Also American

A history of Black America

The unbroken line — from the first Africans to their descendants today.

Two timelines you can zoom from centuries down to a single day. Choose the history of struggle and resistance, or of achievement and excellence.

Struggle & ResistanceAchievement & Excellence

Oppression and the fight against it

The timeline

1500s1600s1700s1800s1900s2000s

Move across the timeline to focus a decade · click to open it

Browse by century

Each century is titled by what defined it. Click to zoom into decades, years, and days.

1500s1500–1599
Oppression
The arrival of the first enslaved Africans

Spanish colonists bring captives to the Carolina coast.

Resistance
The first rebellion on this soil

Enslaved Africans revolt at Gualdape and escape.

1600s1600–1699
Oppression
Slavery codified into colonial law

From Point Comfort to hereditary, race-based bondage.

Resistance
Early escape and resistance

The enslaved resist from the very beginning.

1700s1700–1799
Oppression
Chattel slavery entrenched

Slave codes harden across the colonies.

Resistance
The Stono Rebellion

The largest colonial-era uprising marches for freedom.

1800s1800–1899
Oppression
The domestic slave trade & Fugitive Slave Acts

Families torn apart; Dred Scott denies Black citizenship.

Resistance
Abolition & the Underground Railroad

Emancipation and a brief season of Black political power.

1900s1900–1999
Oppression
Jim Crow, COINTELPRO & the War on Drugs

New systems of segregation, surveillance, and incarceration.

Resistance
The Civil Rights & Black Power movements

From Brown to the Voting Rights Act.

2000s2000–2099
Oppression
Mass incarceration & voter suppression

Shelby County guts the Voting Rights Act.

Resistance
Black Lives Matter

A new movement for Black life and dignity.

Featured trail

The Contra–Crack–Incarceration Pipeline

Follow the chain from a Cold War proxy war to the prison cells of Black America — a connection rarely taught as a single story.

Walk the trail

Browse by system & movement