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The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference / Edition 1

The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference / Edition 1

by New York Public Library
The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference / Edition 1
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ISBN-10:
0471239240
ISBN-13:
9780471239246
Pub. Date:
09/30/1999
Publisher:
Turner Publishing Company
ISBN-10:
0471239240
ISBN-13:
9780471239246
Pub. Date:
09/30/1999
Publisher:
Turner Publishing Company
The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference / Edition 1

The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference / Edition 1

by New York Public Library

Overview

Covering a wide range of knowledge, The New York Public Library African American Desk Reference is a magnificent resource for home, family, and business, and an essential addition to your personal reference library.
"Indispensable for those interested in the African American experience. We have no better source for quick and reliable information." Cornel West, Alphonse Fletcher UniversityProfessor, Harvard University
"As much about African American culture as one could possibly gain from one volume is now available in this highly readable, easily accessible, genuinely informative desk reference." Johnetta B. Cole, PhD, President Emerita, Spelman College; Presidential Distinguished Professor, Emory University
In over 5,000 fascinating information capsules, this landmark reference captures the most vital people, places, organizations, movements, and creative works of a people, and provides a practical resource for everyday living. In its nineteen chapters, you ll find:
* Timelines of African American History
* Political and Civil Rights Leaders
* African Contributions to the Making of the Americas
* Holidays and Celebrations
* Museums and Historical Sites
* Religion and Spirituality
* Health Tips and Recipes
* Business Contacts and Professional Associations
* Demographics and Population
* Major Writers, Artists, and Musicians
* Musical Forms
* Sports
* and more

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780471239246
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Publication date: 09/30/1999
Pages: 624
Product dimensions: 9.22(w) x 11.02(h) x 1.53(d)

About the Author

Established in 1875, THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY is internationally recognized as one of the greatest institutions of its kind and is also one of the most respected names in reference publishing. Its acclaimed reference works have sold in excess of a million copies.
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library, founded in 1926, is one of the world s foremost research facilities devoted to the collection, preservation, and interpretation of materials documenting black life. With collections totalling over five million items, it serves over 50,000 researchers in its Harlem-based facilities and responds to another 40 50,000 mail and telephone reference inquiries annually.

Read an Excerpt




Chapter One


TIME LINE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY


c. 1200 B.C.-700 B.C. According to a number of scholars, black Africans from Egypt and Nubia sail west across the Atlantic Ocean and have extensive contact with native peoples of the Americas. (This theory is based on studies of ocean currents and navigation, reports of later European explorers, botanical research, oral traditions, Native American sculptures resembling black Africans, and other evidence—however, the subject of pre-Columbian contact has been extensively debated by historians and archeologists and remains highly controversial.)
c. 300 B.C. Iron Age begins in sub-Saharan Africa; Nok culture flourishes in present-day Nigeria, producing works of art that rival the works of ancient Greece and Rome.
c. A.D. 750 Ancient Ghana (located in present-day Mali and Mauretania) emerges as the first great kingdom of sub-Saharan Africa and prospers by regulating the North African gold trade; West Africans begin to adopt Islam through contacts with Muslim traders.
c. 850 The Sefawa dynasty begins its thousand-year reign in the West African kingdom of Kanem.
c. 1000 Ancient Ghana reaches the height of its power; fortified city-states begin to emerge in Hausaland.
c. 1100 Feudal kingdoms arise in Ethiopia.
c. 1200 Swahili civilization, sustained by Indian Ocean trade, flourishes in East Africa.
1240 Sundiata Keita creates the unified kingdom of Mali in West Africa; Mali replaces ancient Ghana as the region's great power.
c. 1300 According to a 14th-century Arabic chronicle, African mariners from Mali cross the Atlantic Ocean in a fleet of 2,000 ships, seeking the mouth of the Amazon River in South America.
1312-1337 Mali attains the height of its power and wealth under Mansa Musa, whose fame spreads throughout the Middle East and Europe; Mali's immense gold supplies facilitate the economic development of Europe.
c. 1350 The great Zimbabwe culture thrives in the central grasslands, where African builders erect immense stone structures; Wolof kingdoms emerge in Senegambia; Yoruba artists in Ile Ife (central Nigeria) produce magnificent bronze sculptures.
1440s Portuguese take the first captives from sub-Saharan Africa, transporting them to Portugal and Spain.
1464-1528 Under Sunni Ali and Askia Muhammad, the kingdom of Songhai emerges as the dominant power in West Africa, controlling most of the Niger River.
1492 Afro-Spaniard named Pedro Alonzo Niño accompanies Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas.
1502 Several Afro-Spaniards accompany Nicolás de Ovando when he becomes, the first Spanish governor of Hispaniola; Portuguese bring enslaved Africans to the Americas for the first time.
1517 The first enslaved Africans reach the Caribbean islands on Spanish ships.
1522 Africans in Santo Domingo stage the first known slave revolt.
1526 First enslaved Africans arrive in continental United States in present-day South Carolina.
1520s-1530s Africans take part in numerous Spanish expeditions in the New World, ranging from Florida to California.
1542 The Spanish monarchy outlaws the enslavement of Native Americans; as a result, the African slave trade increases in intensity.
1565 Africans take part in founding of St. Augustine, Florida, the first permanent city in present-day United States built by nonnative Americans.
c. 1590 Portuguese begin large-scale slave trade to Brazil, taking Africans mainly from Angola and coastal regions of the Congo.
1605 Rebellious slaves in northeastern Brazil found the kingdom of Palmares, which eventually contains 20,000 inhabitants. (See 1694.)
1606 The first recorded birth of a black child in North America occurs at St. Augustine, Florida.
1619 Twenty Africans having the status of indentured servants arrive in the English settlement of Jamestown aboard a Dutch ship—they are probably the first black people brought to the British North American colonies.
1623 The first known African child born in the English colonies—William Tucker of Jamestown, the son of indentured servants.
1624 Dutch bring enslaved Africans into New Amsterdam (later New York) for the first time.
1634 Enslaved Africans are brought to Massachusetts and Maryland for the first time.
1644 Eleven blacks in New Amsterdam successfully petition for their freedom.
1652 Rhode Island enacts the first antislavery law in the colonies, limiting the term of servitude to 10 years, for both blacks and whites.
c. 1660 The British and the Dutch begin to supplant the Spanish as the major colonial powers in the Caribbean and the leading slave traders; there are about 100,000 slaves in the West Indies and only about 5,000 in the American colonies.
1663 The first major slave conspiracy in the British North American colonies is uncovered in Virginia.
1688 Pennsylvania Quakers publish the first manifesto condemning slavery in the colonies.
1694 The Brazilian kingdom of Palmares, composed of escaped slaves, falls to Portuguese troops after repeated assaults—inhabitants are reenslaved and branded to show that they are escapees. (See 1605.)
1695 Reverend Samuel Thomas, a white cleric in Charleston, South Carolina, establishes the first known school for African Americans in the colonies.
1700 The enslaved population in the American colonies reaches 28,000 (23,000 in the South); Boston merchant Samuel Sewall and the Boston Committee of Massachusetts formally oppose the slave trade.
1708 Enslaved Africans outnumber European colonists in the Carolinas for the first time.
1712 Enslaved Africans revolt in New York City, burning buildings and killing 9 European colonists; 20 Africans involved in the revolt are killed or commit suicide.
c. 1725 The Fon kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) becomes the dominant state in the area of West Africa the British call the "Slave Coast."
1730s The First Maroon War in Jamaica leads to a treaty between British authorities and rebellious blacks, allowing many of the Maroon communities to exist free of enslavement.
1738 Africans escaping from bondage in the American colonies set up the first-black settlement in North America, at Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mosé, in Florida. (The settlement is disbanded in 1763, when the Spanish cede Florida to Britain.)
1739 The Stono Uprising takes place in South Carolina as more than a hundred slaves revolt--all the rebels were either killed in battle or hanged.
1746 Lucy Terry writes "Bar's Fight" (a ballad about the conflict between Massachusetts colonists and Native Americans), the first known writing in English by an African American--the poem is not published until 1855.
1750 The enslaved African population in the American colonies reaches 236,000; the gold-rich Asante (Ashanti) Empire rises in West Africa.
1754 Self-taught scientist Benjamin Banneker constructs the first clock made entirely of American parts.
1770 Crispus Attucks, a black seafarer, is the first colonist killed in the Boston Massacre.
1772 Britain's highest court frees all slaves living in the United Kingdom.
1773 Phillis Wheatley becomes the first African American to publish a book (Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral); the first black church (Baptist) is founded in Silver Bluff, South Carolina, by George Liele, then a slave of Henry Sharp, a Baptist deacon. (Liele was later freed by Sharp and moved to Jamaica, where he founded that island's first black Baptist church, as well as a free school.)
1774 Massachusetts is the first colony to pass a law forbidding the importation of slaves.
1775 Pennsylvania Quakers organize the first abolition society in the United States, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery; African American minutemen engage in combat at Lexington and Concord.
1776 The Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence, severing ties between the American colonies and Great Britain; a passage condemning slavery authored by slave owner Thomas Jefferson is dropped from the document at the insistence of Georgia and South Carolina delegates.
1777 In a petition to the Massachusetts legislature, enslaved Africans argue that slavery is in conflict with the principles of the American Revolution; Vermont is the first state to abolish slavery.
1778 Virginia abolishes the slave trade, although slavery itself is not outlawed; Jupiter Hammons publishes his poem "To Miss Phyllis Wheatley."
1778-1781 Five thousand African Americans serve as regular soldiers in the patriot armies during the American Revolution.
1779 Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, a black Canadian fur trader born in the West Indies, establishes a trading post that will eventually become the city of Chicago; George Liele begins preaching to blacks in British-occupied Savannah, Georgia.
1780 Pennsylvania adopts a policy of gradual emancipation; George Derham becomes the first black licensed to practice medicine in the United States.
1781 Twenty-six blacks are among the 44 settlers founding the city of Los Angeles.
1783 Massachusetts abolishes slavery.
1784 Rhode Island and Connecticut enact laws to gradually emancipate slaves.
1787 Delegates in Philadelphia approve the new U.S. Constitution, which contains three clauses protecting the institution of slavery; a colony for liberated slaves is established in Sierra Leone, Africa, with 377 settlers; Richard Allen and Absalom Jones form the Free African Society, the first U.S. civil rights organization; Richard Allen founds Bethel Church in Philadelphia, the first African American church in the North; the African Free School opens in New York.
1789 Olaudah Equiano publishes his autobiography, detailing his experiences under slavery.
1790 The first U.S. Census places the black population at 757,208 (19.3% of the total population), of whom 59,557 are free; slavery has been abolished in all the New England colonies.
1791 François-Dominique Toussaint-Louverture, a former slave, leads a successful slave revolt on the French-held Caribbean island of St. Domingue (the western half of which later becomes the nation of Haiti); Benjamin Banneker takes part in surveying the land chosen for the new national capital in the District of Columbia.
1792 Banneker publishes his first almanac, which proves remarkably accurate in calculating astronomical events; 1,200 African Americans living in Nova Scotia resettle in Sierra Leone.
1793 The invention of the cotton gin increases the size of the Southern cotton industry and creates a greater demand for slave labor; the first fugitive slave law is enacted by the U.S. Congress, making it a crime to harbor an escaped slave.
1794 Congress bans the exportation of slaves from the United States to any foreign country.
1795 The Second Maroon War erupts in Jamaica—many rebellious Maroons are deported to Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone after being tricked into laying down their arms; Richard Allen organizes a school for African American children in Philadelphia.
1796 African Americans in Boston establish the Boston African Society, a mutual aid organization; Joshua Johnson, the first widely recognized African American painter, opens a studio in Baltimore.
1800 The U.S. African American population tops 1 million; U.S. citizens are barred from taking part in the foreign slave trade; a planned rebellion by a thousand slaves in Virginia is thwarted by violent rainstorms.
1801 A new constitution outlaws slavery and declares independence for the whole island of St. Domingue; Toussaint-Louverture becomes St. Domingue's president.
1803 South Carolina reopens its ports to the slave trade from Latin America to satisfy the demand for labor in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase; escaped slaves and members of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and other southeastern U.S. tribes that have been defeated by U.S. government troops begin moving into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
1804 Haiti, on the western part of St. Domingue, becomes an independent republic under Jean-Jacques Dessalines; Muslim reformers launch a series of holy wars in West Africa.
1808 Importation of slaves into the United States is officially outlawed, effective January 1, though illegal slaving continues; Britain abolishes the slave trade in Jamaica and other Caribbean colonies.
1810 Tom Molineaux achieves prominence as a boxer.
1812-1815 African Americans serve as sailors and militia members in the War of 1812 against Great Britain—they distinguish themselves in the battles of Lake Erie and New Orleans.
1813 Argentina adopts a gradual emancipation law.
1814 Colombia begins the emancipation process.
1815 France abolishes importation of slaves to its American colonies; Paul Cuffe transports 38 free blacks from the United States to Sierra Leone.
1816 Richard Allen and associates found the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church.
1820 The American Colonization Society launches efforts to resettle liberated slaves in Liberia on the coast of West Africa; 86 blacks sail to Africa on the Mayflower of Liberia; the Missouri Compromise goes into effect, banning slavery in the territories north of latitude 36°30'; the British Navy begins measures to suppress the slave trade.
1821 The first black acting troupe, the African Grove Theater, is established in New York City; Thomas L. Jennings is the first African American to obtain a patent (for a dry-cleaning process).
1822 Denmark Vesey organizes a plan to seize Charleston, South Carolina, for the purpose of freeing slaves—he and 47 others are executed after the plot is betrayed.
1823 Alexander Lucius Twilight earns a B.A. degree from Middlebury College in Vermont, becoming the first African American college graduate; Chile abolishes slavery; the African Grove Theater performs Brown's Drama of King Shotaway, the first produced play written by an African American author.
1824 Slavery is abolished throughout Central America; Ira Aldridge begins his triumphant acting career in Europe.
1827 Slavery is abolished in New York State, fleeing 10,000 people; the first African American newspaper, Freedom's Journal, is published in New York City.
1829 African Americans are attacked by white mobs in Cincinnati, Ohio, during threeday race riot—1,000 flee the city and resettle in Canada; Mexico abolishes slavery; Sister Elizabeth Lange, a Haitian nun, founds the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore, the first black women's religious order in the United States; David Walker's Appeal calls on enslaved blacks to rise up against their oppressors.
1830 The First National Negro Convention meets in Philadelphia—38 delegates from eight states agree on self-help measures.
1831 Nat Turner's rebellion erupts in Virginia, leading to repressive measures throughout the South; the Female Literary Association of Philadelphia, the first society of its sort for African American women, is organized—the association seeks the education of its members and challenges racism and prejudice; Bolivia abolishes slavery; the Emancipation Rebellion erupts in Jamaica.
1832 Abolitionists led by William Lloyd Garrison form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in Boston.
1833 Black and white abolitionists organize the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia; Ira Idridge debuts as Othello in London.
1834 Slavery is abolished in the British Empire, freeing more than 700,000 people; David Ruggles opens the first African American bookstore in the United States in New York City—he carries general and abolitionist literature, including his own abolitionist tract Extinguisher.... which he publishes on his own press, another African American first.
1835 New York City African Americans form a vigilance committee to assist fugitive slaves.
1836 Congress adopts a "gag rule" that prevents debate on any antislavery legislation (the rule remains in effect until 1845); Alexander Lucius Twilight wins a seat in the Vermont legislature, becoming the first African American elected to public office.
1837 The first Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women (membership 10% black) meets in New York City.
1838 The first African American periodical, Mirror of Liberty, is published in New York City.
1839 The Liberty Party (first U.S. antislavery party) organizes in Warsaw, New York.
1840 The U.S. African American population reaches 2,873,648.
1841 Frederick Douglass makes his first antislavery speech, in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
1843 Sojourner Truth begins abolition work; at the National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York, Henry Highland Garnet advocates armed rebellion against slavery; blacks take part in a national political convention for the first time at a meeting of the Liberty Party in Buffalo; Norbert Rillieux patents an evaporator that eventually revolutionizes the sugar industry.
1844 William Henry Lane begins to achieve prominence as a tap dancer under the name Master Juba.
1845 Frederick Douglass lectures in Britain on the abolition of slavery and publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the first of his three autobiographies; Macon B. Allen, the first African American admitted to the bar, begins practicing law in Massachusetts.
1847 Douglass is elected president of the New England Anti-Slavery Society and begins publishing the North Star; William Wells Brown publishes Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave; Liberia declares itself an independent republic; David J. Peck is the first African American graduate of a U.S. medical school.
1848 Antislavery politicians organize the Free Soil Party, opposing the extension of slavery into western territories; democratic revolutions sweep Europe; slavery is ended in all French and Danish colonies; Robert Duncanson achieves recognition as a painter; Lewis Temple invents an improved harpoon, which revolutionizes the whaling industry.
1849 Harriet Tubman escapes slavery in Maryland and begins her legendary career as a conductor on the Underground Railroad; Benjamin Roberts, a black man, unsuccessfully files the first integration lawsuit after his daughter is denied admission to Boston public schools.
1850 The U.S. African American population stands at 3,636,808 (15.7% of the total); Congress enacts the Compromise of 1850, admitting California as a free state and decreeing that the status of Utah and New Mexico will be decided by local residents; the federal Fugitive Slave Law goes into effect, giving slave catchers broad powers and imposing harsh penalties on anyone aiding escapees; African American mountaineer Jim Beckwourth discovers a pass through the Sierra Nevada, which later bears his name; Lucy Ann Stanton is the first African American woman to graduate from a four-year college, earning a bachelor of literature degree from Oberlin College in Ohio.
1851 Brazil outlaws the slave trade.
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin is published, arousing wide sympathy for the abolitionist cause.
1854 Boston abolitionists storm the federal courthouse in a futile attempt to rescue captured fugitive Anthony Burns; the Kansas-Nebraska Act nullifies the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing residents of Kansas and Nebraska to determine the status of slavery in their territories; the newly formed Republican Party opposes the extension of slavery into the territories; Peru and Venezuela abolish slavery; James A. Healy becomes the first African American Catholic priest; Edward M. Bannister produces his first commissioned painting, The Ship Outward Bound; the Ashmun Institute (later renamed Lincoln University), the first historically African American college, is founded in Oxford, Pennsylvania.
1857 The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Dred Scott v. Sanford that escaped slaves cannot sue for freedom and that Congress has no authority to prohibit slavery in the territories—this ruling makes further compromise on slavery impossible.
1858 Abraham Lincoln gains national recognition as an antislavery candidate during his unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate.
1859 White abolitionist John Brown and a band of 23, including 5 African Americans, raid the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, hoping to capture arms and start a slave insurrection in the South—Lewis Leary and Dangerfield Newby are killed in the raid, while Brown, John Copeland, and Shields Green are captured, found guilty of murder and treason, and then hanged. Survivor Osborne Anderson writes A Voice from Harper's Ferry. Harriet E. Wilson publishes the first African American novel, Our Nig, or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black.
1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president of the United States; South Carolina secedes from the Union in protest, followed by several other states; the U.S. African American population stands at 4,441,830 (14.1%), 4 million remain enslaved.
1861 Civil War begins on April 12 when Confederates fire on Union forces at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.
1862 Congress bans slavery in Washington, D.C., and the territories; enlistment of freed blacks into the Union armies begins; black troops see the first combat of the war in Missouri and South Carolina; the United States officially recognizes Liberia; Wilberforce University in Ohio (founded in 1856) becomes the first college run by African American educators; Cuba ends the slave trade.
1863 The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect on January 1, freeing all slaves in Confederate-held territories; black troops of the 54th Massachusetts regiment make a heroic charge on Fort Wagner in South Carolina; all-black 9th and 11th Louisiana regiments defeat Confederate forces at Milliken's Bend.
1864 Congress repeals the Fugitive Slave Laws and grants black Union troops equal pay with whites; the National Convention of Colored Citizens meets in Syracuse, New York, and issues an appeal for voting rights; Congress authorizes public schools for African Americans in Washington, D.C.; Georgia Minstrels, the first all-black minstrel troupe, is formed.
1865 Civil War ends with the defeat of the South—250,000 African Americans served in Union armies, 38,000 died; Congress ratifies the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States; Congress creates the Freedman's Bank and the Freedmen's Bureau to aid former slaves; Lincoln is assassinated; President Andrew Johnson announces plans for Reconstruction in the South; Southern legislatures enact Black Codes, laws restricting the rights of former slaves; John S. Rock of Boston is the first African American admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, although he dies in 1866, before he has a chance to argue a case.
1866-1904 During the 35 years following the end of the Civil War, a number of colleges and universities for African Americans are founded in the South to educate successive generations of black leaders; among these are Howard University in Washington, D.C. (1866); Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama (1867); Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia (1869); Allen University in Columbia, South Carolina, and LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee (1870); Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Meharry Medical College (the first all-black medical school) in Nashville, Tennessee (1876); Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, Howard University Medical School in Washington, D.C., and Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia (1877); Selma University in Selma, Alabama (1878); Spelman College for Women in Atlanta, Georgia, Tuskegee Institute (founded by Booker T. Washington) in Tuskegee, Alabama, Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, and Bishop College in Dallas, Texas (1881); Shorter College in Little Rock, Arkansas (1884); Kentucky State University in Frankfort and University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne (1886); North Carolina A&T in Greensboro (1891); Texas College in Tyler, Texas (1894); and Daytona Normal Industrial School (founded by Mary McLeod Bethune and later renamed Bethune-Cookman College) in Daytona, Florida (1904).
1866 The Civil Rights Act decrees that all African Americans are full U.S. citizens; the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups begin a campaign of terror against emancipated blacks in the South; racial violence in Memphis, Tennessee, results in the death of 46 African Americans; African American jockey Abe Hawkins rides winners at Belmont and Saratoga.
1867 Congress passes the First Reconstruction Act, which includes voting rights for all citizens, and the Peonage Abolition Act, outlawing forced labor for discharge of debt; William Wells Brown publishes Clotel.
1868 The Fourteenth Amendment, granting African Americans full civil rights, wins approval in Congress; black candidates are elected to state legislatures in the South and fill other government posts, beginning a series of political advancements that continue until the end of Reconstruction in 1877; Edmonia Lewis completes her sculpture Forever Free, celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation.
1869 The Fifteenth Amendment forbids denial of the vote on the basis of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"; four African American regiments are incorporated into the regular U.S. Army; Joseph Rainey of South Carolina is the first African American to take a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
1870 Hiram Rhoades Revels of Mississippi is the first African American to win election to the U.S. Senate; Congress passes the first of a series of measures to combat the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups; Lewis Latimer makes technical drawings of Bell's newly invented telephone.
1871 Brazil begins gradual emancipation of slaves; Fisk Jubilee Singers tour the United States and Europe, popularizing black spirituals.
1872 Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback is appointed interim governor of Louisiana and is the first African American to serve as a state governor; the Ku Klux Klan temporarily disbands (it will be resurrected in 1915); John Conyers is the first African American admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy; Elijah McCoy patents an automatic lubricating device for steam engines.
1873 Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico.
1875 The 44th U.S. Congress convenes with eight African American members, the greatest number to have served at that time; the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment and establishes the right of African Americans to serve on juries; jockey Oliver Lewis, riding Aristide, wins the first Kentucky Derby, beginning an era when black jockeys dominate the Derby and other races.
1876 John Knowles Paine is the first African American to compose a symphonic work; Edward Alexander Bouchet is the first African American to obtain a doctorate (in physics).
1877 The U.S. government removes all federal troops from the South as Reconstruction comes to an end; Henry Ossian Flipper is the first African American to graduate from a U.S. military academy.
1878 Exodusters begin migrating from Southern states to Kansas to escape intensified oppression in the South—50,000 resettle by 1881; J. R. Winters patents a fire-escape ladder.
1881 Frederick Douglass becomes a recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C.; Henry Highland Garnet becomes U.S. minister to Liberia; Tennessee enacts its first Jim Crow law, enforcing segregation in railroad cars; William Wells Brown publishes My Southern Home.
1882 Lewis Latimer patents carbon filament for electric lamp.
1883 George Washington Williams publishes History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880; Jan E. Matzeliger patents a shoe-lasting machine; Lewis Latimer begins working with Thomas Edison; Eatonville, Florida, is the first all-black incorporated town.
1884 Granville Woods founds the Woods Electric Company, which produces 35 patented devices over the next 20 years; Moses Fleetwood Walker, a catcher with the Toledo, Ohio, team of the American Association, is the first African American to play major league baseball (black players are squeezed out of the major leagues during the 1890s); T. Thomas Fortune founds the New York Age.
1884-1885 European powers delineate colonial spheres of influence in Africa and press all-out military assault on African societies.
1885 Granville Woods patents a telegraphy device; the Cuban Giants, the first African American professional baseball team, is formed.
1886 Slavery is abolished in Cuba.
1888 Brazil abolishes slavery; transatlantic slave trade comes to an end.
1889 Frederick Douglass becomes U.S. minister to Haiti; 10,000 African Americans stake claims to land in the newly opened territory of Oklahoma.
1891 Provident Hospital, the first to be operated by African Americans, is founded in Chicago.
1892-1924 About 170,000 West Indians migrate to the United States.
1892 The first black college football game is played (Biddle vs. Livingstone); William Henry Lewis of Amherst becomes the first black all-American in football.
1893 African American surgeon Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful heart operation at Chicago's Provident Hospital; Paul Laurence Dunbar publishes his first poetry collection, Oak and Ivy; Henry Ossawa Tanner begins painting scenes of black life.
1894 Congress repeals the Enforcement Act, making it easier for states to disfranchise black voters; the Church of God in Christ is founded in Memphis.
1895 Lynchings claim the lives of 113 African Americans in the South; Booker T. Washington delivers his Atlanta Compromise speech, accepting segregation in return for economic advancement; the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., is organized in Atlanta; Bert Williams and George Walker form their legendary show business team.
1896 The National Federation of Afro-American Women is formed to help combat racism; in Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Tennessee's "separate but equal" facilities on railroad cars are constitutional, paving the way for additional Jim Crow laws throughout the South; Richard Henry Boyd founds the National Baptist Publishing Board in Nashville; Oriental America is the first African American play produced on Broadway.
1897 The Lott Carey Baptist Mission begins operations in Liberia.
1898 African American troops fight in the Spanish-American War; John Merrick and associates found the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, anchoring an African American business boom in Durham; A Trip to Coontown opens—the first musical comedy created and performed by African Americans.
1899 Scott Joplin publishes "Maple Leaf Rag."
1900 European colonization of Africa is virtually complete; the first Pan-African Congress is held in London, with its stated aim to promote the liberation of colonized people—W. E. B. Du Bois is elected vice president; Booker T. Washington publishes Up from Slavery; brothers James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson write "Lift Every Voice and Sing"; Henry Ossawa Tanner wins the French Medal of Honor for his paintings at the Paris Exposition.
1901 The Johnson brothers and Bob Cole are the first African Americans to sign a songwriting contract for the Broadway stage; Booker T. Washington organizes the National Negro Business League and dines at the White House with President Theodore Roosevelt.
1903 W. E. B. Du Bois publishes The Souls of Black Folk; Maggie Lena Walker founds the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank.
1905 Full-scale construction begins on the Panama Canal—in the course of the project, 30,000 black workers from the West Indies contribute their labor, and 4,500 lose their lives; the Chicago Defender begins publication as a champion of African American rights; the Niagara Movement begins to shape a more radical alternative to Booker T. Washington's policies.
1906 Black soldiers are accused of raiding Brownsville, Texas—167 men are court-martialed, deprived of a fair hearing, and dishonorably discharged (this ruling is reversed in 1962); race riots break out in Atlanta, Georgia; Madame C. J. Walker begins her successful business career by establishing a hair-care company in Denver; the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles (1906-1909) inspires the creation of Holiness/Pentecostal/Apostolic churches.
1907 Alain Locke is the first African American to earn a Rhodes Scholarship.
1908 Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first African American sorority, is founded at Howard University; Jack Johnson becomes the first black heavyweight boxing champion in the United States; Vertner Tandy is the first African American architect licensed in New York State.
1909 W. E. B. Du Bois and others plan the creation of a new civil rights organization that will become the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Amsterdam News begins publication in New York City.
1910 The NAACP is formally established and begins publishing Crisis magazine.
1911 The National Urban League is founded to assist African Americans newly resettled in northern cities; John E. Bruce, Arthur Schomburg, David Fulton, and William E. Braxton found the Negro Society for Historical Research; Scott Joplin's Treemonisha is performed for the first time.
1912 James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is published; W. C. Handy publishes the first blues composition ("Memphis Blues").
1913 Noble Drew Ali founds the Moorish Holy Temple of Science in Newark, New Jersey.
1914 The NAACP institutes the Spingarn Medal to honor outstanding achievements by African Americans; Marcus Garvey founds the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in Kingston, Jamaica; World War I breaks out in Europe.
1915 The Great Migration begins as Southern blacks move to the North—1.5 million relocate by 1930; the Ku Klux Klan is reborn in Georgia; Carter G. Woodson founds the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History; Father Divine (George Baker) establishes his first church in New York City.
1916 The first issue of Journal of Negro History appears, edited by Carter G. Woodson; Marcus Garvey relocates to New York with the UNIA; James Van Der Zee opens his photo studio in Harlem; the American Tennis Association is created to promote tennis among African Americans.
1917 United States enters World War I—300,000 African Americans serve in the armed forces during the war; 100 blacks are killed in a race riot in East St. Louis, Missouri; 10,000 blacks protest lynching and other violence against blacks in a silent march down New York City's Fifth Avenue.
1919 Race riots occur in many U.S. cities during Red Summer; Garvey establishes the Black Star (steamship) Line to link New World blacks with Africa; W. E. B. Du Bois organizes the second Pan-African Congress in Paris (see 1900); Oscar Micheaux releases his first film, The Homesteader; the Negro National Baseball League begins operation.
1920 The Harlem Renaissance begins a period of unprecedented artistic creative output by African Americans; Charles Gilpin stars in The Emperor Jones; Marcus Garvey holds the first International Convention of Negro Peoples at Madison Square Garden.
1921 Pace Phonograph Company is the first record company owned and operated by African Americans (Ethel Waters's "Down Home Blues/Oh Daddy," issued on the Black Swan label, is the company's first hit); Jesse Binga founds a successful bank in Chicago.
1922 The Black Star Line goes bankrupt as Garvey and three associates are indicted for mail fraud—many believe that Garvey was framed by opponents who feared his influence; Congress fails to pass the Dyer antilynching bill; William Leo Hansberry of Howard University offers the first course in African history at a U.S. university; Blake and Sissle's Shuffle Along, the first musical created entirely by African Americans, opens on Broadway; major publications include Claude McKay's Harlem Shadows and James Weldon Johnson's Book of American Negro Poetry.
1923 Bessie Smith's "Downhearted Blues/Gulf Coast Blues" is the first million-selling record by a black artist; the National Urban League begins publishing Opportunity magazine; Jean Toomer's novel Cane is published; Paul Robeson stars in The Emperor Jones; the Harlem Renaissance (Rens) basketball team is formed.
1924 The Immigration Act limits number of blacks and other ethnic groups allowed to enter the United States; important novels include Jesse Redmon Fauset's There Is Confusion and Walter White's Fire in the Flint.
1925 A. Philip Randolph founds the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; immigration from the West Indies drops to 308 (from 10,000 in 1924), primarily as a result of the 1924 Immigration Act; Clifton Reginald Wharton Sr. is the first African American to enter the U.S. Foreign Service; Countee Cullen publishes first volume of poetry, Color; the first Opportunity Awards banquet is held, honoring outstanding writers; singer Josephine Baker achieves stardom in Paris.
1926 Negro History Week, which later becomes Black History Month (February) (see Chapter 5), is celebrated for the first time; the personal collection of distinguished black scholar Arthur A. Schomburg is added to the New York Public Library Division of Negro Literature, History, and Prints at the 135th Street Branch—it would be renamed in his honor in 1940 and designated the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in 1972; with Harlem Renaissance at its height, notable publications include Alain Locke's anthology The New Negro; Langston Hughes's first collection of poetry, The Weary Blues; and Eric Walrond's Tropic Death; Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Wallace Thurman establish the literary magazine Fire!; Paul Revere Williams is the first African American fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
1927 Major poetry collections include Hughes's Fine Clothes to the Jew, Cullen's Copper Sun, and James Weldon Johnson's God's Trombones; the Harmon Foundation begins efforts to promote African American artists; the Harlem Globetrotters team is founded.
1928 Oscar DePriest is the first African American elected to Congress since Reconstruction; major novels include Nella Larsen's Quicksand and Claude McKay's Home to Harlem; Bill "Bojangles" Robinson stars on Broadway.
1929 A. Philip Randolph's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters receives a charter from the American Federation of Labor; publications include Nella Larsen's Passing, Claude McKay's Banjo, and Countee Cullen's Black Christ; Augusta Savage creates award-winning sculpture Gamin; circulation of Chicago Defender reaches 250,000.
1930 The world enters the Great Depression, the effects of which are felt acutely by African Americans; James Weldon Johnson publishes Black Manhattan; Josh Gibson begins his legendary baseball career in the Negro Leagues.
1931 Nine young African Americans, soon to be known as the Scottsboro Boys, are falsely accused and convicted of rape in a controversial Alabama trial; Katherine Dunham founds her Negro Dance group in Chicago; Oscar Michaux's film The Exile is the first talkie released by a black-owned company; Duke Ellington records "Creole Rhapsody."
1932 The New York Rens defeat the Boston Celtics, becoming the first black sports team to win a world championship; publications include Rudolph Fisher's Conjure Man Dies, considered the first African American detective novel.
1933 Franklin D. Roosevelt takes office as president of the United States and institutes social programs of the New Deal; Jacob Lawrence, Aaron Douglas, and other black artists participate in federal arts projects; prominent African American officials form Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," advising the president on social issues; NAACP begins to attack segregation through a series of lawsuits.
1934 Arthur Mitchell of Illinois is the first African American Democrat elected to the U.S. Congress; major publications include Hurston's Jonah's Gourd Vine and Hughes's Ways of White Folks; Aaron Douglas completes his mural series Aspects of Negro Life; Augusta Savage is the first black member of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors.
1935 A Harlem riot marks the symbolic end of the Harlem Renaissance; Italy invades Ethiopia, spurring protests by African Americans; numerous African Americans take part in the Federal Theater Project; Mary McLeod Bethune is named to head a division of the National Youth Administration, becoming the first African American woman to head a U.S. government office; chemist Percy Julian synthe-
(Continues...)

Table of Contents

The Saga of African American History.

Slavery and Freedom.

Politics and Civil Rights.

The Diaspora.

Family and Heritage.

Religion.

Education.

Health.

Business and Entrepreneurship.

Science and Technology.

The Military.

The Law.

Literature and Language.

Music.

Performing Arts.

Fine and Applied Arts.

The Media.

Sports.

Resources.

Illustration Credits.

Index.

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