| |
1859 |
 |
Benjamin
Hallowell, first president of the Maryland Agricultural
College from 1859 to 1860 was an abolitionist who
accepted his appointment on the condition the school
not use slave labor on its farms. The university’s
founder, Charles Benedict Calvert, was a pro-slave
Unionist. The Maryland Agricultural College —
as it was first known — opened in the 1850s
with slaves constructing the college’s buildings
and working on the farms. |
| |
1868 |
|
14th
Amendment (citizenship rights) was ratified on
July 9, 1868. Subsequently ratified by Maryland,
April 4, 1959 (after having rejected it on March
23, 1867)
Section
1. "All persons born or naturalized in
the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States and
of the State wherein they reside. No State shall
make or enforce any law which shall abridge
the privileges or immunities of citizens of
the United States; nor shall any State deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law; nor deny to any person within
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the
laws."
|
| |
|
The
South Carolina General Assembly convenes with 85
black and 70 white representatives; a product of
Reconstruction, it is the first state legislature
with a black majority. |
| |
1870 |
|
15th
Amendment (race no bar to vote) was ratified on
February 3,1870. The amendment was approved by
the Governor of Maryland, May 7, 1973; having
previously rejected it on February 26, 1870.
Section
1. "The right of citizens of the United
States to vote shall not be denied or abridged
by the United States or by any State on account
of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
|
| |
|
Hiram
R. Revels of Mississippi takes the former seat of
Jefferson Davis in the US Senate, becoming the
only African American in the US Congress and the
first elected to the Senate. |
| |
|
Joseph
Hayne Rainey is the first African American elected
to the US House of Representatives. This congressman
from South Carolina will enjoy the longest tenure
of any African American during Reconstruction. |
| |
1875 |
|
On March 1 The
United States Civil Rights Act, proposed by Charles
Sumner and Benjamin F. Butler in 1870, was passed.
It guaranteed that everyone, regardless of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude, was entitled
to the same treatment in, "inns, public conveyances
on land or water, theaters, and other places of
public amusement." |
| |
1881 |
|
Tennessee
becomes the first state to enact Jim Crow legislation,
which requires blacks and whites to ride in separate
railroad cars. |
| |
1883 |
|
On October 15 the
Supreme Court ruled on the decision that held that
Congress lacked the constitutional authority under
the enforcement provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment
to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals
and organizations, rather than state and local governments.
The decision itself involved five consolidated cases
coming from different lower courts in which African
Americans had sued theaters, hotels and transit
companies that had refused them admittance or excluded
them from "white only" facilities. The
Court held that the language of the Fourteenth Amendment,
which prohibited denial of equal protection by a
state, did not give Congress power to regulate these
private acts. |
| |
1896 |
|
On May 18, 1896 the Supreme Court upheld Plessy
v. Ferguson. The case helped cement the legal
foundation for the doctrine of "separate but
equal," which permitted separation of the races,
but only as long as facilities for both races were
of equal quality. Decision allows legalized segregation. |
|
|
Mary
Church Terrell becomes the first president of the
National Association of Colored Women, working for
educational and social reform and an end to racial
discrimination. |
| |
1909 |
|
On
February 12th, on the centennial of Abraham Lincoln's
birth, The National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People was founded by a multiracial group
of activists, who answered "The Call."
They initially called themselves the National Negro
Committee.
FOUNDERS: Ida Wells-Barnett, W.E.B. DuBois, Henry
Moscowitz, Mary White Ovington, Oswald Garrison
Villiard, William English Walling led the "Call"
to renew the struggle for civil and political liberty.
|
|
|
|
On May 31 the NAACP
held its first conference in New York City. In attendance
were over 300 African Americans and whites. Ida
B. Wells Barnett was a keynote speaker at the conference
condemning the lynching of Blacks in the United
States. |
| |
1910 |
|
In the face of
intense adversity, the NAACP begins its legacy of
fighting legal battles addressing social injustice
with the Pink Franklin case, which involved a Black
farmhand, who unknowingly killed a policeman in
self-defense when the officer broke into his home
at 3 a.m. to arrest him on a civil charge. Franklin
was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death.
The NAACP interceded, and Franklin's sentence was
commuted to life imprisonment. Eventually, he was
set free in 1919. After losing at the Supreme Court,
the following year the renowned NAACP official Joel
Spingarn and his brother Arthur started a concerted
effort to fight such cases. |
| |
|
First
edition of The Crisis, the official monthly
publication of the NAACP, published. It began in
1910 with William Edward Burghardt DuBois as editor,
and became a leading periodical for African Americans.
It was known for its radical position against lynching
and racial prejudice and reflected the ideology
of Dr. DuBois. Until 1919 it sold for 10 cents a
copy and boasted a monthly circulation of 80,000
copies. |
| |
1913 |
|
President Woodrow
Wilson officially introduces segregation into the
Federal Government. Horrified that the President
would sanction such a policy, the NAACP launched
a public protest. |
| |
1915 |
|
The NAACP organizes
a nationwide protest against D.W. Griffith's racially-inflammatory
and bigoted silent film, "Birth of a Nation." |
| |
1916 |
|
The period known
as the Great Migration begins; between 1916 and
1970 some six million African American Southerners
migrate to urban centers in the North and West.
|
| |
1917 |
|
On
July 28, 1917, in New York City, 8,000 African Americans,
primarily from Harlem, marched silently down Fifth
Avenue. The "Silent Protest" was staged
in protest of the East St. Louis, Illinois, massacre
of July 2, 1917, as well as the recent lynchings
in Waco, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee. The riots
in East St. Louis began when whites, angry because
African Americans were employed by a factory holding
government contracts, went on a rampage. Over $400,000
worth of property was destroyed. At least 40 African
Americans were killed. Men, women and children were
beaten, stabbed, hanged and burned. Nearly 6,000
African Americans were driven from their homes.
The march was organized by the NAACP, churchmen
and other civic leaders to protest the violent events
against African Americans around the country. |
| |
|
The Selective Service
Act of 1917 allowed, but did not guarantee, the
induction of Negro conscripts by local draft boards,
but the US Army was permitted to continue its
tradition of segregated Negro units. Under pressure
from the NAACP, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker
allowed the training of Negro officers at a new,
if segregated, facility. After a conference with
Negro educators and others in August 1917, Baker
agreed to the creation of a new all-Negro combat
division, the famous Ninety-Second, which broke
existing barriers to service by Negroes in combat
duty. The NAACP fights and wins the battle to enable
African Americans to be commissioned as officers
in World War I. Six hundred officers are commissioned,
and 700,000 register for the draft. |
| |
|
Nov. 5, 1917. In Buchanan vs. Warley, the
Supreme Court has to concede that states can not
restrict and officially segregate African Americans
into residential districts. |
| |
1918 |
|
Effective May
1, 1918, Secretary Wilson created the position of
Director of Negro Economics to advise him "in
all matters affecting Negroes." He selected
George Haynes, the educational secretary of the
Urban League and the first African American to obtain
a Ph.D. from Columbia University, for this historic
position. |
| |
|
After persistent pressure by the NAACP, in August
1918, with the US at war with Germany, President
Woodrow Wilson finally spoke out against lynching
and mob-violence, emphasizing that it played into
the hands of German propagandists. Wilson did not
mention the Negro race and did not push for federal
legislation against lynching, which mounted ever
higher. |
| |
1920 |
|
To
ensure that everyone, especially the Klan, knew
that the NAACP would not be intimidated, the annual
conference was held in Atlanta, considered one of
the most active Klan areas. The publicity it received
triggered a backlash that hurt the Atlanta branch
and virtually paralyzed most branches throughout
the state for the next two decades. |
| |
|
The 19th Amendment
(women's suffrage) was ratified on August 18,
1920. Subsequently ratified by Maryland on March
29, 1941 (after having rejected it on February
24, 1920, ratification was certified on February
25, 1958).
"The right of citizens of the United States
to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the
United States or by any State on account of
sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this
article by appropriate legislation."
|
| |
1922 |
|
In
an unprecedented move, the NAACP places large ads
in major newspapers to present the facts about lynching. |
| |
1930 |
|
The first of successful protests by the NAACP against
Supreme Court justice nominees is launched against
John Parker, who officially favored laws that discriminated
against African Americans. |
| |
1935 |
|
NAACP lawyers Charles Houston and Thurgood Marshall
win the legal battle to admit a black student, Donald
Gaines Murray, to the University of Maryland Law
School. On January 15, 1936, the Maryland Court
of Appeals filed a decision in favor of Murray,
officially desegregating the school of law. |
| |
1936 |
|
On
August, track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens wins
four gold medals in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.
His victories derail Adolf Hitler's intended use
of the games as a show of Aryan supremacy. |
| |
1938
|
|
On
June 22 1938, in a knockout in the first round of
their rematch, heavyweight champion Joe Louis wreaks
vengeance on Max Schmeling of Germany, the only
boxer to have knocked out Louis in his prime. |
| |
1939 |
|
On
April 9, 1939, singer Marian Anderson performs at
the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the
American Revolution refused to allow her to sing
at Constitution Hall. The Easter Sunday program
drew a crowd of 75,000 people and millions of radio
listeners, and the entire episode caused the news
media to focus greater attention on subsequent cases
of discrimination involving Anderson and other African
Americans. |
| |
1940 |
|
The
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)
is founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall.
Although LDF's primary purpose is to provide legal
assistance to poor African Americans, its work over
the years will bring greater justice to all Americans. |
| |
1941
|
|
On June 25, 1941, after the leading effort of NAACP,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive
Order 8802, stating that there should be "no
discrimination in the employment of workers in defense
industries or Government because of race, creed,
color, or national origin." The Committee on
Fair Employment Practices was established to handle
discrimination complaints. |
| |
1942 |
|
The interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
is founded in New York City. Its direct-action tactics
achieve national prominence during the Freedom Rides
of 1961. |
| |
1945 |
|
Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr., pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist
Church in Harlem, is elected to the US House of
Representatives as a Democrat from Harlem, serving
11 successive terms. |
|
|
NAACP
starts a national outcry when Congress refuses to
fund their own Federal Fair Roosevelt Employment
Practices Commission. |
| |
1946
|
|
On
June 3, 1946, the US Supreme Court decided Morgan
v. Virginia. In this landmark case, the United States
Supreme Court ruled that segregation in interstate
bus travel was unconstitutional. NAACP attorneys
William H. Hastie, of Washington, DC, and Thurgood
Marshall, of New York City, argued it on March 27,
1946. Briefly it stated: “As a violation of
the requirement of separation by the carrier it
became a misdemeanor. The driver or other person
in charge is directed and required to increase or
decrease the space allotted to the respective races
as may be necessary or proper and may require passengers
to change their seats to comply with the allocation.
The operator's failure to enforce the provisions
is made a misdemeanor.” |
| |
1947
|
|
On April 23, 1947
the Journey of Reconciliation is celebrated. This
was the first civil rights freedom ride through
the American South. George Houser and Bayard Rustin
were its primary organizers. It was sponsored by
CORE and the Fellowship For Reconciliation. Black
and white members ventured on a "Journey of
Reconciliation," trying to force the federal
government to uphold the 1946 Supreme Court ruling
that segregated seating of interstate passengers
was unconstitutional. The original riders were arrested
in North Carolina and forced to serve on a chain
gang for six months. |
| |
1948
|
|
On July 26, President
Harry Truman, under NAACP pressure, issued 2 Executive
Orders. EO 9980 for the Regulations Governing Fair
Employment Practices Within the Federal Establishment
and No. 9981, Establishing the President's Committee
on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the
Armed Services" without regard to race, color,
religion, or national origin." |
| |
1950 |
|
Ralph
Bunche is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his
work as United Nations mediator in the Arab-Israeli
dispute in Palestine. |
| |
|
Juanita Jackson
Mitchell becomes the first African American woman
to graduate from the University of Maryland school
of law, and in that same year, the first African
American woman to practice law in Maryland. As one
of the top lawyers in the state, her service as
an NAACP lawyer will make her an integral figure
in desegregating public facilities in Baltimore
City and Maryland at large. |
| |
|
After
refusing to disavow his membership in the Communist
Party, Paul Robeson, singer, actor, and activist
has his passport withdrawn by the US State Department. |
| |
1952 |
|
On
December, the Army Chief of Staff ordered worldwide
integration of this service. All of the earlier
fears cited to support the continuation of a segregated
Army proved to be groundless. There was no increase
in racial incidents, no breakdown of discipline,
no uprising against integration by white soldiers
or surrounding white communities, no backlash from
segregationists in Congress, or major public denouncements
of the new policy. |
| |
1953
|
|
On June 15, the
Baton Rouge Bus boycott occurred. This was the first
Black bus boycott in America. That summer, the African
American community of Baton Rouge set the tone of
the modern civil rights movement. Black leaders
in Baton Rouge were successful in having the City
Council pass Ordinance 222, which permitted them
to be seated on a first-come-first-served basis.
The signature innovation of the boycott was the
indigenous free-ride network, which was later studied
and borrowed by Dr. King during the seminal 1955
boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. While the Baton
Rouge boycott lasted only two weeks, it set protest
standards, and is growing in recognition as a precedent-setting
event in the history of the modern American civil
rights movement. |
| |
|
In October, the
number of African American marines rapidly grew
from 1,525 (half of whom were stewards) in May 1949
to 17,000 (with only 500 stewards) due to the Korean
War. |
| |
|
African American
radical Malcolm X becomes minister of the Nation
of Islam (first minister of Boston Temple No. 11).
He rejects the nonviolent civil rights movement
and integration, and becomes a champion of African
American separatism and black pride. At one point
he states that equal rights should be secured "by
any means necessary," a position he later revises.
|
| |
1954 |
|
On May 17, 1954, after years of fighting segregation
in public schools, under the leadership of Special
Counsel Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP wins one of
its greatest legal victories in Brown vs. the Board
of Education. The Supreme Court rules that "'separate
but equal" education facilities were unconstitutional. |
| |
|
On October 30,
1954 the Secretary of Defense announced that the
last racially segregated unit in the armed forces
of the United States had been abolished. |
| |
1955
|
|
On
May 31, 1955, after its decision in Brown I which
declared racial discrimination in public education
unconstitutional, the Court convened to issue the
directives which would help to implement its newly
announced Constitutional principle. Given the embedded
nature of racial discrimination in public schools
and the diverse circumstances under which it had
been practiced, the Court requested further argument
on the issue of relief. Chief Justice Warren conferred
much responsibility on local school authorities
and the courts which originally heard school segregation
cases. They were to implement the principles which
the Supreme Court embraced in its first Brown decision.
Warren urged localities to act on the new principles
promptly and to move toward full compliance with
them "with all deliberate speed." |
|
|
On August 27, 1955
Emmit Till, a 14 year old African American boy was
beaten and shot to death by two white men. These
men then threw Till's mutilated body into the Tallahatchie
River near Money, Mississippi. Young Till was killed
for talking to and perhaps whistling at a white
woman at a Mississippi grocery store. Later that
year, Roy Bryant, whose wife Carolyn was the white
woman at the store, and his half brother, J. W.
Milam, were tried for Till's murder and acquitted
by a jury of 12 white men. |
| |
|
On December 1,
1955 NAACP member Rosa Parks is arrested and fined
for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated
bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Triggering a successful,
year-long African American boycott of the bus
system, this event is noted as the catalyst for
the largest grassroots civil rights movement that
would be spearheaded by the collective efforts
of the NAACP, SCLC and other Black organizations. |
| |
1956 |
|
The US Supreme Court rules that the segregation
of Montgomery, Ala., buses is unconstitutional.
The federal ruling took effect on December 20, 1956. |
| |
1957 |
|
Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr., helps found the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference to work for full
equality for African Americans. |
| |
|
The
longest filibuster in congressional history was
waged against the Civil Rights Act in August 1957
by Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, when
he held the floor for twenty-four hours and eighteen
minutes. |
| |
|
Arkansas
governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National
Guard to preserve order, a euphemism for keeping
the nine prospective African American of Little
Rock school students out. On September 25, 1957
President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized the Arkansas
National Guard and deployed paratroopers to carry
out the desegregation orders of the federal courts. |
| |
1960
|
|
In
February 1, 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina,
members of the NAACP Youth Council, four African
American freshmen students at NCA&T, launch
a series of nonviolent sit-ins at segregated lunch
counters. These protests eventually lead to more
than 60 stores officially desegregating their counters.
This protest ignited sit-in campaigns throughout
the South. |
| |
|
In
April 1960 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(or SNCC, pronounced "snick") is founded
on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh to coordinate
the students sit-ins, support their leaders, and
publicize their activities. |
| |
|
On May 6, the President
Eisenhower signed Civil Rights Act of 1960. This
was the first civil rights bill to be approved by
Congress since Reconstruction. Though Eisenhower
is not routinely linked to the civil rights issue,
his contribution, including the 1957 Act, was important
as it pushed the whole civil rights issue into the
White House. At the time politicians from the South
were angry over what they saw as Federal interference
in state affairs. The bill became an act in 1960
as both parties were fighting for the ‘Black
Vote’. |
| |
|
On November 14,
1960, six-year-old Ruby Nell Bridges walked into
William Frantz Elementary School and into history.
A federal court ordered the New Orleans school system
to desegregate, making Bridges the first African
American to attend the elementary school. Although
she only lived a few blocks from the William Frantz
Elementary school in New Orleans, Louisiana, marshals
had to escort Ruby because of angry segregationist
mobs that gathered in front of the school.
|
| |
1961
|
|
On March 6, 1961
Executive Order 10925 makes the first reference
to "affirmative action."
President John F. Kennedy issues Executive Order
10925, which creates the Committee on Equal Employment
Opportunity and mandates that projects financed
with federal funds "take affirmative action"
to ensure that hiring and employment practices are
free of racial bias. |
|
|
|
The Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE) begins to challenge Jim Crow
laws by organizing Freedom Rides through the South
trying to desegregate interstate public bus travel.
On May 20, 1961 a White mob attacked Freedom riders
with chains and ax handles in Montgomery, Alabama.
Because of the local officer's ineffectiveness,
federal marshals had to eventually be dispatched
by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. The Ku Klux
Klan hoped that this violent treatment would stop
other young people from taking part in the freedom
rides. However, over the next six months over a
thousand people took part in the SNCC freedom rides
of 1961. |
|
|
|
On September,
President John F. Kennedy appoints Thurgood Marshall
to the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals,
which had jurisdiction over federal district courts
in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, but opposition
from Southern senators delayed his confirmation
for several months. In four years as a Court of
Appeals judge, Marshall will write 98 opinions (essays
explaining the logic and principles underlying a
ruling), none of which will be reversed by the Supreme
Court. He wrote opinions supporting academic freedom,
the right to a fair trial, and the right of civil
rights demonstrators to picket and protest. |
| |
1963
|
|
On April 16, 1963
Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested and jailed during
anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Alabama;
he writes his seminal "Letter from Birmingham
Jail," arguing that individuals have the moral
duty to disobey unjust laws. |
| |
|
May,
During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala.,
Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene "Bull"
Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black
demonstrators. These images of brutality, which
are televised and published widely, are instrumental
in gaining sympathy for the civil rights movement
around the world. |
| |
|
On
June 10 and after NAACP pushes the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission approved the Equal Pay
Act (Pub. L. 88-38)
"No
employer having employees subject to any provisions
of this section shall discriminate, within any
establishment in which such employees are employed,
between employees on the basis of sex by paying
wages to employees in such establishment at a
rate less than the rate at which he pays wages
to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment
for equal work on jobs the performance of which
requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility." |
| |
|
On
June 12, 1963, after one of his many successful
mass rallies, Civil Rights activist Medgar W. Evers
was assassinated in front of his Jackson, Mississippi
home by a white segregationist. The 37-year-old
Evers was a NAACP field secretary at the time. (Byron
De La Beckwith would be convicted in 1994). |
| |
|
On August 28, 1963
occurred the March on Washington DC, the largest
civil rights demonstration ever. It attracted an
estimated 250,000 people for a peaceful demonstration
to promote Civil Rights and economic equality for
African Americans. Participants walked down Constitution
and Independence Avenues, 100 years after The Emancipation
Proclamation was signed and gathered before the
Lincoln Monument for speeches, songs, and prayer.
Bayard Rustin, organizer of the first Freedom Ride
in 1947, orchestrated and administered the details
of the march. Televised live to an audience of millions,
the march provided dramatic moments, most memorably
the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A
Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. |
| |
|
On
September 15, 1963, four African American schoolgirls
were killed in a bombing at the Sixteenth Street
Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., a site of
civil rights meetings. Riots follow. Addie Collins,
Denise McNair, Carol Robertson and Cynthia Wesley
were the victims of an act of racial violence
that galvanized the civil rights movement. |
| |
|
On November 22,
1963 President John F. Kennedy is assassinated in
Dallas (Texas) during his electoral battle tour
in the southern states. |
| |
1964
|
|
On
January 23, 1964 the twenty-fourth amendment to
the constitution was passed. Since the legal end
to slavery, Blacks in America had been denied the
right to vote by a number of different ways. Some
measures were deceitful, many others were life threatening.
This confirmation ensured the Abolition of the Poll
Tax Qualification in Federal Elections. |
| |
|
On
June 1 US Supreme Court ends the eight year effort
of Alabama officials to ban NAACP activities ruling
in the NAACP v. Alabama case that "Freedom
to engage in association for the advancement of
beliefs and ideas is an inseparable aspect of the
"liberty" assured by the Due Process Clause
of the Fourteenth Amendment." |
| |
|
In
June 1964 "Freedom Summer," a program
organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC), CORE and the NAACP and other civil rights
groups to register black Southern voters, begins.
On June 21, Activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman
and Michael Schwerner were murdered. As a result
of the campaign, Black voter registration in Mississippi
will rise from a mere 7 percent to 67 percent. |
| |
|
On July 2, 1964,
President Lyndon Johnson signs the most sweeping
civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The
Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all
kinds based on race, color, religion, or national
origin. |
| |
|
August 4, in Neshoba
Country, Miss. are found the bodies of three civil
rights workers—two white, one black. Found
in an earthen dam, six weeks into a federal investigation
backed by President Johnson, James E. Chaney, 21;
Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had
been working to register black voters in Mississippi,
and, on June 21, had gone to investigate the burning
of a black church. They were arrested by the police
on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours,
and then released after dark into the hands of the
Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them. |
| |
|
On October 14,
1964, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize. At the age of 35, King, a minister,
activist and civil rights leader became the youngest
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| |
1965
|
|
February 21, 1965,
one year after splitting from the Nation of Islam
(NOI) Malcom X is gunned down as he begins speaking
at the Audubon Ballroom, NY by gunmen also affiliated
with NOI. Talmadge Hayer (aka Thomas Hagan) arrested. |
| |
|
On
"Bloody Sunday" March 7, 1965, the Edmund
Pettus Bridge attack occurred. 50 people marching
for African American voting rights from Selma to
Montgomery, Alabama, are injured by police. A shocked
nation watches on television as police club and
teargas protesters. |
| |
|
On June 4, 1965,
in an eloquent speech to the graduating class
at Howard University, President Johnson frames
the concept underlying affirmative action, asserting
that civil rights laws alone are not enough to
remedy discrimination:
"You do not wipe away the scars of centuries
by saying: 'now, you are free to go where you
want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders
you please.' You do not take a man who for years
has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring
him to the starting line of a race, saying,
'you are free to compete with all the others,'
and still justly believe you have been completely
fair . . . This is the next and more profound
stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek
not just freedom but opportunity—not just
legal equity but human ability—not just
equality as a right and a theory, but equality
as a fact and as a result."
|
| |
|
On July, President
Lyndon B. Johnson appoints Marshall solicitor general
of the United States. In this position he once again
argues cases before the Supreme Court, this time
on behalf of the United States government. |
| |
|
In the wake of
the Selma-Montgomery March, the Voting Rights Act
is passed on August 6, 1965 outlawing the practices
used in the South to disenfranchise African American
voters. Amidst threats of violence and efforts of
state and local governments, the NAACP still manages
to register more than 80,000 voters in the Old South. |
| |
|
On August 11, the
Los Angeles Riots began. In six days of unrest,
34 people died, over 1,300 were injured and $35
million in property is lost. Race riots break out
in the Watts area of Los Angeles, leaving 34 dead
and roughly a thousand hurt. The immediate trigger
is the arrest of a young African American man charged
with reckless driving; the underlying cause is probably
mass unemployment and poor living conditions among
LA,'s African Americans, combined with widespread
racism. |
| |
|
On
Sept. 24, 1965, asserting that civil rights laws
alone are not enough to remedy discrimination, President
Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces
affirmative action for the first time. It requires
government contractors to "take affirmative
action" toward prospective minority employees
in all aspects of hiring and employment. On Oct.
13, 1967, the order was amended to cover discrimination
on the basis of gender. |
| |
1966 |
|
On
June 17, 1966, Stokely Carmichael, (then) chairman
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), calls for "black power" in a speech,
ushering in a more militant civil rights stance. |
| |
|
In
October 1966 Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seales found
the Black Panther Party, a radical black power group,
in Oakland, California. Although it develops a reputation
for militant rhetoric and clashes with the police,
the group also becomes a national organization that
supports food, education, and healthcare programs
in poor African American communities. |
| |
|
November 8, 1966
Edward W. Brooke, a Washington, DC native, was elected
to the U. S. Senate for the State of Massachusetts.
Republican, he became the first African American
senator since the Reconstruction era in the United
States and the first Black senator elected by popular
vote. |
| |
|
On
December 26, the holiday of Kwanzaa, based on African
harvest festivals, is created in the US by an
activist scholar, Maulana Ron Karenga. |
| |
1967 |
|
June
12 in Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules
that prohibiting interracial marriage is unconstitutional.
Sixteen states that still banned interracial marriage
at the time are forced to revise their laws. |
| |
|
June
25, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) was stripped of
his Heavyweight title for five years.
This occurred when Ali spoke out against Vietnam,
refusing to join the army during the war. His short
defense "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet
Cong" spoke volumes, but the media vilified
him. The government prosecuted him for draft dodging,
and the boxing commission took away his license.
He was idle for what would have been the peak of
his career. |
| |
|
July, major race
riots take place in Newark (July 12–16) and
Detroit (July 23–30). |
| |
|
On October 2, Thurgood
Marshall becomes the first African American justice
on the Supreme Court. |
| |
1968 |
|
On
February 8 the Orangeburg Massacre occurred. Three
South Carolina State students were killed and 27
injured during a fourth night of segregation protest
in Orangeburg, SC. |
| |
|
February 29, the
continuing separation of blacks and whites in most
areas was emphasized when the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission)
issued a report that said, "our nation is moving
toward two societies, one black, one white separate
and unequal." The commission was headed by
Illinois Supreme Court Judge Otto Kerner and Vice
Chairman A. (Aloysius) Leon Higginbotham. |
| |
|
On April 4, Martin
Luther King, Jr., is shot to death at the Loraine
Motel in Memphis, TN. He was there to support striking
Black garbage workers. His murder sparks a week
of rioting across the country. |
| |
|
On
April 11 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights
Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale,
rental, and financing of housing. |
| |
|
On June 5 Senator
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated while making
his way from the ballroom at the Ambassador Hotel,
Los Angeles, to give a press conference, after winning
the California Primary. |
| |
|
October
16, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos, African American
sprinters were suspended from the Olympic Games
in Mexico City. The suspensions stemmed from them
holding up their fist in a Black Power salute while
receiving their medals at the awards ceremony. The
athlete’s actions came to symbolize the Black
Power movement in sports. |
| |
|
Shirley
Chisholm becomes the first African American woman
to be elected to Congress. |
| |
1969
|
|
Initiated by President
Richard Nixon, the "Philadelphia Order"
was the most forceful plan thus far to guarantee
fair hiring practices in construction jobs. Philadelphia
was selected as the test case because, as assistant
secretary of labor Arthur Fletcher explained, "The
craft unions and the construction industry are among
the most egregious offenders against equal opportunity
laws . . . openly hostile toward letting blacks
into their closed circle." The order included
definite "goals and timetables." As President
Nixon asserted, "We would not impose quotas,
but would require federal contractors to show 'affirmative
action' to meet the goals of increasing minority
employment. |
| |
1971
|
|
On
April 20 the Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Board of Education, upholds busing as a legitimate
means for achieving integration of public schools.
Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently
opposed) in local school districts, court-ordered
busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston,
and Denver continue until the late 1990s. |
| |
1978
|
|
June
28, 1978. Regents of the University of California
v. Bakke. This landmark Supreme Court case
imposed limitations on affirmative action to ensure
that providing greater opportunities for minorities
did not come at the expense of the rights of the
majority—affirmative action was unfair if
it led to reverse discrimination. The case involved
the Univ. of California, Davis, Medical School,
which had two separate admissions pools, one for
standard applicants, and another for minority and
economically disadvantaged students. The school
reserved 16 of its 100 places for this latter group. |
| |
1979 |
|
The
NAACP initiates the first bill ever signed by a
governor that allows voter registration in high
schools. Soon after, 24 states follow suit. |
| |
1980
|
|
July
2, 1980 Fullilove v. Klutznick. While Bakke
struck down strict quotas, in Fullilove the Supreme
Court ruled that some modest quotas were perfectly
constitutional. The Court upheld a federal law requiring
that 15% of funds for public works be set aside
for qualified minority contractors. The "narrowed
focus and limited extent" of the affirmative
action program did not violate the equal rights
of non-minority contractors, according to the Court—there
was no "allocation of federal funds according
to inflexible percentages solely based on race or
ethnicity." |
| |
1981 |
|
The NAACP leads the effort to extend The Voting
Rights Act for another 25 years. To cultivate economic
empowerment, the NAACP establishes the Fair Share
Program with major corporations across the country. |
| |
1983 |
|
On May 24 and through NAACP protests, the Supreme
Court prevents President Reagan from giving a tax-break
to the racially segregated Bob Jones University
in the ruling of the Bob Jones University v.
United States case. |
|
|
November 2, 1983
President Ronald Reagan signs legislation establishing
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. (First federal observance
was in January 1986.) |
| |
1985 |
|
The
NAACP leads a massive anti-apartheid rally in New
York. |
| |
1986
|
|
May 19, 1986 Wygant
v. Jackson Board of Education. This case challenged
a school board's policy of protecting minority employees
by laying off non-minority teachers first, even
though the non-minority employees had seniority.
The Supreme Court ruled against the school board,
maintaining that the injury suffered by non-minorities
affected could not justify the benefits to minorities:
"We have previously expressed concern over
the burden that a preferential-layoffs scheme imposes
on innocent parties. In cases involving valid hiring
goals, the burden to be borne by innocent individuals
is diffused to a considerable extent among society
generally. Though hiring goals may burden some innocent
individuals, they simply do not impose the same
kind of injury that layoffs impose. Denial of a
future employment opportunity is not as intrusive
as loss of an existing job." |
| |
1987
|
|
February 25, 1987
United States v. Paradise. In July 1970,
a federal court found that the State of Alabama
Department of Public Safety systematically discriminated
against blacks in hiring: "in the thirty-seven-year
history of the patrol there has never been a black
trooper." The court ordered that the state
reform its hiring practices to end "pervasive,
systematic, and obstinate discriminatory exclusion
of blacks." A full 12 years and several lawsuits
later, the department still had not promoted any
blacks above entry level nor had they implemented
a racially fair hiring system. In response, the
court ordered specific racial quotas to correct
the situation. For every white hired or promoted,
one black would also be hired or promoted until
at least 25 percent of the upper ranks of the department
were composed of blacks. This use of numerical quotas
was challenged. The Supreme Court, however, upheld
the use of strict quotas in this case as one of
the only means of combating the department's overt
and defiant racism. |
| |
|
NAACP launches
campaign to defeat the nomination of Judge Robert
Bork to the Supreme Court. As a result, he garners
the highest negative vote ever recorded when on
October 23, 1987, the Senate rejected Bork's confirmation
with a 58-42 vote. Two dramatic events of the Senate
debate were Senator Edward Kennedy's speech opposing
Bork's nomination and the disclosure of Bork's video
rental history. |
| |
1988 |
|
On
March 22 overriding President Reagan's veto, Congress
passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands
the reach of non-discrimination laws within private
institutions receiving federal funds. |
| |
1989
|
|
Jan. 23, 1989 City
of Richmond v. Croson. This case involved affirmative
action programs at the state and local levels—a
Richmond program setting aside 30% of city construction
funds for black-owned firms was challenged. For
the first time, affirmative action was judged as
a "highly suspect tool." The Supreme Court
ruled that an "amorphous claim that there has
been past discrimination in a particular industry
cannot justify the use of an unyielding racial quota."
It maintained that affirmative action must be subject
to "strict scrutiny" and is unconstitutional
unless racial discrimination can be proven to be
"widespread throughout a particular industry."
The Court maintained that "the purpose of strict
scrutiny is to `smoke out' illegitimate uses of
race by assuring that the legislative body is pursuing
a goal important enough to warrant use of a highly
suspect tool. The test also ensures that the means
chosen `fit' this compelling goal so closely that
there is little or no possibility that the motive
for the classification was illegitimate racial prejudice
or stereotype." |
| |
|
November 20, the
U. S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of reverse discrimination
suits. The Supreme Court at that time was moving
in a generally conservative direction after President
Ronald Reagan promoted William H. Rehnquist from
associate to chief justice in 1986. With three other
Reagan appointees usually voting with him, Rehnquist
was able to overturn some important precedents.
Under Rehnquist, the Court made it clear that it
would take a dim view of most affirmative action
policies. |
| |
|
Silent March of over 100,000 to protest US Supreme
Court decisions that have reversed many of the gains
made against discrimination. |
| |
1991 |
|
When
avowed racist and former Klan leader David Duke
runs for US Senate in Louisiana, the NAACP launches
a voter registration campaign that yields a 76 percent
turn-out of Black voters to defeat Duke. |
|
|
On October 1, Thurgood
Marshall retires from the Supreme Court. Clarence
Thomas, 43, a Republican nominated by Bush, replaces
Marshall. Thomas, an African American, opposed Affirmative
Action. |
| |
|
On November 22,
and after two years of debates, vetoes, and threatened
vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs
the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing
civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases
of intentional employment discrimination. |
| |
1992 |
|
On April 29 the
first race riots in decades erupt in south-central
Los Angeles, California after a jury acquits four
white police officers for the videotaped beating
of African American Rodney King. |
| |
1993 |
|
On
January 24 Thurgood Marshal dies in Washington,
DC at age 84. |
|
|
On June 11, 1993,
the US Supreme Court upheld the Wisconsin hate-crime
penalty-enhancement law. Writing for a unanimous
court, Chief Justice William Rehnquist held that
a criminal's prejudiced motives may be used in sentencing,
although "a defendant's abstract beliefs, however
obnoxious to most people, may not be taken into
consideration by a sentencing judge." The chief
justice also stated that "the statute in this
case is aimed at conduct unprotected by the First
Amendment." State of Wisconsin v. Todd
Mitchel. |
| |
1995 |
|
Over thirty years after the assassination of NAACP
civil rights activist, Medgar Evers - his widow
Myrlie, is elected Chairman of the NAACP's Board
of Directors. |
| |
|
May
1995, the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments
in the case of Podberesky v. Kirwan, letting
stand an appeals court ruling that the University
of Maryland's Banneker minority scholarship program
was unconstitutional. |
|
|
|
June
12, 1995 Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña.
What Croson was to state- and local-run affirmative
action programs, Adarand was to federal programs.
The Court again called for "strict scrutiny"
in determining whether discrimination existed before
implementing a federal affirmative action program.
"Strict scrutiny" meant that affirmative
action programs fulfilled a "compelling governmental
interest," and were "narrowly tailored"
to fit the particular situation. Although two of
the judges (Scalia and Thomas) felt that there should
be a complete ban on affirmative action, the majority
of judges asserted that "the unhappy persistence
of both the practice and the lingering effects of
racial discrimination against minority groups in
this country" justified the use of race-based
remedial measures in certain circumstances. |
| |
|
July
19, 1995 White House guidelines on affirmative action.
President Clinton asserted in a speech that while
Adarand set "stricter standards to mandate
reform of affirmative action, it actually reaffirmed
the need for affirmative action and reaffirmed the
continuing existence of systematic discrimination
in the United States." In a White House memorandum
on the same day, he called for the elimination of
any program that "(a) creates a quota; (b)
creates preferences for unqualified individuals;
(c) creates reverse discrimination; or (d) continues
even after its equal opportunity purposes have been
achieved." |
| |
|
On October 16,
1995 Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation
of Islam, rises to the height of his influence as
the most prominent organizer of the "Million
Man March" of African American men in Washington,
DC |
| |
1996 |
|
Baltimore native
Kweisi Mfume leaves Congress to become the NAACP's
President and CEO. |
| |
1997 |
|
In response to the pervasive anti-affirmative action
legislation occurring around the country, the NAACP
launches the Economic Reciprocity Program, which
rates companies according to five component parts
of a company's operations that must address economic
development opportunities for the African American
community. And in response to increased violence
among our youth, the NAACP starts the Stop The
Violence, Start the Love campaign. |
|
|
|
On November 3,
1997 Proposition 209 enacted in California. A state
ban on all forms of affirmative action was passed:
"The state shall not discriminate against,
or grant preferential treatment to, any individual
or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity,
or national origin in the operation of public employment,
public education, or public contracting." Proposed
in 1996, the controversial ban had been delayed
in the courts for almost a year before it went into
effect. |
| |
1998 |
|
On
October 5 NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and others
protested the Court's failure to hire more minority
law clerks. At the end of the march, Mfume and 18
others were arrested after they peacefully crossed
a police line in an attempt to deliver resumes of
minority law students to Chief Justice William Rehnquist. |
| |
|
Dec.
3, 1998 Initiative 200 enacted in Washington State.
Washington becomes the second state to abolish state
affirmative action measures when it passed "I
200," which is similar to California's Proposition
209. |
| |
1999 |
|
NAACP
launches campaign against TV networks to increase
number of minorities in shows. |
| |
2000 |
|
On
January 17, in Columbia, South Carolina, more than
50,000 people attended a march to protest the flying
of the Confederate battle flag. It was the largest
civil rights demonstration ever held in the South
to date. NAACP accomplishments include television
diversity agreements and the largest black voter
turnout in 20 years. |
| |
|
February 22, 2000
Florida bans race as factor in college admissions.
Florida legislature approves education component
of Governor Jeb Bush's "One Florida" initiative,
aimed at ending affirmative action in the state. |
| |
|
On
November 7 the US presidential election of 2000,
one of the closest elections in US history, was
decided by only several hundred votes in the swing
state of Florida. On election night, the media prematurely
declared a winner twice based on exit polls before
finally conceding that the Florida race was too
close to call. It would turn out to be a month before
the election was finally certified after numerous
court challenges and recounts. Republican candidate
George W. Bush won Florida's 25 electoral votes
by a razor-thin margin of the popular vote there,
and thereby defeated Democratic candidate Al Gore. |
| |
|
December 13, 2000
University of Michigan’s undergraduate affirmative
action policy. In Gratz v. Bollinger, a
federal judge ruled that the use of race as a factor
in admissions at the University of Michigan was
constitutional. The gist of the university's argument
was as follows: just as preference is granted to
children of alumni, scholarship athletes, and others
groups for reasons deemed beneficial to the university,
so too does the affirmative action program serve
"a compelling interest" by providing educational
benefits derived from a diverse student body. |
| |
2001 |
|
March 27, 2001
Univ. of Michigan Law School's affirmative action
policy. In Grutter v. Bollinger, (which
also invalidated Hopwood v. University of Texas
Law School), in a case similar to the University
of Michigan undergraduate lawsuit, a different judge
drew an opposite conclusion, invalidating the law
school's policy and ruling that "intellectual
diversity bears no obvious or necessary relationship
to racial diversity." But on May 14, 2002,
the decision was reversed on appeal, ruling that
the admissions policy was, in fact, constitutional. |
| |
|
In April the downtown
center of Cincinnati, Ohio experienced the worst
rioting since the 1960's. It was an unorganized
and violent reaction to the death of a young unarmed
black male, Timothy Thomas, in the early morning
hours of April 8, 2001 during an on-foot pursuit
by several officers. Officer Steven Roach was the
officer who killed Thomas when alone with the suspect
in an alley out of the view of any other witnesses.
The damage from the riots was estimated in the millions.
Millions more were lost due to the ensuing protests
and boycotts of the city. No deaths were reported
as a result of the riots. |
| |
2003
|
|
On June 23, in
the most important affirmative action decision since
the 1978 Bakke case, the Supreme Court (5–4)
upholds the University of Michigan Law School's
policy, ruling that race can be one of many factors
considered by colleges when selecting their students
because it furthers "a compelling interest
in obtaining the educational benefits that flow
from a diverse student body." |
2004 |
|
On
July, President George W. Bush became the first
sitting US president since Herbert Hoover not
to address the NAACP when he declined an invitation
to speak. The White House originally said the president
had a scheduling conflict with the NAACP convention,
slated for July 10-15, 2004. However, Bush said
he declined the invitation to speak to the NAACP
because of harsh statements about him by its leaders.
"I would describe my relationship with the
current leadership as basically nonexistent. You've
heard the rhetoric and the names they've called
me." Bush also mentioned his admiration for
some members of the NAACP and said he would seek
to work with them "in other ways." |
| |
2005
|
|
On June 13, the
US Senate approved a resolution apologizing for
its failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation
decades ago, marking the first time the body has
apologized for the nation's treatment of African
Americans. One-hundred and five years after the
first anti-lynching bill was proposed by a black
congressman, senators approved by a voice vote
Resolution 39, which called for the lawmakers to
apologize to lynching victims, survivors and their
descendants. In passing the measure, the senators
in essence admitted that their predecessors' failure
to act had helped perpetuate a horror that took
the lives of more than 4,700 people from 1882 to
1968, most of them black men. |
|
|
|
On June 22, forty-one
years to the day after three civil rights workers
were ambushed and killed by a Ku Klux Klan mob,
a jury found former Klansman Edgar Ray Killen guilty
on three counts of manslaughter, facing a prison
sentence ranging from one to 20 years per count. |
| |
|
|
On
October 24, Civil-rights pioneer Rosa
Parks died at age 92 becoming the first woman
to lie in honor at U.S. Capitol Rotunda. |
| |
2006 |
|
On
January 31, Coretta Scott King, widow of slain
civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
died at age of 78. |
UMD
Timeline |
| |
http://www.urhome.umd.edu/timeline/ |
Other
Timelines |
| |
African development
T. Marshall reference in immigration & rights
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/immig/african9.html# |
| |
African American
Odyssey: Civil Rights Era
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart9.html#09a |
| |
PBS: African American World timeline for the
civil rights era
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/timeline/civil_01.html |
