Civil Rights in N.C. Time Line, Pt. 1

A Change Is Gonna Come:
A Civil Rights in North Carolina Time Line
Part 1: 1830-1900

1830 North Carolina Census Data
Total	737,987
Whites	472,843
Slaves	245,601
Free persons of color	19,543
Other races	N/A

1830	The General Assembly enacts “black codes” restricting the activities of free and enslaved African Americans.
	Congress passes and President Andrew Jackson signs the controversial Indian Removal Act calling for American Indians in the East to be forced from their homes to lands west of the Mississippi River.
	The General Assembly receives from the governor a copy of David Walker’s Appeal . . . to the Coloured Citizens of the World, published in Boston the previous year by David Walker, an African American born free in Wilmington in 1785. Appalled by slavery, he advocates open rebellion. The General Assembly bans his writings, as well as other “seditious” works that “might excite insurrection.”
1831	The General Assembly passes legislation forbidding black preachers to speak at gatherings of slaves from different owners, and forbidding anyone to teach slaves to read and write.
	Slave preacher Nat Turner leads 20 followers in a bloody revolt through Southampton County, Va., near the North Carolina border. The North Carolina militia is called out to assist in stopping the rebellion.
1832	The Supreme Court rules that the Cherokee Nation constitutes a sovereign nation within the state of Georgia, subject only to federal law. That ruling remains the basis for American Indian tribal sovereignty.
1835	The state constitution is extensively revised, with amendments that provide for direct election of the governor and more democratic representation in the legislature. However, new laws take voting rights away from free people of color.
	A small, unauthorized group of men signs the Cherokee Removal Treaty. The Cherokee Indians protest the treaty, and Chief John Ross collects more than 15,000 signatures, representing most of the Cherokee population, on a petition requesting the U.S. Senate to withhold ratification. The petition fails.
1836	The U.S. House of Representatives passes the first “gag rule,” designed to prevent the introduction, reading, or discussion of any antislavery bill or petition.
1838	Approximately 17,000 Cherokee are forcibly removed from North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama to the Indian Territory, present-day Oklahoma, along the 1,200-mile “Trail of Tears.” Some 4,000 to 8,000 Cherokee die during the removal process, about a quarter to half of the total population. A few hundred North Carolina Cherokee refuse to submit to forced removal. They hide in the mountains and evade federal soldiers. A deal is struck allowing the Cherokee to remain in the state legally. The federal government eventually establishes a reservation for them.
1839	The General Assembly establishes common schools, or free public schools, in the state. The first one opens in Rockingham County the following year.

1840 North Carolina Census Data
Total	753,419
Whites	484,870
Slaves	245,817
Free persons of color	22,732
Other races	N/A

1840	The General Assembly passes a law prohibiting people of color from owning or carrying weapons without first obtaining a license.

1850 North Carolina Census Data
Total	869,039
Whites	553,028
Slaves	288,548
Free persons of color	27,463
Other races	N/A

1857	The Supreme Court issues the Dred Scott decision, which states that blacks are not considered citizens and that slaveholders can legally take slaves into the western territories. The Court’s decision angers antislavery northerners.
	Abolitionist John Brown seizes the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Va., in an attempt to incite a slave insurrection. Two free African Americans from North Carolina, Lewis Sheridan Leary of Fayetteville and John Anthony Copeland of Raleigh, join Brown’s forces. Leary is killed when federal troops capture the insurgents. Copeland is tried and executed for treason, along with Brown and others.

1860 North Carolina Census Data
Total	992, 622
Whites	629,942
African Americans	361,522
American Indians	1,158
Other races	N/A

1860	Abraham Lincoln, who opposes the expansion of slavery in the western territories, wins the presidential election. The Republican ticket, which he heads, does not appear on the ballot in North Carolina and other southern states. After the election, seven southern states leave the Union by the following March.
1861	North Carolina lawmakers prohibit any black person from owning or controlling a slave, making it impossible for a free person of color to buy freedom for a family member or friend.
	North Carolina secedes from the Union on May 20.
1861–65	Approximately 42,000 North Carolinians lose their lives in the Civil War. Many slaves leave their plantations and seek refuge behind Northern lines in Federal-occupied areas of the state, and some join the Union army. A large number of Cherokee in western North Carolina support the Confederacy. The well-known fighting unit Thomas’s Legion has two Cherokee companies. The Lumbee in eastern North Carolina are forced to work on Confederate fortifications near Wilmington. Many flee and form groups to resist impressment by the army. Henry Berry Lowry leads one such group, which continues to resist white domination long after the war ends.
1863	President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.
1864	Fugitive slave laws are repealed.
1865	A state convention votes to repeal the Ordinance of Secession and end slavery. North Carolina ratifies the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which officially abolishes slavery.
	Freedmen hold a political march in Raleigh to ask for equal rights. Later 106 African American delegates attend the Freedmen’s Convention in the capital city.
1865-77	Reconstruction.
1866	Congress passes a Civil Rights Act, which declares people of color to be United States citizens and nullifies the states’ “black codes.”
1867	The Congressional Reconstruction Acts grant voting and other rights to men of color and make North Carolina part of a military district under Federal army occupation.
1868	A new state constitution gives all adult males the right to vote and hold office. It requires the General Assembly to “provide for a general and uniform system” of free schools for all children between the ages of six and 21.
	North Carolina ratifies the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which grants citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.”
	North Carolina rejoins the United States.
	An election places in office the first African American state legislators: three senators and 17 representatives.
	The U.S. government recognizes the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
1869	North Carolina ratifies the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gives all men the right to vote.
	The General Assembly attempts to revitalize the public schools by reorganizing them and providing $100,000 in funding.
	James Walker Hood, an African American minister and an assistant superintendent in the N.C. Bureau of Education, reports that the state has 257 black schools enrolling 15,657 students.

1870 North Carolina Census Data
Total	1,071,361
Whites	678,470
African Americans	391,650
American Indians	1,241
Other races	N/A

1870	Under a tribal government, members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee elect a chief and write a constitution.
	The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives all men the right to vote.
	In the “Kirk-Holden War,” Republican governor William W. Holden proclaims Alamance and Caswell Counties in a state of insurrection after the Ku Klux Klan perpetrates acts of violence, including several murders. The governor declares martial law and deploys troops. More than 100 men are arrested. Democrats impeach Holden and remove him from office the next year.
1870-71	Congress passes the Enforcement Acts to control Ku Klux Klan activity and to protect civil and political rights.
1871	Congress investigates the role of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina politics. U.S. soldiers arrest nearly 1,000 men for alleged involvement with the Klan, and 37 are convicted. The investigation helps limit Klan activity in the state for a time.
1875	Congress passes a Civil Rights Act, which provides for social rights, such as equal treatment in public places, and political rights, including access to jury duty.
	Amendments to the state constitution establish separate public schools for black and white children and forbid marriage between African Americans and whites.
1877	The General Assembly authorizes the first state-supported institution of higher learning for African Americans in North Carolina. The Howard School, which opened in 1867 in Fayetteville, is chosen as this teacher training facility and is renamed the State Colored Normal School. It eventually becomes Fayetteville State University.
1879	Charles N. Hunter and his brother form the N.C. Industrial Association, which tries to improve the lives of African Americans by emphasizing economic progress rather than political activity. Hunter’s Colored Industrial Fair in Raleigh becomes the state’s most popular social event for blacks. Hunter later starts the O’Kelly Training School in Wake County in 1910, called by a 1917 Baltimore newspaper the “finest rural training school in the entire South.”

1880 North Carolina Census Data
Total	1,339,750
Whites	867,242
African Americans	531,277
American Indians	1,230
Japanese	1
Other races	N/A

1883	The Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act of 1875 invalid for protecting social rights.
1885	North Carolina recognizes the Croatans, now known as the Lumbee, as an American Indian tribe and authorizes separate schools for them.
1887	The Dawes Act allows the federal government to partition Indian reservations and assign the parts to individual tribal members in an attempt to establish private ownership of Indian lands.
	The Croatan Normal School opens in Robeson County. It eventually becomes Pembroke State College, Pembroke State University, and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
1888	Fifty-four Croatan Indians in Robeson County petition the U.S. government for school funds.
1889	The Eastern Band of Cherokee is incorporated under North Carolina law. African American members of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union break away to form WCTU No. 2, which will have 400 members in 19 chapters by 1891. Like the original group, the new one reports directly to the national organization. North Carolina is the only state to have a black women’s temperance union.

1890 North Carolina Census Data
Total	1,617,949
Whites	1,055,382
African Americans	561,018
American Indians	1,516
Chinese	32
Japanese	1
Other races	N/A

1892	The State Colored Normal School at Elizabeth City opens to train African American teachers. It eventually becomes Elizabeth City State University.
	Slater Industrial Academy is founded for African Americans. It eventually becomes Winston-Salem State University.
1893	The federal government opens the Cherokee Boarding School.
	The state opens the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race in Greensboro to teach practical agriculture and mechanical arts and to provide academic and classical instruction. It eventually becomes N.C. A&T College and then N.C. A&T State University.
1896	The Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” accommodations are constitutional.
	George Henry White benefits from Fusion politics by winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District. He serves from 1897 to 1901 and seeks to promote and protect African American interests. He introduces the first anti-lynching bill and appoints African Americans to federal positions in his district. White is the last black representative for the next quarter century and the last from the state until 1992.
1898	The Wilmington Race Riot occurs when white Democrats overthrow Wilmington’s elected Republican government. Whites burn the office and press of the African American newspaper the Daily Record. State newspapers report 11 blacks killed, 25 blacks wounded, and three white men killed. Black and white Republicans resign, and the Democrats install a white supremacist government.
	North Carolina sends three African American infantry companies and two white regiments to the Spanish-American War.