1984

Inexpensive crack cocaine, smokeable freebase cocaine processed with baking soda, begins spreading rapidly through South Los Angeles neighborhoods including Compton, Watts, and Inglewood. Ricky Ross and Freeway Rick's distribution network expands the supply. The epidemic accelerates through 1985-1986, devastating Black communities as addiction, violence, and incarceration rates surge.

Eleanor Bumpurs, a 66-year-old Black woman with a history of mental illness, is shot twice and killed by NYPD Officer Stephen Sullivan during an eviction attempt at her Bronx public housing apartment. The city sought to remove her for $96.85 in back rent. Sullivan is indicted for manslaughter but acquitted in 1987, sparking widespread protests.

Randall Robinson of TransAfrica, along with Rep. Walter Fauntroy and Mary Frances Berry, is arrested at the South African embassy in Washington DC, launching the Free South Africa Movement. Daily arrest protests outside the embassy continue for over a year, involving more than 4,000 people including celebrities and Members of Congress, building public pressure for anti-apartheid sanctions.

Bernhard Goetz, a white man, shoots four Black teenagers — Troy Canty, Darrell Cabey, James Ramseur, and Barry Allen — on a New York City subway car, claiming they were going to rob him. Goetz flees to New Hampshire. He is indicted in 1985 and acquitted of all charges except illegal weapons possession in 1987. The case polarizes New York along racial lines.

In Grove City College v. Bell, the Supreme Court rules 6–3 that Title IX and other civil rights laws apply only to the specific program receiving federal funds, not the entire institution. The decision guts enforcement of Title VI, Title IX, and Section 504 for universities and contractors. Congress reverses the ruling with the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988, overriding Reagan's veto.

In Grove City College v. Bell, the Supreme Court rules 6-3 that civil rights laws apply only to the specific program receiving federal funds, not the entire institution. The decision guts enforcement of Title VI, Title IX, and Section 504 across universities and contractors until Congress reverses it in 1988.

The Cosby Show premieres on NBC, featuring Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable, an OB-GYN with a lawyer wife and five children in a Brooklyn brownstone. The show becomes the top-rated program on American television for five consecutive seasons. It fundamentally changes television's portrayal of Black families but also fuels debates about whether its middle-class image obscures structural racism.