African American History Timelines:

• Before 1601
• 1601 - 1700
• 1701 - 1800
• 1801 - 1900
• 1901 - 2000
• 2001 -
• African Americans in the West Timeline

1800 - 1900

1802—The Ohio Constitution outlaws slavery. It also prohibits free blacks from voting. The Ohio Legislature passes the first “Black Laws” which place other restrictions on free African Americans living in the state.

James Callender claims that Thomas Jefferson has "for many years past kept, as his concubine, one of his own slaves," Sally Hemings. His charge is published in the Richmond Recorder that month, and the story is soon picked up by the Federalist press around the country.

1803—On April 30, Louisiana is purchased from the French. The new territory nearly doubles the size of the United States.

1804—On January 1, Haiti becomes an independent nation. It is the second independent nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States).

1804-1806—The Lewis and Clark Expedition explores newly purchased Louisiana and the Pacific Northwest. An African American, York, is prominent in the expedition.

1807—Great Britain abolishes the importation of enslaved Africans into its colonial possessions.

New Jersey disfranchises black voters.

1808—The United States government abolishes the importation of enslaved Africans, however, the ban is widely ignored. Between 1808 and 1860, approximately 250,000 blacks are illegally imported into the United States. Slave trading within the states (the domestic trade) continues until the end of the Civil War.

1809—New York recognizes marriage within the African American community.

1810—Census of 1810
U.S. Population: 7,239,881
Black Population: 1,377,808 (19%) including 186,446 free African Americans.

The U.S. Congress prohibits African Americans from carrying mail for the U.S. Postal Service.

1811—Andry’s Rebellion on January 8-11. A slave insurrection led by Charles Deslondes, begins on the Louisiana plantation of Manual Andry.

1812—Previously independent African American schools become part of the Boston public school system.

Two African American regiments are formed in New York to fight in the War of 1812.

1814—Six hundred African American troops are among the U.S. Army of 3,000 led by General Andrew Jackson which defeats British forces at the Battle of New Orleans.

1815—Richard Allen officially creates the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first wholly African American church denomination in the United States.

 Abolitionist Levi Coffin establishes the Underground Railroad.

1816—The American Colonization Society is founded by Bushrod Washington (the nephew of George Washington) and other prominent white Americans who believe enslaved African Americans should be freed and settled in Africa.

1817-1818—Escaped slaves from Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama join the military campaign of the Florida Seminoles to keep their homelands.

1818—Connecticut disfranchises black voters.

1819—The Canadian government refuses to cooperate with the American government in the apprehension of fugitive slaves living in Canada.

1820—Census of 1820

U.S. Population: 9,638,452

Black Population: 1,771,656 (18.4%) including 233,504 free African Americans.

The Compromise of 1820 allows Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state. It also sets the boundary between slave and free territory in the West at the 36th parallel.

Rev. Daniel Coker of Baltimore leads eighty six African Americans who become the first black settlers to Liberia.

1821—New York maintains property qualifications for African American male voters while abolishing the same for white male voters. Missouri disfranchises free black male voters.

1822—Denmark Vesey is arrested for planning a slave rebellion in South Carolina.

Rhode Island disfranchises black voters.

1824—Mexico outlaws slavery. This act creates the incentive for Anglo Texans to fight for independence.

1826—On August 23, Edward Jones receives a degree from Amherst College in Massachusetts, becoming the first African American college graduate.

1827—Freedom’s Journal begins publication on March 16 in New York City as the first African American owned newspaper in the United States. The editors are John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish.

Slavery is officially abolished in New York.

1829—More than half of Cincinnati’s African American residents are driven out of the city by white mob violence. The Cincinnati riots usher in a more than century-long period of white violence against Northern black urban communities.

David Walker of Boston publishes An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World which calls for a slave uprising in the South.

1830—Census of 1830
U.S. Population: 12,866,020
Black Population: 2,328,842 (18.1%) including 319,599 free African Americans.

African American delegates from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia meet in Philadelphia in the first of a series of National Negro Conventions to devise ways to challenge slavery in the South and racial discrimination in the North.

1831—North Carolina enacts a statute that bans teaching slaves to read and write.

Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Southampton, Virginia, killing at least 57 whites.

Alabama makes it illegal for enslaved or free blacks to preach.

William Lloyd Garrison of Boston founds The Liberator, the first abolitionist newspaper in the United States.

1832—Oberlin College is founded in Ohio. It admits African American men, black women and white women. By 1860 one third of its students are black.

The Female Anti-Slavery Society, the first African American women’s abolitionist society, is founded in Salem, Massachusetts.

1833—The American Anti-Slavery Society is established in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The British Parliament abolishes slavery in the entire British Empire.

1834—African Free Schools are incorporated into the New York Public School system.

Henry Blair is the first African American to receive a patent from the U.S. government. He develops a mechanical corn planter.

South Carolina bans the teaching of blacks, enslaved or free, in its borders.

1835—Texas declares its independence from Mexico. In its Constitution as an independent nation, Texas recognizes slavery and makes it difficult for free blacks to remain there.

1836-1844—The “Gag Rule” prohibits Congress from considering petitions regarding slavery.

1836—John B. Russwurm is appointed Governor of the Cape Palmas district of Liberia by the American Colonization Society.

1837—The Institute for Colored Youth is founded in Southeastern Pennsylvania. It later becomes Cheyney University.

 Dr. James McCune Smith of New York City graduates from the Medical School of the University of Glasgow, and becomes the first African American to hold a medical degree.

1838—Pennsylvania disfranchises black voters.

1839—On August 29, American vessels tow the Spanish ship the Amistad and its 53 slaves into New London, Connecticut. Their fate is decided by the United States Supreme Court in United States v. The Amistad on March 9, 1841 when the Court rules them free and they return to Africa.

1840—Census of 1840

U.S. Population: 17,069,453
Black Population: 2,873,648 (16.1%) including 386,293 free African Americans.

1842—Frederick Douglass leads a successful campaign against Rhode Island’s proposed Dorr Constitution which continue the prohibition on black voting rights.

1843—Rev. Henry Highland Garnet delivers his controversial “Address to the Slaves” at the National Negro Convention meeting in Buffalo, New York, which calls for a servile insurrection.

Sojourner Truth and William Wells Brown begin their campaigns against slavery.

1844—On June 25, the Legislative Committee of the Provisional Government of Oregon enacts the first of a series of black exclusion laws.

1845—Texas is annexed to the United States.

Frederick Douglass publishes his autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

1846-1848—War with Mexico.

1847—Frederick Douglass begins publication of The North Star in Rochester, New York.

 Missouri bans the education of free blacks. 

Missouri abolitionists file a lawsuit on behalf of Dred Scott to gain his freedom. The case is eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court a decade later

1848—On February 2 in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico cedes California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah and gives up claim to Texas at conclusion of War in exchange for $20 million.

In February Karl Marx publishes The Communist Manifesto in London.

On July 19-20, Frederick Douglass is among the handful of men who attend the first Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York.

1849—The California Gold Rush begins. Eventually four thousand African Americans will migrate to California during this period.

Harriett Tubman escapes from slavery and begins her efforts to rescue enslaved people.

On December 4, Benjamin Roberts files a school desegregation lawsuit on behalf of his daughter, Sarah, who is denied admission to a Boston school. The lawsuit is unsuccessful.

1850—Census of 1850

U.S. Population: 23,191,876

Black Population: 3,638,808 (15.7%) including 433,807 free African Americans.

The Compromise of 1850 revisits the issue of slavery. California enters the Union as a free state, but the territories of New Mexico and Utah are allowed to decide whether they will enter the Union as slave or free states. The 1850 Compromise also allowed passage of a much stricter Fugitive Slave Law.

On August 27, Lucy Stanton of Cleveland completes the course requirements for Oberlin Collegiate Institute (now Oberlin College) and becomes the first African American woman to graduate from an American college or university.

1851—Sojourner Truth delivers her famous “Aren’t I a Woman” speech at the Women’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio on May 29.

1852—Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes her novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, which becomes a best selling book and a major influence on the Anti-Slavery Movement.

Martin R. Delany publishes The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States.

 

The Jackson Street Hospital in Augusta, Georgia is established as the first medical facility solely for the care of African American patients.

1853—Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (the Black Swan) debuts at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and performs before Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace a year later.

William Wells Brown becomes the first African American novelist when he publishes Clotel, or the President’s Daughter.

1854—On May 24, Virginia fugitive slave Anthony Burns is captured in Boston and returned to slavery under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Act. Fifty thousand Boston residents watch his transport through the streets of the city in shackles. A Boston church raises $1,500 to purchase his freedom and Burns returns to the city in 1855, a free man.

On May 30, the Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed by Congress. The Act repeals the Missouri Compromise and permits the admission of Kansas and Nebraska Territories to the Union after their populations decide on slavery.

The Republican Party is formed in the summer in opposition to the extension of slavery into the western territories.

  “Bleeding Kansas” is an outgrowth of the controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Between 1854 and 1858 armed groups of pro- and anti-slavery factions often funded and sponsored by organizations in the North and South, compete for control of Kansas Territory, initiating waves of violence that killed 55 people. Bleeding Kansas was seen as a preview of the U.S. Civil War.

 

On October 13, Ashmun Institute, the first institution of higher learning for young black men, is founded by John Miller Dickey and his wife, Sarah Emlen Cresson. In 1866 it is renamed Lincoln University (Pa.) after President Abraham Lincoln 

James A. Healy is ordained in France as the first black Jesuit priest. He becomes Bishop of Portland, Maine in 1875, a diocese that includes all of Maine and New Hampshire, and holds that post for 25 years.

1855—The Massachusetts Legislature outlaws racially segregated schools.

 William C. Nell of Boston publishes The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, considered the first history of African Americans.

In November, John Mercer Langston is elected town clerk of Brownhelm Township, Ohio, becoming the first black elected official in the nation.

1856—Wilberforce University becomes the first school of higher learning owned and operated by African Americans. It is founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Daniel A. Payne becomes the institution’s first president.

1857—On March 6, The Dred Scott Decision is handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

1858—Arkansas enslaves free blacks who refuse to leave the state.

1859—On October 16, John Brown leads twenty men, including five African Americans, in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the Federal Armory at Harper's Ferry, Virginia to inspire a servile insurrection.

Harriett Wilson of Milford, New Hampshire publishes Our Nig; or Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, the first novel by an African American woman.

1860—Census of 1860

U.S. Population: 31,443,321

Black Population: 4,441,830 (14.1%) including 488,070 free African Americans.

On November 6, Abraham Lincoln is elected president.

On December 20, South Carolina secedes from the Union.

1861—By February, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas secede. They form the Confederate States of America on March 4. After the firing on Fort Sumter near Charleston, South Carolina on April 12, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina secede.

1861-1865—The Civil War. Approximately 200,000 blacks (most are newly escaped/freed slaves) serve in Union armed forces and over 20,000 are killed in combat.

1861—Congress passes the First Confiscation Act which prevents Confederate slave owners from reenslaving runaways.

1862—The Port Royal (South Carolina) Reconstruction Experiment begins in March.

On April 16, Congress abolishes slavery in the District of Columbia.

In May the coastal pilot Robert Smalls escapes Charleston, South Carolina with The Planter, a Confederate vessel and sixteen enslaved people.

Congress permits the enlistment of African American soldiers in the U.S. Army on July 17.

With the southern states absent from Congress, the body recognizes Haiti and Liberia, marking the first time diplomatic relations are established with predominately black nations.

1863—Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation takes effect on January 1, legally freeing slaves in areas of the South still in rebellion against the United States.

The New York City draft riots erupt on July 13 and continue for four days, during which at least 100 of the city’s residents are killed. This remains the highest death toll in any urban conflict in the 19th or 20th Centuries.

On July 18, the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteers, the first officially recognized all-black military unit in the Union army, assaults Fort Wagner in Charleston, South Carolina in an unsuccessful effort to take the fortification. Sergeant William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery under fire.

1864—The Fort Pillow Massacre takes place in West Tennessee on April 12. Approximately 300 of the 585 soldiers of the Union garrison at Fort Pillow are killed including many after the Union forces surrender. Only 14 Confederate soldiers die in the battle.

In June Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler of Boston is the first African American woman to earn a medical degree when she graduates from the New England Female Medical College in Boston.

On June 15, Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay, equipment, arms, and health care for African-American Union troops.

On October 4, the New Orleans Tribune begins publication. The Tribune is the first daily newspaper produced by African Americans.

1865—On February 1, 1865, Abraham Lincoln signs the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery throughout the United States.

On March 3, Congress established the Freedmen's Bureau to provide health care, education, and technical assistance to emancipated slaves. Congress also charters the Freedman’s Bank to promote savings and thrift among the ex-slaves.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the Civil War.

On April 15, President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in Washington, D.C.

On June 19, enslaved African Americans in Texas finally receive news of their emancipation. From that point they commemorate that day as “Juneteenth.”

Between September and November, a number of ex-Confederate states pass so called “Black Codes.

The Ku Klux Klan is formed on December 24th in Pulaski, Tennessee by six educated, middle class former Confederate veterans.

Twenty thousand African American troops are among the 32,000 U.S. soldiers sent to the Rio Grande as a show of force against Emperor Maximilian’s French troops occupying Mexico. Some discharged black soldiers join the forces of Mexican resistance leader Benito Juarez.

1866—Fisk University is founded in Nashville, Tennessee on January 9.

On April 9, Congress overrides President Andrew Johnson’s veto to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The act confers citizenship upon black Americans and guarantees equal rights with whites.

On May 1-3, white civilians and police in Memphis, Tennessee kill forty-six African Americans and injure many more, burning ninety houses, twelve schools, and four churches in what will be known as the Memphis Massacre.

On June 13, Congress approves the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing due process and equal protection under the law to all citizens. The amendment also grants citizenship to African Americans.

Congress authorizes the creation of four all-black regiments in the United States Army. Two cavalry regiments, the 9th and 10th and two infantry regiments, the 24th and 25th will become the first and only units in which black soldiers can serve until the Spanish American War. They will be known as Buffalo Soldiers.

Police in New Orleans supporting the Democratic Mayor storm a Republican meeting of blacks and whites on July 30, killing 34 black and 3 white Republicans. Over 150 people are injured in the attack.

In November Mifflin W. Gibbs is elected to the Victoria, British Columbia City Council. He becomes the second African American (after John Mercer Langston) elected to public office in North America.

1867—On January 8, overriding President Andrew Johnson's veto, Congress grants the black citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote. Two days later it passes the Territorial Suffrage Act which allows African Americans in the western territories to vote.

Morehouse College is founded in Atlanta on February 14.

The Reconstruction Acts are passed by Congress on March 2. Congress divides ten of the eleven ex-Confederate states into military districts. These acts also reorganize post-war Southern governments, disfranchising former high ranking Confederates and enfranchising former slaves in the South.

On March 2, Howard University is chartered by Congress in Washington, D.C. The institution is named after General Oliver O. Howard who heads the Freedman’s Bureau.

1868—On July 21, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, granting citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States.

Opelousas, Louisiana is the site of the Opelousas Massacre on September 28, in which an estimated 200 to 300 black Americans are killed by whites opposed to Reconstruction and African American voting.

On November 3, Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant (Republican) is elected president.

On November 3, John Willis Menard is elected to Congress from Louisiana’s Second Congressional District. Menard is the first African American elected to Congress. However, neither he nor his opponent will be seated due to disputed election results.

Howard University Medical School opens on November 9.

1869—On February 26, Congress sends the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution to the states for approval. The amendment guarantees African American males the right to vote.

On April 6, Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett is appointed minister to Haiti. He is the first black American diplomat and presidential appointee.

Isaac Myers organizes the Colored National Labor Union in Baltimore.

1870—Census of 1870.

U.S. population: 39,818,449

Black population: 4,880,009 (12.7%)

Hiram R. Revels (Republican) of Mississippi takes his seat in the U.S. Senate on February 25. He is the first black United States senator, though he serves only one year, completing the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified on March 30.

In June Richard T. Greener becomes the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.

1871—In February Congress passes the Civil Rights Act of 1871 popularly known as the Ku Klux Klan Act.

On October 6, Fisk University's Jubilee Singers begin their first national tour. The Jubilee Singers become world-famous singers of black spirituals, performing before the Queen of England and the Emperor of Japan. The money they earn finances the construction of Jubilee Hall on the Fisk University campus.

1872—Charlotte Ray of Washington, D.C. becomes the first African American woman to practice law.

Lt. Governor Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback of Louisiana serves as governor of the state for one month from December 1872 to January 1873. He is the first African American to hold that position.

1873—The 43rd Congress has seven black members

On April 14, the U.S Supreme Court in the Slaughterhouse Cases rules that the “due process” clause of the 14th Amendment protects national, not state, citizenship.

Bishop Patrick Healy serves as President of Georgetown University from 1873 to 1881. He is the first African American to preside over a predominately white university.

1874—The Freedman’s Bank closes after African American depositors and investors lose more than one million dollars.

1875—Federal troops are sent to Vicksburg, Mississippi in January to protect African Americans attempting to vote and to allow the safe return of the African American sheriff who had been forced to flee the city.

Congress enacts the Civil Rights Act of 1875 on March 1, guaranteeing equal rights to black Americans in public accommodations and jury duty.

Blanche Kelso Bruce (Republican) of Mississippi becomes the first African American to serve a full six year term as senator when he takes his seat in the United States Senate on March 3.

The 44th Congress has eight black members.

On February 23rd the first Southern “Jim Crow” laws are enacted in Tennessee. Similar statutes had existed in the North before the Civil War.

1876—Lewis H. Latimer assists Alexander Graham Bell in obtaining a patent for the telephone on February 14.

In May, Edward Alexander Bouchet receives a Ph.D. from Yale University. He is the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from an American university and only the sixth American to earn a Ph.D. in physics. Bouchet is also believed to be the first African American elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Race riots and other forms of terrorism against black voters in South Carolina over the summer prompt President Grant to sent federal troops to restore order.

On October 13 Meharry Medical College is founded by the Freedman’s Aid Society of the Methodist Church.

The presidential election of 1876, pitting Samuel Tilden (Democrat) against Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican), is inconclusive when the votes in the Electoral College are disputed.

1877—The Compromise of 1877 (also known as the Wormley House Compromise because the meeting takes place in a black-owned hotel in Washington, D.C.) is an arrangement worked out in January of that year which effectively ends Reconstruction. Although Democratic Presidential candidate Samuel Tilden won the popular vote, Southern Democratic leaders agree to support Rutherford Hayes’s efforts to obtain the disputed electoral votes of Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina in exchange for the withdrawal of the last federal troops from the South and the end of federal efforts to protect the civil rights of African Americans.

The 45th Congress has three black members.

On June 15, Henry O. Flipper became the first African American to graduate from West Point.

In July, 30 African American settlers from Kentucky establish the town of Nicodemus in western Kansas. This is the first of hundreds of all or mostly black towns created in the West.

Frederick Douglass becomes U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia.

1878--Diva Marie Selika Williams becomes the first African American entertainer to perform at the White House when she presents a musical program toPresident Rutherford B. Hayes and assembled guests.

1879-1880—Approximately six thousand African Americans leave Louisiana and Mississippi counties along the Mississippi River for Kansas in what will be known as the Exodus.

1879—Mary Eliza Mahoney becomes the first African American professional nurse, graduating from the New England Hospital for Women and Children in Boston.

1880—Census of 1880.

U.S. population: 50,155,783

Black population: 6,580,793 (13.1%)

On May 14, Sgt. George Jordan of the Ninth Cavalry, commanding a detachment of Buffalo Soldiers, leads a successful defense of Tularosa, New Mexico Territory, against Apache Indians.

1881—In January the Tennessee State Legislature votes to segregate railroad passenger cars. Tennessee’s action is followed by Florida (1887), Mississippi (1888), Texas (1889), Louisiana (1890), Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia (1891), South Carolina (1898), North Carolina (1899), Virginia (1900), Maryland (1904), and Oklahoma (1907).

Spelman College, the first college for black women in the U.S., is founded on April 11 by Sophia B. Packard and Harriet E. Giles.

On the Fourth of July Booker T. Washington opens Tuskegee Institute in central Alabama.

1883—The 50th Congress has no black members. Intimidation keeps most black voters from the polls.

On October 16, U. S. Supreme Court declares invalid the Civil Rights Act of 1875, stating the Federal Government cannot bar corporations or individuals from discriminating on the basis of race.

On November 3, white conservatives in Danville, Virginia, seize control of the local racially integrated and popularly elected government, killing four African Americans in the process.

1885—On June 25, African American Samuel David Ferguson is ordained a bishop of the Episcopal Church.

1886—Slavery is abolished in Cuba.

The Knights of Labor reaches it peak membership of 700,000 with approximately 75,000 African American members.

The American Federation of Labor is organized on December 8. All major unions of the federation excluded black workers.

1887—African American players are banned from major league baseball.

The National Colored Farmers’ Alliance is formed in Houston County, Texas.

1888— On April 11, Edward Park Duplex is elected mayor of Wheatland, California. He is believed to be the first African American mayor of a predominantly white town in the United States.

Two of America's first black-owned banks, the Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain United Order of the Reformers, in Richmond, Virginia, and Capital Savings Bank of Washington, D.C, open their doors.

Slavery is abolished in Brazil.

1889—Florida becomes the first state to use the poll tax to disenfranchise black voters.

Frederick Douglass is appointed Minister to Haiti.

1890—Census of 1890

U.S. population: 62,947,714

Black population: 7,488,676 (11.9%)

The Afro-American League is founded on January 25 in Chicago under the leadership of Timothy Thomas Fortune.

On November 1, the Mississippi Legislature approves a new state Constitution that disenfranchises virtually all of the state’s African American voters. The Mississippi Plan used literacy and "understanding" tests to prevent African Americans from casting ballots. Similar statutes were adopted by South Carolina (1895), Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1900), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1901), Georgia (1908), and Oklahoma (1910).

1891—Dr. Daniel Hale Williams founds Provident Hospital in Chicago, the first African American-owned hospital in the nation.

1892—On June 15 operatic soprano Sissieretta Jones becomes the first African American to perform at Carnegie Hall.

On July 14 three companies of the 24th Infantry occupy the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in northern Idaho which has been declared under martial law following a violent strike by silver miners. They remain for four months.

A record 230 people are lynched in the United States this year, 161 are black and 69 white. In the period between 1882 and 1951, Tuskegee Institute compiled nationwide lynching statistics. In that 69 year period, 4,730 people were lynched including 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites. Ninety-two women were victims of lynching, 76 were black and 16 were white. Although southern states accounted for 90% of the lynchings, every state in the continental U.S., with the exception of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont, reported lynching deaths sometime during the 69 year period.

In October activist Ida B. Wells begins her anti-lynching campaign with the publication of Southern Horrors: Lynch Law and in All Its Phases and a speech in New York City’s Lyric Hall

The National Medical Association is formed in Atlanta by African American physicians because they are barred from the American Medical Association.

First intercollegiate football game between African American colleges takes place between Biddle University (now Johnson C. Smith University) and Livingston College.

1893—Henry Ossawa Tanner paints The Banjo Lesson which is eventually hailed as one of the major works of art of the late 19th Century.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful operation on a human heart. The patient, a victim of a chest stab wound, survives and lives for twenty years after the operation.

1895—White terrorists attack black workers in New Orleans on March 11-12. Six blacks are killed.

In June, W.E.B. Du Bois becomes the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University.

Booker T. Washington delivers his famous "Atlanta Compromise" address on September 18 at the Atlanta Cotton States Exposition. He says the "Negro problem" would be solved by a policy of gradualism and accommodation.

Three black Baptist organizations, the Foreign Mission Baptist Convention of the United States (1880), the American National Baptist Convention (1886) and the Baptist National Educational Convention (1993) combined at Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta to form the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. The National Baptist Convention is the largest black religious denomination in the United States.

1896—Plessey v. Ferguson is decided on May 18 when the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Southern segregation laws and practices (Jim Crow) do not conflict with the 13th and 14th Amendments. The Court defends its ruling by articulating the "separate but equal" doctrine.

On July 21 the National Association of Colored Women is formed in Washington, D.C. Mary Church Terrell is chosen as its first president.

In September George Washington Carver is appointed director of agricultural research at Tuskegee Institute. His work advances peanut, sweet potato, and soybean farming.

1897—The American Negro Academy is established on March 5 in Washington, D.C. to encourage African American participation in art, literature and philosophy.

The first Phillis Wheatley Home is founded in Detroit. These homes, established in most cities with large African American populations, provide temporary accommodations and social services for single African American women.

1898—In January the Louisiana Legislature introduces the "Grandfather Clause" into the state’s constitution. Only males whose fathers or grandfathers were qualified to vote on January 1, 1867, are automatically registered. Others (African Americans) must comply with educational or property requirements.

The Spanish-American War begins on April 21. Sixteen regiments of black volunteers are recruited; four see combat in Cuba and the Philippines Five African Americans win Congressional Medals of Honor during the war. A number of black officers command troops for the first time.

The National Afro-American Council is founded on September 15 in Washington, D.C. The organization elects Bishop Alexander Walters as its first president.

On November 10, in Wilmington, North Carolina, eight black Americans were killed during white rioting as conservative Democrats drove out of power black and white Republican officeholders in the city.

The North Carolina Mutual and Provident Insurance Company of Durham, North Carolina and the National Benefit Life Insurance Company of Washington, D.C. are established.

1899—In May, the 24th Infantry returns to occupy the Coeur d’Alene Mining District in northern Idaho after violence again erupts.

The Afro-American Council designates June 4 as a national day of fasting to protest lynching and massacres.

1900—Census of 1900.
U.S. population: 75,994,575
Black population: 8,833,994 (11.6%)

In January James Weldon Johnson writes the lyrics and his brother John Rosamond Johnson composes the music for Lift Every Voice and Sing in their hometown of Jacksonville, Florida in celebration of the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. The song is eventually adopted as the black national anthem.

 The United States Pavilion at the Paris Exposition (April 14- Nov. 10) houses an exhibition on black Americans called the "Exposition des Negres d'Amerique."

The first Pan African Conference, organized by Henry Sylvester Williams a Trinidad attorney, meets in London in July.

The New Orleans Race Riot (also known as the Robert Charles Riot) erupts on July 23 and lasts four days. Twelve African Americans and seven whites were killed.

On August 23, the National Negro Business League is founded in Boston by Booker T. Washington to promote business enterprise.

In September Nannie Helen Burroughs leads the founding of the Women’s’ Convention of the National Baptist Convention at its meeting in Richmond, Virginia.

This year marks the beginning of significant West Indian immigration to the United States.