Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nebraska Act creates sovereignty to decide the slave status of each. It also repeals the anti-slavery clause of the Missouri Compromise and renews tensions between anti- and pro-slavery factions.
Ashmun Institute Chartered
Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) is chartered in April 1854 as Ashmun Institute. It becomes a higher education institution providing an education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent. Thurgood Marshall and Langston Hughes are among its esteemed alumni.
Martin Delany Leads National Emigration Convention
Martin Delany leads 145 participants in the 4-day National Emigration Convention in Cleveland, OH. His arguments appeal to some educated and successful northern freed blacks and are defiantly opposite the position held by Frederick Douglass and others. In 1865 Major Delany becomes the first black commissioned as a line field officer in the U.S. Army.
Connecticut, Maine and Mississippi Pass Personal Liberty Laws
Connecticut, Maine, and Mississippi pass personal liberty laws. Massachusetts and Rhode Island renew personal liberty laws first enacted in the 1840s.