The History That Continues ...
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To Navigate the Timeline:
Hover your mouse above any box to expand for more information. The point on the shrunken box is a point that stood out in creating the timeline, or a piece of information we feel is important to highlight when following this evolution of time. To exit the expanded section, scroll your mouse away from the box and you will be brought back to view of multiple timeline points.
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Key:
Yellow - American Indian (Yellow represents willingness to fight to the death, intellect, dawn, and heroism in American Indian culture)
Green - Black American (Green symbolizes Africa's rich greenery and other natural resources)
Purple Name - Click to be directed to "Well Kept Secrets of History" to see more of their story
Highlighted Text - Exceptionally relevant / eye-opening points
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References:
Click here for full list of references
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1960: Four Black students from the Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina, sat down at the lunch counter in a local branch of Woolworth’s and ordered coffee. The Greensboro sit-ins sparked a movement that spread quickly to college towns throughout the South and into the North, as young Black and white people engaged in various forms of peaceful protest against segregation in libraries, on beaches, in hotels, and other establishments.
1961: President John Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and mandated that federally funded projects take "affirmative action" to ensure that hiring and employment practices were free of racial bias.
National Congress of American Indians helped plan the American Indian Chicago Conference, which resulted in a “Declaration of Indian Purpose”. This was delivered to President Kennedy, which later resulted in tribal specific policies included in Johnsons “Great Society” programs to eliminate poverty and racial injustice.
1962: University of Mississippi admitted a Black man, James Meredith, fueling anger through many. Meredith was denied admission to the university twice, and he then filed a lawsuit alleging that the university had discriminated against him because of his race. September 1962: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Meredith’s favor, and on October 2 he officially became the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi.
1960 - 1962
1962 University of Mississippi admitted a Black man, James Meredith, fueling anger through many. Meredith was denied admission to the university twice, and he then filed a lawsuit alleging that the university had discriminated against him because of his race.
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1934: A new approach was undertaken during the New Deal, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which ended allotment, banned further sale of American Indian land, and returned some lands to the tribes.
1935: When a Harlem shopkeeper thought he saw a teen pocket a 10-cent penknife, he tackled the boy to the ground and a police officer nearby arrested him. Protests erupted outside the store as neighbors and passersby suspected the officer was abusing the boy. The resulting riots lasted two days. Three people were killed and 75 people were arrested.
1935: Web Du Bois was the first African American to earn a doctorate at Harvard University and was a founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Du Bois wrote The Psychological Wage of Whiteness on black reconstruction, arguing that white workers gained a psychological wage from racism, pushing them further from forming a coalition between white and black workers.
1941: During World War II, many Black Americans were ready to fight for freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. More than 3 million Black Americans would register for service during the war, and enlisted Black and white people were organized into separate units.
1934 - 1941
1941 During World War II, many Black Americans were ready to fight for freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. More than 3 million Black Americans would register for service during the war, and enlisted Black and white people were organized into separate units.
1965: The Voting Rights Act was passed, outlawing the practices used in the South to disenfranchise African American voters.
1967: Edward W. Brooke becomes the first African American U.S. Senator since Reconstruction. He serves two terms as a Senator from Massachusetts.
1968: The world was stunned and saddened by the news that the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support a sanitation workers’ strike. Many Black people saw the killing as a rejection of their efforts for equality through the nonviolent resistance he had championed. In more than 100 cities, several days of riots, burning, and looting followed his death.
July 1968: Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt founded the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis, with Vernon George Mitchell. Originally an urban-focused movement formed in response to police brutality and racial profiling, AIM grew rapidly in the 1970s to become the driving force behind the Indigenous civil rights movement.
1965 - 1968
April 4, 1968, the world was stunned and saddened by the news that the civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed on the balcony of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had gone to support a sanitation workers’ strike.
1816 April 9: The African Methodist Episcopal Church was the first all-black religious denomination in the United States, and Richard Allen was named its first bishop.
1817 On July 8: the Turkeytown Treaty was concluded between the Cherokee and representatives of the United States. Though sixty-seven chiefs signed the document, a majority of the tribal nation opposed it. Those removed to Arkansas Territory are known as “Old Settlers.”
1819: The Kickapoo (originally from Wisconsin) sign a treaty removing them from Illinois to Missouri
1820 March 3: The Missouri Compromise was approved by Congress. Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state, Maine entered as a free state, and slavery was prohibited in western territories north of Missouri's southern border.
The Treaty of Doak’s Stand was the first of the removal treaties involving the Choctaws of Mississippi. A portion of the Choctaw Nation was removed to the southwest Arkansas Territory. Delaware was removed from Indiana.
1823: In the US Supreme Court case Johnson v. McIntosh, Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in the unanimous decision held “that the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands.” American Indians had only a right of occupancy, which could be abolished. That document essentially gave European Christians the right to invade and dispossess any non-Christian populations that might be inconveniently in possession of desirable territory
1816 - 1819
1817 On July 8 the Turkeytown Treaty was concluded between the Cherokee and representatives of the United States. Though sixty-seven chiefs signed the document, a majority of the tribal nation opposed it. Those removed to Arkansas Territory are known as “Old Settlers.”
1816 - 1820
1906: The Antiquities Act was passed, which declared that Indian bones and objects found on federal land were the property of the United States.
1907 January 29: Congress established the State of Oklahoma by merging Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. The former Indian Territory was then opened to additional non-Indian settlement. Charles Curtis became the first American Indian U.S. Senator.
1916 In Utah, the U.S. government took land from the Indians for the rights to oil shale reserves. It wouldn’t be until 2000 that 84,000 acres were given back.
1918 September: Choctaw soldiers use their native language to transmit secret messages for U.S. troops during World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive on the Western Front. During World War I, many American Indians from around 26 tribes fought on the Allies' side. On Oct. 26, 1918, Choctaw soldiers were stationed as code talkers at field company headquarters. The Choctaw language was largely unknown to German troops, and the Allies were finally at an advantage.
1906 - 1918
1906 – The Antiquities Act was passed, which declared that Indian bones and objects found on federal land were the property of the United States.
1808 January 1: The Act to Prohibit the Importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States went into effect. However, internal slave trading in the South remained, and there were an estimated 50,000 slaves illegally brought into the United States after this ban. With the millions of already enslaved people, thousands being illegally brought in, and children of slaves becoming enslaved, the slave population grew.
1811 November: U.S. forces attack American Indian War Chief Tecumseh and his younger brother Lalawethika. Their community is destroyed.
1812 June 18: President James Madison signs a declaration of war against Britain, beginning the war between U.S. forces and the British, French, and American Indians over independence and territory expansion.
1814 March 27: Andrew Jackson, along with U.S. forces and American Indian allies attack Creek Indians who opposed American expansion and encroachment of their territory in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The Creeks cede more than 20 million acres of land after their loss.
1808 - 1814
1808 January 1 The Act to Prohibit the Importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States went into effect. However, internal slave trading in the South remained, and there were an estimated 50,000 slaves illegally brought into the United States after this ban.
1808 - 1814
1492: Christopher Colombus makes his first voyage to the new world opening a vast new empire for plantation slavery. During his voyages through the Caribbean islands and the Central and South American coasts, Columbus came upon indigenous people whom he labeled “Indians.” Columbus and his men enslaved many of these native people and treated them with extreme violence. The population occupying this land before Columbus's arrival were not immune to diseases such as smallpox, measles, and influenza, which were brought to their island of Hispaniola by Columbus and his men. There were between 5 million and 15 million Indigenous people living in North America in 1492. By the late 1800s, there were fewer than 238,000 left due to violence and disease.
1494: The first Africans arrived in Hispaniola with Christopher Columbus. They are free persons Africans in the New World
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1400s
There were between 5 million and 15 million Indigenous people living in North America in 1492. By the late 1800s, there were fewer than 238,000 left due to violence and disease.
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1500s
1518 King Charles 1 of Spain granted the first licenses to import enslaved Africans to the Americas. The first shipload of enslaved Africans directly from Africa arrived in the West Indies. Before this time Africans were brought first to Europe
1501: The Spanish King allows the introduction of enslaved Africans into Spain's American colonies
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1513: 30 Africans accompany Vasco Nunez de Balboa on his trip to the Pacific Ocean
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1517: Bishop Bartholomew De La Casas petitioned Spain to allow the importation of 12 enslaved Africans for each household immigrating to America's Spanish colonies. De La Casas later regrets his actions and becomes an opponent of slavery
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1518: King Charles 1 of Spain granted the first licenses to import enslaved Africans to the Americas. The first shipload of enslaved Africans directly from Africa arrived in the West Indies before this time Africans were brought first to Europe
February 1521: Ponce de Leon departs on another voyage to Florida from San Juan to start a colony. Months after landing, Ponce de Leon is attacked by local American Indians and fatally wounded.
May 1539: Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto lands in Florida to conquer the region. He explores the South under the guidance of American Indians who had been captured along the way.
October 1540: De Soto and the Spaniards plan to rendezvous with ships in Alabama when they’re attacked by American Indians. Hundreds of American Indians are killed in the ensuing battle.
1595: Pocahontas is born, daughter of Chief Powhatan.
1607: Pocahontas’ brother kidnaps Captain John Smith from the Jamestown colony. Smith later writes that after being threatened by Chief Powhatan, he was saved by Pocahontas.
1613: Pocahontas is captured by Captain Samuel Argall in the first Anglo-Powhatan War. While captive, she learns to speak English, converts to Christianity, and is given the name “Rebecca.”
1619: The first African American indentured servants arrive in the American colonies. Less than a decade later, the first slaves were brought into New Amsterdam. By 1690, every colony had slaves.
September/October 1621 The Pilgrims had just harvested their first crops, and Massasoit got word that there was gun fire coming from the Pilgrim village. When the Wampanoag showed up, they were invited to join the Pilgrims but there was not enough food to feed the chief and his 90 warriors. During the feast they agreed to protect each other against any enemies, and collaborated on treaties to live amongst each other. that first harvest marked the end of pilgrim reliance on their tribal neighbors, resulting in a drastic change in the relationship, where the Wampanoag and other tribes got genocide, loss of land and centuries of oppression
1622: The Powhatan Confederacy nearly wipes out the Jamestown colony.
1640 July 9: When three runaway indentured servants were captured, the General Court of Colonial Virginia gave the white servants additional years to serve while John Punch, a black man, was sentenced to servitude for life. Punch was the first African in Virginia to be enslaved for life.
1600 - 1640
1619 The first African American indentured servants arrive in the American colonies. Less than a decade later, the first slaves were brought into New Amsterdam. By 1690, every colony had slaves.
WE DELIVER
1641: Massachusetts became the first North American colony to recognize slavery as a legal institution.
1660: Responsible for transporting more African people to the Americas than any other entity, the Royal African company of England was the most important institution involved in the transatlantic slave trade founded in 1660 (defunct 1752). Through this company, England developed its infrastructure of human trafficking and supplied Africans to meet the labor demands of the lucrative Caribbean sugar plantations.
1673: Between 1673 And 1683, England's share of the slave trade market increased from 33% to 375% of the market rendering the nation the global leader of the slave trade at the expense of the Dutch and the French
1662: A Virginia law stated that the status of the mother determined if a black child would be enslaved. Increasingly harsh and restrictive laws were passed over the next 40 years, culminating in the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.
1640 - 1662
1662 A Virginia law stated that the status of the mother determined if a black child would be enslaved. Increasingly harsh and restrictive laws were passed over the next 40 years, culminating in the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.
WE DELIVER
1663: The trading company expanded England's role in the African continent, exploiting the gold and later the human resources on the west coast in Gambia and Ghana
1676: Colonist Nathaniel Bacon was upset with Governor William Berkeley for high taxes and refusing his request to drive Native Americans out of Virginia. He organized a makeshift militia formed of white and black Americans, causing the Governor to flee as they set Jamestown aflame. Berkeley’s forces managed to defeat the militia, but this event became a crisis of social, economic, and political arrangements in Virginia that allowed a white enslaver to consolidate power. This event was an example of one of the first times white and black people were able to unite over an issue but led to the seizure of Native American land.
1688 February 18: Pennsylvania Quakers adopted the first formal anti-slavery resolution in American history.
1663 - 1680
1676 Colonist Nathaniel Bacon organized a makeshift militia formed of white and black Americans, causing the Governor to flee as they set Jamestown aflame. Berkeley’s forces managed to defeat the militia, but this event became a crisis of social, economic, and political arrangements in Virginia that allowed a white enslaver to consolidate power.
WE DELIVER
1700s: Slave Patrols were established to create a system of terror to catch and return runaway slaves. They used excessive force to control slaves and influence their behavior. This system is the origin of modern-day policing
1705: The Virginia Slave Code codified the status of slaves, and further limited their freedom. It stated that non-Christians brought to Virginia would be slaves, even if they converted to Christianity. It also allowed slave owners to punish slaves without fear of legal repercussions and defined the rewards for the recapture of runaway slaves.
1712 April: A slave revolt in New York City, during which nine white men died, led to increased restrictions on slaves.
1739: The Stono Rebellion, one of the earliest slave revolts, occurs in Stono, South Carolina.
1754: The French and Indian War begins, pitting the two groups against English settlements in the North.
1756 May 15: The Seven Years’ War between the British and the French begins, with American Indians alliances aiding the French.
1763 May 7: Ottawa Chief Pontiac leads American Indian forces into battle against the British in Detroit. The British retaliated by attacking Pontiac’s warriors in Detroit on July 31, in what is known as the Battle of Bloody Run. Pontiac fends them off, but there are casualties on both sides.
1700
1705 The Virginia Slave Code codified the status of slaves, and further limited their freedom. It stated that non-Christians brought to Virginia would be slaves, even if they converted to Christianity. It also allowed slave owners to punish slaves without fear of legal repercussions and defined the rewards for the recapture of runaway slaves.
WE DELIVER
1775 April 14: The Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery was founded.
1775 December 30: General George Washington, revising an earlier edict, ordered recruiting officers to accept free black people in the American Army.
1775: Smallpox and other diseases had been killing American Indian tribes since the European settlers carried them over in the 17th century. But during the late 1770s and Early 1780s: Native populations were reduced by 50%. Settlers purposely gifted Indigenous people with infected blankets as a form of biological warfare.
1776 July 4: The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.
1785: The Treaty of Hopewell was signed in Georgia, protecting Cherokee American Indians in the United States and sectioning off their land.
1788/89: Sacagawea is born.
1791: The Treaty of Holston is signed, in which the Cherokee give up all their land outside of the borders previously established.
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1775 - 1793
1775 Smallpox and other diseases had been killing American Indian tribes since the European settlers carried them over in the 17th century. But during the late 1770s and early 1780s, Native populations were reduced by 50%. Settlers purposely gifted Indigenous people with infected blankets as a form of biological warfare.
WE DELIVER
1793 February 12: Congress passed the first fugitive slave act, making it a crime to harbor an escaped slave or to interfere with the arrest of a slave.
1793: A young schoolteacher named Eli Whitney came up with the cotton gin, a simple mechanized device that efficiently removed the seeds. The cotton gin was widely copied, and within a few years, the South would go from depending on harvesting tobacco, to cotton.
August 20, 1794: The Battle of Fallen Timbers, the last major battle over Northwest territory between American Indians and the United States following the Revolutionary War, results in U.S. victory.
1793 - 1794
1793 February 12 Congress passed the first fugitive slave act, making it a crime to harbor an escaped slave or to interfere with the arrest of a slave.
1800 - 1805
1802 The Compact of 1802, also known as the Georgia Compact, promised to end the American Indian land title in the state of Georgia.
1800 August 30: Gabriel Prosser, Jack Bowler, and others planned the first major slave rebellion, near Richmond, Virginia. As many as 1,000 slaves were prepared to participate, but a thunderstorm forced them to halt.
1802: The Compact of 1802, also known as the Georgia Compact, promised to end the American Indian land title in the state of Georgia.
1803: The Louisiana Purchase the United States bought 828,000 square miles of land from France, which doubled the size of the US.
1824: The Quapaw ceded their lands in Arkansas Territory, moving to northwest Louisiana and residing with the Caddo. Fort Gibson and Fort Towson were established in Indian Territory to provide protection for tribal nations moving from the East.
1825: As the first known juvenile reformatory in the US, the New York House of Refuge was founded as a place to imprison children separately from adults. Its growth was driven by the desire to control and discipline poor white children of immigrants, who could be rounded up off the streets and sent to the reformatory even if they had not committed a crime. The imprisoned children were put to work and subjected to severe discipline. Black children continued to be placed in adult prisons until the late 1800s.
1828: Andrew Jackson is elected president. The Western or Old Settler Cherokee removed from Arkansas Territory to Indian Territory. This removal began a protracted war with the Osages, as the Cherokee were encroaching on Osage lands.
1829: Eastern State Penitentiary was the first 'modern' penitentiary, imposing strict solitude and solitary confinement as a pathway toward rehabilitation. The first person to be incarcerated is a Black man. It has become a model for prison expansion across the world.
1824 - 1829
1829 Eastern State Penitentiary was the first 'modern' penitentiary, imposing strict solitude and solitary confinement as a pathway toward rehabilitation. The first person to be incarcerated is a Black man. It has become a model for prison expansion across the world.
1824 - 1869
1836: The last of the Muscogee Creek American Indians leave their land for Oklahoma as part of the Indian removal process. Of the 15,000 Muscogees who make the voyage to Oklahoma, more than 3,500 don’t survive.
1838: President Martin Van Buren enlists General Winfield Scott and 7,000 troops to hold Cherokee tribes at gunpoint and marching them 1,200 miles removing them from their land. More than 5,000 Cherokee died during this. The series of relocations of American Indian tribes became known as the Trail of Tears.
Mid-1800s: Surgeon James Marion Sims became known as the “father of modern gynecology” for developing surgical techniques that help women through difficult childbirth. Sims created his techniques by operating on enslaved black women without using anesthesia. He experimented on enslaved black women in a makeshift hospital behind his house in Alabama.
1846: Ex-slave Frederick Douglass published the anti-slavery North Star newspaper.
1849 Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery and became an instrumental leader of the Underground Railroad.
1850: Congress passes another Fugitive Slave Act, which mandates government participation in the capture of escaped slaves.
Boston citizens storm a federal courthouse in an attempt to free escaped Virginia slave Anthony Burns.
1850 The Compromise of 1850 brought California into the United States as a free state, banned public sale of slaves in the District of Columbia, opened up the rest of the lands seized from Mexico to settlement by slave owners, and committed the United States government to enforcement of a new fugitive slave law.
1836 - 1850
Mid-1800s: Surgeon James Marion Sims became known as the “father of modern gynecology” for developing surgical techniques that help women through difficult childbirth. Sims created his techniques by operating on enslaved black women without using anesthesia. He experimented on enslaved black women in a makeshift hospital
1824 - 1869
1830 - 1831
In 1829, a gold rush commenced in Georgia, then operated by the Cherokee people. In 1830 and ending in 1850, 100,000 people of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcefully taken from their settlements and taken to west of the Mississippi, known as “Indian Territory.” Many traveled hundreds of miles, and thousands didn’t survive.
May 28, 1830: President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, which gives plots of land west of the Mississippi River to American Indian tribes in exchange for land that is taken from them.
1829: A gold rush commenced in Georgia, then operated by the Cherokee people. In 1830 and ending in 1850, 100,000 people of the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcefully taken from their settlements and taken to west of the Mississippi, known as “Indian Territory.” Many traveled hundreds of miles, and thousands didn’t survive. The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 resulted in the US Army slaughtering upwards of 150 people of the Lakota nation in South Dakota.
The Removal Act of 1830 authorized President Andrew Jackson to negotiate for the removal and resettlement of Native American tribes. A primary target was the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. Although the removal and resettlement were supposed to be voluntary, this resulted in forcible removals known as the Trail of Tears.
1831: In Boston, William Lloyd Garrison began the anti-slavery newspaper the Liberator and became a leading voice in the Abolitionist movement.
The Choctaw Nation began removal from Mississippi to Indian Territory, becoming the first of the Five Tribes to be forcibly removed. Several nations in Ohio signed treaties requiring removal from the state, including the Seneca, Shawnee, and Ottawa.
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1851: The Potawatomi were removed from Wisconsin
1851: Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act, creating the Indian reservation system. American Indians aren’t allowed to leave their reservations without permission.The government forced Native peoples to move to and live on reservations, where it can better subdue them. Native peoples find themselves severely restricted in their ability to hunt, fish, and gather their traditional foods.
1852 March 20: The anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was published and sold 300,000 copies. This novel tells the story of Uncle Tom who was an enslaved person who saved the life of a little girl named Eva while being transported to New Orleans to be auctioned. The little girl's father then purchases Tom.
1854: The Kansas-Nebraska Act mandated that a popular vote of the settlers would determine if territories became free or slave states. The newly-formed Republican Party vowed to prevent new slave states and quickly became the majority party in nearly every northern state.
1857: The Dred Scot v. Sanford case argued that congress does not have the right to ban slavery in the states and stated that slaves are not citizens. The United States Supreme Court ruled that black people were not citizens of the United States and denied Congress the ability to prohibit slavery in any federal territory.
On March 2nd and 3rd 1857, a slave auction took place at a racetrack in Savannah, Georgia, being the largest sale of human beings in the history of the United States. Pierce Butler was the owner of these slaves, which he had inherited from his family’s plantation. The sale lasted two days, selling 436 men, women, and children. During both days of the sale, it rained on the racetrack, like the heavens were crying. This then became known as “the weeping time”. Slave owners traveled from various southern states to attend the auction, and as the last slave was sold, the rain stopped. The sale generated $303,850 with at least 30 of the enslaved that were sold being babies. The highest price paid for an individual was $1,750 and the lowest price was $250.
1851 - 1857
1857: The Weeping Time was the largest sale of enslaved people, selling 436 people over two days. Rain fell over the racetrack the sold took place at for two days, stopping as the last person was sold
1824 - 1869
1831 August 21-22: Nat Turner led the most brutal slave rebellion in United States history, attracting up to 75 slaves and killing 60 white people. Born on a small plantation in Southampton County, Virginia, Turner inherited a hatred of slavery from his African–born mother and came to see himself as anointed by God to lead his people out. Turner took a solar eclipse as a sign that the time for revolution was near, killed his owners, and killed 60 white people in two days before armed resistance from local white people state militia forces put them to a stop
1832: The Treaty of Payne’s Landing began the process for removal of the Seminoles of Florida. It would take almost twenty years and 15 million dollars to force the tribe from their lands.
The Treaty of Pontotoc in Mississippi required the removal of the Chickasaw from their lands.
Andrew Jackson was reelected president.
1831 – 1861: Approximately 75,000 slaves escaped to the North using the Underground Railroad.
1834: The Apalachicola of Florida (part of the Muscogee-Creek Confederacy) began removal.
The Indian Intercourse Acts designates territories west of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana as “Indian Territory.” Indian Territory at this time extended from the Red River of Texas north to the Canadian border.
The Muscogee Nation began removal.
Fall Slave sale was organized by the Jesuits who founded and ran Georgetown University, the sale being worth about $3.3 million in today’s dollars. This sale helped to secure the future of the institution. Jesuit plantations in Maryland and donated slaves helped finance the university and supported scholarships.
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1831 - 1834
1834 The Apalachicola of Florida (part of the Muscogee-Creek Confederacy) began removal.
The Indian Intercourse Acts designates territories west of Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana as “Indian Territory.” Indian Territory at this time extended from the Red River of Texas north to the Canadian border.
The Muscogee Nation began removal.
1860: Beginning in the late 1700s, the Muscogee Nation adopted chattel slavery to assimilate with the culture of white settlers. By 1860, the Muscogee Nation held 1,600 slaves, increasing close to 10,000 Black people enslaved by tribes in Indian Territory. In 1866, the US government freed people enslaved by tribes and gave them the right to tribal citizenship.
October 1860: A group of Apache American Indians attack and kidnap a white American, resulting in the U.S. military falsely accusing the Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, Cochise.
1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected president, angering the southern states. The 1860 census showed the black population of the United States to be 4,441,830, of which 3,953,760 were enslaved and 488,070 were free.
1861: The Civil War begins.
1861-1865: During the Civil War, there were separate wards for wounded black soldiers in the Union Army. Black soldiers would die from wounds that white soldiers would recover from due to a lack of supplies and treatment. Black soldiers continued to be used in medical experiments without consent.
After the Emancipation Proclamation
1862 April 16: President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill emancipating enslaved people in Washington, the end of a long struggle. But to ease slaveowners’ pain, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid those loyal to the Union up to $300 for every enslaved person freed.Slaveowners got reparations. Enslaved African Americans got nothing for their generations of forced labor and abuse
The Homestead Act granted adult heads of families 160 acres of surveyed public land, giving people an opportunity to gain land that could lead to the creation of wealth. Although this created a freedom opportunity for many, it created massive displacements of American Indians and the growth of railroads, destroying their communities.
1862 July 2: The Morrill Act of 1862 made it possible for states to establish public colleges from federal land grants, and these grants were expropriated from tribal lands of Native communities. These grants consisted of over 10 million acres of land, and many tribes were forced to sign treaties ceding land or they would face threats of violence. The Morrill Act helped support the creation of a national system of state colleges and universities, which Black Americans were often excluded from, taking away land from Indigenous people while refusing opportunity for both groups.
1860 - 1862
1862 April 16 President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill emancipating enslaved people in Washington But to ease slaveowners’ pain, the District of Columbia Emancipation Act paid those loyal to the Union up to $300 for every enslaved person freed. Slaveowners got reparations. Enslaved African Americans got nothing for their generations of forced labor and abuse
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1871: Treaty-making as a whole ended when Congress ceased to recognize the tribes as entities capable of making treaties. The value of the treaties also came to be called into question when the Supreme Court decided, in 1903, Congress had full power over American Indian affairs and could override treaties. Many of the treaties made before then, however, remained in force at least to some extent, and the Supreme Court was occasionally asked to interpret them.
1876: The U.S. Government and the Sioux Nation sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie. In this treaty, the United States recognized the Black Hills of Dakota as the Great Sioux Reservation. But after gold is discovered in the Black Hills, miners and settlers began moving onto the land. American Indians began to fight back against them breaking the treaty, starting the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.
June 25, 1876: In the Battle of Little Bighorn Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s troops fight Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, along Little Bighorn River. Custer and his troops are defeated and killed, increasing tensions between American Indians and white Americans.
1870 - 1876
1870 Treaty-making as a whole ended in 1871, when Congress ceased to recognize the tribes as entities capable of making treaties.
Jan 1st 1863: Slavery ended in name only, as the convict lease system allowed states to lease inmates to Planters and industrialists to work on plantations railroads, and coal mines in the late 1800s and early 1900
1863: Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation proclaims that all slaves in rebellious territories are forever free.
1864 November 29: 650 Colorado volunteer forces attacked Cheyenne and Arapaho encampments along Sand Creek, killing more than 150 American Indians during what would become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
1865 January 16: T. Sherman signed Field Order 15, which would distribute 400,000 acres of Confederate land formerly enslaved Black Americans. Each family would have gained 40 acres of tillable ground, however, after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 15, 1865, President Andrew Johnson rescinded Field Order 15 and returned Confederate owners to the 400,000 acres of land.
1865: The Civil War ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting slavery, is ratified, abolishing human enslavement in the United States, except as punishment for a crime. President Abraham Lincoln and the congressmen who embraced this change to the Constitution expected that ending enslavement would end the power of a few elite Southerners to dismantle the United States.They agreed to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment and passed a series of laws that bound Black Americans to yearlong contracts working in white-owned fields, prohibited Black Americans from meeting together or owning guns, demanded that Black Americans behave submissively to white Americans, and sometimes punished white people who interacted with their Black neighbors. The era of Reconstruction begins.
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1863 - 1865
1865The 13th Amendment prohibits slavery except as a punishment for a crime, reclaiming Black labor for the benefit of white plantation and business owners through criminalization.
1877: The era of Reconstruction ended.
A deal is made with southern democratic leaders which makes Rutherford B. Hayes president in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and puts an end to efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans.
1879: Thousands of African Americans migrated out of the South to escape oppression.
The Jim Crow system of economic exploitation was perfectly legal the convict lease system was made possible by the Black Codes which were like vagrancy laws that criminalized minor offenses such as loitering allowing black people to be swept up and thrown into chain gangs
October 6, 1879: The first students attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, the country’s first off-reservation boarding school. The school was designed to assimilate American Indian students.
1887: For most of the middle part of the 19th century, the U.S. government pursued new policy focused specifically on breaking up reservations and tribal lands by granting land allotments to individual American Indian and encouraging them to take up agriculture, taking away their culture and assimilating into a ‘white ways’. The General Allotment (Dawes) Act of 1887 made this more general, which resulted in the loss of much reservation land.
1877 - 1887
October 6, 1879 The first students attended Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, the country’s first off-reservation boarding school. The school was designed to assimilate Native American students.
December 29, 1890: U.S. Armed Forces surround Ghost Dancers led by Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, demanding the surrender of their weapons. An estimated 150 American Indians were killed in the Wounded Knee Massacre, along with 25 men with the U.S. cavalry.
1896: Plessy v. Ferguson case states racial segregation is ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. The “Jim Crow” (“separate but equal”) laws begin, barring African Americans from equal access to public facilities.
1899: In the book "The Philadelphia Negro," sociologist and activist W.E.B. Du Bois argued that the differences in health outcomes for blacks and whites had more to do with living conditions, than genetics.
1890 - 1899
1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case states racial segregation is ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court. The “Jim Crow” (“separate but equal”) laws begin, barring African Americans from equal access to public facilities.
June 2, 1924: U.S. Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all American Indian born in the territorial limits of the country. Previously, citizenship had been limited, depending on what percentage American Indian ancestry a person had, whether they were veterans, if they were women, or if they were married to a U.S. citizen.
1927: The Mississippi River floods, displacing hundreds of thousands of people from Illinois to Louisiana creating mass homelessness, and speeding along the Great Migration. President Herbert Hoover led a recovery plan that had segregated camps based on race. Black men are held captive and forced to rebuild in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.
March 4, 1929: Charles Curtis serves as the first American Indian U.S. Vice President under President Herbert Hoover.
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1924 - 1930
June 2, 1924: U.S. Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all American Indians born in the territorial limits of the country. Previously, citizenship had been limited, depending on what percentage American Indian ancestry a person had, whether they were veterans, if they were women, or if they were married to a U.S. citizen.
1942 May: Members of the Navajo Nation develop a code to transmit messages and radio messages for the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Eventually, hundreds of code talkers from multiple American Indian American tribes served in the U.S. Marines during the war.
November 15-18 1944: In Denver, Colorado, 80 delegates from 50 tribes and associations established the National Congress of American Indians at the Constitutional Convention, founded in response to the threat of termination and need for unity and cooperation between tribal governments and people for the security and protection of these treaties and rights
Oct. 4, 1951: Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old Black American woman, died of cervical cancer. Medical researchers use her cancer cells, which are one of the most vital cell lines in medical research. The HeLa cells were used to develop the polio vaccine and in cancer and AIDS research. Doctors never got Lacks’s or her family’s permission to culture her cells.
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1942 - 1954
1942 May: Members of the Navajo Nation develop a code to transmit messages and radio messages for the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Eventually, hundreds of code talkers from multiple Native American tribes served in the U.S. Marines during the war.
August 28, 1963: 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the largest demonstration in the history of the nation’s capital and the most significant display of the civil rights movement. After marching from the Washington Monument, the demonstrators gathered near the Lincoln Memorial, where several civil rights leaders addressed the crowd calling for an end to racial segregation. Baptist preacher Martin Luther King Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), spoke about the struggle facing Black Americans and the need for continued action and nonviolent resistance. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
1963: In mid-September, white supremacists bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama during Sunday services, and four young African American girls were killed in the explosion. The church bombing was the third in 11 days after the federal government had ordered the integration of Alabama’s school system.
1964: The Civil Rights Movement helped pioneer legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, hospital desegregation, the Voting Rights Bill, and passages of Medicare and Medicaid. Due to these changes, the African American community saw an increase in overall health for the next decade.
1963 - 1964
August 28, 1963 250,000 people participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the largest demonstration in the history of the nation’s capital and the most significant display of the civil rights movement.
July 14, 1969: President Richard Nixon identifies drug abuse as "a serious national threat", resulting in a dramatic jump in drug-related juvenile arrests and street crime between 1960 and 1967. Nixon called for a national anti-drug policy, and at the same time, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) created a concept that would more efficiently design, build, finance, and operate secure correctional facilities, saving taxpayers dollars. CCA had contracts with the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the Immigration Naturalization Service which had “guaranteed occupancy” of up to 95%. It was later found that most drug offenders are White, but Black Americans were sent to prison at significantly higher rates, 12 to 26 times greater than white men depending on the state.
November 20, 1969: A group of San Francisco Bay-area American Indians, calling themselves “Indians of All Tribes,” journey to Alcatraz Island, declaring their intention to use the island for an Indian school, cultural center, and museum. They claim Alcatraz is theirs “by right of discovery.”
June 11, 1971: Armed federal marshals removed the last of the Indian residents on the island
Dec. 4, 1969: Fred Hampton was an American activist who served as the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party, founded the anti-racist Rainbow Coalition, and built an alliance among major Chicago street gangs to end fighting and create social change. On December 4th, 1969, the FBI coordinated a police raid of the Chicago apartment where Fred Hampton and other members of the Black Panther party were hiding. Hampton and another Black Panther member were killed, and four party members were critically wounded.
1969
July 14, 1969 President Richard Nixon identifies drug abuse as "a serious national threat", resulting in a dramatic jump in drug-related juvenile arrests and street crime between 1960 and 1967.
May 1970: The U.S. government shut off power and stopped freshwater supplies from reaching the American Indians on Alcatraz Island.
August 29, 1970: A group of American Indians, led by the San Francisco-based United Native Americans, ascended 3,000 feet to the top of Mount Rushmore and set up camp to protest the broken Treaty of Fort Laramie.
November 26, 1970: On Thanksgiving Day, AIM members seize a replica of the Mayflower in Boston Harbor, declaring the holiday a National Day of Mourning, commemorating the arrival of settlers in North America and the genocide that followed
October 1972: Hundreds of American Indians drive in caravans to the offices of the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. in a movement called the Trail of Broken Treaties. AIM releases the Twenty Points, a list of demands that includes the re-recognition of Native tribes, abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and federal protections for Indigenous cultures and religions.
An 80% reduction in federal investments in public housing and cuts to other social safety net programs creates a spike in homelessness, which people of color are most affected by resulting in a greater risk of homelessness.
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1970 - 1972
November 26, 1970 Thanksgiving Day, AIM members seize a replica of the Mayflower in Boston Harbor, declaring the holiday a National Day of Mourning, commemorating the arrival of settlers in North America and the genocide that followed
February 27, 1973: The Wounded Knee Occupation begins as 200 Oglala Lakota and AIM members seize and occupy the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The occupation lasts for 71 days, during which time two Sioux men are shot to death by federal agents, and several more are wounded.
July 1973: Nixon creates the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to coordinate the efforts of all other agencies.
1974 Federal juvenile justice law established The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, a federal law that requires states to deinstitutionalize status offenders, remove youth from adult jails, and ensure youth do not have contact with adults under arrest or incarcerated. The Act also encouraged states to address racial and ethnic disparities in their systems, however these continued to worsen. Black youth are five times more likely and American Indian youth are three times more likely than their white peers to be incarcerated.
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1973 - 1975
The influence of the civil rights movement in the 1960s led to the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975, which restored some sovereignty to tribal governments and gave them a certain independence in handling federal funds and operating federal programs.
August 11, 1978: The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is passed, granting American Indians the right to use certain lands and controlled substances for religious ceremonies.
Beginning in the 1960s, the term “affirmative action” was used to refer to policies and initiatives aimed at compensating for past discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. President John F. Kennedy first used the phrase in 1961, in an executive order calling on the federal government to hire more African Americans. By the mid-1970s, many universities were seeking to increase the presence of minority and female faculty and students on their campuses. The University of California at Davis, for example, designated 16 percent of its medical school’s admissions spots for minority applicants.
1979: The Muscogee Nation voted for a new constitution, requiring members of the tribe to have blood ancestry, which unenrolled many tribal members who had gained membership as a result of being ‘freedmen’ after being enslaved by the tribe.
October 11, 1980: President Jimmy Carter signs the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. The act grants Indian tribes, including the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Penobscot, $81.5 million for land taken from them more than 150 years ago.
1983: The first for-profit prison corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, introduces the idea of private prisons. By 2019, private, for-profit prisons house 8% of the total number of people in federal and state prisons, and 75% of the detained immigrant population.
1983 Reagan Indian Policy Statement
1978 - 1983
The term “affirmative action” was used to refer to policies and initiatives aimed at compensating for past discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or national origin. By the mid-1970s, many universities were seeking to increase the presence of minority and female faculty and students on their campuses.
1984: President Reagan enhanced the War on Drugs with new legislation, which enacted a federal death penalty, preventative detention, longer sentences, and the right of police to keep assets taken from drug dealers, which are used primarily to target Black communities. This leaves one-third of Black men with a felony record. At the same time, public assistance programs are dramatically cut, and the number of people living in poverty grows from 26 to 33 million.
October 1986: President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which appropriates $1.7 billion to fight the drug war. The bill also creates mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses, which are increasingly criticized for promoting significant racial disparities in the prison population because of the differences in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, a federal death penalty, preventative detention, longer sentences, and the right of police to keep assets taken from drug dealers. Possession of crack, which is cheaper, results in a harsher sentence; the majority of crack users are lower income. This leaves one-third of Black men with a felony record. At the same time, public assistance programs are dramatically cut, and the number of people living in poverty grows from 26 to 33 million.
1984 - 1986
1984 President Reagan enhanced the War on Drugs with new legislation, which enacted a federal death penalty, preventative detention, longer sentences, and the right of police to keep assets taken from drug dealers, which are used primarily to target Black communities. This leaves one-third of Black men with a felony record.
1990: In Duro v. Reina, the Court held that tribal courts had lost their inherent criminal jurisdiction over nonmember Indians "because of their dependent status." The Court used broad language about tribal sovereignty that undercut tribal sovereignty to deal with Indians as a class. For criminal jurisdiction and other purposes, the Court said that Indians living on reservations who are not enrolled in the host tribe may simply not be Indians.
1991: A video emerged of California Highway Patrol officers brutally beating an unarmed Black man, Rodney King, during a traffic stop. Four officers were charged but were later acquitted. The verdict sent shockwaves through South Central Los Angeles. The concurrent drug epidemic, gang violence, and systemic racism added fuel to the fire.
1995: Hundreds of thousands of Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. for the Million Man March, one of the largest demonstrations of its kind in the capital’s history. Its organizer, Minister Louis Farrakhan, had called for “a million sober, disciplined, committed, dedicated, inspired Black men to meet in Washington on a day of atonement.
1996: The Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act gave tribes expanded self-determination authority over housing resources. This eliminated several separate programs and revised a Block Grant program, education stipends, rent assistance and moving forward affordable housing projects.
1997 October 25: Black American women participated in the Million Woman March in Philadelphia, focusing on health care, education, and self-help.
1990 - 1997
1995 Hundreds of thousands of Black men gathered in Washington, D.C. for the Million Man March, one of the largest demonstrations of its kind in the capital’s history. Its organizer, Minister Louis Farrakhan, had called for “a million sober, disciplined, committed, dedicated, inspired Black men to meet in Washington on a day of atonement.”
2000: In response to widespread protest and a boycott by the NAACP, the South Carolina Senate passes a bill to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse.
President Clinton signed an Executive Order on Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, reaffirming the US Government’s responsibility for continued collaboration and consultation with tribal governments in the development of federal policies that have tribal implications.
2001: Tribes came together in a coordinated effort to address recent Supreme Court decisions (Duro v. Reina) that demonstrated an accelerating trend toward diminishing tribal jurisdiction on their lands.
2003 Two lawsuits involving the University of Michigan's affirmative action admissions policy reached the U.S. Supreme Court Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. In the first case, the court upheld the law school's admissions policy citing "a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body," while in the second it ruled against the university's undergraduate admissions policy
2000 - 2003
2000, President Clinton signed an Executive Order on Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, reaffirming the US Government’s responsibility for continued collaboration and consultation with tribal governments in the development of federal policies that have tribal implications.
2008: Barack Obama becomes the first African American to win the U.S. presidential race. Obama grew up in Hawaii but discovered his civic calling in Chicago, where he worked for several years as a community organizer on the city’s largely Black South Side.
The Great Recession led to a dramatic loss in wealth, especially in home equity for millions of Americans. The average household lost about 40% of their net worth since the Great Depression, with certain groups facing this issue more intensely than others. Between 2005 and 2009, the median net worth of black households dropped by 53%, while white households net worth dropped by 17%.
2008:The Coquille Indian Tribe on the southern Oregon coast adopted marriage equality policies, the first tribal nation to do so openly in the United States.
2009: President Obama signs Native American Apology Resolution
The Federal government agreed to a $3.4 billion settlement with Indians who say they had not received promised royalties owed since 1887.
2008 - 2009
The average household lost about 40% of their net worth since the Great Depression, with certain groups facing this issue more intensely than others. Between 2005 and 2009, the median net worth of black households dropped by 53%, while white households net worth dropped by 17%.
2013: Black Lives Matter Movement was founded by Alicia Garza in July after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a Florida man who shot and killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012: Martin’s death set off nationwide protests like the Million Hoodie March.
Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi formed the Black Lives Matter Network with the mission to “eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”
2014: In largely Black Flint, Michigan, officials changed the city’s water source to cut costs, inducing the erosion of old lead pipes, and resulting in widespread lead poisoning among children. The Flint water crisis reflects a long history of segregation, disinvestment in infrastructure, and officials’ ignoring Black residents’ concerns, with long-term health impacts.
2016: Colin Kaepernick, American civil rights activist and football quarterback, knelt during the national anthem at the start of the NFL games in protest of police brutality and racial inequity in the United States. This received polarized reactions and intensified as other forms of protest began in the upcoming months/years.
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2013 - 2016
2014 Flint, Michigan officials changed the city’s water source to cut costs, inducing the erosion of old lead pipes, and resulting in widespread lead poisoning among children. The Flint water crisis reflects a long history of segregation, disinvestment in infrastructure, and officials’ ignoring Black residents’ concerns, with long-term health impacts.
2017: Suicide has been the second leading cause of death in those 10-19 years old. Rates of suicide among Black youth have risen faster than in any other racial/ethnic group in the past two decades, with suicide rates in Black males 10-19 years old increasing by 60%
Miguel Richards was the first police killing that was recorded by a body camera, during a wellness check in his apartment in New York. This provided concrete evidence of the actions of the NYPD officers and provided a basis for the argument of police brutality in the US. Since then, the department has released footage of seven cases of civilians being shot by the police
November: More than half of American Indians living on tribal lands or other majority-Native areas say they have experienced racial or ethnic discrimination when interacting with police (55 percent) and applying for jobs (54 percent), according to new poll results released by NPR
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2017
November 2017 More than half of Native Americans living on tribal lands or other majority-Native areas say they have experienced racial or ethnic discrimination when interacting with police (55 percent) and applying for jobs (54 percent)
July 13, 2020: The Washington National Football League franchise announces it is dropping its name, the “Redskins,” as well as its Indian head logo. The move is in response to decades of criticism that they are offensive to American Indians. The team is eventually renamed the Commanders.
2020 May 25: The Black Lives Matter movement heated in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic when 46-year-old George Floyd died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd had been accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a local deli in Minneapolis. All four officers involved in the incident were fired.
2020: Disenrollment of previously enslaved Black Americans from Indian Tribes impacted COVID-19 relief for many African descendants, who were not eligible for the CARES Act which distributed $28 million to the Creek Nation, due to their inability to be considered members of the tribe.
2021 April: Chauvin was convicted of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. In February 2022, the three other officers were found guilty of depriving Floyd of his civil rights when they helped with the restraint that led to his death.
71 percent of Black Americans know someone who has been hospitalized or died of COVID-19, but only 42 percent say they would get such a vaccine if it were available today, significantly lower than the over 60 percent of White and Hispanic adults who say they would immediately take the vaccine. This hesitancy is due to mistrust in the medical field after years of medical abuse toward Black Americans, leading to further health disparities and loss of life in those communities
2020
The Black Lives Matter movement heated on May 25, 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic when 46-year-old George Floyd died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvin was filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd had been accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill at a deli
January 6th 2021: As Congress was meeting to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, a violent and heavily armed mob of supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol. Rioters pushed past Capitol Police officers, breaking windows and vandalizing offices. Five people were killed, including one Capitol Police officer who was beaten by rioters. Their goal of stopping the election certification was encouraged by elected officials. Former president Trump urged the crowd to march to the Capitol and “fight.”
January 2021: Kamala Harris became the first woman and first woman of color to become vice president of the United States.
Voting restrictions are a result of a history of voter suppression that has targeted Black Americans since Jim Crow laws in the 19th and 20th centuries. More recent attempts to take these rights away from Black voters include voter identification laws, the mass closures of polling places in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and targeting or eliminating Sunday voting, which is used as a method of controlling African Americans.
There were nearly 6 million PPP loans made between April 2020 and February 2021: when program rules were changed to give explicit priority to small firms and minority-owned businesses. Black-owned businesses accounted for 8.6 percent of all loans. They accounted for 3.3 percent of loans issued by small banks, compared with 26.5 percent of loans made by fintech lenders. The average amount of loans for White-owned businesses was $64,225, while Black-owned businesses were $35,264.
2021
February 2021 Paycheck Protection Program Loans program rules were changed to give explicit priority to small firms and minority-owned businesses. The average amount of loans for White-owned businesses was $64,225, while Black-owned businesses were $35,264.
2023: Corporate policies that once focused on topics such as diversity, climate change, and worker rights revert to hiring without requirements on representation of different races. They consider this their “commitment to being an inclusive workplace” removing opportunities from people of color.
August 2023: Raymond Mattia, an American Indian man, was shot nine times by border patrol agents outside his home on tribal lands in Arizona after posing no threat toward the officers.
In 2022 through 2023: Anti-CRT measures have been introduced in 49 states with 90% of all measures targetting K-12 education. Critical race theory is an academic concept that race is a social construct and that racism is not just a product of individual bias or prejudice, but embedded in legal systems and policies.
Five representatives of an Indigenous nonprofit were told that there were no rooms available at Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City, S.D despite travel websites saying otherwise. When they identified themselves as members of a nonprofit for American Indians, they were told to leave, and the day before an American Indian woman was told that a new policy forbade staff from renting rooms to “locals.” On March 26, American Indian tribal leaders said the hotel was on Great Sioux Nation territory and did not have the consent of tribal leaders to occupy the land. They remain in a class-action lawsuit against the hotel, including another American Indian visitor in 2020 who was later harassed on social media after he posted about his experience.
2023
2022 through 2023, anti-CRT measures have been introduced in 49 states with 90% of all measures targetting K-12 education.
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1954 Brown v. Board of Education case debated segregation as unconstitutional. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its verdict unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment’s mandate of equal protection of the laws of the U.S. Constitution to any person within its jurisdiction.
February 1954: NCAI called an emergency conference on the termination of Indian tribes in the United States, marking a turning point in slowing and stopping the coercive termination program. At the November 1954 annual session, NCAI proposed a Point IX program that laid out a technical assistance program for long-term self-sufficiency. NCAI fought for Indians’ unrestricted choice of legal counsel, crucial to Indian civil rights and self-determination in the early ‘50s.
1955 August: A 14-year-old black boy from Chicago named Emmett Till had recently arrived in Money, Mississippi to visit relatives. While in a grocery store, he allegedly whistled and made a remark to the white woman behind the counter. Three days later, two white men dragged Till from the house in the middle of the night, beat the boy, and shot him to death. The two men confessed to kidnapping Till but were acquitted of murder charges.
Nine months before Rosa Parks, a 15-year-old student Claudette Colvin refused to move on a bus for white passengers in Montgomery, Alabama. This led to her arrest and being convicted on multiple charges. Colvin was also involved in the court case that forced Alabama to end bus segregation.
In Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man. This defiant act gives initial momentum to the Civil Rights Movement.
1954 - 1955
1954 Brown v. Board of Education case debated segregation as unconstitutional. On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered its verdict unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the 14th Amendment’s mandate of equal protection of the laws of the U.S. Constitution to any person within its jurisdiction.
1866: The “Black Codes” were passed by all white legislators of the former Confederate States. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, conferring citizenship on African Americans and granting them equal rights to whites. After Emancipation in 1865, new laws encouraged the criminalization of Black people. Convict laws and convict leasing allowed prisons to hire out prisoners to plantation owners and private companies.
The Ku Klux Klan is formed in Tennessee.
1868: The 14th Amendment is ratified, defining citizenship. Congress tried to protect voting rights by establishing that states that did not permit Black men to vote would lose representation in Congress in proportion to the number of people they disfranchised. It also barred from office anyone who had previously taken an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” This overturned the Dred Scot decision.Two years later, when it became clear that the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment for protecting a man’s right to have a say in his government had fallen short, the nation amended the Constitution a fifteenth time.
November 27, 1868: General George Armstrong Custer leads an early morning attack on Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle, destroying the village and killing more than 100 people, including many women and children and Black Kettle himself.
1870: The 15th Amendment was ratified, giving African Americans the right to vote.
1866 - 1870
1866 The “Black Codes” were passed by all white legislators of the former Confederate States. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, conferring citizenship on African Americans and granting them equal rights to whites. Convict laws and convict leasing allowed prisons to hire out prisoners to plantation owners and private companies.
1919: On Lake Michigan, a white man threw rocks at a Black boy whose boat had drifted to the “wrong” side of the lake. The boy drowned, and protests broke out across the city.
1920s: The great migration of Black Americans from the North to the South sparked an African American cultural renaissance that took its name from the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Also known as the Black Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that mainstream publishers and critics turned their attention to African American literature, music, art, and politics.
1921: May the neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was thriving. So much so that it was deemed “Black Wall Street.” When black teenager Dick Rowland was falsely arrested, the white and black communities faced off outside the courthouse and it sparked into a fight. However, several white residents had weapons and attacked Greenwood violently. 300 people were killed, with 800 injured, while thousands of people lost their homes. This event was immediately suppressed by the media.
1919 - 1921
1920s, the great migration of Black Americans from the North to the South sparked an African American cultural renaissance that took its name from the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Also known as the Black Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that mainstream publishers and critics turned their attention to African American literature, music, art, and politics.
Beginning in the 1930s bank lending guidelines from the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation were later adopted by private banks. The guidelines used neighborhood racial and ethnic makeup and income data in assessing mortgage lending risks. Non-White and low-income areas were disproportionately “redlined”, or “deemed hazardous for lending”. Predatory financial services disproportionately target communities of color, adding to the obstacles to their accumulating wealth.
1932: The U.S. Public Health Service started a 40-year experiment looking at the “natural history” of untreated syphilis. 600 poor black sharecroppers enrolled in The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male. Participants were told they were getting free medical care from the federal government, unaware that they had syphilis. Even when a treatment for syphilis became available the men were not treated.
1930 - 1932
Beginning in the 1930s bank lending guidelines from the federal Home Owners’ Loan Corporation were later adopted by private banks. The guidelines used neighborhood racial and ethnic makeup and income data in assessing mortgage lending risks. Non-White and low-income areas were disproportionately “redlined”, or “deemed hazardous for lending”
1956 Indian Relocation Act of 1956 removed federal recognition of most tribes, and ended federal funding for reservations’ schools, hospitals, and other necessary services. It did not command people to leave their reservations but forced them out by removing access to vital services.
1957: Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers set up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a leading engine of the Civil Rights Movement.
Mary Kenner, an African American woman created the sanitary belt, with a moisture-proof pocket for napkins, allowing women to work outside of the home without the fear of accidents. She originally invented the sanitary belt in the 1920s, but couldn’t afford a patent. The Sonn-Nap-Pack Company got word of this invention in 1957 and contacted her intending to market her invention, however when they discovered that she was Black, they declined.
1958: Mildred and Richard Loving were one of the first interracial couples legally married in the United States and their union marked a pivotal moment in marriage rights for mixed-race families.
1956 - 1958
1956 Indian Relocation Act of 1956 removed federal recognition of most tribes, and ended federal funding for reservations’ schools, hospitals, and other necessary services. It did not command people to leave their reservations but forced them out by removing access to vital services.
2022 November: Supreme Court justices heard arguments in Brackeen v. Haaland, a lawsuit challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 43-year-old federal law that implemented the removal of American Indian children from their families and placing them in non-Native homes and institutions. This threatened the culture of American Indians but was required to give preference to placing adoptable American Indian children with Native families. They voted to uphold the provisions,, against allegations of it being discriminatory.
American Indians fought for items stolen from them that ended up in a museum outside of Boston. There were over 200 artifacts that were stolen from the bodies of the 250 Lakota men, women, and children who were killed by the U.S. Army in 1890 during the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota.
Mohegan Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba was sworn in as the Treasurer of the United States, the first American Indian to hold that office.
Black Americans were not only hit harder but took longer to recover after the economic downturn fueled by the pandemic. Black Americans are still facing struggles with the availability of jobs and affordability of groceries, housing, and gasoline in larger numbers than white counterparts.
2022 June 24: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to have an abortion, which would result in disproportionate impacts on Black women and other women of color. Black women and women of color face overwhelming costs and logistical concerns in terms of their reproductive healthcare. In Mississippi, Black women account for 74% of abortions, and in general, are more than three times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications or during birth. An abortion ban across the country could increase rates of Black maternal deaths by 33%, compared to 21% for the overall population. There are also long-term financial and psychological implications, as many of these women are unable to afford the cost of medical care during pregnancy and supporting a child, increasing the number of women and children living in poverty.
2022
June 24 2022 Roe V Wade: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to have an abortion, which would result in disproportionate impacts on Black women and other women of color. Black women and women of color face overwhelming costs and logistical concerns in terms of their reproductive healthcare.
February 2024 Yale University apologizes for its role in slavery, announcing new initiatives to reckon with the last legacy of slavery. The Ivy League school, which for years has been delving into its ties to slavery, pledged to widely distribute free copies of a scholarly book of its findings. It also announced several new initiatives, such as funding to train and help educators in the surrounding community of New Haven, Conn., as well as a lecture series about Yale’s history with slavery and an exhibit at a local museum.
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The effect of police violence on Black Americans is tracked in two new studies.They found a pattern of sleep disturbances, particularly getting less than six hours of sleep, in Black people — but not among white people — in the six months following a police-involved killingThe second study found racial disparities in injuries that occurred when Tasers and similar weapons were used by police to incapacitate people
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Nearly 36% of those injured were Black, far above their 13.6% share of the general U.S. population. White people made up 39% of the injured, Hispanic people 17.6%, Native Americans 2% and Asian or Pacific Islander people 1.4%.
The injuries included puncture wounds, concussions, fractures and traumatic brain injuries.
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2024 ...
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2024 March: Research shows, in escalating numbers, American Indians are far less likely to receive a liver transplant although they have the highest rate of death from liver disease. White Americans gain a spot on the transplant list almost three times more often than American Indians, however once on the transplant list advance at the same rate. The disparities in acceptance can demonstrate a direct link between access to transplant lists and race.
2024 June: Virginia’s education department considers proposals to change course material regarding African American history, particularly references to white supremacists and systematic racism. Documents show more than 40 suggestions for changes to curriculum and course content, removing lessons on implicit bias and equity, and changing language like “racism” to “discriminatory practices” and redefining terms like “Black joy”. Further, the document characterizes Indigenous people as “immigrants” and does not refer to holidays such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth, erasing vital parts of history that are essential in the learning of history.
The federal government released a report that addresses the harms that dams in the Pacific Northwest have inflicted on American Indian tribes. These large hydroelectric dams have flooded thousands of acres of sacred sites and ancestral burial grounds and stopped fish from migrating leading to changes in traditional diets and cultural practices.
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