Presidents
This president took office after Lincoln and reversed many Reconstruction-era promises made to freed Black Americans.
Andrew Johnson
This president signed the largest crime bill in U.S. history, increased police militarization, and contributed to higher incarceration rater for black men.
Bill Clinton
John Willis Menard
This man was the first Black male elected to Congress.
Carol Moseley Braun
Langston Hughes
This poet and writer was the most famous figure during the Harlem Renaissance.
This President served during the period when many Black Americans shifted to the Democratic Party and introduced major social welfare programs they relied on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
George W. Bush
This president shifted national policing and security switched focus towards Muslims after 2001.
George Edwin Taylor
This man first was the first Black person to run for U.S. president.
This man became the first Black president of United States
Barack Obama
This writer is best known for "lift Every Voice and Sing."
James Weldon Johnson
what did Richard Nixon?
This president used the “Southern Strategy” and tied crime policies to Black neighborhoods.
This civil rights activist was assassinated in 1963 for his work fighting segregation in Mississippi.
Medgar's Evers
This woman became the first Black congresswoman and the first Black woman to run for President
Shirley Chisholm
Cory Booker
This man became the first Black senator in New Jersey
This playwright wrote "A Raisin in the Sun," one of the first major Broadway plays by a Black woman.
Lorraine Hansberry
What did Ronald Reagan do?
This president expanded the War on Drugs, changed sentencing laws for crack vs. powder cocaine, and contributed to rising incarceration rates of Black men.
Latasha Harlins & Rodney King
These two cases—one involving a young girl killed over a bottle of orange juice and one involving a brutal police beating—sparked the 1992 LA rebellion.
This man ran for president twice on 1980s and earned millions of votes, making him the first Black candidate taken seriously nationwide.
Jesse Jackson
This woman became the first Black person to serve as vice president and the second Black woman elected to the U.S. Senate
Kamala Harris
James Baldwin
This author wrote influential essays and novels during plays by a Black woman.
This president continued to push the "Zero tolerance," expanded federal drug enforcement, and escalated anti-drug policing.
This man became the first black U.S. senator during the Reconstruction era.
Hiram Revels
This man the first Black governor in U.S. history
Douglas Wilder
hakeem Jeffries
This congressman became the first African American to serve as a party leader in Congress and House Minority Leader.
This writer became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature.
Toni Morrison