On August 30, 1800, a tremendous storm dropped heavy rain on central Virginia, swelling creeks and turning Richmond`s dirt streets into quagmires.

More than a century before the civil rights marches we know today, a slave revolt took place in Louisiana in 1811. Enslaved people bravely stood up against their oppressors, demanding their rights and freedom.

In 1845 publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, one of the enduring classics of American literature.

This legislation admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation.

In response to the closure of their church in Charleston, Denmark Vesey and others planned a rebellion in 1822. They aimed to fight against slavery and gain their freedom, but unfortunately, their plans were discovered before they could be put into action.

Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm publish Freedom`s Journal, the first African American newspaper in America.

In late summer 1831 a free man of color named Billy Artis, a celebrated slave known as Gen.

Slaves being transported aboard the Spanish ship Amistad take it over and sail it to Long Island.

In 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife, Harriet, sued for their freedom in a St Louis city court.

The Compromise of 1850 was actually a series of bills passed mainly to address issues related to slavery.

Electrifies Women`s Rights Conference, 1851.

Angered by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes the first of 41 installments of Uncle Tom`s Cabin.

August 22, 1859, Captain Foster guided the slaver Clotilde into Mobile, Alabama, under a veil of secrecy.

First African-American Soldier Wounded in Civil War.

Union Gen John C Fremont instituted martial law in Missouri and declared slaves there to be free, countermanded by President Abraham Lincoln.

Commandeers Confederate Ship, and Delivers It to the Union, May 13, 1862.

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emanicipation Proclamation in the midst of the Civil War.

Near the end of the Civil War, this bill created a framework for Reconstruction and the readmittance of the Confederate states to the Union.

Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 granted citizenship and the same rights enjoyed by white citizens to all male persons in the United States without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude.

Passed by Congress June 13, 1866, and ratified July 9, 1868, the 14th amendment extended liberties and rights granted by the Bill of Rights to former slaves.

In 1868, the same year the state rejected the 15th Amendment giving blacks the right to vote, Dawson Pompey became the first African American to hold elective office in Michigan when Covert residents chose him to oversee local road projects.

Long before Rosa Parks, Mary Ellen Pleasant sued to win the right to ride on cable cars in San Francisco.

Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote.

Tennessee passes the first of the Jim Crow segregation laws, segregating state railroads.

African American physician Daniel Hale Williams performs the world`s first successful open-heart surgery.

That all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall be entitled to the full and equal and enjoyment of the accommodations, advantages, facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places.

On the whole, we are of opinion that no countenance of authority for the passage of the law in question can be found in either the thirteenth or fourteenth amendment of the constitution.

Mississippi enacts a poll tax, which most African Americans cannot afford to pay, to try to keep blacks from voting.

African American journalist Ida B Wells begins a crusade to investigate the lynchings of African Americans after three of her friends are lynched in Tennessee.