Civil Rights: A Chronology
| Date | African Americans | Women | Native Americans & Other | & GLBT | ||||||
| 1526 | 1st African Americans brought to America as indentured servants when AmIndians proved unslaveable. | Staus
of European women fairly high due to scarcity and need for subsistence
labor.
In many native American tribes, women have high status-- property ownership etc. Iriquoi, for example |
22.5-10 million NativeAms | |||||||
| 1640-41 | Colonies pass laws one by one making al Africans slaves. (600,000 by 1776) | |||||||||
| 1712 | S.C.:
Act for Better Ordering and Governing of Negro Slaves (define, travel,
runaways, search, theft)
1763-- Fugitive Slave Act |
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| 1776 Declaration of Independence | ||||||||||
| 1778 | Indian massacres in PA and NY | |||||||||
| 1791 Bill of Rights: First 10 Amendments establish right of propertied white men to free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and the press, of assembly(I), to keep and bear arms(II), to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures (IV), to a trial by jury (VI &VII), to be free from excessive bail, fines, and cruel or unusual punishment (VIII). | ||||||||||
| 1788 U.S. Constitution ratified | ||||||||||
| Article I, section 2, 3/5's Compromise: Slaves counted for tax purposes | ||||||||||
| 1793 | invention of Cotton Gin by Eli Whitney revives slavery | |||||||||
| 1808 | importation of slaves outlawed (250,000 illegally imported by 1860) | |||||||||
| 1819 | Congress begins funding missionaries to Indians | |||||||||
| 1821 | Troy Seminary, first Am. women's college, founded by Emma Willard | |||||||||
| 1830 | Indian Removal Act | |||||||||
| 1831 | N.C. Act Prohibiting Teaching of Slaves to Read | |||||||||
| 1832 | Nat Turner leads slave rebellion in Virginia; New England Anti-Slavery Society founded | |||||||||
| 1833 | Oberlin, first Am. college to admit women (no degrees & had to make beds) | |||||||||
| 1837 | Mt. Holyoke founded | |||||||||
| 1838 | Grimke sisters from SC: abolitionist lecture tour | Cherokees: Trail of Tears | ||||||||
| 1839 | Brit pass Infant's Custody Act | |||||||||
| 1840 | World Anti-Slavery Convention in London | first limits on hours of child labor passed | only 360.000
native ams left |
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| 1841 | Oberlin, 1st Am college to confer degrees on women | |||||||||
| 1843 | Sojourner Truth begins lecture tour | |||||||||
| 1847 | Brits limit working hours for wm and child 13-8 to 10 hours per day | |||||||||
| 1848 | Seneca
Falls Convention first asks for vote, reform of divorce and property
laws.
Conventions held every year until 1861.
NY passes Married Woman's Property Act (real estate) |
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| 1849 California Gold Rush: beginning of mass migrations of whites Westward. | ||||||||||
| 1852 | Uncle Tom's Cabin published | |||||||||
| 1854 | People vs. Hall: holds that Chinese, like AfAm and NatAm could not testify in court against whites | |||||||||
| 1857 | Dred Scott vs. Sanford: Af Am had no rts under Constitution | |||||||||
| 1860 | NY:
Married Women's Property Act (wages, contracts, suits, children)
Brit pass Contagious Diseases Act (used to harass working class wm) |
Pre-emption Bill sets up reservation system and offers free land to white settlers in the West | ||||||||
| 1861 | American women suspend suffrage activities to help wi Civil War effort | |||||||||
| 1862 | Emancipation Proclamation frees slaves in Confederacy | |||||||||
| 1864 | Sand Creek Massacre begins wholesale slaughter of Indians | |||||||||
| 1865 | Thirteenth
Amend abolishes slavery; Klu Klux Klan formed.
Black Codes begin to be inacted, restricting migration, employmeny, rt to bear arms, etc. |
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|
Lakota given Black Hills "in perpetuity | |||||||||
| 1869 | Wyoming
grants vote to women;
Women's Movement splits: National W's Suffrage (Anthony & Stanton) vs. American (Lucy Stone) only suffrage. J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women |
Board of Indian Commission established; efforts begin to Christianize Indians | ||||||||
| 1870 | Fifteenth Amend explicitly gives vote to Af-Am men | 1st
wm. Candidate for Pres; 1st Am Wo. Gets law degree.
Brit: Girton founded at Cambridge |
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| 1873 | Bradwell
vs. Illinois: wm cannot practice law; suited to domestic only.
Comstock Law prohibits sale & mailing of birth control info |
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| 1874 | Minor vs. Happersett: wm cannot vote | |||||||||
| 1875 | Civil Rights Act gives rt. to public accommodation and jury duty to AfAm men | |||||||||
| 1876 | Custer
defeated at Little Big Horn
CA: anti-Chinese legislation |
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| 1887 | Black Hills Act takes 22.8 million acres in exchange for subsistence rations for indefinite time | |||||||||
| 1878 | Women's Suffrage Act 1st intro in Congress; was intro'd every year until 1920 (42 years) | |||||||||
| 1879 | Indian boarding schools established | |||||||||
| 1881 | Sitting Bull surrenders | |||||||||
| 1882 | Brits pass Married Women's Property Act | |||||||||
| 1883 | Civil
Rts. Act of 1875
invalid by Sup Ct. |
Tribes' rt to self-govern established on basis of inferiority. 1884 | ||||||||
| 1884 | Elk vs. Wilkins: AmInd aliens | |||||||||
| 1886 | Geronimo surrenders | |||||||||
| 11887 | Daws Act makes Native Am citizens; General allotment divides tribal lands | |||||||||
| 1889 | Ghost Dance begun by Lakota | |||||||||
| 1890 | Massacre at Wounded Knee | |||||||||
| 1892 | Regulation against Sun Dance | |||||||||
| 1895 | Eliz. Cady Stanton, The Women's Bible | |||||||||
| 1896 | Plessy Vs. Fergusson: separate but equal | |||||||||
| 1898 | Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics | |||||||||
| 1900 | Cary Nation leads first prohibition raid | |||||||||
| 1908 | U.S. bars Japanese immig. | |||||||||
| 1909 | NAACP founded | |||||||||
| 1913 | Alice Paul founds Congressional Union to seek federal suffrage | |||||||||
| 1915 | 25,000 wm march in NYC for suffrage | |||||||||
| 1916 | National
Women's Party founded. First birth control clinic opened
M. Sanger arrested for operating clinic. first wm elected to House of Rep. |
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| 1918 | Brit pass Women's Suffrage (propertied women over 30) | |||||||||
| 1920 | U.S.
passes Women's Suffrage (propertied women over 30)
1st Miss America pageant |
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| 1923 | ERA 1st proposed | |||||||||
| 1924 | ||||||||||
| 1937 | Dr.'s can legally provide birth control info to married | |||||||||
| 1938 | Fair Labor Standards Act (no child labor) | |||||||||
| 1940 | Alien Registration Act | |||||||||
| 1942 | Exec. order for Japanese intern | |||||||||
| 1944 | Korematzu vs. U.S.: upheld Jp.evac | |||||||||
| 1947 | Jackie Robinson: 1st major league | |||||||||
| 1948 | President Harry Truman signed two executive orders ending racial discrimination in the armed forces & civil service | |||||||||
| 1950 HUAC hearings, Korean War | ||||||||||
| 1952 | Immigration and Naturalization Act | |||||||||
| 1954 | Brown vs. Board of Education | |||||||||
| 1955 | Rosa Parks | Women first admitted to Clemson | ||||||||
| 1956 | Montgomery Bus Boycott | |||||||||
| 1957 | Integration of Central High School in Little Rock | |||||||||
| 1960 | Lunch Counter Sit-ins begin | |||||||||
| 1961 | Freedom Riders; SNCC voter registr drive | Birth
Control Pill goes on the market
Illinois Drops Sodomy Law |
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| 1963
1st anti-VN demos |
March on Washington DC: Dr. King=s AI Have a Dream@ Speech | Legal Aid for Indigents | ||||||||
| 1964 | Elimination of poll tax; Civil Rts Act | (title VII of Civil Rgts Act forbids job discrimination on basis of gender) | ||||||||
| 1965 | Voting Rts Act passed | SpCt: use of contraceptives covered by rt. to privacy | ||||||||
| Date | African Americans | Women | Native Americans & Other | Gay &Lesbian | ||||||
| 1967
1968 1969 |
Martin Luther King assassinated |
SC
allows women to serve on juries
SC finally passes 19th Ammendment |
|
|
Gay customers fight back during police raid on Greenwich Village gay bar called Stonewall Inn |
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| 1971 | T | he National Organization of Women (NOW) acknowledges "the oppression of lesbians as a legitimate concern of feminism." | ||||||||
| 1972 | ERA
approved by Congress, sent to states to ratify.
Title IX of Education Amendments Act forbids sex dsicrimn in education |
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| 1973 | Roe
v. Wade
First battered women=s shelter opens. |
Am. Indians battle BIA at Wounded Knee | Homosexuality removed from American Psychiatric Association list of mental disorders | |||||||
| 1974 | Equal Credit Opportunity Act | |||||||||
| 1976 | Title IX of Ed. Ammend Act goes into effect | |||||||||
| 1977 | Hyde Ammendment eliminates federal funding for poor women=s abortions | |||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||||
| 1981 | First references to AIDS (under the name Gay-Related Immune Disease) in medical journals & mainstream press. | |||||||||
| 1982 | ERA lapses wiout ratification | |||||||||
| 1983 | SpCt : deny tax exempt to segreg pvt. schools | Wash. state ruling on comparable worth | ||||||||
| 1984 | Geraldine Ferraro nominated as Vice-Presidental candidate | B | erkeley, California becomes the first city in the U.S. to extend domestic partnership benefits to gay city employees' lovers | |||||||
| 1985 | Wilma Mankiller principle chief of Cherokee tribe | Rock Hudson's death is turning point in the media's awareness of AIDS | ||||||||
| 1986 | Supreme court desclares sex harrassment a form of illegal job discrimination | Bower Vs. Hardwick: Sup Ct upholds constitutionality of Georgia anti-sodomy law | ||||||||
| 1989 | Webster v. Reproductive Health affirms right of states to deny public funding for and to prohibit public hospitals dong abortions | |||||||||
| 1990
Hate Crimes Statistics Act
1992 |
(1992)
Women are now paid 71 cents for every dollar paid to men. The range is
from 64 cents for working-class women to
77cents for professional women with doctorates. Black women earned 65 cents, Latinas 54 cents. |
Congress repeals ban on immigration for gays & lesbians | ||||||||
| 1993 | With
the increased number of women members, the 103rd Congress passes into
law
thirty bills on women's issues during its first year, 33 during its
second.
The previous record for any year: five.
The Family Medical Leave act goes into effect. Vetoed by Bush; first bill signed by Clinton. All fifty states have revised laws to include marital rape |
Hawaii Supreme Court rules that denial of marraige for gays &lesbians may violate their civil rights | ||||||||
| 1994 | The
Violence Against Women Act funds services for victims of rape and
domestic
violence, allows women to seek civil
rights remedies for gender-related crimes, provides training to increase police and court officials' sensitivity and a national 24-hour hotline for battered women. |
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| 1996 | U.S.
women's spectacular success in the Summer Olympics (19 gold medals, 10
silver, 9 bronze) is the result of large
numbers of girls and women active in sports since the passage of Title IX |
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