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African American History

Social Justice Guide Collection

Breaking Down Topics in African American History: Timelines & Topics

Featured Timelines

Featured: BlackPast's Interactive Timeline

BlackPast.org has a great interactive African American History Timeline covering events from 1500-2021. Search this visual timeline to learn more, access related articles - that often feature primary source materials - use the filters to narrow your topic, or search by keyword. There is also a searchable table format of the timeline, allowing you to search by date, event, person, era, and more.

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Screenshot of the Interactive Timeline Showing the filters and features - use link below to access

(click on image to enlarge)

screenshot of the table timeline highlighting the search filters

Notable Figures in African American History

  • W.E.B. DuBois
  • Medgar Evers
  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • Malcolm X
  • Thurgood Marshall
  • Rosa Parks
  • Dorothy Dandridge
  • Ida B. Wells
  • Booker T. Washington
  • George Washington Carver
  • Josephine Baker
  • James Baldwin
  • Langston Hughes
  • Paul Robeson
  • Henry Ossawa Tanner
  • James Van Der Zee
  • Ralph Ellison
  • James Meredith
  • Willa B. Player
  • Carter G. Woodson
  • Cornell West
  • Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
  • Condoleeza Rice
  • Maya Angelou
  • Clarence Thomas

Historical Events 

  • Bacon's Rebellion (1675)
  • New York City Slave Uprising (1712)
  • New York Slave Conspiracy (1741)
  • African Americans in the Revolutionary War (1775)
  • Northwest Ordinance (1787)
  • 3/5 Compromise (1787)
  • The Cotton Gin is patented (1794)
  • Cincinnati Race Riots (1836)
  • Frederick Douglass' Narrative published (1845)
  • The Great Compromise of 1850 (1850)
  • Sojourner Truth’s Ain't I a Woman? (1850)
  • The Bridget “biddy” Mason Case (1856)
  • Dred Scott (1857)
  • Harper's Ferry (1859)
  • The New Mexico Territory Slave Code (1859-1862)
  • Emancipation Proclamation (1862)
  • American Civil War (1961-1865)
  • African Americans in the Civil War (1863)
  • Kansas State Colored Convention (1863)
  • Sharecropping (1865-)
  • Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
  • Juneteenth is created (1865)
  • Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
  • The Great Exodus (1879)
  • The Plessy V. Ferguson Decision (1896)
  • Atlanta Race Riot (1906)
  • NAACP formed (1909)
  • Birth of a Nation, aired (1915)
  • Nashville Streetcar Boycott (1905-1907)
  • Great Migration (1915- c1960)
  • World War I (1914-1918)
  • Harlem Renaissance (1920s)
  • The Duluth Lynchings (1920)
  • Tulsa Race Massacre (1921)
  • Dyer Anti-lynching Bill (1922)
  • Scottsboro Boys Trial and Defense Campaign (1931–1937)
  • Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment (1932-1972)
  • Harlem Race Riot (1935)
  • World War II (1939-1945)
  • Detroit Race Riot (1943)
  • Jackie Robinson in baseball (1947)
  • Military Desegregation (1948)
  • Baton Rouge Bus Boycott (1953)
  • Brown v. Board (1954)
  • Emmitt Till lynched (1955)
  • Vietnam War (1955-1975)
  • Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-56)
  • The Clinton Desegregation Crisis (1956)
  • Little Rock Crisis (1957)
  • SNCC formed (1960)
  • Freedom Rides (1961)
  • Birmingham church bombing (1963)
  • The California Fair Housing Act (1963-1968)
  • The Harlem Race Riot (1964)
  • Civil Rights Act (1964)
  • Bloody Sunday Protest March, Selma (1965)
  • Black Panther Party formed (1966)
  • Chicago Freedom Movement (1965–1967)
  • African Americans in the Vietnam War (1960s)
  • Greensboro Sit-ins (1960)
  • Detroit Race Riot (1967)
  • Loving v. Virginia (1967)
  • MLK assassinated (1968)
  • Orangeburg Massacre (1968)
  • Greensboro Massacre (1979)
  • Rodney King Riots (1992)
  • Million Man March (1995)
  • Million Woman March (1995)
  • The Cincinnati Riot (2001)
  • Hurricane Katrina (2005)
  •  Barack Obama becomes President (2008, 2012)
  • Trayvon Martin is killed (2012)
  • Black Lives Matter hashtag founded by activist (2014)
  • Ferguson Riot and Ferguson Unrest (2014-2015)
  • The Charleston Church Massacre (2015)
  • Loretta Lynch sworn in as first African American woman Attorney General (2015)
  • Amanda Gorman is named the youngest National Youth Poet Laureate (2017)
  • George Floyd is killed (2020)
  • Breonna Taylor (2020)
  • Kamala Harris sworn in as first African American and woman vice-president (2021)

Historical Topics

  • Race riots 
  • lynching
  • Black-owned businesses
  • Black suffrage
  • Historically Black Colleges
  • Busing
  • Black stereotypes & public representation
  • Slave holding/trade
  • Hate Groups & Violence
  • Sharecropping
  • Civil War 
  • Abolition 
  • Nation of Islam
  • National Urban League
  • Myth of the "Welfare Queen"
  • "Blacksploitation" films
  • "ebonics"
  • Inner-city schools
  • Black Power
  • School-to-Prison-Pipeline

Current and Contemporary Issues 

  • Mass incarceration
  • Income inequality
  • Affirmative action
  • Housing discrimination
  • Education gap
  • President Obama
  • Mainstreaming of African American Music
  • Demographics of US cities
  • Gay rights and Black churches
  • Slavery reparations
  • Media portrayal of African Americans
  • Police brutality/profiling
  • Voter turnout
  • Health disparity
  • Capital punishment disparity
  • Black Lives Matter & George Floyd (Covid-19 time of racial upheaval/broadcasting)