1820 The first 86 African American immigrants sponsored by the American Colonization Society started a settlement in present-day Liberia.
1863 American Civil War: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, the first African American regiment, leaves Boston, Massachusetts, to fight for the Union.
1864 American Civil War: The Fort Pillow massacre: Confederate forces kill most of the African American soldiers that surrendered at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
1865 American Civil War: The Confederate States of America agree to the use of African American troops.
1867 African American men are granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.
1868 The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified guaranteeing African Americans full citizenship and all persons in the United States due process of law.
1870 Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress.
1877 Henry Ossian Flipper becomes the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy.
1892 The New Orleans general strike begins, uniting black and white American trade unionists in a successful four-day general strike action for the first time.
1900 American Civil War: Sergeant William Harvey Carney becomes the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in the Assault on the Battery Wagner in 1863.
1940 For her role as Mammy in ''Gone with the Wind'', Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1940 Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
1940 Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is named the first African American general in the United States Army.
1943 In Joplin, Missouri, the George Washington Carver National Monument becomes the first United States National Monument in honor of an African American.
1955 Black teenager Emmett Till is murdered in Mississippi, galvanizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement.
1966 Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American Cabinet member by being appointed United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
1966 Former Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke becomes the first African American elected to the United States Senate.
1967 12th Street Riot: in Detroit, Michigan, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. It will leave 43 killed, 342 injured and 1,400 buildings burned.
1967 Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
1967 Carl B. Stokes is elected as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, becoming the first African American mayor of a major American city.
1968 James Anderson, Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.
1972 Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.
1975 Frank Robinson manages the Cleveland Indians in his first game as major league baseball's first African American manager.
1989 Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.
1989 Douglas Wilder wins the governor's seat in Virginia, becoming the first elected African American governor in the United States.
1989 David Dinkins becomes the first African American mayor of New York City.
1990 L. Douglas Wilder becomes the first elected African American governor as he takes office in Richmond, Virginia.
1995 Space Shuttle astronauts Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and Michael Foale become the first African American and first Briton, respectively, to perform spacewalks.