African american biography important dates

Nat Turneran enslaved African-American preacher, leads the most significant slave uprising in American history. He and his band of followers launch a short, bloody, rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia. The militia quells the rebellion, and Turner is eventually hanged. As a consequence, Virginia institutes much stricter slave laws.

The rebellion causes fear in the local population and local revenge killings of slaves top The slaves aboard the ship became unwitting symbols for the antislavery movement in the pre-Civil War United States. After several trials in which local and federal courts argued that the slaves were taken as kidnap victims rather than merchandise, the slaves were acquitted.

The former slaves aboard the Spanish vessel Amistad secured passage home to Africa with the help of sympathetic missionary societies in The " Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass " is published. It is a memoir of life growing up as a slave and later a free orator. It serves as a manifesto for the abolitionist movement and is prefaced by two prominent white abolitionists.

The publication is popular and positively affects the momentum for abolitionism. The Wilmot Provisointroduced by Democratic representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvaniaattempts to ban slavery in territory gained in the Mexican War. The proviso is blocked by southerners, but continues to enflame the debate over slavery. Frederick Douglass launches his abolitionist and antislavery newspaper, "The North Star".

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery. She had escaped once before but was forced to turn back after her fellow escapees felt the need to return back to their plantations. She utilizes the Underground Railroad and is relayed across the USA until she makes it to Pennsylvania where she is free. She later becomes one of the most effective and celebrated leaders of the Underground Railroad.

The continuing debate about whether territory gained in the Mexican War should be open to slavery is decided in the Compromise of California is admitted as a free state, Utah and New Mexico territories are left to be decided by popular sovereigntyand the slave trade in Washington, DCis prohibited. It also establishes a much stricter fugitive slave law than the original, passed in It tells the story of a repressed slave on a plantation in America and is sympathetic to the plight of Black people at the time.

It becomes one of the most influential works to stir anti-slavery sentiments and is often credited with laying the ground for the American Civil War by making clear distinctions between supporters and opposers of slavery. It is so popular that it finishes the year as the second best seller behind the Bible. The legislation repeals the Missouri Compromise oftherefore allowing slavery to be practiced in newly established states.

African american biography important dates: On December 1, , an African

This renewed tensions between anti and pro-slavery factions, especially those that had fought to abolish slavery in all new states. It leads to the founding of the abolitionist Republican Party. It also leads to various violent clashes between the two factions in Kansas which act as a prelude to the Civil War. The Dred Scott v. Sandford case rules that Congress does not have the right to ban slavery in states and, furthermore, that slaves are not citizens.

Amidst the already fraught relations between northern and southern states, this ruling is incredibly inflammatory and is seen by many as one of the direct causes of the Civil War. The country splits in two, with the "african american biography important dates" forming the Confederacy and the north the Unionists. Over the course of the war, thousands of slaves escape to freedom in Unionist states and overAfrican-Americans end up fighting for the Union Army and Navy.

The war does much for the cause of abolitionism as tales of Black war heroes emerge, Black generals are appointed and a general humanization of slaves occurs. President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamationwhich comes into effect on January 1st, It declares "that all persons held as slaves" within the Confederate states "are, and henceforward shall be free.

It transforms the social status of 3 million people overnight and legally recognizes free Black people as their own individuals. It sets the precedent for how the country will run post-Civil War. Congress establishes the Freedmen's Bureau to protect the rights of newly emancipated Black people. However, slaves in Texas are not told until two months later that the war is over and when they are notified, slavery in the USA effectively ends.

However, southern states do not let go of slavery and remained determined to restrict the lives of Black people. They pass the "Black Codes" to inhibit the social standing of freed Black people, recognizing their emancipation but severely withholding their ability to live equally in society. President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. Slavery in the United States effectively ends whenslaves in Texas finally received the news that the Civil War had ended two months earlier.

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, abolishing slavery across all states in America. Although this was a legal document, in practice, many Black Americans continue to experience severe discrimination, especially in the south. From the start, it is a white supremacist organization focused on fighting against the rights of Black people.

They use violence as their main tactic, conducting murders of Black people and Black rights supporters, sometimes killing whole families. The Black codes are passed by southern states, drastically restricting the rights of newly-freed slaves. A series of Reconstruction acts are passed, carving the former Confederacy into five military districts and guaranteeing the civil rights of freed slaves.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, defining citizenship. Individuals born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens, including those born as slaves. This nullifies the Dred Scott casewhich ruled that Black people were not citizens. Howard University's law school becomes the country's first Black law school.

The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified, giving male Black people the right to vote. This is part of a african american biography important dates of moves in society that raise the social standing of ex-slaves and improves their ability to participate. The Howard Law school is also formed around this time, giving Black people the chance to be educated in law, a crucial route to accurate representation in courts.

Hiram Revels of Mississippi is elected the country's first African-American senator. During Reconstructionsixteen Black people served in Congress and about served in state legislatures. Throughout the year and for those following, southern white militias form such as the "White League" as paramilitary organizations intent on terrorizing Black people and supporters of Black rights.

A series of massacres are carried out against all they oppose as well as coups on state governors. It is a consequence of the ending of the Reconstruction which allowed southern states to enforce ways of life on Black people unchecked. Reconstruction ends in the south as the Compromise of is made, whereby Rutherford Hayes agrees to withdraw federal troops in the south for being elected president.

Federal attempts to provide some basic civil rights for African Americans quickly erode and southern states quickly begin to oppress Black people in any legal ways they can. Segregation is enforced in the south. The Black Exodus takes place, in which tens of thousands of African Americans migrated from southern states to Kansas. Spelman Collegethe first college for Black women in the U.

Packard and Harriet E. Booker T. The school becomes one of the leading schools of higher learning for African Americans and stresses the practical application of knowledge. InGeorge Washington Carver begins teaching there as director of the department of agricultural research, gaining an international reputation for his agricultural advances.

The Plessy v. Ferguson case reaches its decision. This landmark U. Supreme Court decision holds that racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for the repressive Jim Crow laws in the South. It determines that the concept of "separate but equal" is legal. The movement is formed in part as a protest to Booker T. Washington's policy of accommodation to white society.

The Niagara movement embraces a more radical approach, calling for immediate equality in all areas of American life. In general, it calls for the equal treatment of all citizens regardless of class, sex, or race. Du Bois. For the next half-century, it would serve as the country's most influential African American civil rights organization, dedicated to political equality and social justice.

Inthe association's journal, "The Crisis", was launched. Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association, an influential Black nationalist organization "to promote the spirit of race pride" and create a sense of worldwide unity among Black people. The film, directed by D. Griffith, depicts the assassination of Lincoln as a positive event and proceeds to glorify the actions of the original Klu Klux Klan.

It also depicts Black people as being stupid and sexually aggressive toward women. It is instantly highly controversial and outrages those supporters of Black rights. The Buchanan v. Warley Supreme Court case rules that the ban on selling properties to Black people in white neighborhoods is unconstitutional as a violation of the 14th Amendment.

This was still only applicable to public housing, private properties could still be subject to discrimination. Nonetheless, this was important as it gave Black people a legal right to own property wherever. Property ownership is key to building personal wealth security. Mary Turner, a pregnant Black woman, is murdered via lynching by a white mob after protesting against the earlier lynching of her husband.

Her unborn child is also killed by the mob. It leads to a brief outcry but nothing criminal comes from the incident. In general, the killing is just one of many similar incidents that occur from in what is known as the lynching era. The Harlem Renaissance flourishes in the s and s. This literary, artistic, and intellectual movement fosters a new Black cultural identity.

The movement was characterized by racial pride and an unashamed expression of Black cultural outputs. The Great Migration from the southern state aided the renaissance as many moved into urban areas like Harlem. Nine Black youths are indicted in Scottsboro, Alabama, on charges of having raped two white women. Although the evidence was slim, the southern jury sentenced them to death.

The Supreme Court overturns their convictions twice; each time Alabama retries them, finding them guilty. In a third trial, four of the Scottsboro boys are freed, but five are sentenced to long prison terms. World War II begins. Black troops fight shoulder to shoulder with white troops as a very visceral example of a non-segregated society.

Black men laid down their lives in defense of the western world which was viewed positively in America. In general, the war made the American public more sympathetic to the cause of Black rights after stories of heroism and sacrifice become famous. She is part of an emerging set of Black celebrities in the USA, including the highly successful sprinter Jesse Owenswho gain popular support for the cause of racial equality.

Although African Americans had participated in every major U. Truman issues an executive order integrating the U. It is one of the earliest and highest-profile actions of desegregation in America and was a sign of a slowly turning tide in favor of Black rights at higher political levels. Malcolm X becomes a minister of the Nation of Islam.

Over the next several years his influence increases until he is one of the two most powerful members of the Black Muslims the other was its leader, Elijah Muhammad. A Black nationalist and separatist movement, the Nation of Islam contends that only Black people can resolve the problems of Black people. Pictured from left to right: George E.

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Timeline of African-American history. Part of a series on. Since the church was part of the community and wanted to provide education; it educated the freed and enslaved Black people. Seeking autonomy, some Black people like Richard Allen founded separate Black denominations. The Second Great Awakening —s has been called the "central and defining event in the development of Afro-Christianity.

As the United States grew, the institution of slavery became more entrenched in the southern stateswhile northern states began to abolish it. Pennsylvania was the first, in passing an act for gradual abolition. A number of events continued to shape views on slavery. One of these events was the Haitian Revolutionwhich was the only slave revolt that led to an independent country.

Many slave owners fled to the United States with tales of horror and massacre that alarmed Southern whites. The invention of the cotton gin in the s allowed the cultivation of short staple cotton, which could be grown in much of the Deep South, where warm weather and proper soil conditions prevailed. The industrial revolution in Europe and New England generated a heavy demand for cotton for cheap clothing, which caused an enormous demand for slave labor to develop new cotton plantations.

They were overwhelmingly concentrated on plantations in the Deep Southand moved west as old cotton fields lost their productivity and new lands were purchased. Unlike the Northern States who put more focus into manufacturing and commerce, the South was heavily dependent on agriculture. Inat the urging of President Thomas JeffersonCongress abolished the importation of enslaved workers.

While American Black people celebrated this as a victory in the fight against slavery, the ban increased the internal trade in enslaved people. Changing agricultural practices in the Upper South from tobacco to mixed farming decreased labor requirements, and enslaved people were sold to traders for the developing Deep South. In addition, the Fugitive Slave Act of allowed any Black person to be claimed as a runaway unless a White person testified on their behalf.

A number of free Black people, especially indentured children, were kidnapped and sold into slavery with little or no hope of rescue. By there were exactly 11 free and 11 slave states, which increased sectionalism. Fears of an imbalance in Congress led to the Missouri Compromise that required states to be admitted to the union in pairs, one slave and one free.

Inafter winning the Mexican—American Wara problem gripped the nation: what to do about the territories won from Mexico. Henry Clay, the man behind the compromise ofonce more rose to the challenge, to craft the compromise of In this compromise the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada would be organized but the issue of slavery would be decided later.

Washington D. California would be admitted as a free state but the South would receive a new fugitive slave act which required Northerners to return enslaved people who escaped to the North to their owners. The compromise of would maintain a shaky peace until the election of Lincoln in In the battle between enslaved people and slave owners was met in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

The Christiana Riot demonstrated the growing conflict between states' rights and Congress on the issue of slavery. Abolitionists in Britain and the United States in the — period developed large, complex campaigns against slavery. According to Patrick C. Kennicott, the largest and most effective abolitionist speakers were Black people who spoke before the countless local meetings of the National Negro Conventions.

They used the traditional arguments against slavery, protesting it on moral, economic, and political grounds. Their role in the antislavery movement not only aided the abolitionist cause but also was a source of pride to the Black community. InHarriet Beecher Stowe published a novel that changed how many would view slavery. Uncle Tom's Cabin tells the story of the life of an enslaved person and the brutality that is faced by that life day after day.

It would sell overcopies in its first year. The popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin would solidify the North in its opposition to slavery, and press forward the abolitionist movement. President Lincoln would later invite Stowe to the White House in honor of this book that changed America. In Charles Sumnera Massachusetts congressmen and african american biography important dates leader, was assaulted and nearly killed on the House floor by Preston Brooks of South Carolina.

Sumner had been delivering an abolitionist speech to Congress when Brooks attacked him. Brooks received praise in the South for his actions while Sumner became a political icon in the North. Sumner later returned to the Senate, where he was a leader of the Radical Republicans in ending slavery and legislating equal rights for freed slaves.

Over 1 million enslaved people were moved from the older seaboard slave states, with their declining economies, to the rich cotton states of the southwest; many others were sold and moved locally. They established churches and fraternal orders. Many of these early efforts were weak and they often failed, but they represented the initial steps in the evolution of Black communities.

During the early Antebellum period, the creation of free Black communities began to expand, laying out a foundation for African Americans' future. At first, only a few thousand African Americans had their freedom. As the years went by, the number of Blacks being freed expanded tremendously, building toby the s. They sometimes sued to gain their freedom or purchased it.

Some slave owners freed their bondspeople and a few state legislatures abolished slavery. African Americans tried to take the advantage of establishing homes and jobs in the cities. During the early s free Black people took several steps to establish fulfilling work lives in urban areas. These owners considered whites to be more reliable and educable.

This resulted in many Black people performing unskilled labor. Black men worked as stevedoresconstruction workerand as cellar- well- and grave-diggers. As for Black women workers, they worked as servants for white families. Some women were also cooks, seamstresses, basket-makers, midwives, teachers, and nurses. Some cities had independent Black seamstresses, cooks, basketmakers, confectioners, and more.

African american biography important dates: – The Jazz Age and

While the African Americans left the thought of slavery behind, they made a priority to reunite with their family and friends. The cause of the Revolutionary War forced many Black people to migrate to the west afterwards, and the scourge of poverty created much difficulty with housing. African Americans competed with the Irish and Germans in jobs and had to share space with them.

While the majority of free Black people lived in poverty, some were able to establish successful businesses that catered to the Black community. Racial discrimination often meant that Black people were not welcome or would be mistreated in White businesses and other establishments. To counter this, Black people like James Forten developed their own communities with Black-owned businesses.

Black doctors, lawyers, and other businessmen were the foundation of the Black middle class. Many Black people organized to help strengthen the Black community and continue the fight against slavery. This organization provided social aid to poor Black people and organized responses to political issues. Further supporting the growth of the Black Community was the Black churchusually the first community institution to be established.

Starting in the early s [ 84 ] with the African Methodist Episcopal ChurchAfrican Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and other churches, the Black church grew to be the focal point of the Black community. The Black church was both an expression of community and unique African-American spirituality, and a reaction to European American discrimination.

The church also served as neighborhood centers where free Black people could celebrate their African heritage without intrusion by white detractors. Since the church was part of the community and wanted to provide education; they educated the freed and enslaved Black people. Because of discrimination at the higher levels of the church hierarchy, some Black people like Richard Allen bishop simply founded separate Black denominations.

Free Black people also established Black churches in the South before After the Great Awakeningmany Black people joined the Baptist Churchwhich allowed for their participation, including roles as elders and preachers. For instance, First Baptist Church and Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg, Virginiaboth had organized congregations by and were the first Baptist churches in the city.

The Black community also established schools for Black children, since they were often banned from entering public schools. Only the sons and daughters of the Black middle class had the luxury of studying. The revolt of enslaved Haitians against their white slave owners, which began in and lasted untilwas a primary source of fuel for both enslaved people and abolitionists arguing for the freedom of Africans in the U.

In the edition of Nile's Weekly Register it is stated that freed Black people in Haiti were better off than their Jamaican counterparts, and the positive effects of American Emancipation are alluded to throughout the paper. Enslaved people rallied around these ideas with rebellions against their masters as well as white bystanders during the Denmark Vesey Conspiracy of and the Nat Turner's Rebellion of Leaders and plantation owners were also very concerned about the consequences Haiti's revolution would have on early America.

Thomas Jefferson, for one, was wary of the "instability of the West Indies", referring to Haiti. Dred Scott was an enslaved man whose owner had taken him to live in the free state of Illinois. After his owner's death, Dred Scott sued in court for his freedom on the basis of his having lived in a free state for a long period. Because enslaved people were "property, not people", by this ruling they could not sue in court.

The decision was finally reversed by the Civil Rights Act of Although the Supreme Court has never explicitly overruled the Dred Scott case, the Court stated in the Slaughter-House Cases that at least one part of it had already been overruled by the Fourteenth Amendment inwhich begins by stating, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

In a single stroke it changed the legal status, as recognized by the U. The owners were never compensated. Plantation owners, realizing that emancipation would destroy their economic system, sometimes moved their enslaved people as far as african american biography important dates out of reach of the Union army. By Junethe Union Army controlled all of the Confederacy and liberated all the designated enslaved people.

Aboutfree Black people and former enslaved people served in the Union Army and Navy, thus providing a basis for a claim to full citizenship. Inthe 14th Amendment granted full U. The 15th Amendmentratified inextended the right to vote to Black males. The Freedmen's Bureau was an important institution established to create social and economic order in Southern states.

After the Union victory over the Confederacy, a brief period of Southern Black progress, called Reconstruction, followed. During Reconstruction, the states that had seceded were readmitted into the Union. Southern Black men began to vote and they were also elected to serve in the United States Congress as well as in local offices such as the office of sheriff.

The safety which was provided by the troops did not last long, however, and white Southerners frequently terrorized Black voters. Coalitions of white and Black Republicans passed bills in order to establish the first public school systems in most states of the South, although sufficient funding was hard to find. Black people established their own churches, towns, and businesses.

Tens of thousands migrated to Mississippi for the chance to clear and own their own land, as 90 percent of the bottomlands were undeveloped. By the end of the 19th century, two-thirds of the farmers who owned land in the Mississippi Delta bottomlands were Black. Hiram Revels became the first African-American senator in the U. Congress in These new politicians supported the Republicans and tried to bring further improvements to the lives of African Americans.

Revels and others understood that white people may have felt threatened by the African-American congressmen. Revels stated, "The white race has no better friend than I. I am true to my own race. I wish to see all done that can be done Bruce was the other African American who became a U. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, Joseph H. De Large, and Jefferson H.

He worked with white politicians from his region in order to hopefully help his fellow African Americans and other minority groups such as Chinese immigrants and Native Americans. He even supported efforts to end restrictions on former Confederates' political participation. The aftermath of the Civil War accelerated the process of a national African-American identity formation.

Du Boisdisagree that identity was achieved after the Civil War. As Joel Williamson puts it:. Many of the migrants, women as well as men, came as teachers sponsored by a dozen or so benevolent societies, arriving in the still turbulent wake of Union armies. Others came to organize relief for the refugees Still others Some came south as business or professional people seeking opportunity on this Finally, thousands came as soldiers, and when the war was over, many of [their] young men remained there or after a stay of some months in the North, they returned in order to complete their education.

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted african american biography important dates and They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for Black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.

In the face of years of mounting violence and intimidation directed at Blacks as well as whites sympathetic to their cause, the U. When President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew Union troops from the South in as a result of a national compromise on the election, Black people lost most of their political power. Men like Benjamin "Pap" Singleton began speaking of leaving the South.

This idea culminated in the —80 movement of the Exodusterswho migrated to Kansas, where Blacks had much more freedom and it was easier to acquire land. When Democrats took control of Tennessee inthey passed laws making voter registration more complicated and ended the most competitive political state in the South. Voting by Black people in rural areas and small towns dropped sharply, as did voting by poor whites.

From tostarting with Mississippi and ending with Georgia, ten of eleven Southern states adopted new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised most Black people and many poor whites. Using a combination of provisions such as poll taxesresidency requirements and literacy testsstates dramatically decreased Black voter registration and turnout, in some cases to zero.

As power became concentrated under the Democratic Party in the South, the party positioned itself as a private club and instituted white primariesclosing Black people out of the only competitive contests. By one-party white rule was firmly established across the South. Although African Americans quickly started litigation to challenge such provisions, early court decisions at the state and national level went against them.

In Williams v. Mississippithe US Supreme Court upheld state provisions. This encouraged other Southern states to adopt similar measures over the next few years, as noted above. Booker T. Washingtonof Tuskegee Institute secretly worked with Northern supporters to raise funds and provide representation for African Americans in additional cases, such as Giles v.

Harris and Giles v. Teasleybut again the Supreme Court upheld the states. Segregation for the first time became a standard legal process in the South; it was informal in Northern cities. Jim Crow limited Black access to transportation, schools, restaurants and other public facilities. Most southern blacks for decades continued to struggle in grinding poverty as agricultural, domestic and menial laborers.

Many became sharecropperssharing the crop with the white land owners. Inthe Ku Klux Klana secret white supremacist criminal organization dedicated to destroying the Republican Party in the South, especially by terrorizing Black leaders, was formed. Klansmen hid behind masks and robes to hide their identity while they carried out violence and property damage.

The Klan used terrorismespecially murder and threats of murder, arson and intimidation. The Klan's excesses led to the passage of legislation against it, and with Federal enforcement, it was destroyed by The anti-Republican and anti-freedmen sentiment only briefly went underground, as violence arose in other incidents, especially after Louisiana's disputed state election inwhich contributed to the Colfax and Coushatta massacres in Louisiana in and Tensions and rumors were high in many parts of the South.

When violence erupted, African Americans consistently were killed at a much higher rate than were European Americans. Historians of the 20th century have renamed events long called "riots" in southern history. The common stories featured whites heroically saving the community from marauding Black people. Upon examination of the evidence, historians have called numerous such events "massacres", as at Colfax, because of the disproportionate number of fatalities for Black people as opposed to whites.

The mob violence there resulted in 40—50 Black people dead for each of the three whites killed. While not as widely known as the Klan, the paramilitary organizations that arose in the South during the mids as the white Democrats mounted a stronger insurgency, were more directed and effective than the Klan in challenging Republican governments, suppressing the Black vote and achieving political goals.

Unlike the Klan, paramilitary members operated openly, often solicited newspaper coverage, and had distinct political goals: to turn Republicans out of office and suppress or dissuade Black voting in order to regain power in Groups included the White Leaguethat started from white militias in Grant Parish, Louisiana, in and spread in the Deep South ; the Red Shirtsthat started in Mississippi in but had chapters arise and was prominent in the election campaign in South Carolina, as well as in North Carolina; and other White Line organizations such as rifle clubs.

The Jim Crow era accompanied the most cruel wave of "racial" suppression that America has yet experienced. Between andmillions of African Americans were disenfranchised, killed, and brutalized. According to newspaper records kept at the Tuskegee Instituteabout 5, men, women, and children were murdered in documented extrajudicial mob violence—called " lynchings.

Wells estimated that lynchings not reported by the newspapers, plus similar executions under the veneer of " due process ", may have amounted to about 20, killings. Of the tens of thousands of lynchers and onlookers during this period, it is reported that fewer than 50 whites were ever indicted for their crimes, and only four were sentenced. Because Black people were disenfranchised, they could not sit on juries or have any part in the political process, including local offices.

Meanwhile, the lynchings were used as a weapon of terror to keep millions of African-Americans living in a constant state of anxiety and fear. In response to these and other setbacks, in the summer ofW. There, they produced a manifesto in which they called for an end to racial discrimination, full civil liberties for African Americans and recognition of human brotherhood.

The organization which they established came to be called the Niagara Movement. They pooled their resources to create independent community and institutional lives for themselves. They established schools, churches, social welfare institutions, banks, African-American newspapers and small businesses which could serve their communities.

Some Progressive Era reformers were concerned about the Black condition. In after the Atlanta Race Riot got him involved, Ray Stannard Baker published the book Following the Color Line: An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracybecoming the first prominent journalist to examine America's racial divide; it was extremely successful.

Sociologist Rupert Vance says it is:. During the first half of the 20th century, the largest internal population shift in U. Starting aboutthrough the Great Migration over five million African Americans made choices and "voted with their feet" by moving from the South to northern and western cities in hopes of escaping political discrimination and hatred, violence, finding better jobs, voting and enjoying greater equality and education for their children.

In the s, the concentration of Black people in New York led to the cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissancewhose influence reached nationwide. The South Side of Chicagoa destination for many on the trains up from Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, joined Harlem as a sort of Black capital for the nation. It generated flourishing businesses, music, arts and foods.

A new generation of powerful African-American political leaders and organizations also came to the fore, Typified by Congressman William Dawson — Membership in the NAACP rapidly increased as it mounted an anti-lynching campaign in reaction to ongoing southern white violence against blacks. Philip Randolph 's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters part of the American Federation of labor all were established during this period and found support among African Americans, who became urbanized.

Businesses operated at the local level, and included beauty shops, barber shops, funeral parlors and the like. Washington organized them nationally into the National Negro Business League. Graduates were hired by major national corporations. Although most prominent African-American businesses have been owned by men, women played a major role especially in the area of beauty.

Standards of beauty were different for whites and Black people, and the Black community developed its own standards, with an emphasis on hair care. Beauticians could work out of their own homes, and did not need storefronts. As a result, Black beauticians were african american biography important dates in the rural South, despite the absence of cities and towns.

They pioneered the use of cosmetics, at a time when rural white women in the South avoided them. As Blain Roberts has shown, beauticians offered their clients a space to feel pampered and beautiful in the context of their own community because, "Inside Black beauty shops, rituals of beautification converged with rituals of socialization. By contrast in the Black community, beauty contests were developed out of the homecoming ceremonies at their high schools and colleges.

Walker — ; she built a national franchise business called Madame C. Walker Manufacturing Company based on her invention of the first successful hair straightening process. The U. Still, many African Americans eagerly volunteered to join the Allied cause following America's entry into the war. More than two million African-American men rushed to register for the draft.

Most African American units were relegated to support roles and did not see combat. Still, African Americans played a significant role in America's war effort. Four African American regiments were integrated into French units because the French suffered heavy losses and badly needed men after three years of a terrible war. One of the most distinguished units was the th Infantry Regimentknown as the "Harlem Hellfighters", which was on the front lines for six months, longer than any other American unit in the war.

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