USA: Inauguration of first black president - timeline
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Timeline
- November 2008. The longest and most expensive presidential election campaign in US history to date culminates in victory for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic Party candidate. He wins 53 per cent of the popular vote to defeat his Republican rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona, who takes 46 per cent. Obama is the first non-white candidate ever to be elected to the US presidency.
- October 2008. The Senate (the upper chamber of Congress, the bicameral federal legislature) approves a $700 billion bailout for the financial system, aiming to restore confidence in the credit markets.
- September 2008. The government launches a takeover of two privately owned but government-sponsored institutions--the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac)--through which most US home mortgages are guaranteed.
- June 2008. Obama secures the Democratic Party's nomination as its candidate to run for president in elections scheduled for November.
- November 2006. The Democratic Party gains 27 seats in the 435-seat House of Representative (the lower house), taking control of both houses of Congress.
- June 2006. The Supreme Court rules 5-3 that the military tribunals the Republican Bush administration set up to try detainees held in the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are illegal.
- August 2005. The Bush administration is criticised for its response to the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
- January 2005. Bush is inaugurated for a second presidential term after winning close elections in November 2004.
- November 2004. Obama, who delivered a notable address at the Democratic Party convention, is elected to the Senate. He is just the third African-American to be elected to the Senate in the previous 125 years.
- March 2003. The USA invades Iraq for the second time in 12 years, this time with a narrower coalition of foreign country allies.
- November 2002. Republicans win a majority in the House of Representatives for the fifth consecutive time. They first gained control in 1994.
- September 2002. The Bush administration asks Congress to authorise the president "to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force" against Iraq.
- September 2001. A series of suicide attacks are launched against targets in New York City and Washington DC (the capital).
- November 2000. In nationwide presidential elections, Republican candidate George W. Bush of Texas secures victory and assumes the presidency following a controversial vote recount in Florida. Democratic candiate Al Gore of Tennessee wins the popular vote but does not win sufficient Electoral College votes.
- August 1998. President Bill Clinton (Democrat) becomes the first sitting US President to testify as a defendant before a grand jury empowered to investigate allegations that he broke criminal law. Specifically, the grand jury had been empowered to investigate the possibility that Clinton had committed perjury, conspired to obstruct justice, and attempted to suborn witnesses in the Lewinsky affair.
- August 1997. A federal appeals court in California drops its opposition to a law promulgated in that state banning racial preferences in public-sector education, procurement, and employment.
- July 1995. California Governor Pete Wilson (Republican) backs the University of California in eliminating expedited admission and recruitment of black students and workers, an initiative called "affirmative action".
- November 1994. The Democratic Party suffers a decisive defeat in national congressional elections. The Republican Party wins on a platform of reducing government intervention.
- January 1994. President Clinton in his state of the union speech says that he will veto any health reform bill that does not provide universal health coverage for all individuals.
- November 1992. Clinton, former governor of Arkansas, defeats President George H. Bush in nationwide elections to become president.
- May 1992. South central Los Angeles erupts into violence, causing great loss of property and life, as young black men avenge the acquittal of four police officers in the beating of black motorist Rodney King by the Los Angeles police. The beating had been captured on videotape and was widely televised. An all-white jury's decision to acquit the officers was met by most black people with disbelief and shock.
- November 1991. Congress further legislates against workplace discrimination.
- March 1988. The Senate overrides President Ronald Reagan's veto of legislation to ensure that federal funds are withheld from institutions that practise discrimination.
- September 1987. The Supreme Court rules in reverse discrimination cases pitting minorities against other workers. A divided court upholds preferential hiring for minorities and women in the face of some public and institutional resistance to "affirmative action".
- January 1986. A federal holiday is named after African-American civil rights activist Martin Luther King. A Democratic Party-dominated Congress passes resolutions favorable to minorities, such as denying schools federal funds if they practise racial discrimination.
- September 1985. Attorney General Ed Meese (Republican) criticises "affirmative action" programmes initiated by President Lyndon Johnson (Democrat), saying that they are also a form of discrimination.
- November 1984. Former Martin Luther King confidant Rev. Jesse Jackson (Democrat) runs for president.
- January 1982. The government under President Reagan softens enforcement of equal opportunity and school integration laws.
- January 1981. Former California governor and actor Ronald Reagan is sworn in as president of the USA.
- June 1979. The Supreme Court rules that private employers may legally establish "affirmative action" employment programmes giving preferences to black workers. One year earlier the court ruled that universities could enforce minimum race quotas in student admissions. These rulings come in response to complaints from whites that they are being unfairly discriminated against.
- October 1972. The Washington Post newspaper publishes the first of a series of stories describing the "Watergate" scandal: how Nixon's re-election committee attempted to undermine the reputations of Democrats.
- March 1972. Nixon calls for a year-long moratorium on court orders requiring "bussing" (the transport of children by bus to schools outside their own area to achieve racial integration).
- October 1970. A report by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) finds that the May 1970 killings of four students by National Guardsmen at Kent State University (Ohio) were not militarily justifiable. A grand jury, however, exonerates the National Guard.
- September 1970. In the aftermath of the assassination of the pacifist Martin Luther King, new movements that do not exclude the use of violence become increasingly prominent. One such group is the Black Panther Party, led by Huey Newton, Eldridge Cleaver, and Bobby Seale.
- June 1969. A report commissioned by the government finds that "in total magnitude of strife the United States ranks first among the 17 Western democracies" and had since 1948 "been one of the half-dozen most tumultuous nations in the world".
- November 1968. Nixon, a former vice president and Republican senator from California, is elected president.
- August 1968. Chicago police attack demonstrators outside the Democratic Party convention.
- April 1968. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. Over the next three days, riots destroy large parts of Washington DC, Chicago, and Baltimore.
- April 1968. In a televised address, President Lyndon Johnson announces he will not run for a second term as president in 1968 in large part because of the unpopular Vietnam War.
- March 1968. A report commissioned by Johnson details the segregation of black people recently migrated from the Southern states into ghettos of Northern cities. It also offers suggestions about the origins of black riots.
- July 1967. Race riots cause 48 deaths in Detroit (Michigan) and 26 in Newark (New Jersey). The proliferation of arms leads the authorities to believe the violence is organised. National black leaders, including Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) leader Martin Luther King, ascribe the violence in Detroit to poor living conditions, unemployment, and poverty among black people.
- August 1966. Black leaders split over adoption of the slogan "Black Power". More militant groups that support it say they favour violent resistance if there is no peaceful way to equality, while the SCLC and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) repudiate the slogan.
- July 1966. Black riots and reprisals by whites erupt in Chicago (Illinois), Cleveland (Ohio), Brooklyn (New York), Atlanta (Georgia), and San Francisco (California).
- June 1966. The Supreme Court rules that federal anti-racial violence laws take precedence over state law in civil rights cases. The court also rules against southern state efforts to discourage registration of black voters, saying the federal government should override the states right to qualify voters in the face of a widespread pattern of discrimination against would-be black voters in the South.
- June 1966. President Johnson proposes civil rights legislation to investigate interference with voting rights and forms of discrimination in schools, courts, and housing.
- August 1965. Rioting occurs in the Watts, an impoverished district of Los Angeles with a 90 per cent black population.
- January 1965. Martin Luther King of the SCLC leads a movement in support of black voting rights in Selma, Alabama. Meanwhile, school districts increasingly drop segregation in favour of mixed schools and President Johnson condemns Ku Klux Klan violence.
- November 1964. Incumbent President Johnson wins a landslide victory in presidential elections against Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater (Republican).
- July 1964. Johnson signs civil rights legislation (largely developed under President John F. Kennedy) making it a crime to impede black people from exercising their voting rights and prohibiting other forms of racial exclusion.
- November 1963. President Kennedy (Democrat) is assassinated in Dallas, Texas, by a sniper. Vice President Johnson is sworn in as his successor.
- August 1963. In a "March for Jobs and Freedom" in Washington DC, 200,000 people gather to issue a racial equality proclamation. Martin Luther King gives a speech in which he tells US citizens to judge people "on the content of their character, not on the colour of their skin".
- June 1963. NAACP activist and field secretary Medgar Evers is shot and killed getting out of a car in front of his home in Mississippi. His work involved registering black people to vote, and ending southern states' practice of requiring literacy tests before voting.
- August 1961. Barack Hussein Obama is born in Hawaii.
- May 1961. Two busses full of anti-segregationists calling themselves "freedom riders" set out from Washington DC to New Orleans, Louisiana, to challenge segregation in bus stations and restaurants. One bus is destroyed; the other group is assaulted and beaten by crowds as they enter the bus station at Birmingham (Alabama).
- November 1960. Integration of public schools in New Orleans leads to rioting and a prolonged conflict between the Louisiana legislature and the federal courts. Public schools in other southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina) remain segregated.
- November 1960. Democrat John F. Kennedy wins a narrow victory over former US Vice President Richard M. Nixon (Republican) and assumes the presidency.
- April 1960. President Dwight Eisenhower (Republican) signs into law a Civil Rights Act that provides for federal oversight to guarantee black voting rights in states where civil right abuses are proven and imposes greater enforcement of federal desegregation laws.
- September 1958. The Supreme Court rejects any delay of integration at the Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas.
- September 1957. Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus rejects the US Supreme Courts decision mandating desegregation. In the state capital city of Little Rock he prevents black students from admission to the central high school. The situation leads to intervention by President Dwight Eisenhower and the dispatch of federal troops to Little Rock to enable school integration.
- April 1957. The Supreme Court issues a ruling further narrowing racial segregation. Meanwhile, several southern states strongly resist racial integration of public schools.
- January 1956. The governors of Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Virginia, and North Carolina adopt a resolution declaring that the states retain the right to racially segregate public schools. The federal government and Congress do not have the power to overrule this, they assert.
- November 1954. The US army eliminates all-black military units.
- May 1954. A Supreme Court decision in the case Brown v. Topeka Bd of Education ends the "separate but equal" doctrine under which black people could be kept out of facilities reserved for white people as long as "equal" facilities were available.
- June 1950. Segregation of black people in universities and in railway dining cars is declared illegal by the US Supreme Court. Black students are admitted to the University of Texas.
- February 1940. President Franklin Roosevelt claims that the "New Deal" is contributing to the country's economic recovery.
- September 1935. Roosevelt defends the "New Deal", saying that government intervention in economic life is needed to restore confidence in the US banking system and to protect investors in the security market.
- December 1931. President Herbert Hoover delivers his annual State of the Union address, in which he outlines emergency measures designed to combat the Great Depression.
- May 1896. The Supreme Court holds (Plessy v. Ferguson) that the separation of races is permissible under the 14th Amendment (which requires equal treatment), if black people are provided "substantially equal" facilities.
- October 1883. The Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional, thereby permitting racial discrimination by private individuals and organisations. The Supreme Court (the Civil Rights Cases) strictly limits Congress's authority to enforce the 14th Amendment to state, not personal, domains.
- April 1877. The last northern troops withdraw from the Southern states that they had occupied since the end of the civil war.
- March 1875. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 provides 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 of public amusement."
- July 1868. The 14th Amendment to the constitution is ratified. It orders states to provide "equal protection under the law" to all persons in their jurisdictions.
- December 1865. The 13th Amendment to the constitution abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
- April 1865. Southern Commander-in-Chief Robert E. Lee of Virginia surrenders, ending the civil war.
- January 1863. President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which frees all slaves in the breakaway confederate states.
