1926
As African Americans were shut out of jobs and opportunities during Jim Crow, and as more jobs became available in the north and Midwest, more than 2 million southern African Americans migrated after the First World War.
1919
The Red Summer. Twenty-six documented race riots occur, where black communities across the country are attacked. Hundreds of blacks are killed and even more are injured in these attacks.
1915
The release of D.W. Griffith’s film, Birth of a Nation, which glorifies the Klan and demonizes blacks. The film also inflames race tensions and sets off white attacks on black communities in many areas throughout the United States.
1914
Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Improvement Association to help promote economic self-reliance among blacks, whose motto is ‘One God, One Aim, One Destiny’.
1910
Another bi-racial group of activist establishes the National Urban League to remediate the victimization and deplorable social and economic conditions faced by blacks.
1905
The Niagara Movement, led by W.E.B. DuBois and William M. Trotter, is the first significant black organized protest movement of the twentieth century in Buffalo, NY. It is an attempt by a small yet articulate group of radicals to challenge Booker T. Washington’s ideals of accommodation.
1898
US. Knight riders went out in the dark, burning the homes of African Americans who bought their own land.
1892
Ida B. Wells Barnett begins her campaign against the lynching of blacks, a common practice by white racists and the Klan to instill fear in the black community. She later writes Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases and becomes a tireless worker for women’s suffrage.
1881
Tennessee passes the first of its Jim Crow laws, segregating the state railroad. Other states follow the lead and legalize segregation.