Timeline of African American History

The overlapping timelines reflect dates in local and national African-American history. These events relate to the extension of African-American political and economic rights – goals that James L. Gibbs strove to achieve during the course of his life. The timeline corresponds to the life and work of James L. Gibbs, 1906-1981.

Project designers and developers were Sean Eversley-Bradwell, of Ithaca College, Donna Eschenbrenner, of the History Center, Huldah and James Gibbs Jr., formerly of Ithaca, and Paul Miller, of the History Center.

1904-1909
1904	James Lowell Gibbs is born in Florence, South Carolina. (see more about James Gibbs at The History Center's exhibit)
1906	Cornell University students establish Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African-Americans, on East State Street.
1909	Blacks and whites organize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Led by W.E.B DuBois, the NAACP initially calls for the end of segregation, equal education for blacks and whites, and enfranchisement of African-American males.
1910-1919
1910	African-American social clubs flourish from 1900-1920: A sampling of businesses in Ithaca include Cayuga Temple, Black Masons, Black Knights of Pythias, Eastern Star, and the Francis Harper Club.
1911	Civil Rights organizations merge to form the National Urban League.
1915	Responding to the call for industrial workers in defense industries, and leaving social and legal oppression in the South, hundreds of thousands of African-Americans begin a move to the “land of promise” in the North. Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse were key industrial cities that “pulled” African-Americans from the South.
1917	The Supreme Court, in Buchanan v. Warley, strikes down Louisville ordinance red-lining African-Americans to certain sections of the city. James Weldon Johnson publishes “Fifty Years”: This land is ours by right of birth, This land is ours by right of toil; We helped to turn its virgin earth, Our sweat is in its fruitful soil.
1919	Levi Spaulding becomes Ithaca’s first African-American policeman.
1921-1929
1920-1950	A number of African-American owned businesses are established after 1920. A sampling of Black-owned businesses in Ithaca includes the Cayuga House (hotel), Harry B. Parker’s “Equal Rights Barbershop,” the XYZ Club, and Geraldine’s Beauty Shop.
1921	Author and historian Alex Haley is born at 212 Cascadilla Street. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) charters Ithaca branch of NAACP.
1923	C.O. Wilson edits Ithaca’s first black newspaper, Monitor, whose tagline stated, “Published in the interest of Colored People. Published in the interest of Kingdom Building and Racial Uplift.”
1925	A. Philip Randolph, who once noted, “Freedom is never given; it is won,” organizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Maids.
1930-1939
1930	Serv-us League opens Southside Community House (SSCH) at 221 South Plain St. (later moved to 305 South Plain Street). SSCH’s mission was “directed toward uniting the community for the betterment of each and everyone.” Mrs. Jessie Cooper serves as the first director. Levi Spaulding is killed in the line of duty.
1933	St. James AME Zion Church on Cleveland Street celebrates its 100th anniversary.
1935	Devastating flood in July rips through the Southside neighborhoods destroying homes and the Southside Community House. Presidents of mining, clothing, and typographical unions form the Committee (later Congress) of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The emergence of the CIO marks an important step toward eliminating racial discrimination in organized labor.
1938	New Southside Community Center opens with James L. Gibbs as Executive Director and Hortense Gibbs as Assistant Director. Southside provides training and employment counseling, health check-ups, courses on African-American history, and recreation. James L. Gibbs recruits Dr. Gregory Alexander Galvin to be Ithaca’s first African-American physician. Dr. Galvin organizes a number of health initiatives at SSCH, including a program for expectant mothers.
1939	After being denied an opportunity to sing at Constitution Hall by the Daughter’s of the American Revolution, Marian Anderson performs for seventy-five thousand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
1940-1949
1940	President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues executive order 8802 prohibiting discrimination in defense industries following pressure from A. Philip Randolph who threatened a march on Washington D.C.
1941	James L. Gibbs’s apartment is severely damaged in a fire. Huldah Gibbs, an infant of 21 months, is rescued from the building.
1942	James Farmer establishes Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) at University of Chicago. Paul Robeson performs at Bailey Hall on the Cornell University campus.
1943	Paul Robeson is the first African-American to play Othello in a U.S. performance. The play becomes the longest running Shakespearean production in Broadway history.
1944	The Supreme Court, in Smith v. Allwright, strikes down white primaries designed to keep African-Americans from voting in the South.
1946	African-American army and navy veterans organize the “Colored Vets,” one of Ithaca’s best known black baseball teams. (Question: Did they play at Percy Fields, site of current high school/Boynton”)
1947	Jackie Robinson breaks Major League Baseball’s color barrier as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
1948	President Harry S. Truman signs executive order desegregating the U.S. armed forces.
1950-1959
1952	James L. Gibbs Jr. and Juanita C. Miller are the first African-Americans from Ithaca to graduate from Cornell University.
1953	Beverly Jane Martin is the first African-American woman elected as Ithaca High School class president.
1954	The Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, rules that separate education facilities are unlawful and violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. On the decision, Chief Justice Earl Warren declares, “Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” John Hope Franklin, historian, wrote supporting documents for the NAACP legal team arguing this case while teaching a summer session at Cornell University.
1955	Interstate Commerce Commission decrees that segregation on interstate buses or trains is unlawful. Police arrest Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus; Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), whose leader is Martin Luther King Jr., forms to lead boycott of the bus company. The boycott ends when the Supreme Court declares that the city ordinance that requires blacks to relinquish seats to whites is unconstitutional and violates the 14th Amendment.
1957	Eight African-American students attempt to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Civil Rights Act of 1957 establishes a Civil Rights division and Civil Rights Commission of the Justice Department. Martin Luther King organizes Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). SCLC’s motto is “To Save the Soul of America.” Mohawk Airlines hires Carol Ruth Taylor, a graduate of Trumansburg High School, as the nation’s first African-American stewardess.
1959	Dr. Corinne Brown Galvin is named Ithaca Business and Professional Woman of the Year. Dr. Galvin’s dissertation from Cornell University, “The Lore of the Negro in Central New York State,” focuses on the origins of Ithaca’s Black community.
1960-1969
1960	Four students from Agricultural and Technical College, Greensboro, North Carolina (Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil) conduct a sit-in at the Woolworth Department store lunch counter until management agrees to desegregate it. Supreme Court rules that segregation of interstate bus terminals is unconstitutional. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at Cornell University’s Sage Chapel. The title of Dr. King’s sermon is “The Three Dimensions of Life.”
1961	Dr. Martin Luther King returns to Cornell University, invited by the Cornell Committee Against Segregation, chaired by Dr. Edward Hart, a local ophthalmologist. In his talk, Dr. King explains, “It is human dignity which we are struggling for in the South; and we still have a long, long way to go.” The Council for Equality, dedicated to promoting the civil, political, and economic rights of Ithacans, holds its first meeting. “Freedom Riders” test Supreme Court decision banning segregation in interstate bus terminals.
1962	James Meredith defies angry mobs and a recalcitrant governor to enroll at the University of Mississippi (Meredith graduates in 1963). James Farmer (founder of Core) and Malcolm X (Nation of Islam) debate “separation versus integration” at Cornell University. President John F. Kennedy issues an executive order outlawing discrimination in federal housing.
1963	SCLC organizes demonstrations against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama (America’s most segregated city). When King and other leaders are arrested, thousands of children continue to march. MLK writes “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”: (Responding to claims that he was an outside agitator, King asserts, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”) James Hood and Vivian Malone defy Governor George Wallace, who stands in front of the school house door before yielding, and enroll at the University of Alabama. President John F. Kennedy, on national television, declares that injustice toward African-Americans is a “moral issue.” Martin Luther King delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”
1964	President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlaws racial discrimination in public accommodations and federally-funded programs. Hundreds of black and white students led by Robert Moses of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) register black voters in Mississippi during “Freedom Summer.” James Chaney, a native of Meridan, Mississippi, Andrew Goodman, from Queens College in New York, whose parents were Cornell University graduates, and Michael Schwerner, a Cornell University student, are murdered while investigating a church bombing in Neshoba County. Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner are COFO volunteers.
1965	John Lewis and Hosea Williams attempt to lead 600 peaceful marchers across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama when the marchers are attacked by the Alabama State Police. Thousands march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge and continue on to Montgomery, Alabama. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs Voting Rights Act, which eliminates literacy tests and empowers the U.S. Attorney General to dispatch federal examiners to register African-Americans.
1966	Robert Weaver becomes the first African-American cabinet member as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
1967	Thurgood Marshall appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson (Marshall is the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court; Clarence Thomas is the second.)
1968	Jerome H. Holland II is the first African-American member of the Ithaca Common Council. Martin Luther King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while leading a strike of sanitation workers. Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Gary Esolen, Jack Goldman, Desdemona Jacobs, and others establish MOVE an inter-racial movement to bring together Cornell and the greater community on behalf of low income housing construction.
1969	Members of Cornell University’s African-American Society (AAS) occupy Willard Straight Hall to protest University sanctions against AAS activists, respond to a cross-burning incident on campus, and express disappointment with the content of the University’s black studies program.
1970-1979
1972	Representative Shirley Chisom is the first African-American woman to run for president. Cheryl Bliss, a former Ithacan and 1967 graduate of Ithaca High School, is instrumental in launching a sickle cell anemia awareness project in New York City’s public schools. Ujamaa, Cornell University’s first house for African-American students, opens.
1973	Ithacans form Club Essence for “unity, fellowship, and support” among African-American women.
1976	Representative Andrew Young becomes U.S. ambassador to the United Nations
1978	Calvary Baptist Church on North Albany Street celebrates its 75th anniversary.
1979	Local activists establish the Ithaca Black Caucus.
1980-1981
1981	James L. Gibbs dies in Ithaca, New York. (see more about James Gibbs at The History Center's exhibit)

*A very special thanks to Prof. Sean Eversley-Bradwell who contributed his knowledge and time to this important project.