truman issues an executive order that desegregates the military.

Learn more - Integration of the Army
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1010552
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

Learn more - One Nation, One Army
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-dec98/integration_7-31.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1950: Ralph J. Bunche wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.

Learn more - The Life of Ralph Bunche
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1138307
The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/ralphbunche/
A film by William Greaves, PBS

1950: Poet Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize, which she receives for her poetry collection Annie Allen.

Learn more - Gwendolyn Brooks Obituary
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1114982
From All Things Considered, NPR

1950: Juanita Hall is the first African American to win a Tony award, for her role as Bloody Mary in the musical "South Pacific."

1952: Ralph Ellison publishes his novel Invisible Man, which receives the National Book Award in 1953.

Learn more - Reflections on Invisible Man
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1141725
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Ralph Ellison
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ellison_r.html
From American Masters, PBS

Civil Rights Era (1954-1971)

1954: In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously against school segregation, overturning its 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.

Learn more - Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1537409
From All Things Considered, NPR

1955: Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white person, triggering a successful, year-long African American boycott of the bus system.

Learn more - The Life of Rosa Parks
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1081500
From Weekend Edition, NPR

1955: Musician Chuck Berry begins recording; his music will help shape rock-and-roll.

Learn more - Maybelline
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1076141
From NPR 100, NPR

1956: The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregation of Montgomery, Ala., buses is unconstitutional.

Learn more - The Montgomery Bus Boycott
/discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1048457
From Morning Edition, NPR

1957: The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., helps found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to work for full equality for African Americans.

Learn more - King Legacy
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1141088
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1957: For the first time since Reconstruction, the federal government uses the military to uphold African Americans' civil rights, as soldiers escort nine African American students to desegregate a school in Little Rock, Arkansas. Daisy Bates, an NAACP leader, advised and assisted the students and eventually had a state holiday dedicated to her.

Learn more - Little Rock Nine and Central High
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1028165
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Remembering Little Rock
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/race_relations/july-dec97/rock_9-25a.html
From The Online NewsHour, NPR

1957: Althea Gibson becomes the first African American tennis player to win a major title by winning both the women's singles and doubles championships at Wimbledon.

1957: African American ballet dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey founds the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, now world-renowned.

Learn more - Alvin Ailey Dance Theater
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1136318
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Alvin Ailey Bio
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/freetodance/biographies/ailey.html
From Free to Dance, PBS

1959: Lorraine Hansberry's "Raisin in the Sun" is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway.

Learn more - Raisin in the Sun Retrospective
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1139728
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Negro Ensemble Company
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/nec.html
From American Masters, PBS

1959: Great jazz trumpeter Miles Davis records "Kind of Blue," often considered his masteriece. The saxophonist on the album is another jazz giant, John Coltrane.

Learn more - Miles Davis's Kind of Blue
http://www.npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/archives/miles_kob.html
From NPR Jazz Profiles, NPR

Learn more - Miles Davis Bio
http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_davis_miles.htm
From JAZZ, PBS

1959: Motown Records is founded in Detroit, Mich. Motown will go on to feature such legendary artists as Michael Jackson, Gladys Knight, Lionel Ritchie and Queen Latifah.

Learn more - Profile of Motown Records Founder Berry Gordy
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1128297
From Fresh Air, NPR

1960: Four African American college students hold a sit-in to integrate a Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., launching a wave of similar protests across the South.

Learn more - Nashville 1960
http://www.pbs.org/weta/forcemorepowerful/nashville/
From A Force More Powerful, PBS

1961: The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) begins to organize Freedom Rides throughout the South to try to de-segregate interstate public bus travel.

Learn more - Freedom Rides Revisited
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1122864
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

1962: Basketball great Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in a single NBA game, setting a record that still stands.

Learn more - Remembering Wilt Chamberlain
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1065229
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - King of the Court
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/july-dec99/wilt_10-13.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1962: African American radical Malcolm X becomes national minister of the Nation of Islam. He rejects the nonviolent civil-rights movement and integration, and becomes a champion of African American separatism and black pride. At one point he states that equal rights should be secured "by any means necessary," a position he later revises.

Learn more - Malcolm X Papers
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=907072
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

1963: More than 200,000 people march on Washington, D.C., in the largest civil rights demonstration ever; Martin Luther King, Jr., gives his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Learn more - The Speeches of MLK
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/march40th/speeches.html
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - King's Legacy
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/february98/branch_2-2.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1963: Four African American girls are killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

Learn more - Birmingham Church Bombing Trial
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1122305
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Justice in Alabama
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june01/alabama2_05-02.html
From The Online News Hour, PBS

1963: Sidney Poitier becomes the first black actor to win an Oscar for Best Actor, for his role in Lilies of the Field.

Learn more - Sidney Poitier
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1125832
From Fresh Air, NPR

Learn more - Sidney Poitier
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/poitier_s.html
From American Masters, PBS

1963: Martin Luther King, Jr., writes his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," his famous statement about the civil rights movement.

1964: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), CORE and the NAACP and other civil-rights groups organize a massive African American voter registration drive in Mississippi known as "Freedom Summer." Three CORE civil rights workers are murdered. In the five years following Freedom Summer, black voter registration in Mississippi will rise from a mere 7 percent to 67 percent.

1964: Romare Bearden, considered perhaps the greatest modern African American artist, completes his African American -themed collage series "Projections."

1964: President Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act, which gives the federal government far-reaching powers to prosecute discrimination in employment, voting, and education.

1964: Martin Luther King, Jr. is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Learn more - Remembering the King
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1136372
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1964: Cassius Clay wins the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship. Shortly thereafter, he announces he has joined the Nation of Islam and taken the name Muhammad Ali.

Learn more - Interview with Muhammad Ali
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2001/dec/ali/011219.ali.html
From Morning Edition, NPR

1965: One year after splitting from the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X is assassinated in New York by gunmen affiliated with the NOI.

Learn more - The X Files
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1139857
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1965: King organizes a protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, for African American voting rights. A shocked nation watches on television as police club and teargas protesters.

Learn more - Selma Anniversary
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1071884
From All Things Considered, NPR

1965: In the wake of the Selma-Montgomery March, the Voting Rights Act is passed, outlawing the practices used in the South to disenfranchise African American voters

1965: Race riots break out in the Watts area of Los Angeles, leaving 34 dead and roughly a thousand hurt. The immediate trigger is the arrest of a young African American man charged ith reckless driving; the underlying cause is probably mass unemployment and poor living conditions among L.A,'s African Americans, combined with widespread racism.

1966: Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, calls for "black power" in a speech, ushering in a more militant civil rights stance.

Learn more - Remembering Stokely Carmichael
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1032841
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - A Huey P. Newton Story, PBS
http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/

1966: Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seales found the Black Panther Party, a radical black power group, in Oakland, California. Although it develops a reputation for militant rhetoric and clashes with the police, the group also becomes a national organization that supports food, education, and healthcare programs in poor African American communities.

Learn more - 35th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1128093
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

Learn more - A Huey P. Newton Story, PBS
http://www.pbs.org/hueypnewton/

1966: The holiday of Kwanzaa, based on African harvest festivals, is created in the U.S. by an activist scholar, Maulana Ron Karenga.

Learn more - Commentary on Kwanzaa
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1135364
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Interview with Maulana Karenga
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/race/interviews/karenga.html
From Frontline: The Two Nations of Black America, PBS

1967: Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American justice on the Supreme Court.

Learn more - Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1006607
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - American Revolutionary?
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/gergen/november98/gergen_11-3.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1963: Aretha Franklin records a series of hit singles, including her best-known song, "Respect." She will become known as the "Queen of Soul."

Learn more - Effect of Respect
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1114572
From Weekend Edition, NPR

Learn more - Aretha Franklin
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/franklin_a.html
From American Masters, PBS

1967: Edward W. Brooke becomes the first African American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction. He serves two terms as a Republican from Massachusetts.

1968: Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His murder sparks a week of rioting across the country.

Learn more - Martin Luther King, Jr. Investigation
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1010598
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

1968: Shirley Chisholm becomes the first African American woman to be elected to Congress.

1968: Tennis player Arthur Ashe is the first African American to win the U.S. Open.

Learn more - Arthur Ashe Stadium Dedication
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1027965
From Morning Edition, NPR

1969: Arthur Mitchell, an African American dancer with the New York City Ballet, founds the Dance Theatre of Harlem, the first African American classical dance company. It is now considered a cultural institution and a world-class company.

Learn more - What is Black Dance?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/freetodance/behind/behind_blackdance.html
Great Performances: Free to Dance, PBS

The African American business magazine Black Enterprise begins publication, aimed at the growing African American middle class.

Learn more - Interview with Black Enterprise Executive Editor Derek Dingle
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1139279
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1971: The Rev. Jesse Jackson founds Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity), an influential movement emphasizing blackAfrican-AmericanAfrican American economic advancement and education.

Learn more - The Pilgrimage of Jesse Jackson
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/jesse/
From Frontline, PBS

1971: Filmmaker/photographer Gordon Parks' "blaxploitation" film Shaft appears, to be followed by a wave of similarly themed movies.

Learn more - Shaft Commentary
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1075535
From All Things Considered, NPR

1971: Fifteen African American members of Congress form the Congressional Black Caucus to present a unified African American voice in Congress.

Learn more - Black Leadership After King
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1141087
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Modern Times (1972-Present)

1972: The Equal Employment Opportunity Act is passed, prohibiting job discrimination on the basis of, among other things, race, and laying the groundwork for affirmative action.

1972: Barbara Jordan (D-Texas) becomes the first African American woman from a Southern state to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She will serve three terms in Congress.

Learn more - International Women's Day
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1139531
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1974: Hank Aaron becomes the all-time leading hitter of home runs. Another African American baseball great, outfielder Reggie Jackson, sets records in several World Series in the 70s.

Learn more - Interview with Hank Aaron
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=827408
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1975: The Jeffersons, one of the first sitcoms about an African American family, premiers on television. It will run for 10 years and will become one of television's longest running and most watched sitcoms.

1976: Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his novel Roots. The next year, made into a mini-series, Roots will be one of the most popular shows in the history of television.

Learn more - Roots 25th Anniversary
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1136874
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1977: Andrew Young becomes the first African American person to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Learn more - Interview with Andrew Young
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1011118
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

1978: In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court rules against universities using fixed racial quotas in making admissions decisions, a challenge to affirmative action.

1979: The song "Rapper's Delight," by the Sugar Hill Gang, helps bring rap to national prominence.

Learn more - Rapper's Delight
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1116242
From Morning Edition, NPR

1980: Nineteen-year-old artist Jean-Michel Basquiat wins critical and art-community acclaim for a collection of his paintings shown in a Manhattan exhibition of underground artists.

1982: Singer Michael Jackson's album Thriller becomes one of the best-selling albums of all time.

1983: Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple wins the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

1983: Astronaut Guion "Guy" S. Bluford, Jr., becomes the first African American in space, flying aboard the space shuttle Challenger.

1983: Vanessa Williams becomes the first African American Miss America.

Learn more - Breaking the Color Line at the Pageant
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/missamerica/peopleevents/e_inclusion.html
From American Experience: Miss America, PBS

1983: Harold Washington is elected the first African American mayor of Chicago.

Learn more - Legacy of Harold Washington
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1010924
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

1984: Jesse Jackson is the first African American man to make a serious bid for the U.S. presidency, vying for the Democratic Party nomination. He will try again in 1988 but lose to Michael Dukakis.

Learn more - Interview with Jesse Jackson
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1307749
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Jesse Jackson: The Decision to Run for President
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/jesse/impressions/decision84.html
From Frontline, PBS

1984: The Cosby Show, starring African American comedian Bill Cosby, premieres on television. It will become one of the most popular sit-coms in history. It also departs from what had been the usual negative stereotyping of African Americans on TV by showing an upper-middle-class, professional, well-educated family.

Learn more - Interview with Bill Cosby
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1132164
From Morning Edition, NPR

1985: The Philadelphia State Police bomb a house in Philadelphia occupied by an African American activist organization, MOVE. The bombing kills 11 occupants of the house and triggers a fire that destroys a neighborhood and leaves over 300 people homeless.

1986: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday is made into a national holiday.

Learn more - King Legacy
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1141088
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1986: Spike Lee's film She's Gotta Have It wins him the best new director award at the ultra-prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Learn more - Spike Lee's Book for Kids
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=849746
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1986: Ronald McNair, a mission specialist with NASA, dies on board the space shuttle Challenger, which explodes 73 seconds after liftoff.

1987: Reginald Lewis becomes the first African American to own a business with sales over $1 billion, by taking over Beatrice International Food Company.

1987: Earvin "Magic" Johnson is named the National Basketball Association's Most Valuable Player. He retires from the L.A. Lakers when he learns that he has contracted the HIV virus.

Learn more - Bebe Moore Campbell on Magic Johnson
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1112262
From Morning Edition, NPR

1988: Pope John Paul II appoints Eugene A. Marino, S.S.J. as archbishop of Atlanta. Archbishop Marino becomes the first African American Catholic archbishop in the United States.

1989: General Colin L. Powell is the first African American to be named chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the U.S. military.

Learn more - Powell's Track Record
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1115616
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Colin Powell
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/inauguration/transition/powell.html
From the Online NewsHour, PBS

1989: Oprah Winfrey, the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated (and wildly popular) talk show, founds Harpo Productions to produce her own movies and TV shows. In 2000, Forbes magazine will estimate Winfrey's earnings at $150 million.

Learn more - Review of O
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1073255
From Weekend Edition, NPR

1989: Ron Brown becomes the first African American person to head a major national political party, as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. President Bill Clinton will later make him Secretary of Commerce. Brown will be killed in a plane crash in 1996.

Learn more - Ron Brown Profile
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1042951
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Remembering Ron Brown
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/brown_4-03.html
From the Online NewsHour, PBS

1989: David Dinkins becomes the first African American mayor of New York City, and Douglas Wilder becomes the first African American state governor since Reconstruction by being elected in Virginia.

1989: Sculptor Martin Puryear is the sole artist from the United States chosen for the Sao Paulo Bienal in Brazil and is awarded the exhibition's grand prize.

1990: August Wilson wins a Pulitzer Prize for his play The Piano Lesson. He won his first Pulitzer in 1987 for Fences.

Learn more - August Wilson's "Jitney"
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1000457
From Weekend Edition, NPR

1990: The U.S. Census reveals an increase in the African American population to 12 percent of the total U.S. population, with over 50 percent of all African Americans still residing in southern states.

1991: Following the retirement of Thurgood Marshall, Judge Clarence Thomas is nominated by President George Bush to the Supreme Court. His nomination is highly contested, after former employee Anita Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, testifies that Thomas had repeatedly sexually harassed her. Despite the charges, aired during nationally televised hearings,the Senate confirms Thomas's appointment.

Learn more - David Brock Retraction
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1125288
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Judging the Judge
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/july-dec98/thomas_7-29.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1991: The Civil Rights Act of 1991 makes it easier for employees to sue their employers for job discrimination.

1991: Black Entertainment Television (BET) Holdings, Inc., founded by Robert L. Johnson, becomes the first African American company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Learn more - Bob Johnson Profile
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1114768
From All Things Considered, NPR

1992: Rioting in Los Angeles follows the acquittal of four white policemen caught on videotape beating African American motorist Rodney King.

Learn more - Official Negligence
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/authors_corner/jan-june98/cannon_4-7.html
Online NewsHour, PBS

1992: Carol Mosely-Braun (D-IL) becomes the first female African American U.S. senator.

Learn more - Interview with Carol Mosley-Braun
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1140570
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

1992: John Singleton is the first African American, and the youngest director ever, to be nominated for a best new director Oscar, for his film Boyz N the Hood.

1992: W. Lincoln Hawkins, Ph.D., wins the National Medal of Technology. During his lifetime, he secured over 140 patents. He helped make universal telephone service available through his work as the first African American scientist at Bell Labs.

1993: Mae Jemison becomes the first African American woman in space as part of the crew of the space shuttle Endeavour.

Learn more - Interview with Mae Jemison
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1140627
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Interview with Mae Jamison
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec99/apollo_7-20.html
From Online NewsHour, PBS

1993: Poet Rita Dove becomes the first African American poet laureate of the United States.

Learn more - A Conversation with Rita Dove
http://www.npr.org/programs/anthem/bios/vchambers.bio.html
From Anthem, NPR

1993: Author Toni Morrison is the first African American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Learn more - Interview with Toni Morrison
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june98/morrison_3-9.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1993: Dr. Jocelyn Elders becomes the first African American woman to serve as Surgeon General.

1994: Former football player O.J. Simpson is charged with the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman. He will be acquitted in 1995 after a hugely controversial trial.

Learn more - Questions on Race
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1040480
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Analysis of the Simpson Verdicts
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/february97/simp_2-5.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1994: The Florida legislature agrees to compensate survivors of a 1923 incident in which a white mob destroyed the African American town of Rosewood, located on the Gulf Coast.

Learn more - Remembering Rosewood
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1003164
From Weekend Edition, NPR

1995: Minister Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, organizes the Million Man March of African American men in Washington, D.C.

Learn more - On the Mall A Year Ago
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1045198
From All Things Considered, NPR

1996: AIDS is found to be the leading cause of death among African American women aged 25-44.

1996: Texaco settles a racial discrimination suit for $176 million. The case was initially filed by six African American Texaco employees who charged they had been denied promotion and pay increases because of their race; it later grew to cover 1,400 employees.

Learn more - Texaco Suit
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1041294
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Issues of Race
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/november96/texaco_11-12.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1996: Amid growing racial tension in the South, nearly 40 primarily African American churches are burned there.

Learn more - After a Church Burns
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1043960
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Forgotten Fires
http://www.pbs.org/forgottenfires/
From Independent Television Service, PBS

1997: Basketball star Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls win their fifth NBA championship.

Learn more - Michael Jordan, Icon
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1023323
From Morning Edition, NPR

1997: Haitian immigrant Abner Louima is beaten and sodomized with a broomstick by officers while in New York City Police Department custody, causing a national outcry. In 2002, a federal court will overturn the conviction of the three NYPD officers.

Learn more - Louima Case
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1141149
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Convictions in NYC Police Torture Case Overturned
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/february02/louima_2-28.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1997: A California court upholds the constitutionality of Proposition 209, which outlaws state affirmative action programs.

Learn more - Proposition 209
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1010794
From Talk of the Nation, NPR

1997: Tiger Woods becomes the first African American to win the Masters tournament, as well as the youngest golfer ever to do so.

Learn more - Tiger Woods
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1039950
From All Things Considered, NPR

1998: DNA evidence reveals that Thomas Jefferson probably fathered a child with Sally Hemings, one of his slaves.

Learn more - Bebe Moore Campbell on Sally Hemings
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1023479
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Thomas Jefferson's Legacy
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white_house/july-dec98/jefferson_11-2.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1998: J.C. Watts, a Congressman from Oklahoma, becomes the first African American to be elected to a position of leadership in the Republican Party.

1999: Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African American man, is mistakenly shot and killed by four white policemen in New York City, raising a national furor.

Learn more - Diallo Case
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1117897
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - After the Verdict
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/jan-june00/diallo_3-3.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

1999: A group of African American farmers wins a suit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture for discriminating against them in giving out loans and subsidies.

Learn more - Government Settles with African-American Farmers
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1023227
From Morning Edition, NPR

Learn more - Homecoming
http://www.pbs.org/homecoming/
A chronicle of African American land loss, PBS

2000: After a massive protest rally and NAACP boycott, the governor of South Carolina has a Confederate flag on top of the statehouse dome moved to a less conspicuous place.

Learn more - Confederate Flag Debate
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1072406
From Morning Edition, NPR

2000: Venus Williams wins the singles title at Wimbledon, becoming the first African American woman to do so since Althea Gibson in 1958.

Learn more - Venus Wins
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1076389
From Weekend All Things Considered, NPR

2000: In the largest settlement ever in a U.S. racial discrimination suit, the Coca-Cola Company agrees to pay out $192.5 million to roughly 2,000 African American employees.

Learn more - Discrimination Lawsuit
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1072193
From Morning Edition, NPR

2001: General Colin L. Powell is appointed Secretary of State by President George W. Bush.

Learn more - Powell Hearings
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1117182
From All Things Considered, NPR

Learn more - Newsmaker: Colin Powell
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june02/powell_1-25.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

2002: Halle Berry becomes the first African American woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress, for her performance in Monster's Ball.

Learn more - Interview with Halle Berry
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1139471
From The Tavis Smiley Show, NPR

Learn more - Making History
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june02/oscars_3-25.html
From The Online NewsHour, PBS

2002: The Slavery Reparations Coordinating Committee, led by prominent African American lawyers and activists, announces plans to sue companies that profited from slavery.

Learn more - Debate on Reparations
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1128086
From Morning Edition, NPR

Thirteen/WNET PBS 2002 Educational Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
African American World