Thursday, February 19, 2009

The Race Issue: Important Dates in American History

1619 A defining year for Africans and persons of color in America; it was the first of many years that they were brought to this continent. The flood of slaves poured into Virginia and spread rapidly through many of the original colonies that would eventually form the United States of America. Initially slavery was a minority to the much better established system of indentured servitude. Indentured servitude was more widespread as a means for people without the ability to travel to this country over here on someone’s financial backing. Virginia law in the early 1700’s stated that slaves could only be imported from non-Christian countries.

1773 Phillis Wheatley’s book Poems of Various Subjects and Moral was published. This book was the first published work of an African American and Phillis attained much fame for her works. She ended up staying with her slave holding family even after they emancipated her until the untimely death of the head of the household which cause her to be cast out. Phillis Wheatley died writing her second book which was never published.
1808 Congress banned slave importation from Africa, but not the trade within America. This would make slaves much more sough after and laws controlling them more imperative than ever. In the congressional records found in section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, it states that Congress would not be able to prohibit the importation of slaves before 1808, but would be able to tax them. This helped to counter Southern fears that Congress' power to regulate commerce would be used to abolish slavery entirely. This provision could not be changed by amendment, thus, giving the slave trade a 20 year reprieve.

1820 The Missouri Compromise was passed; it was a way for pro and anti slavery groups to come to an agreement on the future of slavery. The Compromise now banned slavery in the previously known Louisiana territory, and north of map coordinates 36 degrees latitude and 30 degrees longitude. With the exception of the state of Missouri which was undecided at this point. The bill went through many versions due to political agendas and social problems, but was eventually accepted. Although history shows us that this is just a stop gap before the inevitable civil war.

1831 The controversial slave uprising of Nat Turner. Turner was an enslaved African American preacher who gathered a following of fellow slaves and on August 21st he began his rebellion. The uprising itself lasted not even 48 hours but in that time Turner and his gang of freed slaves massacred 60 white people, men, women and children. Turner was found soon after the rebelling, tried and convicted; then hung, his body publically mutilated, and then quartered by an angry white mob. The social fallout from this event was stricter and harsher laws against slaves and evidence shows that many salves where in fact killed or tortured even if they were not involved just because the white people in the areas surrounding the massacre site wanted revenge.

1846 Frederick Douglas came into the spot light by launching his abolitionist newspaper. Douglas was a known equal rights fighter; he didn’t just stand for black rights, but the right of anyone who was being mistreated by the system. He is quoted for saying, "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." Showing how true he really felt about helping anyone who was oppressed. Douglas was a slave himself, but on September 3rd 1838 he was able to escape North with the help of a black sailor. He wasted little time and travelled and became a well known abolitionist, and author. Until his death he fought for rights of all people.


1849 One of the most notable contributors to the underground railroad Harriet Tubman escape from slavery. Tubman was an active abolitionist and is recorded to have made 13 successful missions into the slave hostile south to recover other slaves left behind. Tubman is also known for her active recruitment for John Brown and his raid at Harper’s Ferry. All through her life she was involved in rights movements for African Americans and women.

1852 Uncle Tom's Cabin was published by Harriet Beecher Stowe. This book became “one of the most influential works to stir anti-slavery sentiments” (Brunner).

1860s Eleven southern states formed the Confederacy.

1861 Began the start of the Civil war between the Northern states (the Union) and the Southern states (now the Confederacy), known as the “war between the states.”

1863 Under Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation was issued which “declared ‘that all persons held as slaves’ within the Confederate states ‘are, and henceforward shall be free” (Brunner).

1865 The Civil war finally comes to an end. Shortly after this, on April 14th, President Lincoln was assassinated. Later on in May of 1865 the Ku Klux Klan was formed in relation to the Civil war and was an attempt to “maintain ‘white supremacy’” (Brunner). One thing the Klan was successful at was “systematically keeping black men away from polls, so that the ex-Confederates gained political control in many states” (Brunner). By June slavery had officially ended when slaves in Texas received the information that the Civil war had ended. December of 1865 ended with the ratification of the Thirteenth amendment which prohibited slavery. The Fourteenth amendment was ratified which “defined citizenship” followed by the Fifteenth amendment in 1870 which gave blacks the right to vote.

1869 Howard University became the first law school in the country to allow blacks.

1881 Spelman College was founded for black women in the country.

1896 The case Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that “racial segregation is constitutional” (Brunner). This ruling made way for the Jim Crow laws which made segregation between blacks and whites legal.

1909 W.E.B. Du Bois was an active leader who believed in equality for African Americans. He founded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People otherwise known as NAACP. Marcus Garvey was another man interested in equality among blacks and he initiated the Universal Negro Improvement Association which was an “influential black nationalist organization ‘to promote the spirit of race and pride’ and create a sense of worldwide unity among blacks” (Brunner).

1920s end with the Harlem Renaissance which is a movement centralized in the Harlem district of New York. This was a time period when the art and literature of African Americans became prominent and expanded vastly. This is when jazz became an increasingly evident and an important part of African American culture.
1952 Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam. Over the next several years his influence increases until he is one of the two most powerful members of the Black Muslims, a black national and separatists movements. The Nation of Islam contends that only blacks can resolve the problems of blacks.
1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans declares that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional.

1955 Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the "colored section" of a bus to a white passenger. In response to her arrest, Montgomery's black community launch a successful year-long bus boycott, which leads to the desegregation of Montgomery buses in 1956.

1957 Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), a civil rights group. “The Little Rock Nine” are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. Federal troops and the National Guard are called to intervene on behalf of the students.

1960 “The Greensboro four” in begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, but are served lunch at the same Woolworth's counter six months later. The event triggers many similar nonviolent protests throughout the South.

1961 Freedom Riders” attacked while taking bus trips through the South to test out new laws that prohibit segregation in interstate travel facilities, which includes bus and railway stations. The group consisted of student volunteers that was sponsored by The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

1963 After being arrested and jailed during anti- segregation protests, Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

1964 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act. This was the most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. It prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin (July 2). The bodies of three civil-rights workers are found. Murdered by the KKK, James E. Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner had been working to register black voters in Mississippi (Aug.). Martin Luther King receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

1965 Malcolm X was the Black Nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was also assassinated during this year.

1966 The Black Panthers are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.

1967 President Johnson appoints Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court. He was the first black Supreme Court Justice. The Supreme Court rules in Loving v. Virginia that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional. Sixteen states still have anti-miscegenation laws and are forced to revise them.

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

1972 The infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiment ends. Begun in 1932, the U.S. Public Health Service's 40-year experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis has been described as an experiment that "used human beings as laboratory animals in a long and inefficient study of how long it takes syphilis to kill someone."

1992 The first race riots in decades erupt in south-central Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African-American Rodney King (April 29).


2008 Sen. Barack Obama, Democrat from Chicago, becomes the first African American to be nominated as a major party nominee for president. On November 4, Barack Obama, becomes the first African American to be elected president of the United States, defeating Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain. 2009 Barack Obama Democrat from Chicago, becomes the first African-American president and the country's 44th president. On February 2, the U.S. Senate confirms, with a vote of 75 to 21, Eric H. Holder, Jr., as Attorney General of the United States. Holder is the first African American to serve as Attorney General.

Works Cited

Brunner, Borgna. African-American History Timeline. InfoPlease. 12 Feb. 2009. <http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmtimeline.html>.

Phillis Wheatley <http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/02/africanamericana/source/3.htm>.

Uncle Tom’s Cabin <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/jun05.html>.

Ku Klux Klan <http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/Politics/pages/KKK-endorses-Biden-for-2012-reelection-Scrape-TV-The-World-on-your-side.html>.

Harlem Renaissance <http://www.freewebs.com/madamewalker/theharlemrenaissance.htm>.

Youtube <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2p_5XoP1Fg&feature=related>.

Frederick Douglass <http://blog.thecurseof1920.com/?p=66>.

Malcolm X <http://www.fvhuskers.com/trivia.html>.

Rosa Parks. <http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/photocredit/achievers/par0003>.

Barack Obama. <http://dimpost.wordpress.com/2008/08/>.

Posted By: Rachel Kohler, Matt Barrick, Charlene Winburn and Marie Green

7 comments:

  1. BONUS...


    Reading this you get much more of a clear picture on when the laws were changed and how long it took for them to go into effect.In 1820 slavery is considered illegal but not until 1863 slaves are declared free in which they take advantage of this right. The definition of freedom is hazy. Is it really freedom if there is a seperate but equal law? Is seperation the same thing as equality? Another law that took many years to actually go into effect is suffrage for African Americans(this included men only while even white women were barely able or willing to vote at this time). I think it took so long for this to go into effect because it had to be enforced and the enforcers were only human, right? These men were predecessors of their time and obviously, most were not ready or in agreement to this change. While change is inevitable throught every major change in history we see a certain resistance to it. Most police officers were white which made this law even harder to enforce. I could go on and on because this blog brings up so many important events of our past that students do not learn enough about today in our education system.

    Andrea Smith

    ReplyDelete
  2. Simple,I love this post. it does so much to explain and show the upcoming of race in the literature that we are reading, along with the history of race within literature. I love how it ends with an author/ president we can all relate to. His accomplishments bring the post together by showing that the laws, even though may have taken time have made a change.Although there is still a lot of discrimination and racial profiling that the light isn't always shed on, with this blog it spot lights those unheared of things.

    Mia Berman

    ReplyDelete
  3. :bonus:

    This is a great post. The use of media truly compliments the ideas that are posed and helped me want to read more. It was interesting to read some of the things that were going on during the times when the books we have been reading were written. It gives a background as to why these books were written the way they were.

    As an education major, I have talked a lot about W.E.B. DuBois as well as Booker T. Washington. Both of these men wanted to eliminate racism, segregation and racism. If we did not have people such as this our world would not be the same. The history of our whole comes from the history of individuals, what people believe and what they do because of who they are.

    Lindsey S.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bonus:


    I think that this blog did a great job at clearing up the time line pertaining to the laws surrounding slavery and freedoms. Before I read this I was unclear as the the exact scope of how long apart the laws actually were. I agree with Andrea when she said that it was very hard to enforce the laws because the vast majority if not all of the police force back then was white. It just goes to show that it takes more than the lawmakers to change a law.

    I think the extensive use of media in this blog was very effective at conveying the message. I also really like how the blog not only explained the past and how we got to where we are today, but it also talked about the history up until the recent future.

    Clayton Mandly

    ReplyDelete
  5. **BONUS**

    WOW, what a great blog posting. I can tell that this group put a lot of hard work and effort into this. I think your use of media was an effective way to show the history of race and how our society has changed. I loved that you found information that dealt with political issues, as well as entertainment and education. You have made learning and studying the history of race easy and fun. Great Job!!

    Sarah Burns

    ReplyDelete
  6. I wholeheartedly agree with your classmates: Excellent posting! Informative, astute, compelling. I really admire that you tackled this project from the large "plot points" to the smaller ones. And I'm really pleased that you brought your time line up to to most significant event in our lifetimes, perhaps, the election of the first black president.

    Until reading this posting, I had all but forgotten The infamous Tuskegee Syphilis experiment. This just goes to show just how recently horrific "crimes" were being committed against those of minority status. Looking through your listing, it is curious--as someone pointed out--that these events are not all reported in high-school history classes!

    Excellent work, excellent post. I'm impressed with the depth and scope of this project.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bonus/ Quiz Grade

    Overall I thought this was an excellent blog post and also one of the best. This blog was so in depth and thought out. Personally I am glad that I was not assigned to this posting because there is so much important history that I would have been afraid that I would miss something. I also agree with Sarah Burns when she said that she liked how the post not only focused on political issues, but entertainment and education as well. Great Job!

    Clayton Mandly

    ReplyDelete