Reconstruction, one of the most misunderstood chapters in American history From CBS NEWS produced by Mark Hudspeth Call it the original “Great Escape.” On May 13, 1862, just over a year into the Civil War, an enslaved man named Robert Smalls, who labored on a Confederate steamer in South Carolina’s Charleston harbor, set into motion […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1913: President Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet begins government-wide segregation of workplaces, restrooms and lunchrooms. From EJI Timeline President Wilson Authorizes Segregation Within Federal Government On April 11, 1913, recently inaugurated President Woodrow Wilson received Postmaster General Albert Burleson’s plan to segregate the Railway Mail Service. Burleson reported that he found it “intolerable” […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1956: African American singer Nat King Cole is attacked onstage by four white men while performing for an all-white audience in Birmingham, Alabama. From EJI Timeline White Men Attack Nat King Cole During Performance in Birmingham, Alabama On April 10, 1956, African American singer and pianist Nat King Cole was performing […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1951: U.S. Supreme Court orders new trials for two black defendants sentenced to death in Groveland, Florida: local sheriff later shoots both men. From EJI Timeline Supreme Court Reverses Wrongful Conviction in Florida; Sheriff Later Shoots Both Defendants In 1949, four young black men were arrested and accused of rape in […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1933: In Winston County, Mississippi 17 white men take 65-year-old Ruben Micou, a black man arrested for fighting with a prominent white man, from jail and his body is found whipped and shot to death. From EJI Timeline On April 2, 1933, a mob of white men broke into the Winston […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1875: U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in U.S. v. Cruikshank in which three white men win reversal of conviction under the Ku Klux Klan Act for massacre of 150 black people in Colfax, Louisiana. From EJI Timeline Louisiana Lynch Mob Claims Federal Law Cannot Punish Them; Supreme Court Later Agrees On […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1965: Viola Liuzzo, a white woman from Detroit is shot and killed after driving voting rights activists to Selma, Alabama. From EJI Timeline Viola Liuzzo Murdered After Driving Voting Rights Activists to Selma On March 25, 1965, Viola Liuzzo, a middle-class white housewife from Detroit, Michigan, was shot and killed in […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1901: White woman and black man are arrested in Atlanta, and accused of walking and talking together on the street. From EJI Timeline Black Man and White Woman Arrested for Walking Together in Atlanta On March 22, 1901, a white woman and a black man were arrested in Atlanta, Georgia, and […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1981: After a Mobile, Alabama jury acquits a black man of killing a white police officer, Ku Klux Klan members randomly kidnap and kill 19-year-old Michael Donald, a black man, and hang his body from a tree. From EJI Timeline Michael Donald Hanged by Members of Klan in Mobile, Alabama On […]
From 2019 EJI Calendar 1924: Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act is signed into law and later becomes the model sterilization law for other states and for Nazi Germany. From EJI Timeline Virginia Passes Acts Seeking To ‘Purify The White Race’ Harry Laughlin, a leader in the eugenics movement, drafted a Model Eugenical Sterilization Law that Virginia […]
