Black History
African Americans have played a central role in shaping U.S. history. From slavery and its abolition to the Great Migration, the civil rights movement and military, scientific, cultural and political achievements, explore key moments, milestones, facts and figures in Black History.
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See important dates and facts about the African American experience.
Black inventors changed the way we live through their many innovations, from the traffic light to the ironing board.
From a bus boycott to Freedom Rides to a march for fair housing, here are seven events that triggered change.
Black History Month honors the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history. Learn about famous firsts in African American history and other little-known facts.
Black History Month
Black History Month
A brief look at the history of African Americans and Black History Month.
3 Key Movements in Black History
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The famous "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered by Martin Luther King in August 1963 during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, remains a defining moment of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement.
Deceptively simple doll tests helped convince the Supreme Court to strike down school segregation.
Learn about Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court case that ended school segregation and reshaped the Civil Rights Movement.
The Supreme Court ruling was met with inertia and, in many states, active resistance.
It promised Black Americans a place to build financial security after emancipation. But corrupt leaders fleeced depositors, creating one of the Reconstruction era's greatest financial scandals.
The Great Migration was the movement of more than 6 million Black Americans from the South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970.
Rosa Parks' actions inspired the leaders of the local Black community to organize the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Between 1956 and 1958, Gibson became the first Black player to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Nationals. But none of it came easy.
Having grown up in the segregated South, Ashe became the first Black man to win the U.S. Open in 1968. The victory helped him find his voice on a wide array of social-justice issues.
A diverse coalition of mostly student activists converged in Mississippi in 1964 to challenge efforts to suppress the African American vote.
The federal holiday commemorates the effective end of slavery in the United States.
In 1909 African American Matthew Henson trekked with explorer Robert Peary, reaching what they claimed was the North Pole. Who got there first?
Take a look back at the cultural phenomenon of the 'Roots' TV series and its lasting legacy.
