BLACK HISTORY

DEFINING MOVEMENTS AND EVENTS: 1901-1950

1901
• From 1901-1950, More than 200 anti -lynching bills were introduced in congress in the first part of the century and the House of Representatives passed anti-lynching bills three times. However, the legislation was repeatedly blocked by Senators from the South and almost 5,000 people -- mostly African-Americans -- were lynched between 1882 and 1968
  
• The last African-American congressman for 28 years. George H. White gave up his seat on March 4. No African-American would serve in Congress for the next 28 years
  
• Platt Amendment isssued by Congress. U.S. troops will not withdraw from Cuba unless Cuba agrees to not sign agreement with any other nation, only U.S. will be allowed to preserve their indepence and the U.S. will be allowed to lease or buy naval stations
  
• On October 16, after an afternoon meeting at the White House with Booker T. Washington, President Theodore Roosevelt informally invited Washington to remain and eat dinner with him, making Washington the first black American to dine at the White House with the president. A furor arose over the social implications of Roosevelt's casual act
  
• One hundred and five black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1901
  
  1902
• Eighty-five black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1902
  
  1903
• W.E.B. DuBois publishes The Souls of Black Folk, which declares "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line," and discusses the dual identity of black Americans
  
• Hay-Herran Treaty the U.S. asks Colombia for a 100 year lease on 10 mile wide strip (Panama Canal) for 10 million and 250,000 peryear rent. Colombia rejects proposal. "Panama" (under U.S. military advisement) announces they will secede from Colombia, and Panama is recognize as independent country by the U.S. faster than any other nation in history, and quickly agrees to a new treaty establishing the Panama Canal, under terms previously rejected by Colombia
  
• Eighty-four Black Americans are known to have been lynched in 1903
  
  1904
• Educator Mary McCleod Bethune founds a college in Daytona Beach, Florida, known today as Bethune-Cookman College
  
  1905
• The Chicago Defender, a nationally distributed Black newspaper begins production
  
• W.E.B. DuBois and others meet in Niagara Falls, NY, to discuss actions on behalf of blacks. This and subsequent meetings lead to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  
• Nashville, TN, blacks boycott streetcars to protest new Jim Crow laws
  
• The Niagra Movement
  
  1906
• In Brownsville, Texas on August 13, black troops rioted against segregation. On November 6, President Theodore Roosevelt discharged three companies of black soldiers involved in the riot.
  
• The Advent of Blacks in Harlem(1906-1920)
  
  1908
• Race Riot in Springfield Illinois leads to the creation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
  
  1909
• The NAACP is formed. On February 12 -- the centennial of the birth of Lincoln -- a national appeal led to the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization formed to promote use of the courts to restore the legal rights of black Americans
  
• Matthew Henson is among the first people to reach the North Pole. Mainstream American history tended over the years to overlook Henson's role in the success of the expedition led by Robert Peary that, after several failed attempts, reached the North Pole on April 6
  
  1910
• Segregated neighborhoods. On December 19, the City Council of Baltimore approved the first city ordinance designating the boundaries of black and white neighborhoods. This ordinance was followed by similar ones in Dallas, Texas, Greensboro, North Carolina, Louisville, Kentucky, Norfolk, Virginia, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Richmond, Virginia, Roanoke, Virginia, and St. Louis, Missouri. The Supreme Court declared the Louisville ordinance to be unconstitutional in 1917
  
  1911
• Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a grass-roots Pan-Africanist organization
  
• The National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (National Urban League) is formed in New York City with the mission to help migrating blacks find jobs and housing and adjust to urban life
  
  1912
• John William Brown, The first black veterinarian to earn his DVM degree at Kansas State Agricultural College (KSAC) entered college at the age of sixteen. He had previously attended Fort Scott High School in Bourbon County, Kansas
  
  1913
• Federal segregation:. On April 11, Woodrow Wilson, former President of Princeton University, began government-wide segregation of work places, rest rooms and lunch rooms
  
• The Apollo Theater was founded in 1913 by the Hurtig and Seamon's New Burlesque theater. At this time, Blacks were not allowed into the theater; just like the well known Cotton Club. Skipping to the year of 1927, Ralph Cooper, Benny Carter and "16 Gorgeous Hot Steppers" drove their way into the first Black appearance
• Harriet Tubman,former slave, abolitionist, and freedom fighter -- died on March 10
  
  1914
• Sam Lucas becomes the first black actor to star in a full-length Hollywood film. Lucas played Tom in Uncle Tom's Cabin
  
• World War I begins in Europe. Archduke Francis Ferdinand, Prince of Austria is murdered by Gabriel Princips and Pan-Slav's in Sarajevo. Austro-Hungarian gov't sends ultimatum to Serbia and declares war 5 days later. Germany declares war on Russia and France. Great Britain declares war on Germany, Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia. the U.S. announces it will remain neutral. German subs destroys many neutral ships including the British ship, Lusitania. 1298 passengers killed. 114 Americans. The U.S. begins to train troops and aranges 1/2 billion loan for Britain and France. Germany announces it will resume unrestricted sub warfare. American spies intercept a coded German message bound for Mexico where Germany encourages Mexico into war with the U.S. on the promise of returning New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. Wilson, out of options and losing popularity, is forced to declare war (1917) on Germany.
  
  1915
• Guinn v. United States: The Supreme Court rules that the ‰"grandfather clause", that disenfranchised most black Americans is unconstitutional. The clause adopted by Oklahoma and Maryland exempted citizens from certain voter qualifications if their grandparents had voted; obviously, this did not apply to those whose grandparents lived before the 15th Amendment ratified
  
• NAACP protests D.W. Griffith's film, "Birth of a Nation" for its portrayal of African-Americans
  
  1916
• Fritz Pollard is the first black football player to be named "All-American" as well as the first black player to appear in a Rose Bowl. He goes on to become the first African-American head coach in the NFL when he heads the Akron Pros in 1921 and is later inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1954
  
  1917
• Anti-black riots break out in East St. Louis, IL, leaving 100 blacks dead or injured. Nearly 10,000 black New Yorkers protest the violence in a Silent Protest Parade
  
• Houston Riot Two policemen arrested a black soldier for interfering with their arrest. One of the twelve black military policemen with the battalion, inquired about the soldier's arrest. A rumor quickly reached Camp Logan that he had been shot and killed. Black soldiers rushed into the supply tents, grabbed rifles, and began firing. In their two-hour march on the city, the mutinous blacks killed fifteen whites, including four policemen, and seriously wounded twelve others. The military tribunals indicted 118 and found 110 guilty. Nineteen were hanged and sixty-three received life sentences in federal prison
  
• America entered World War I on April 6. 370,000 African-Americans were in military service -- more than half in the French war zone
  
• Leo Pinckney, A Black man, becomes the first draftee of World War I, called to report on August 2, 1917
  
• Bloody Island, East St. Louis Riots: Black workers were being hired to replace striking white workers. On July 1, 1917 when two white men shot randomly into homes in a black neighborhood. A riot ensued.Thirty-nine people were officially reported dead and many more were injured. President Woodrow Wilson refused to permit a federal inquiry. Black rioters were punished more severely than their white counterparts.
  
  1918
• The Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. The main factors contributing to the development of the Harlem Renaissance were African-American urban migration, trends toward experimentation throughout the country, and the rise of radical African-American intellectuals. Never before had so many Americans read the thoughts of African-Americans and embraced their productions, expressions, and style
  
• Anti-Lynching Law.First introduced in 1918, Congressman Leonidas Dyer's anti-lynching bill was intended to punish state, county, and local authorities who failed to prevent lynching and to also act as a deterrent to end the practice altogether
  
• The Armistice took effect on November 11, ending World War I
  
• The northern migration of African-Americans began in earnest during the war. By 1930 there were 1,035,000 more black Americans in the North, and 1,143,000 fewer black Americans in the South than in 1910
  
  1919
• "Red Summer" refers to the summer and fall of 1919, in which race riots exploded in a number of cities in both the North and South. The three most violent episodes occurred in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Elaine, Arkansas.
  
• Whites riot against blacks in Washington, DC The rampage by about 400 whites initially drew only scattered resistance in the black community, and the police were nowhere to be seen. When the Metropolitan Police Department finally arrived in force, its white officers arrested more blacks than whites
  
• As part of his Universal Negro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey establishes Black Star shipping lineJ.H. Rainey and former sailor and Civil War hero Robert Smalls of South Carolina are among first African Americans elected to U.S. Congress
  
• Chicago Riot. Eugene Williams, a black youth, drowned off the 29th Street beach and this turned into 5 days of rioting that ultimately claimed the lives of 23 blacks and 15 whites, with 291 wounded and maimed
  
• Phillips County Arkansas: From October 1-3, a race war exploded. On the night of September 30, a small group of black men and women were gathering a rural church to organize a sharecroppers' and tenant farmers' union. One white officer was killed and the other wounded. Hundreds of armed men jumped into trains, trucks, and cars and, crossing into Arkansas, fired out of windows at every black they saw. It was target practice, "The whites sent word that they was comin down here and kill every nigger they found. There were 300 or 400 more white men with guns, shooting and killing women and children"
  
• West Virginia State Supreme Court rules that a black man was denied equal protection under law because his jury had no black members
  
  1920
• The Duluth Lynchings
  
• Marcus Garvey's Universal Improvement Association held its national convention in Harlem, the traditionally black neighborhood in New York City. Garvey's African nationalist movement was the first black American mass movement, and at its height it claimed hundreds of thousands of supporters
  
  1921
• Perhaps the nations deadliest racial confrontation begin in Tulsa, Oklahoma. a 30 square bloack area was destroyed by White rioters. Newspaper accounts at the time varied, with some reporting as many as 76 dead. But some historians, citing survivors' accounts, have put the figure as high as 300. Blacks here have long maintained that whites used airplanes to bomb homes, churches and businesses in north Tulsa
  
  1922
• A bill making lynching a federal offense passes in the U.S. House of Representatives but fails in the U.S. Senate, killed by a filibuster.
  
• Aviator Bessie Coleman, who later refuses to perform before segregated audiences in the South, stages the first public flight by an African-American woman
  
  1923
• Pianist and orchestrator Fletcher Henderson becomes a bandleader. His prestigious band advances the careers of such black musicians as Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, and Roy Eldridge. This same year, Bessie Smith, discovered by pianist-composer Clarence Williams, makes her first recording. She will eventually become known as "Empress of the Blues"
  
  1924
• William DeHart Hubbard becomes the first black athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in an individual event at the Summer Games in Paris
  
  1925
• The Brotherhood Of Sleeping Car Porters is founded by A. Phillip Randolph
  
• The 1925 Wendell Phillips High School graduates their "heavyweight" basketball team, 4 members, Tommy Brookings, Randolph Ramsey, Walter Wright, and Eugene Eaves go on to form a touring basketball team that was soon re-named, "The Harlem Globetrotters"
  
  1926
• A group of black women is beaten by election officials while attempting to register to vote in Birmingham, AL
  
  1927
• Gong Lum v. Rice The Supreme Court's decision permitted the state of Mississippi to define Chinese children as a member of, "colored races". thus causing them to be segregated along with Blacks. "Chinese are not white and must fall under the heading, colored races"
  
• Native Americans legally prohibited from raising money or retaining a lawyer to pursue land claims against the U.S. or it's citizens
  
  1928
• Poet and novelist Claude McKay publishes Home to Harlem, the first fictional work by an African-American to reach the best-seller lists
  
  1930
• Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. becomes the first black colonel in the U.S. Army. He later oversees race relations and the morale of black soldiers in World War II and becomes the first black general in 1940
  
  1931
• The Scottsboro Boys: The incident started when a white youth walked across the top of a tank car and stepped on the hand of a black youth. A fight erupted and the blacks succeeded in forcing all but one of the white hobo's off the train. Some whites forced had the stationmaster who wired ahead. Dozens of men with guns rushed at the train at the next town. The nine captured blacks, soon to came to be known as "The Scottsboro Boys." when two white females claimed they had been raped. Perhaps no "crime" in American history produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did The Scottsboro boys
  
  1933
• The NAACP launches its first coordinated campaign against segregation by filing a suit on behalf of Thomas Hocutt that challenges the white-only admissions at University of North Carolina pharmacy school.
  
  1934
• Redlining & The FHA The government begins a process of classifying all urban neighborhoods based upon race. the resulting survey results in less than 1% of Blacks, in "redlined" neighborhoods being able to acquire bank and/or government backed loans for the purchase of homes. This racist policy, as well as the zoning of Black areas as commercial space, which provides a major disincentive to the maintenance of rental property, and further hampers the ability to renovate or improve private property, quickly results in the creation of virtually all of America's ghettos
  
  1936
• The NAACP sues to make pay for black and white teachers equal
  
• Track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His victories derail Adolf Hitler's intended use of the games as a show of Aryan supremacy
  
  1938
• Missouri el rel. Gaines v. Canada ruling Lloyd L. Gaines, an African American, was denied admission to the University of Missouri‰Ûªs all white law school because of his race. The state routinely offered payment of out-of-state tuition to African Americans seeking education as a remedy to the lack of provision of equal educational facilities within the state. In a victory for the plaintiffs, the Court held that Missouri provided no equal access to higher education in state for its black citizens as compared to its white citizens. This distinction was deemed state-practiced racial discrimination in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Missouri addressed the problem by constructing and staffing a black law school within the University of Missouri. Regarding Gaines, he never did enroll in the law school, disappearing from the scene never to be heard from again after the Court rendered its opinion. Although less a desegregation case than a continued interpretation of the separate-but-equal doctrine, it does mark the first of a series of cases leading up to Brown v. Board of Education
  
• U.S. Supreme Court rules that states must provide equal educational facilities for blacks. The plaintiff, Lloyd Gaines of Missouri, mysteriously disappears after the court's decision
  
  1939
• "Sit down" at segregated Barrett Library by five young African American men: Otto L. Tucker, Edward Gaddis, Morris L. Murray, William Evans, and Clarence Strange. The protest led the City to open Alexandria's first library for African Americans, Robert Robinson Library, in 1940
• NAACP begins seeking one million signatures supporting an anti-lynching bill
  
  1940
• Hattie McDaniel becomes the first black to receive an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With the Wind
  
  1941
• U.S. Supreme Court rules that separate facilities on railroads must be equal
  
• The March on Washington Movement: Union organizer A. Philip Randolph proposes a march on Washington to protest discrimination in federal programs. The march organizers demanded: " the abrogation of every law which makes a distinction in treatment between citizens based on religion, creed, color, or national origin. This means an end to Jim Crow in education, in housing, in transportation and in every other social, economic, and political privilege. Especially, we demand, in the capital of the nation, an end to all segregation in public places and in public institutions"
  
• Executive Order 8802 prohibiting government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, color or national origin. This order is the first presidential action ever taken to prevent employment discrimination by private employers holding government contracts. The Executive Order applies to all defense contractors, but contains no enforcement authority. President Roosevelt signs the Executive Order primarily to ensure that there are no strikes or demonstrations disrupting the manufacture of military supplies as the country prepares for War
  
  1942
• Bebop is born out of the musical experiments of jazz musicians in Harlem, including saxophonist Charlie Parker, trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and pianist Thelonious Monk
  
• The Double-V Campaign began when a Black man wrote to The Pittsburgh Courier, then the nation's most powerful Negro newspaper, and suggested that the White America's "V" (for Allied Victory) campaign be doubled for the Negro, The Courier, created a design of an eagle sitting on a banner that said "Double Victory." Above the eagle was the word "DEMOCRACY." readers grasped its meaning immediately, and letters poured in congratulating The Courier on its double-barreled challenge to oppression at home as well as abroad
  
• The Congress On Racial Equality (CORE) is formed in Chicago. Early members included George Houser, James Farmer, Anna Murray and Bayard Rustin. Members were mainly pacifists who had been deeply influenced by Henry David Thoreau and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. The students became convinced that the same methods could be employed by blacks to obtain civil rights in America.
  
  1943
• Congress of Racial Equality stages the first successful sit-in at a Chicago restaurant
  
• Blacks protest exclusion from civilian defense jobs in Detroit, MI. Violence results in 34 deaths
  
• Austrailia's Policy of Barring Black Service Men from Entry: WWII When an allied ship, carrying Black soldiers arrived in Australia durign the war, the government refused to allow the Black soldiers to disembark for fear of undermining the "White Australia Policy". Once the Black soldiers were allowed to disembark, "tolerance" of the Black servicemen became a major boost to the destruction of the White Australia Policy. Negro troops celebrated 'liberation' and made free use of local White women in Brisbane and Townville, as well as pursuing and being pursued by other White women.
  
  1944
• Smith v. Allwright: Houston dentist, Lonnie E. Smith, was denied a ballot in the 1940 Harris County Democratic Party primary by election judge S. E. Allwright based upon the reasoning that the Decmocratic party was a private club. The court disagreed and ruled that Blacks had as much right to participate in the primary elections of political parties as in general elections and that any rules eliminating their participation violated their constitutional rights
  
• Port of Chicago Mutiny On the night of 17 July 1944, two transport vessels loading ammunition at the Port Chicago, California naval base were suddenly engulfed in a massive explosion. The blast destroyed everything within a one-mile radius, including the two ships, the pier and the dock. It killed 320 men on the base, and injured nearly 400 more, most of whom were black, also almost completely destroying the town of Port Chicago 1.5 miles away, it was the worst home-front military disaster of World War II. A group of surviving enlistees refused to load munitions again until they could be assured of their safety. The Navy court-martialed and dishonorably discharged 50 Black men
  
• U.S. Supreme Court rules that blacks cannot be denied the right to vote in primary elections
  
• First Black officers commissioned in the U.S. Navy
  
• Navy orders all naval vessels integrated
  
  1945
• Ebony magazine is founded by John H. Johnson of Chicago. Modeled after Life but intended for an emerging black middle class, the magazine is an instant success
  
• Nat King Cole becomes the first black with his own network radio show. Cole is also the first black with his own network TV show, The Nat King Cole Show (1956)
  
  1946
• White students in Gary, IN, walk out of classes to protest integration
  
• Supreme Court bans segregation in interstate bus travel
  
• Morgan v. Virginia Irene Morgan, boarded in Glouster County, Virginia, a Grayhound bus on route from Richmond to Baltimore, Maryland. When the bus driver ordered her to move to the back of the bus in order to allow white passengers to be seated, she refused and was arrested. The bus driver had acted according to a 1930 state law that required the segregation of seating rows on buses. The U. S. Supreme Court by a seven-- one vote, held the state law unconstitutional as it applied to interstate (those traveling between states) passengers
  
• Executive Order 9808 Establishment of a Committee on Civil Rights, "authorized on behalf of the President to inquire into and to determine whether and in what respect current law-enforcement measures and the authority and means possessed by Federal, State, and local governments may be strengthened and improved to safeguard the civil rights of the people"
• Journey of Reconcilliation The Congress on Racial Equality sent eight white and eight black men into the Deep South to test the Supreme Court ruling that declared segregation in interstate travel unconstitutional. The NAACP provided southern attorneys to help with any legal issues which arose. Members were arrested several times. Judge Henry Whitfield told two Jewish members of the Journey, when they were sentenced for violating Jim Crow laws, "It's about time you Jews from New York learned that you can't come down her bringing your niggers with you to upset the customs of the South. Just to teach you a lesson, I gave your black boys thirty days, and I give you ninety"
  
  1948
• President Harry Truman creates the Fair Employment Board, to eliminate racial discrimination in federal jobs
  
• Alice Coachman takes gold in the high jump at the Olympic Games in London. She is the first black woman to win Olympic gold and the only American woman that year to win
  
  1950
• Executive Order 9981 Establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity In the Armed Forces and also created the National Military Establishment an advisory committee to determine which "rules, procedures and practices may be altered or improved with a view to carrying out the policy of this order"
  
• U.S. Supreme Courtstrikes down an Interstate Commerce Commission ruling requiring black railroad passengers to eat behind a partition in dining cars
  
• McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents After successfully suing for admission to the University of Oklahoma, G.W. McLaurin, a seventy-year-old African American, was conditionally admitted to pursue a doctorate degree. Because Oklahoma law required that graduate instruction must be "upon a segregated basis," McLaurin was subject to segregation policies. In an unanimous decision delivered by Chief Justice Vinson, the Court found that the Fourteenth Amendment precludes differences in treatment by the state based upon race.
  
• Ralph J. Bunche, undersecretary of the United Nations, is the first black to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He receives the honor for his work as the United Nations mediator in the Arab-Israeli dispute in Palestine
  
• Gwendolyn Brooks is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for Annie Allen, becoming the first African-American writer to win the award
  
• Sweatt v. Painter In 1946, with the support of the NAACP, Heman Marion Sweatt applied for admission to The University of Texas School of Law. The University registrar rejected his application because Sweatt was an African American and UT was a segregated institution. Although Sweatt lost in state court, the United States Supreme Court in 1950 ordered the integration of The University of Texas School of Law and also The University's Graduate School
  
  
  

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