African American History 1954 - 2004
1955
A 14-year-old Chicago youth, Emmett Till, is lynched in Money, Miss. Jet magazine publishes a picture of his mutilated corpse.
Statistics of reported lynchings in the United States indicate that, between 1882 and 1951, 4,730 people were lynched, of whom 1,293 were white and 3,437 black. Lynching continues to be associated with racial disputes during the 1950s and ‘60s, when civil rights workers and advocates were threatened and in some cases killed by mobs.
Rosa Parks, secretary of the Montgomery, Ala., chapter of the NAACP, refuses
to surrender her seat when ordered to by a local bus driver, leading to the
Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56.
Opera diva Leontyne Price is triumphant in the title role of the National Broadcasting Company’s “Tosca,” making her the first black to sing opera on television.
Singer and guitarist Chuck Berry travels from St. Louis to Chicago, recording “Maybellene,” an immediate sensation among teen-agers. The hit helps shape the evolution of rock and roll.
1956
Percival Prattis, executive editor of The Pittsburgh Courier, becomes first African American admitted to National Press Club
Arthur Mitchell, future director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, becomes the only black dancer in the New York City Ballet. George Balanchine creates several roles especially for him.
Tennis player Althea Gibson becomes the first African-American to win a major
title —the Wimbledon doubles — as well as the French singles and doubles, and
Italian singles.
1957
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is established by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and others to help local groups working for the full equality of African Americans.
President Eisenhower orders federal troops into Little Rock, Ark., after unsuccessfully trying to persuade Gov. Orval Faubus to give up efforts to block desegregation at Central High.
Fullback Jim Brown begins his professional football career with the Cleveland Browns.
1958
The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is formed. Composed primarily of African Americans, the dance company tours extensively in the United States and abroad.
Mahalia Jackson, known as the “Queen of gospel song,” joins Duke Ellington in
his gospel interlude “Black, Brown and Beige” at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.
1959
Singer Ray Charles records “What’d I Say,” which becomes his first
million-seller and exemplifies the emergence of soul music, combining rhythm and
blues with gospel.
Trumpeter Miles Davis records “Kind of Blue,” often considered his masterwork,
with composer-arranger-pianist Bill Evans and tenor saxophonist John Coltrane.
“Raisin in the Sun,” by Lorraine Hansberry, becomes the first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. The 1961 film version features Sidney Poitier and receives a special award at Cannes.
Motown Records is founded in Detroit by Berry Gordy Jr. The “Motown sound” dominates black popular music through the 1960s and attracts a significant white audience as well.
1960
The sit-in movement is launched in Greensboro, N.C., when black college
students insist on being served at a segregated lunch counter.
Black and white students form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or
SNCC, dedicated to working against segregation and discrimination.
1961
Testing desegregation practices in the South, the Freedom Rides, sponsored by
CORE, encounter overwhelming violence, particularly in Alabama, leading to
federal intervention.
Whitney Young is appointed executive director of the National Urban League. He builds a reputation for his behind-the-scenes work to bridge the gap between white political and business leaders and poor blacks.
1962
James Meredith is the first black student to enroll at the University of
Mississippi. On his first day on campus, he is escorted by U.S. marshals.
1963
Medgar Evers, Mississippi field secretary for the NAACP, is shot and killed in an ambush in front of his home following a historic broadcast on civil rights by President John F. Kennedy.
Despite Gov. George Wallace physically blocking their way, Vivian Malone and James Hood register for classes at the University of Alabama.
In Birmingham, Ala., police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor uses water hoses and dogs against civil-rights protesters, many of whom are children.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” to eight clergymen who attacked his role in Birmingham. Widely reprinted, it soon becomes a classic of protest literature.
Sidney Poitier wins the Academy Award as best actor for his performance in “Lilies of the Field.” In 1967, he stars in two films concerning race relations, “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” and “In the Heat of the Night.”
The Rev. Martin Luther King leads the March on Washington, D.C. for “jobs and freedom” and passage of the Civil Rights Act. King delivers his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
In Birmingham, Ala., four girls attending Sunday school are killed when a
bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for
civil rights meetings.
Three Mississippi civil-rights workers, James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21;
and Michael Schwerner, 24, working to register black voters, are killed by
members of the Ku Klux Klan.
1964
Boxer Cassius Clay defeats Sonny Liston in Miami Beach. Clay would soon announce that he had joined the Nation of Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali.
Malcolm X leaves the Nation of Islam, announcing the formation of his own
religious organization. He makes the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, and
modifies his views on black separatism when he returns.
LeRoi Jones’s play “Dutchman” appears off-Broadway and wins critical acclaim. The play exposes the suppressed anger and hostility of American blacks toward white culture.
President Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act into law, giving federal law enforcement agencies the power to prevent racial discrimination in employment, voting and the use of public facilities.
King is awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway.
1965
The Voting Rights Act is passed following the Selma-to-Montgomery March, which grabbed the nation’s attention when state troopers brutally beat participants at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City.
The Watts area of Los Angeles explodes in violence following the arrest of a young male motorist charged with reckless driving. At the riot’s end, 34 people are dead, 1,032 injured and 3,952 arrested.
The Motown group “Diana Ross and the Supremes” start run of five consecutive
number one hits.
1966
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense is founded in Oakland, Calif., by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale to protect residents from police brutality.
Charting a new course for the civil rights movement, Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, uses the phrase “black power” at a rally during the James Meredith March in Mississippi.
The African-American holiday of Kwanzaa, patterned after various African harvest festivals, is created by Maulana Karenga, a black-studies professor at California State University at Long Beach.
1967
After being denied his seat in the Georgia state Legislature for opposing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, civil-rights activist Julian Bond is finally sworn in on Jan. 9.
Singer Aretha Franklin releases a series of hits including “I Never Loved a
Man,” “Baby, I Love You,” and “Respect,” the last of which becomes something of
an anthem for the civil rights movement.
Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali refuses to submit to induction into the armed
forces. Convicted of violating the Selective Service Act, Ali is barred from the
ring and stripped of his title.
Blues and rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix makes his spectacular debut at the
Monterey International Pop Festival, following the successful release of his
first album, “Are You Experienced?
Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, is convicted of a charge
of manslaughter in the death of an Oakland policeman, leading to the rapid
expansion of the party nationwide.
1968
Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panther Party’s minister of information, publishes his autobiography, “Soul on Ice.”
On April 4, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. The killing is followed by a week of rioting in at least 125 cities across the nation.
Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy succeeds him as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, carrying out the group’s Poor People’s Campaign.
The Kerner Commission Report concludes that the United States is moving toward two societies --one black, one white, separate and unequal.
After winning medals at the Olympics in Mexico City, sprinter Tommie Smith
and teammate John Carlos give a black-power salute during the awards ceremony,
leading to their suspension by the U.S. Olympic Committee.
Shirley Chisholm becomes the first black American woman to be elected to Congress, defeating civil-rights leader James Farmer.
James Brown’s “Say it Loud - I’m Black and I’m Proud” becomes the #1 R&B hit
in America in August.
1969
Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale is ordered bound and gagged by the judge in the Chicago “conspiracy trial” after Seale protests that he is being denied his constitutional right to counsel.
The Ford Foundation gives $1 million to Morgan State University, Howard University and Yale University to help prepare faculty members to teach courses in African-American studies.
1970
Baseball player Curt Flood, with the backing of the Major League Baseball
Players Association, unsuccessfully challenges the reserve clause but initiates
its eventual demise.
Hip Hop "grandfather" Afrika Bambaataa starts to DJ. Bambaataa is known as the godfather of hip-hop culture, father of the electro-funk sound, founder of the Universal Zulu Nation and master of records.
1971
Angela Davis is arraigned on charges of murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy for her alleged participation in a violent attempted escape from the Hall of Justice in Marin County, Calif., in 1970.
1973
Kool Herc, considered the father of hip-hop and also known as Clive Campbell, deejays his first block party, playing soul, old funk and R&B records on turntables.
1974
Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th home run, breaking Babe Ruth’s record, which had stood since 1935.
Boxer George Foreman, previously undefeated in professional bouts, falls to
Muhammad Ali in eight rounds in Kinshasa, Zaire — the storied “Rumble in the
Jungle.”
1975
The National Association of Black Journalists is founded in Washington, D.D., by 44 black news reporters
Tennis player Arthur Ashe wins the singles title at Wimbledon, becoming the first black winner of a major men’s singles championship.
Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, dies. After his son renames the organization and integrates it into orthodox Islam, Minister Louis Farrakhan reclaims and rebuilds the Nation of Islam.
1976
Barbara Jordan, a U.S. representative from Texas, delivers the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, confirming her reputation as one of the most eloquent public speakers of her era.
1977
Alex Haley’s “Roots: The Saga of an American Family” is adapted for television, becoming one of the most popular shows in the history of American television.
Benjamin L. Hooks becomes the executive director of the NAACP, succeeding Roy Wilkins. Stressing the need for affirmative action and increased minority voter registration, Hooks serves until 1993.
1978
The Supreme Court outlaws inflexible quota systems in affirmative action programs, ruling that medical student Allan Bakke had been unfairly discriminated against by the University of California at Davis because he was a white applicant.
1980
Stevie Wonder releases “Hotter than July”. The album featured the song “Happy
Birthday,” his effort to bring national attention to making Martin Luther King
Jr.’s birthday a national holiday.
1981
Civil rights leader Andrew Young is elected mayor of Atlanta, an office he
holds through 1989.
1982
Playwright Charles Fuller wins the Pulitzer Prize for his drama “A Soldier’s Play,” which examines conflict among black soldiers on a Southern army base during World War II.
1983
Writer Alice Walker receives the Pulitzer Prize for “The Color Purple.”
Harold Washington wins the Democratic nomination by upsetting incumbent Mayor Jane Byrne and Richard M. Daley and is elected the first African-American mayor of Chicago.
Civil-rights leader Jesse Jackson announces his intention to run for the
Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the first African American to make
a serious bid for the presidency.
1984
“The Cosby Show,” starring comedian Bill Cosby, becomes one of the most popular situation comedies in television history and is praised for its broad cross-cultural appeal and avoidance of racial stereotypes.
1986
Playwright August Wilson receives the Pulitzer Prize for “Fences.” He won again in 1990 for “The Piano Lesson.” Both are from his cycle of plays chronicling the black American experience.
1988
NWA (Niggaz with an Attitude) introduces Gangsta Rap with release of
“Straight Outta Compton”
1989
President George Bush nominates Colin Powell chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, making him the first black officer to hold the highest military post in
the United States.
Public Enemy, one of the most important and influential rap groups, releases
“Fear of a Black Planet”.
1991
The Senate votes 52-48 to confirm the nomination of Justice Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court after a confirmation hearing that focuses on charges of sexual harassment by former aide Anita Hill.
President Bush signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination.
With much fanfare, Henry Louis Gates Jr. is appointed W.E.B. Du Bois professor of humanities at Harvard University, where he builds the university’s department of Afro-American studies.
1992
Rodney King shows the bruises he sustained at the hands of four Los Angeles police officers.
Riots break out in Los Angeles, sparked by the acquittal of four white police
officers caught on videotape beating Rodney King, a black motorist. The riots
cause at least 55 deaths and $1 billion in damage.
Mae Jemison becomes the first African-American woman astronaut, spending more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle “Endeavour.”
Carol Moseley-Braun becomes the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, representing the state of Illinois.
1993
Poet Maya Angelou, author of the autobiographical work “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” composes and delivers a poem for the inauguration of President Bill Clinton.
Cornel West, progressive postmodern philosopher, finds a mainstream audience with the publication of “Race Matters,” which examines the black community around the time of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Poet Rita Dove, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Thomas and Beulah,” is chosen as poet laureate of the United States.
Writer Toni Morrison, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for “Beloved,”
receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1995
In one of the most celebrated criminal trials in American history, former running back O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
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, D.C.
1997
Tiger Woods wins the Masters, becoming the first black man to capture the prestigious golf tournament.
Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis wins a Pulitzer Prize for “Blood on the
Fields” becoming the first jazz artist to win the award.
1999
Threatened with a federal lawsuit, New Jersey agrees to new procedures to ensure that its state police do not target minorities when making traffic stops. Authorities across the nation face scrutiny for racial profiling.
2000
Tiger Woods matches the record of Ben Hogan in 1953 by winning three professional major championships in the same year. Woods also becomes the first since Denny Shute in 1936-37 to win the PGA Championship in consecutive years. In winning the British Open, Woods becomes the youngest to complete the career Grand Slam of professional major championships.
2001
President George W. Bush names Colin Powell secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice national security adviser.
Violence erupts in Cincinnati over a police officer's fatal shooting of an unarmed black teen-ager. Citing a ''clear and present danger,'' Mayor Charlie Luke declares a state of emergency and imposes a curfew.
2002
Robert Johnson, the 56-year-old Johnson billionaire founder of Black Entertainment Television, becomes the first black majority owner in major pro sports when the NBA announced that he was chosen to buy the league’s newest expansion team in Charlotte, N.C.
2003
May – 27-year-old New York Times reporter Jason Blair resigns after published reports question whether he had plagiarized a story about the family of missing U.S. soldier Jessica Lynch.
Music-buyers bought more copies of rapper 50 Cent's debut album than any other release during 2003, making "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" the No. 1 album of the year.
2004
Jan - TV One, a broadcast partnership between black-owned media conglomerate Radio One and the Comcast Corporation, makes debut on Martin Luther King Day in several metropolitan markets across the country.