During a bipartisan meeting with senators in the Oval Office to discuss immigration, President Trump asked why the United States would want people from ‘shithole countries’ while being briefed on changes to the visa lottery system. Trump questioned why America would want immigrants from …
Donald TrumpDick DurbinU.N. Human Rights OfficeAfrican Unionracial-politicsimmigrationrepublican-partyxenophobiainstitutional-racism+2 more
President Trump traveled to Long Island to deliver a speech linking MS-13 gang violence to immigration policy, using the gang to justify harsh deportation policies. In his 2018 State of the Union, Trump highlighted the murders of teenagers Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens, stating ‘Six members of …
Donald TrumpMS-13racial-politicsdog-whistle-politicsimmigrationrepublican-partyxenophobia+2 more
On June 17, 2015, white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black worshippers during a Bible study session at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in a racially motivated terrorist attack that exposed the state’s ongoing institutional embrace of …
Donald Trump formally announced his presidential candidacy with a speech demonizing Mexican immigrants in explicitly racist terms. Trump declared: ‘When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re …
Donald Trumpracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicsimmigrationrepublican-partyxenophobia+2 more
After weeks of Donald Trump loudly questioning President Obama’s citizenship and claiming to have sent private investigators to Hawaii, Obama released his long-form birth certificate to address what he called ‘silliness.’ Trump had appeared on Good Morning America in March 2011 …
Donald TrumpBarack Obamaracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicsconspiracy-theoriesrepublican-partybirtherism+2 more
In the final week of his Senate race against Harvey Gantt—the first African American major party Senate candidate in North Carolina—incumbent Republican Jesse Helms aired the notorious ‘Hands’ or ‘White Hands’ advertisement. The ad depicted white hands crumpling a job …
Jesse HelmsHarvey GanttAlex CastellanosCarter WrennRepublican Partyracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicspolitical-advertisingrepublican-partyaffirmative-action+1 more
The Americans for Bush arm of the National Security Political Action Committee, working with Bush campaign consultants, began running the infamous ‘Weekend Passes’ advertisement featuring William Horton, a Black prisoner who committed crimes while on furlough from a Massachusetts prison. …
George H.W. BushLee AtwaterRoger AilesLarry McCarthyWilliam Horton+2 moreracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicspolitical-advertisingrepublican-partycriminal-justice+1 more
In a November 1981 anonymous interview with political scientist Alexander Lamis, Republican strategist Lee Atwater provided an extraordinarily candid explanation of how the GOP uses coded racial appeals. Atwater explained: ‘You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” …
Lee AtwaterAlexander LamisRepublican Partyracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicspolitical-strategyrepublican-partysouthern-strategy+1 more
Ronald Reagan opened his general election campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, Mississippi—just seven miles from where Ku Klux Klan members had murdered civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in 1964. In his first major speech after the Republican …
Ronald ReaganRepublican Partyracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicspolitical-strategyrepublican-partysouthern-strategy+2 more
During his 1976 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan regularly told the story of a Chicago ‘welfare queen’ to attack social programs using racially coded language. At a campaign speech in Gilford, New Hampshire, Reagan declared: ‘In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record. …
Ronald ReaganLinda Taylorracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicswelfare-policyrepublican-partysocial-safety-net+1 more
At a press conference on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one,” launching what became known as the War on Drugs. This announcement marked the beginning of a dramatic expansion of federal drug control policy and law enforcement that would …
Richard NixonJohn Ehrlichmanmass-incarcerationinstitutional-racismwar-on-drugspolicing
Richard Nixon won the presidency with a strategy devised by political consultant Kevin Phillips that explicitly targeted white racial resentment to break up the New Deal coalition. Phillips, who worked on Nixon’s campaign, told journalists during the election that ’the whole secret of …
Richard NixonKevin PhillipsH.R. HaldemanGeorge WallaceRepublican Partyracial-politicsdog-whistle-politicspolitical-strategyrepublican-partysouthern-strategy+1 more
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968) into law one week after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, religion, national origin, or sex. The …
President Lyndon B. JohnsonMartin Luther King Jr.National Association of Real Estate BoardsNational Association of RealtorsHouse Rules Committeehousingcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismreal-estate-industrycorporate-opposition
On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 PM Central Standard Time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 39 years old. King had traveled to Memphis to support Black sanitation workers who were striking for better pay, …
Martin Luther King Jr.James Earl RayFBIMemphis Policecivil-rightsviolenceassassinationinstitutional-racismdemocratic-erosion
The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission), chaired by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner Jr., releases its report on the causes of the 1967 urban riots that killed 43 in Detroit, 26 in Newark, and caused casualties in 23 other cities. The Commission’s central finding …
Kerner CommissionGovernor Otto Kerner Jr.President Lyndon B. JohnsonRichard Nixonracial-injusticeinstitutional-racismgovernment-inactionurban-policylaw-and-order-politics
On March 11, 1965, Reverend James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister from Boston, died from injuries sustained two days earlier when he was attacked by white supremacists outside a Selma, Alabama restaurant. Reeb had answered Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for clergy to come to Selma following …
James ReebElmer CookWilliam Stanley HoggleNamon O'Neal HoggleLyndon B. Johnsoncivil-rightsviolencejudicial-failureinstitutional-racismvoting-rights
On March 7, 1965, approximately 600 voting rights activists began a march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery to protest the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson and the systematic denial of voting rights to Black citizens. Led by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee chairman John …
John LewisHosea WilliamsAlabama State TroopersAmelia BoyntonLyndon B. Johnsoncivil-rightspolice-brutalityvoting-rightsinstitutional-racismviolence
On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers—James Chaney, 21, of Mississippi; Andrew Goodman, 20, of New York; and Michael Schwerner, 24, of New York—were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan with the direct participation of Neshoba County law enforcement officials. The killings, during the first week of …
James ChaneyAndrew GoodmanMichael SchwernerKu Klux KlanCecil Price+5 morecivil-rightsvoter-suppressionviolenceinstitutional-racismlaw-enforcement-complicity
On June 10, 1964, the United States Senate invoked cloture by a vote of 71 to 29, ending a 72-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act—marking the first time in Senate history that cloture had been successfully invoked to break a filibuster on civil rights legislation. The Southern Bloc of 18 …
On September 15, 1963, at approximately 10:24 AM, four members of the Ku Klux Klan detonated 19 sticks of dynamite attached to a timing device beneath the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The explosion killed four young African American girls—Addie Mae Collins (14), …
Ku Klux KlanRobert ChamblissThomas BlantonBobby Frank CherryFBIcivil-rightsterrorismviolenceinstitutional-racismjudicial-failure
On August 28, 1963, approximately 250,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C., for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the largest demonstration for civil rights in American history to that point. Organized by Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, the march built an alliance of civil …
Martin Luther King Jr.Bayard RustinA. Philip RandolphJohn F. KennedyMahalia Jacksoncivil-rightsnonviolent-resistancedemocratic-participationinstitutional-racismlabor-rights
On May 3, 1963, Birmingham Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor ordered police and firefighters to unleash high-pressure fire hoses and attack dogs on more than 1,000 young students, some as young as eight years old, who were marching downtown to protest segregation. The previous day, on May 2, …
Bull ConnorMartin Luther King Jr.James BevelBirmingham PoliceBirmingham Fire Departmentcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismpolice-brutalityviolencedemocratic-erosion
On May 14, 1961, the first Freedom Ride bus—a Greyhound carrying civil rights activists challenging segregated interstate transportation—arrived in Anniston, Alabama, where an angry mob of approximately 200 white people, including Ku Klux Klan members, surrounded it. Local authorities had given the …
Congress of Racial EqualityBull ConnorRobert KennedyKu Klux KlanBirmingham Policecivil-rightsinstitutional-racismviolencepolice-complicitydemocratic-erosion
On February 1, 1960, at 4:30 PM, four African American freshmen from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University—Ezell Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeil—sat down at the whites-only lunch counter at the F.W. Woolworth Company store in Greensboro, North …
On June 26, 1959, the Prince Edward County, Virginia Board of Supervisors refused to appropriate funds to the County School Board, effectively closing the entire public school system rather than comply with federal court orders to integrate. This action represented the most extreme manifestation of …
Prince Edward County Board of SupervisorsVirginia General AssemblyHarry Byrdcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismmassive-resistanceeducationdemocratic-erosion
On September 24, 1957, President Dwight Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807 and issued Executive Order 10730, federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and dispatching 1,000 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas. This dramatic federal intervention became …
Orval FaubusDwight EisenhowerLittle Rock Nine101st Airborne DivisionArkansas National Guardcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismsegregationfederal-interventiondemocratic-erosion
On June 29, 1956, President Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, creating the Interstate Highway System—the largest public works project in American history. While celebrated as an engineering triumph, the $25 billion program (equivalent to over $300 billion today) systematically …
Dwight D. EisenhowerU.S. CongressBureau of Public RoadsGeneral MotorsAmerican Petroleum Institute+2 moreinfrastructureinstitutional-racismurban-renewalcorporate-interestsautomotive-industry
On February 6, 1956, the University of Alabama expelled Autherine Lucy, its first Black student, after a three-day white supremacist riot made her presence on campus untenable. University officials blamed Lucy for the violence and used her NAACP-supported lawsuit challenging her suspension as …
On the evening of December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year-old African American seamstress and NAACP secretary, was arrested for violating Chapter 6, Section 11 of the Montgomery City Code, which upheld racial segregation on public buses. Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a …
Rosa ParksMartin Luther King Jr.Montgomery Improvement AssociationE.D. NixonWomen's Political Councilcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismsegregationnonviolent-resistancedemocratic-erosion
On August 28, 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till, an African American boy visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, was abducted from his great-uncle’s home and brutally murdered by Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, two white men. Till had allegedly whistled at or made remarks to Carolyn …
Roy BryantJ.W. MilamMamie TillTallahatchie County Sheriffcivil-rightsinstitutional-racismviolencejudicial-failuredemocratic-erosion
On August 2, 1954, President Eisenhower signed the Housing Act of 1954, dramatically expanding the urban renewal program that had begun with the 1949 Housing Act. The law introduced the “workable program” requirement for federal funds, mandated comprehensive planning, and provided new …
Dwight D. EisenhowerU.S. CongressUrban Renewal AdministrationReal estate industryRobert Mosesinstitutional-racismurban-renewalhousing-policydisplacementcorporate-interests
On May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling in the landmark civil rights case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The Court declared that racial segregation in public schools violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, …
On July 17, 1944, two transport ships loading ammunition at Port Chicago Naval Magazine in California explode, killing 320 men instantly, including 202 African American enlisted men who comprised the entire loading workforce. Three weeks later, 258 surviving Black sailors refuse to return to loading …
U.S. NavyThurgood MarshallNAACPPort Chicago 50Eleanor Rooseveltracial-discriminationmilitary-justicecivil-rightslabor-exploitationinstitutional-racism
The Detroit race riot erupts on June 20, 1943, killing 34 people, injuring over 400, and causing $2 million in property damage. The violence exposes how federal housing policy enforces residential segregation while demanding integrated war production, creating explosive tensions that government …
Detroit Police DepartmentFederal troopsDetroit housing authorityWar production workersNAACPracial-violencehousing-segregationwar-productioncivil-rightsinstitutional-racism
The Supreme Court rules 8-1 in Buck v. Bell to uphold Virginia’s compulsory sterilization law, providing constitutional blessing for the eugenics movement’s campaign to sterilize those deemed “unfit.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes writes for the majority that the state may …
Oliver Wendell HolmesCarrie BuckHarry LaughlinU.S. Supreme CourtEugenics Record Officeeugenicsjudicial-capturecivil-libertiessupreme-courtinstitutional-racism
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the most destructive river flood in American history, inundates 27,000 square miles across seven states and displaces approximately 700,000 people, disproportionately affecting African Americans in the Mississippi Delta. The disaster response, coordinated by …
Herbert HooverLeRoy PercyRed CrossNational Guardracismlabor-exploitationdisaster-capitalisminstitutional-racismfederal-policy
Within months of taking office, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration began systematically segregating the federal government, reversing decades of relative integration in civil service employment. Postmaster General Albert Burleson proposed segregation at an April 11, 1913 cabinet …
President Woodrow WilsonPostmaster General Albert BurlesonTreasury Secretary William McAdooNAACPBooker T. Washington+1 morecivil-rightssegregationprogressive-erafederal-governmentinstitutional-racism
Three hundred Tennessee coal miners successfully besiege the Briceville stockade after midnight on July 15, 1891, the anniversary of Bastille Day, freeing forty convict laborers and their guards and putting them on a train to Knoxville. Later that day, miners march on the Knoxville Iron Company mine …
Tennessee Coal Mining CompanyKnoxville Iron CompanyTennessee MinersJohn P. BuchananThomas J. Bradylabor-organizingconvict-lease-systemcorporate-resistanceinstitutional-racism
The Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional in an 8-1 decision, ruling that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments do not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals—thereby legitimizing the Jim Crow system of racial segregation that will …
U.S. Supreme CourtJoseph P. BradleyJohn Marshall Harlanjudicial-capturecivil-rights-destructionreconstruction-sabotageinstitutional-racismwhite-supremacy
An estimated 150-300 Black citizens and two white citizens are killed during the Vicksburg massacre, a coordinated campaign of white supremacist violence that begins on December 7, 1874, and continues until around January 5, 1875, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The massacre follows the forced …
White LeaguePeter CrosbyAndrew J. GilmerUlysses S. Grantwhite-supremacyreconstruction-sabotagepolitical-violenceinstitutional-racismelite-impunity
On May 15, 1869, the women’s rights movement fractured when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) after breaking with the American Equal Rights Association (AERA) over support for the 15th Amendment. The proposed amendment would …
Susan B. AnthonyElizabeth Cady StantonLucy StoneHenry BlackwellFrederick Douglass+2 morewomens-suffrageinstitutional-racismdemocratic-expansionreconstructionpolitical-fracture
On the night of August 21, 1831, enslaved preacher Nat Turner leads a rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, that kills between 55 and 65 white people over approximately 48 hours before being suppressed by local militias and federal troops. Turner, deeply religious and literate, interpreted a …
Nat TurnerVirginia LegislatureSouthern state governmentsEnslaved populationWhite vigilante mobsslaveryslave-powerstate-violenceinstitutional-racismcivil-liberties+1 more
Congress passes and President George Washington signs the Naturalization Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 103), the first federal law establishing uniform rules for granting United States citizenship through naturalization. The Act limits naturalization eligibility to “free white person(s)… of good …
First CongressGeorge Washingtonracial-exclusioncitizenshipimmigrationinstitutional-racismlegal-framework+1 more