African Americans were originally brought to the United States as slaves, arriving from Africa in 1619. Slavery ended in 1865 with the Civil War, but African Americans still faced discrimination under Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation until the 1950s-60s Civil Rights Movement. The movement used nonviolent protests and demonstrations led by figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks to fight for equal rights and desegregation, gradually bringing about social and political change that continues today.

1. African American History

2. African Americans were not
immigrants to the United
States.
White people stole them from
Africa, and brought them to
America as slaves.

3. In this old drawing, Africans are being taken to a ship to go to America.

4. Old painting of African prisoners in a slave ship.

5. The first
African
slaves
arrived in
Virginia
in 1619.

6. A woman for sale in a slave market.

7. Newspaper ad for four slaves who ran away.

8. Slave women working on a farm.

9. A very early photograph of slaves in the 1800’s.

10. Slave women and children working in a tobacco barn.

11. Slaves on a farm just before the Civil War.

12. African American soldiers in the Northern army during the Civil War.

13. Newly freed slaves, 1862.
Newly freed slaves just after the Civil War.

14. Children in Alabama, 1898.
•
Children in Alabama in the 1890’s. This is the time when “Of the Coming of
John” takes place.

15. Professor and graduates at an African American teachers’ college in the 1890’s. In
the story, John attends a college like this.

16. Slavery ended with the Civil
War, in 1865. However, laws in
many places still kept African
Americans down.
This was called the “Jim Crow”
era. It lasted for about 100
years.

17. Jim Crow laws in many states,
especially in the South, kept
black and white people
separate.

18. .
For example, black people sat upstairs and in the back in a movie theater.

19. Black people who broke the Jim Crow
laws were punished by lynching.
“Lynching” means that white people
could kill them outside the law, but the
white people who did this went free.
The next two pictures are of
lynchings.

22. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the
Civil Rights Movement worked
to end Jim Crow.

23. In 1957, African American students tried to enter the white high school in Little
Rock Arkansas.

24. Soldiers guarded the school and did not let them go in.

25. •
•
IAmerican.
In 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested because she did not give her seat
on the bus to a white man.

26. Black people refused to ride
the buses. The bus companies
lost money, so they had to
change their rules.

27. After that, there were many
demonstrations.

29. Martin
Luther
King, Jr.
and Ralph
Abernathy
became
leaders of
the
movement.

30. This kind of demonstration was called a sit-in. These young men waited to be
served in a white restaurant until the police came to arrest them.

31. In 1963, 250,000 people marched on Washington to demand equal
rights.

32. Slowly, things have changed
since that time.

33. In 2008, Barack
Obama became
the first African
American
president of the
United States.

34. However, we have not solved
all the problems yet.
African Americans are still the
poorest group in the United
States.