Black History Month: Milestones

"History has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own."

 -Michelle Obama

With Black History Month coming to an end, we wanted to look back on the numerous milestones and strides within Black History. At Bravelets we work to empower everyone and recognize the achievements of those who have struggled. African-American people have enormous bravery and have been through so much that its hard to comprehend. Today we want to focus on the positive achievements and milestones throughout Black History. 

• In August 1831, Nat Turner led the first successful slave rebellion
• In 1831, Harriet Tubman led the Underground Railroad and helped to free over 80,000 slaves

• In 1862, Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation which freed nearly 3 million slaves in rebel states
• In 1870, the 15th amendment was passed stating that the right to vote would not be discriminated against on account of color
• In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded which worked toward ending segregation
• In 1920, the Harlem Renaissance was the first time in American histories that African-American culture was celebrated and noticed for its positive impact

• In December 1941, during the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller, a young African-American Navy steward carried wounded crewmembers to safety and manned a machine gun post, shooting down several Japanese planes
• In 1948, President Truman desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces
• In 1947, Jackie Robinson became the first African-American baseball player to play in the Major League
• In 1954,the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation and the "separate but equal" ideology violated the 14th amendment
• In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger
• In 1957, the Little Rock Nine were escorted into the newly segregated Central High School by the National Guard under deep resistance by white mobs

• In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the impassioned "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial
• In 1964, President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made the largest political strides in black history by creating the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which ensures equal treatment of minorities in the workplace and also removed restrictions on voting rights
• In 1965, thousands of marchers marched from Selma to Montgomery under protection of the Alabama National Guard and U.S. Army

• In 1965, President Johnson passed the Voting Rights Act which banned literacy tests as a requirement for voting often used as a method of discouraged black voters
• In 1986, Oprah Winfrey launches her talk show which would later become one of the most watch television talk shows in history
• In 2001, Colin Powell became the first African American politician to serve as Secretary of State
• In 2008, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States
• In 2013, the Black Lives Matter movement is formed in response to growing police brutality and racial profiling

References:

http://www.startribune.com/black-lives-matter-group-to-rally-disrupt-operations-at-minnesota-state-fair/322479171/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/03/black-history-harlem-renaissance/22825245/

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/slavery/pictures/the-battle-over-slavery/harriet-tubman-2
https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/selma-bloody-sunday-look-back/3/
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/photos/2017/09/25/photos-remembering-the-little-rock-nine?slide=14
https://libguides.lib.msu.edu/c.php?g=95622&p=624423
http://www.blackpast.org/timelines/african-american-history-timeline-2001