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An African American Timeline

View the sources consulted in creating the Timeline

National		Local
Date	Event	Date	Event
1850 - 1860	Harriet Tubman led about 300 runaway slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad.	November, 1836	The Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society is founded in Ann Arbor at the site of the Presbyterian Church. As a result of this meeting, the abolitionist press, The Michigan Freeman was created.
January 1, 1863	President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect legally freeing slaves in areas of the South in rebellion.	1841	The Michigan Freeman is moved from Jackson to Ann Arbor and renamed the Signal of Liberty, edited by Guy Beckley and Theodore Foster.
June 15, 1864	Congress passed a bill authorizing equal pay, equipment, arms, and health care for African American Union troops.	1890s	The two African American congregations of Second Baptist and Bethel AME built new brick structures to accommodate a stable African American population.
December 18, 1865	The Thirteenth Amendment, outlawing slavery, was ratified.	1890s
1904	The college known today as Bethune-Cookman College founded by educator Mary McCleod Bethune in Daytona Beach, Florida.	1920	There were 580 Black residents in Ann Arbor, 3% of the population; the average in the state of Michigan was 1.6%.
1904		1920-1929	The African American population in Ann Arbor was the fastest growing segment in the 1920s. During this decade, the African American population in Ann Arbor rose by 62% from 580 to 940.
February 12, 1909	The NAACP is formed (also Lincoln's birthday): National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization formed to promote use of the courts to restore the legal rights of African Americans.	1936	Douglas Williams becomes head of Dunbar. He established character building and community betterment programs for all ages.
October, 1911	The National Urban League was organized to help African Americans secure equal employment. Professor Kelly Miller was a founding member.	1947	In 1947, a group of African American women college graduates created the Delta Psi Omega sorority, the first of its kind in Ann Arbor.
January 15, 1929	Civil Rights leader Michael Luther King Jr., later renamed Martin, born to schoolteacher Alberta King and Baptist minister Michael Luther King.	1960	Walter W. Hill becomes director of Dunbar Community Center and began initiatives such as: after school tutoring, counseling, and recreation programs.
May 17, 1954	Brown v. Board of Education: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that segregated educational facilities were unequal and, as such, violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.	1963	City Council initially voted the Fair Housing Ordinance down, but after much protest, they finally passed it.
December 1, 1955	Bus boycott launched in Montgomery, Alabama, after Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person.	1965	A teen council called "Speak Out" developed at the Dunbar Community Center.
December 21, 1956	After more than a year of boycotting the buses and a legal fight, the Montgomery buses were desegregated.	1970	Students at the University of Michigan staged the Black Action Movement, securing demands for 10% African American student enrollment and increased African American faculty.
August 28, 1963	Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have A Dream" address to Civil Rights marchers.	1977	Four African American women filed suit against Ann Arbor Public Schools to require a Black English program for students.
June 21, 1964	Civil Rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered in Mississippi.
July 2, 1964	President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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Web Sources Consulted in creating the Timeline

African American Civil War Memorial--http://www.afroamcivilwar.org
The African American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture--http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/intro.html
African American Studies Research Guide at Yale University Library--http://www.library.yale.edu/rsc/af-am/research.html
African American Perspectives from the Library of Congress American Memory Project --http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/aaphome.html
Chronology On The History Of Slavery And Racism (from 1830 forward)--http://innercity.org/holt/chron_1830_end.html
"Competition V. Discrimination: How Jackie Robinson Desegregated America," by Steve Sailer--http://www.nationalreview.com/08apr96/feature.html
Frontline, Public Broadcasting Corporation (PBS): Timeline of legal cases--http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/sats/race/timeline.html
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad--http://www2.lhric.org/pocantico/tubman/tubman.html
The History of CORE: The Congress of Racial Equality--http://www.core-online.org/History/history.htm
The Jackie Robinson Society--http://www.utexas.edu/students/jackie/index.html
Keele University, "Writing Black: Literature and History" written by and on African Americans--http://www.keele.ac.uk/depts/as/Literature/amlit.black.html
The Making of Ann Arbor (1824-1859)--http://www.aadl.org/moaa/index2.htm
The Seattle Times: Civil Rights Timeline-http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/movement/Seatimeline.html
The Seattle Times: MLK Timeline-http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/mlk/man/MLKtimeline.html
Smithsonian Institute: African American History and Culture--http://www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmah/afroam.htm
Wake America--http://www.wakeamerica.com

Print Sources Consulted in creating the Timeline

Cocks, James Fraser III, Ed. Pictorial History of Ann Arbor: 1824-1974. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Historical Collections/Bentley Historical Library, 1974.
McLaughlin, Marilyn Sauder. Ann Arbor, Michigan: A Pictorial History. St. Louis, MO: G. Bradley Publishing, Inc., 1995.
Stephenson, Orlando Worth. Ann Arbor: The First Hundred Years. Ann Arbor, MI: Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce, 1927.

Several local timeline events come directly from the two documentaries that this web site is based upon, "Ann Arbor: A Woman's Town" and "A Change Was in the Air."

This timeline was created in part by the students in the Civil Rights class at Clague Middle School. For more information about their contributions, please see the About the Project page.

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