Your History Online  VII

 A Chronological History of Africans 
in America, in Africa and in the Diaspora,
1600 BCE to AD 1980*
 
 

1884
The Congress of Berlin (November 15–February 26) increases and coordinates the  “scramble” for African territories by European powers by promulgating the General Act of  Berlin. Article XXXIV of that Act states that  . . .

“any power which henceforth takes possession of a tract of land on the Coast of the African Continent outside of its present possessions, or which, being hitherto without such possession, shall acquire them, as well as the Power which assumes a Protectorate there, shall accompany the respective Act with a notification thereof, addressed to the other Signatory Powers of the present Act,
in order to enable them, if need be, to make good any claim of their own.”

Map 16. The Pattern of Alien Rule, 1881

Analyzing African resistance to the European scramble for colonies, Robert I. Rotberg 
writes in Protest and Power in Black Africa (1970) that  . . .

“When the representatives of the nations of Europe demonstrated their desire to rule rather than merely to coexist commercially — an  earlier pattern — Africans . . . managed to put up a show of resistance . . . it varied according to the nature of the alien thrust, . . . the structure of the society being defended, the political abilities of its leaders, and each side’s differential access to modern instruments of combat. Although primarily thought of as martial, resistance was equally political, and in many areas a resistance of mind rather than of the hands.”

South West Africa is annexed by Germany.

Christian missionary activity is expanded in Africa.

The Philadelphia Tribune, with Eustace Gay as its editor, begins publishing.

Granville T. Woods of Cincinnati, Ohio, an inventor and owner of the Woods Electric Company, patents many devices. He begins with a steam boiler furnace in 1884, and continues with two electrical brakes, several kinds of telegraphing apparatuses, at least four railway improvements, a battery, a telephone system and a tunnel constructed for electrical use.  The schematics for some of the devices and apparatuses invented by other African Ameri- 
cans are featured here. 

Imvo Zabantsundu, the first African political newspaper in South Africa, is edited by John  Tengo Jabavu. Before the publication of this paper, there were numerous religious papers  owned by missionaries printed for their African converts.

Ohio passes a Civil Rights Act. It is amended in 1894 and clearly prohibits discrimination  in public facilities on the basis of race.

The Cleveland Globe begins publishing as a weekly.

1885
Boston Fruit company is organized by Lorenzo Baker and others to handle shipments of bananas from Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic to the United States. In 1899 they join with Minor Keith, who has banana interests in Costa Rica, to form the United Fruit Company which henceforth controls the Caribbean fruit trade and Latin America’s political economy.

During the years 1885–1889 only two Africans in the U.S. receive Ph.Ds; during the same period, 347 whites receive doctorates. , 

G.T. Woods invents and patents an apparatus for transmitting messages by electricity.

The Chicago Appeal, which later unites with the Northwestern Bulletin to form the North- western Bulletin Appeal, is first published. It continues in business until 1923.

Africans in New Orleans still perform in Congo Square where, since 1817, they have been permitted to dance, using African drums, gourds, chants, pieces of metal, bells and bones.  Eventually European instruments and traditions are incorporated leading to the creation of  jazz.

Lee S. Burridge and Newman R. Marshman, of New York City, invent and patent their type writing machine.

The Chicago Clipper is edited and published by Cornelius Lenox.

Grover Cleveland, a New Jersey Democrat, becomes the 22nd U.S. President.

Silas Xavier Floyd edits the Sentinel in Augusta, Georgia.

Italy declares war on Ethiopia.

The Mahdi seizes Omdurman in the Egyptian Sudan and besieges Khartoum, killing the 
British administrator, C.G. “Chinese” Gordon.

The Saraiva-Cotegipe Law frees all Brazilian slaves at 60 years of age.

An East Indian National Congress is established to work toward the prohibition of indentured emigration. Its primary target is the injustice meted out to East Indians in the Fiji Islands and South Africa; the West Indies become involved as recipients of Indian indentured laborers also.

1886
Kentucky State College is established as a land grant institution in Frankfort, Kentucky.

The Tribune is published in Savannah, Georgia.

The Colored Farmers’ Alliance is organized in Houston County, Texas. In 1888 the  organiza- tion applies for and receives a charter as a national organization, creating the Colored Farmers’ National Alliance and Cooperative Union. The superintendent of the Alliance is a bearded white Baptist missionary, General R.M. Humphrey; the other national officers are African, however. In 1891 it has approximately 1,300,000 members. See William W. Rogers, “The Negro Alliance in Alabama,” Journal of Negro History, January 1960.

The Laboring Man (first established as The Laborer with J.A. Penn as editor) is now edited by P.H. Johnson in Lynchburg, Virginia.

The Carrollton Massacre takes place in Carrollton, Mississippi. Twenty Africans are killed.

The Knights of Labor has 60,000 African members; total membership is 700,000.

The Delaware Delight, with A.W. Brinckley as editor and publisher, is printed in Wilmington.

Patronato, a patronage system, is terminated in Cuba; the patrocendos are now protected by the State.

Slavery is abolished in all Spanish colonies. In 1888, 723,419 slaves are freed in Brazil, a Portuguese colony.

The Mirror is published in St. Joseph, Missouri.

One hundred thirty–eight Africans are lynched.*

*Statistics on lynchings in the U.S. between 1886-1914 are taken from the article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune on December 31, 1914 and included in Ralph Ginzburg's 100 Years of Lynchings (Baltimore: Black Classics Press, 1988),  p. 94.

Gold is discovered in the Transvaal, South Africa, and intensifies the massive search for cheap labor.

Jordon S. Murray edits the Illinois State Capital in Springfield.

William L. Dawson, African congressman from Chicago, is born in Albany, Georgia.

Alain L. Locke, the first African Rhodes Scholar, is born. In 1925, while a professor of  history at Howard University, he authors The New Negro. He dies in 1954.

1887
Alexander Miles patents his invention of an elevator.

Central State College opens in Wilberforce, Ohio. It becomes a university in 1950.
 

The Knoxville, Tennessee, Negro World, a daily, is published until 1895.

Lobengula, son of Mzilikazi, is defeated by mercenaries of Cecil John Rhodes’s British  South Africa Company.

"Constitutionally they would take the same trail that Goldie had blazed in West Africa, and Mackinnon was about to use in East Africa. They would use the mechanism of a British public company empowered by royal charter to conquer, govern and develop the territory in the name of the Queen. But before applying for a charter from the Queen in London, they needed to wheedle some kind of concession out of King Lobengula, the Ndebele King who claimed sovereignty over neighbouring Mashonaland, conquered by the Ndebele when his father, Mzilikazi, led his people north to escape the spears of Shaka Zulu and the guns of the voortrekkers.
    "The story of Rhodes's concession is tortuous and not particularly edifying. Lobengula was illiterate but highly intelligent. Like the victim of a Greek tragedy, he found himself caught in the toils. For years he had been besieged by concession hunters of various nationalities, including Boers. He recognized that his kingdom, blessed with a soil and climate superior to that of any of the other South African states, would be the next target for European expansion. Only its remoteness had saved it so far. By 1888 the telegraphs and railways advancing to Kimberley and Johannesburg pointed menacingly across the Limpopo. Lobengula had one of the most powerful armies of any African kingdom, perhaps 15,000 Ndebele and Shona warriors, organized in Impis like their Zulu cousins, and subject to the same ferocious discipline. Their weapon, too, was the assegai, the short stabbing spear which had punctured the Queen's redcoats at Isandlwana. But Lobengula had no illusions about his chance of defending his kingdom by force of arms, although some of his indunas (chiefs) and most of the young braves were anxious to wash their spears in European blood.
    "Lobengula had understood the lesson that the defeat of the Zulus at the battle of Ulundi in 1879 held for them all. No African army, however brave or well- disciplined, could survive long against Europeans armed with modern rifles, machine guns and artillery. Where were Cetshwayo and his boastful Impis now? The best way to defend his people was by diplomacy, either playing off one set of Europeans against another, or by taking his cue from his enemy and rival, Khama, King of the Ngwato, who had placed his country under British protection in 1885. But how to proceed? There was no shortage of advice in his kraal from Europeans, a riff-raff of traders, hunters and gold prospectors. They squabbled among themselves, and Lobengula very sensibly trusted none of them. His indunas, too, were bitterly divided. Should they try to strike a bargain with the English? In that case, which Englishmen could be trusted to keep their word? Lobengula favoured closer relations with the imperial government, perhaps a formal protectorate. But nothing had been settled beyond a negative agreement called the Moffat Treaty, after John Moffat, the British government's emissary, who had negotiated it in February 1888 at Rhodes's suggestion, in order to block the overtures of the Boers. . . .
    "At first Lobenugla was full of misgivings. He must have known that the Swazi ruler, King Mbandzeni, to whom he was related, had lost most of his land by inadvertantly granting concessions to Europeans. . . . [They] asked only for a monopoly of mining rights, but obviously they wanted land to farm and develop, Lobengula refused to grant anything of the kind. . . . The written concession . . . conceded no land right, only 'complete and exclusive charge over all metals and minerals situated in my Kingdom, principalities and dominions, together with full power to do all things that they [the concessionaries] may deem necessary to win and procure the same.' [the concessionaries promised, but not in writing], that

. . . they would not bring more than ten white men to work in his country, that they would not dig anywhere near towns, etc., and that they and their people would abide by the laws of his country and in fact be as his people.

. . . Poor innocent Lobengula. . . . Within a few hours, . . . . [he] realized he had been duped" (Thomas Parkenham, The Scramble for Africa, 1876-1912 [New York: Random House, 1991], p. 382).

Ohio repeals its law forbidding interracial marriages.

The Dawes Act attempts to improve the quality of life for some 260,000 Native Americans living on reservations in the U.S.

Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (and African Commu- nities League), is born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica.

The first black baseball team, the “Union Giants,” is founded by Frank Peters.

G.T. Woods patents his telephone system and apparatus.

With T.H. Phillips as its editor and publisher, the Western Optic begins publishing in Moberly, Missouri.

TheColumbus Messenger, edited by B.T. Harvey, begins publication in Ohio.

Florida A & M University, a land grant institution, is founded at Tallahassee.

John Wesley Adams edits the daily Public Ledger in Baltimore, Indiana.

One hundred twenty–two more Africans are lynched this year.

T. Thomas Fortune begins editing the New York Age.

Edward Wilmot Blyden publishes his Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, a collection of masterful essays.

The American Citizen is first published in Kansas City, Kansas; this newspaper ceases in 1900. Another paper, under same title, is published in 1888 in Topeka.

King Jaja of Opobo is deposed by Harry Johnston who further extends British control over southern Nigeria.

Roland Hayes, world–famous tenor, who includes spirituals, folk, opera, and German songs in concert repertoire, is born. He gives a farewell performance at Carnegie Hall on his 75th birth- day.

The Brotherland is published in Natchez, Mississippi.

Africans number 32.4% of the Cuban population.

Zululand is annexed to the British Empire.

H.H. Hatcher edits the Louisville, Kentucky, Informer.

Disc recording method is invented by Emile Berliner, a Euro–American, whose company is the beginning of the Victor Recording Company.

The Florida Sentinel is first published in Jacksonville.

1888
Four African teachers are on public school payroll in Cleveland, Ohio; by 1911, African teachers are found in nine different schools.

The Wide Awake is published in Birmingham, Alabama, until 1900.

The St. Paul, Minnesota, Afro–Independent is first published.

J.L. Fleming edits the Free Speech in Chicago, Illinois.

Frederick III becomes German Emperor in March of this year; William II succeeds him in  June.

W.W. Browne establishes the first African–owned bank in the U.S. in Richmond, Virginia.

The Capital Savings Bank of Washington, DC., is also established. By 1917, over 55 African–owned banks have been established in the United States.

Two Africans, Pedro Guillermo and Ulises Heureaux campaign to be elected to the presidency of Santo Domingo. Heureaux emerges victorious, governs the country for ten yeas, and is assassinated in 1899.

Joseph T. Wilson edits the Richmond, Virginia Industrial Day.

One hundred forty–two Africans are lynched in the U.S. during the year.

The Leavenworth Advocate is published in Kansas.

H.S. Doyle publishes the Birmingham, Alabama American Press until 1895.

The Negro Question is published by George W. Cable.

The Petersburg, Virginia Herald is edited and published by Scott Wood.

Slavery in Brazil is abolished. Princess–Regent Isabel signs the Lea Aurea — the Golden Law — which declares 723,419 African men, women and children free human beings. Brazil is the last nation in the western hemisphere to abolish this peculiar institution.

The Leader is established in Alexandria, Virginia, with M.L. Robinson as its editor. From 1894–1898 it merges with the Clipper. Afterwards it resumes its original title.

S.B. Davis becomes publisher and first editor of the Athens, Georgia Clipper.

1889
Benjamin Harrison, a Republican from Ohio, becomes the 23rd U.S. President.

Frederick Douglass is appointed minister to Haiti. Blanche K. Bruce becomes the Recorder of Deeds in DC.

Landon Jessup and D. Betts Robinson begin editing the Standard in Norfolk, Virginia.

The Little Rock, Arkansas American Guide begins publishing.

As a result of the Republican Party’s betrayal of African people, African Americans in North Carolina burn President Harrison and his cabinet in effigy.

In Jackson, Mississippi, W. Newman edits the People’s Defender.

Dinizulu is arrested in South Africa for organizing continued resistance and banished to St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic Ocean about 1200 miles off the South African coast.

The Progress is published in Omaha, Nebraska.

Asa Philip Randolph is born in Crescent City, Flordia. He founds the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

Edwin H. Hackley edits the Statesman in Denver, Colorado.

The Chicago Tribune reports that one hundred seventy–six Africans are lynched during the year.

Anti–Portuguese riots break out in Guyana.

The Augusta Union is published for first time in Georgia and continues publishing until 1904.

Hampton Institute incorporates the Peoples Building and Loan Association. By 1909 it will lend more than $375,000 to African people.

1890
There are 7,488,676 African Americans living in the United States, 11.9 percent of population.  Approximately 92.5% of U.S. Africans are born in the South. In 1880, it was 93.3%; in 1870, 93.4%. Of all Africans, 15.2% are of mixed blood. The literacy rate rises to 39%; it was 30% in 1880. During this decenial census, 33% of the African population 5 to 20 years old attend school. The 1870 and 1880 censuses reported a slower percentage growth rate for the African population, adjusted with mortality rates, than for whites; the 1890 census, however, shows an even greater percentage loss in the African population growth. Many whites predict happily that the African Race is becoming extinct, thus ending their, i.e., the whites’s, Race Problem.

The Southern News is published in Richmond, Virginia.

Savannah State College opens in Georgia.
 

From J.A. Rogers. Your History from the Beginning of Time to the Present (The Pittsburgh                   Courier Publishing Co., 1940). Reprinted from the original collection of Heru-Ka Anu, 1983.

Approximately twenty percent of all African Americans reside in urban areas; eighty percent live in rural areas and are probably engaged in agriculture. African Americans also own 120,738 farms.

Bismarck is dismissed from his post as “The Iron Chancellor” of Germany.

Heligoland is ceded to Germany by Lord Salisbury.

W.B. Purvis, a Philadelphian, patents his invention of a fountain pen.

In Cleveland, Ohio, only three American Africans are employed in the city’s rapidly expanding steel industry. No African males work as semi–skilled operators in factories. Only 14.8 per-
cent of black Clevelanders own their own homes. This represents a slip down from the 1860 percentage of 33.5. In 1910 only 10.9 percent of Cleveland’s African population will be home owners. The proportion of white homeowners is three times as large.

John Clinton edits the Richmond, Virginia Reporter.

The so–called “Progressive Era”  begins in the U.S. and lasts until 1920.

The United States is clearly dominant in the economies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Honduras.

Mashonaland is invaded by Cecil Rhode’s British South Africa Company.

The first all–African musical show to employ black women on the professional stage, “The Creole Show,” is produced by white management in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

One hundred twenty–seven American Africans are lynched.

The Montgomery, Alabama Argus, with William F. Crockett and T.A. Curtis as editors, begins publishing.

Harry L. Jones patents his corn harvester.

The Second Morrill Act passes with the provision 

“. . . That no money shall be paid out under this Act to State or Territory for the support and maintenance of a college where a distinction of race or color is made in the admission of students, but the establishment and maintenance of such colleges separately for white and colored students shall be held to be in compliance with the provisions of this Act if the funds received in such State or Territory be equitably divided as hereinafter set forth . . .”  Since the Second Morrill Act applies only to funds appro- priated in 1890 and afterward, the funds appropriated by the Hatch Act in 1887, to establish agricultural experiment stations in land grant colleges, did not go to African American colleges at all. The primary contribution of the African American land grant colleges is the preparation of teachers and not the training of workers in scientific agriculture or the mechanic arts.

The Herald is published in Austin, Texas, until 1930.

Claude McKay, poet and novelist, is born in Jamaica. He dies in 1948.

A religious war erupts in Buganda (now a part of modern–day Uganda) between Catholic and Protestant factions.

J. Gordon Street begins to edit the Boston Courant.

The National Afro–American League, the forerunner to the NAACP, is organized in Chicago; Professor J.C. Price is President and T. Thomas Fortune is Secretary. This organization inspires other branch leagues and conventions throughout the nation. See Emma Lou Thorn- brough, “The Afro–American League,” Journal of Southern History, 1961.

The Item is published in Fort Worth, Texas.

1891
West Virginia State College opens in Institute, West Virginia.

ThePress, which is established as an afternoon paper by the Roanoke Daily Press, 
becomes a weekly in 1894 with John H. Davis as editor.

One hundred ninety–three American Africans are lynched this year.

The Des Moines, Iowa Avalanche is first published with A.S. Burnett as editor.

Elizabeth City State University opens its doors in North Carolina.

J.M. Gee edits the Selma, Alabama New Idea.

Charles Wesley, historian, educator, and president of Central State College in Ohio in  1942, is born in Louisville, Kentucky.

George R. Nevels publishes the National Independent in Detroit.

The remains of pithecantropus erectus, or “Java Man,” are found.

Delaware State College is established in Dover, Delaware.

The Southern Age is edited by H.A. Hagler in Atlanta, Georgia.

The Hehe People in modern–day Tanzania obstruct German seizure of East Africa. (See  Allison Redmayne, “Mkwawa and the Hehe Wars,” Journal of African History, 1968.)

The Advocate is first published in Jacksonville, Flordia.

North Carolina A & T University opens in Greensboro. Sixty–nine years later students of this University spark the Civil Rights Sit–In Movement which jolts the tranquility of segregated America, North and South.

The People’s Advocate is published in Atlanta.

The Lodge Bill, which provides for federal supervisors of elections, is buried in the U.S. Senate.

The Topeka Call is published by W.M. Pope.

“The Creole Show” is staged in Boston.

Chicago’s Provident Hospital is incorporated by its founder, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who establishes the first training school for African American nurses.

W.H. Rogers edits the Light in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Jomo “Burning Spear” Kenyatta, the first President of Kenya, is born in Ichaweri, Kenya.

The New Orleans Ferret & Journal of the Lodge is edited by Dr. E.A. Williams.

1892
This year marks the hightide of racist terrorism in United States. In this year, 205 Africans are lynched. During the past several years since 1886, more than 1,103 black people are brutally murdered by white terrorist gangs.

The People’s Elevator is published in Kansas City, Kansas.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper publishes her novel, Iola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted. (See also 1825.)

Levi Jolley becomes the editor of the newly established Philadelphia Afro–American. During the same year, another Afro–American is published in Washington, DC.

The Lexington, Kentucky Standard begins its publication history.

President Harrison puts before Congress a bill forbidding the lynching of non–white foreigners.

Anthony L. Lewis invents and patents his squeegee–type window cleaner.

The Northwestern Recorder (or the Wisconsin Afro–American) is published in Milwaukee.

Winston–Salem State University opens in North Carolina.

F.L. Jeltz of Topeka edits the Kansas State Ledger.

Sissieretta Jones is invited to sing at the White House. Later she organizes “Black Patti’s Troubadours” which performs throughout the U.S. for the next 19 years.

George T. Sampson, of Dayton, Ohio patents his invention of a clothes drier.

Edward C. Williams is one of the first African students to graduate from Western Reserve Uni- versity in Cleveland, Ohio. Williams, however, graduated as valedictorian of his class and became one of the 19th century’s six African American Phi Beta Kappas. John Sykes Fayette is the very first documented African to graduate from the university in 1836, when it was still a college in Hudson.

The Reverend William McGill publishes the Metropolitan Journal in Birmingham, Alabama.

William H. Lewis, while studying at Harvard College becomes the first African to become an all–American football player.

The Baltimore Afro–American is founded; Carl Murphy is the editor. From 1901–1916 this semi–weekly is known as the Afro–American Ledger.

1893
Women are granted voting rights in New Zealand

At World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, Pan–African exhibitions and a week–long Con- gress on Africa are held.

In Pulaski, Virginia, R.J. Buckner edits the People’s Light.

American Federation of Labor (AFofL) unanimously adopts resolution on labor unity regardless of race.

The New Orleans Rescue begins publishing with Simms & Gould as its editor and publisher respectively.

The Colored American begins publication in Washington, DC.

Britain and France threaten Liberia’s territorial integrity.

The Houston Freeman is first published.

Two hundred more Africans are brutally lynched by white mobs.

The Afro–American Sentinel begins publication in Omaha, Nebraska; the paper expires in 1911.

George R. Pratt begins editing the Press in Port Royal, Virginia.

The Dallas Express is published for one year in Texas.

The Afro–American Steamship and Mercantile Company is formed by African American entre- preneurs for the express purpose of emigration to the African motherland.

William M. Smith publishes and edits the Echo in Beaumont, Texas.

The Newport News, Virginia Evening Recorder is first published.

M.N. Lewis edits the Norfolk, Virginia, Recorder.

Bishop Henry McNeal Turner publishes the Voice of Missions for the A.M.E. Church. This paper is used to publicize the Bishop’s African Exodus schemes and circulates among more than 4,000 readers. In the same year he calls an African Repatriation Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio. This convention represents the last of the great black conventions of the nineteenth century.

The Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Indicator begins publication with Peter Boyd as editor.

Mohandas K. Gandhi, called the Mahatma, (i.e., the great souled), arrives in South Africa from India.

Grover Cleveland becomes the 24th U.S. President. This is the second time he is elected to 
the nation’s highest office.

The Indianapolis Courier is first published by Charles Stewart.

S.I.R. Hoodes edits the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Journal.

Lobengula’s Ndebele state is conquered by the forces of Cecil Rhode’s British South Africa Company.

The Advance, a weekly, is published in Norfolk, Virginia. It goes out of business a year later.

The French complete their conquest of the Tokolor Empire in West Africa.

The Chicago Church Organ begins publication.

The world’s first successful open–heart operation is performed by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams at Chicago’s Provident Hospital.

The New Orleans Monitor is published with C.F. Melne as editor.

1894
Alfred Richards founds Workingmen’s Association in Trinidad. It collapses in 1902 after serious waterfront strike.

The Blade is first published in Eatonton, Georgia with E.W. Low as editor.

The U.S. Congress repeals the voting rights provisions of the Enforcement Act of 1870 and refuses to provide funds for special Federal marshals and election supervisors.

The Mobile Weekly Press Forum is published in Alabama until 1928.

Several thousand American Africans emigrate to Mexico.

The People’s Choice is edited by P. Lawrence in Opelika, Alabama.

The American Eagle is published in St. Louis. The paper continues until 1907.

The Western Outlook is published in Oakland, California, until 1928.

During elections of 1894 African Americans are openly bribed.

The Press begins publishing on a weekly basis in Mobile, Alabama.

The Mobile, Alabama, Delta News is first edited by T.J. Ellis.

The United States and Congo National Emigration Company transports a colony of Georgia Africans to the Congo.

The Orphan Aid Society of Charleston, South Carolina, publishes the Messenger.

Jacob S. Coxey’s “Army” of 500 unemployed Midwestern white workers marches on the  Capitol in Washington, DC. Coxey is arrested for trespassing on Capitol grounds.

TheIowa Bystander is published in Des Moines.

Robert P. Scott, an African American inventor, patents his corn silker.

The Baltimore, Maryland, Race Standard begins its four–year publication history.

The International Migration Society is formed by four wealthy white men. Bishop Henry McNeal Turner is on the “Advisory Board.”

The Sedalia, Missouri, Times, edited by W.H. Carter, begins publishing.

The Denver, Colorado Statesman is first published.

Harry T. Burleigh becomes a soloist at Saint George’s Episcopal Church, in New York City.

Albert S. White edits the New South in Louisville, Kentucky.

E. Franklin Frazier, noted sociologist and author of The Negro Family in the United States (1939) and The Black Bourgeoisie (1957), is born in Baltimore. He dies in 1962.

J.M. Griffin edits the Sunday Unionist in Owensboro, Kentucky.

The Albany, New York, Capitol, edited by W.H. Johnson, is first published.

The Seattle Republican is published until 1915 in Washington.

Bessie Smith, blues singer, is born on April 15 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She dies in 1937.

An African American extravaganza is held in Brooklyn.

One hundred seventy African Americans are lynched during the year.

The Japanese declare war on China.

1895–1898
Afro–Cubans fight on both sides in the Cuban struggle for liberation from Spain. Brigadier General Antonio Maceo comes out of retirement to lend his support to the insurgent forces.

1895
Frederick Douglass dies; he is buried in Rochester, New York.

The imperialist “Unionist” government takes over in Britain.

Booker T. Washington makes his famous Atlanta Cotton Exposition speech . . . 

One–third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success . . . A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, ‘Water, water; we die of thirst!’ The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’ A second time the signal, ‘Water, water; send us water!’ . . . was answered, ‘cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next–door neighbor, I would say: ‘Cast down your bucket where you are’ — cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded. . . . Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life . . . No race can prosper until it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. . . . To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my race, ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’ Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your firesides. . . . As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sickbed of your mothers and fathers, and often following them with tear–dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach . . . In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential o mutual progress. . . . The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. . . . I pledged that in your efforts to work out the great and intricate problems which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient, sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that . . . will come, in a blotting out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions. . . .”

W.E.B. DuBois receives his PhD from Harvard University, the first ever awarded by this university to an African. DuBois later distinguishes himself as a sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, editor and author of The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Black Reconstruction (1935), The World and Africa (1946), and Color and Democracy (1945).

The X-ray is discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, a German physist. In 1901 he wins the Nobel Prize for this discovery.

The National Reflector is published in Wichita, Kansas.

North Carolina legislature, dominated by black Republicans and white Populists, adjourns to mark the death of Frederick Douglass.

Indian conflicts break out in Wyoming.

Fort Valley State College, a land grant institution, is founded in Georgia.

W. Forrest Cozart edits the Chicago Free Lance.

Bluefield State College opens in West Viriginia.

Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital is founded in Philadelphia.

A.A. Gordon begins editing the Reporter in Atlanta, Georgia.

As many as 171 Africans are lynched during the year.

Susan Elizabeth Frazier, a graduate of Hunter College, is the first African American teacher appointed to a predominantly white school in New York City.

The Huntsville Journal, edited by H.C. Binford, is first published in Alabama. After 1896, it is known as the Journal.

The all–African National Medical Association is formed.

D.A. Scott edits the Texas Headlight in Austin.

The Exodus–to–Africa fever reaches its peak as racism and white mob violence intensify in the South and North. (See Edwin S. Redkey, “Bishop Turner’s African Dream,” Journal of American History, 1967.)

The Reporter is published in Richmond, Virginia, until 1931.

Britain annexes southern Botswana as “British” Bechuanaland.

Creole villages virtually unite the Agricultural Movement in Guyana with the move to create larger and more viable local government. By 1902 there are 214 villages, 96 in Berbice, 66 in Demerara, 52 in Essequibo. The village population doubles since 1848 going from 44,456 to 86,935 people. The value of village property increases by a half million dollars. There are 13,969 proprietors owning 77,234 acres. One contemporary publicist makes an interesting assessment: “Local self-government has been seriously curtailed because the villages began to show that they understood what it meant.”

The all–African National Baptist Convention is formed in Atlanta.

The Newport News, Virginia, Caret, with C.D. Cooley as editor, is first published.

William Grant Still is born in Woodville, Mississippi.

In this year and in 1904, 1907, 1910, 1911, 1912, 1916 and1920, African Americans are used to help break strikes of New York City longshoreman, laborers, street cleaners, baggage handlers, hod carriers, waiters and garment workers.

Walter Francis White, Executive Secretary of NAACP from 1931–1955, is born in Atlanta.  See his autobiography, A Man called White (1970).

1896
African laborers are attacked by whites in New Orleans. Troops are called out.

John T. White patents his invention of a lemon squeezer.

South Carolina State College, a land grant institution, is founded at Orangeburg.

TheKansas City Observer begins a four–year publication history in Missouri.

As many as one hundred eighty–one Africans are lynched.

At the Battle of Adowa, in Northern Ethiopia, Menelik II wins a decisive victory over the Italian invaders. See Richard Pankhurst, “Ethiopian Emperor Menelik Repulsed Italian Invasion, 1895,” in Colonial Africa, W. Cartey and M. Kilson, eds. (1970).

Ohio passes an Anti–Mob Violence Act.

Utah is admitted to the Union.

“Oriental America” is the first African American musical show to play on Broadway.

Charles B. Brooks invents and patents a street sweeper.

The Rising Sun is published in Kansas City, Missouri, until 1918.

Harvard University gives the first honorary degree ever offered to an African in the U.S. to Booker T. Washington.

The Forrest City, Arkansas, Herald  is edited by G.M. Thomason.

G.A. Neal and F. Clark publish the Broad Axe in Pittsburgh.

William S. Grant invents and patents his curtain rod support.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy vs. Ferguson decides in favor of Jim Crow by upholding the “separate–but–equal” doctrine. See O.H. Olsen, The Thin Disguise (1967).

W.R. Davis edits the Republic in New York City.

W.E.B. DuBois publishes The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the U.S.A., 1638–1870, while teaching at Wilberforce University in Ohio. The monograph is the first title in the Harvard Historical Studies. Between 1896–1914 DuBois is at Atlanta University where he conducts the first sociological studies of Southern black people.

The Watchman is published in Shreveport, Louisiana, with S.H. Ralph as editor.

Paul Laurence Dunbar publishes his Lyrics of a Lowly Life. Among the poems included are . . . 

E.D. Minton edits the Record in Shreveport, Louisiana.

The Arkansas Appreciator, with L.J. Van Pelt as editor, starts to publish in Fort Smith.

George Washington Carver joins the faculty of Tuskegee Institute.

William McKinley, a Republican from Ohio, is elected the 25th U.S. President.

The National Association of Colored Women is founded in Washington, DC. In 1901 it has chapters in 26 states.

The Shona and Ndebele peoples revolt against white–settler rule in Southern Rhodesia (present–day Zimbabwe).

1897
In West Africa the British conquer Asante and Benin. The French conquer Dahomey and the Ivory Coast (currently Côte d'Ivoire).

Fante chiefs and educated Africans in the Gold Coast form the Aborigine’s Rights Protection Society to act as a watchdog over African interests.

R.I. Ruffin edits the Alabama Southern Sentinel.

Andrew J. Beard receives $50,000 for his invention of an automatic coupling device for railroad cars, the “Jenny Coupler.”

Queen Victoria celebrates her diamond jubilee.

The Philadelphia Defender is published and edited by George and H.C.C. Ashwood.

J.A. Sweeting invents and patents his device for rolling cigarettes.

Isaac Frederick begins editing the Radical in St. Joseph, Missouri.

The Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians hold a council and war dance at Darlington, Oklahoma.

James M. Morris and Milton S. Malone edit the Valley Index in Staunton, Virigina, until 1905.

The Detroit Informer begins its 19–year publication history.

The Indianapolis Recorder  is edited and published by Marcus Stewart.

The first ragtime piece published by an African is Tom Turpin’s Harlem Rag.

The “Resurrection of Lazarus,” a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, is purchased by the French Government for the Luxembourg Galleries. See Marcia M. Mathews, Henry Ossawa Tanner, American Artist (1969). For more information on Tanner and other African American artists visit these websites: 

http://www.pathfinder.com/fathfinder/features/blackhistory97/gallery/thumnail#g1p5
or
http//www.liunet.edu/cwis/cwp/library/aavaahp.htm

The Negro Protective Party is organized in Ohio and garners more than 5,000 votes for its Afri- can gubernatorial candidate.

Alexander Crummell founds the American Negro Academy whose function it is to promote literature, science, art, higher education and African defense.

John H. Evans invents and patents his convertible setee and bed.

By the end of 1897, 7,372 cases are heard under the terms of the Enforcement acts — 5,172 in the South and 2,200 in the North. Of these cases only 1,432 (19.4%) lead to convictions.

Joseph H. Smith patents his lawn sprinkler.

The Signal begins publishing in Cumberland, Missouri, with W.H. Thomas as its editor.

Langston University, a land grant institution, is founded in Oklahoma as the Colored Agricul- tural and Normal School.

Storyville opens in New Orleans and becomes the city’s official Red Light District.

A.C. Banks edits and publishes the Major in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

John Lee Love patents his invention of a pencil sharpener.

Enoch Sontonga, gifted songwriter and a teacher at a Methodist mission school, writes the first stanza of "Nkosi Sikelel’ i-Afrika" (i.e., the South African National Anthem) or the "Azanian." Two years later at an induction ceremony in Nancefield, the anthem is sung in public for the first time. A few years later the famous Xhosa poet, S.E.K. Mqhayi, adds 7 stanzas. The full text is published in 1927 in Umthetheli waBantu and in Imihobe neti Bongo.

Woza Moya,
Woza Moya,
Woza Moya, oyingewele
Nkosi sikelela
Thina lusapho lwayo

Morena boloka setshaba sa etsho
O fedise dintwa le matshoenyeho

O se boloke 
O se boloke 
Setshabe sa etsho
Setshaba sa Afrika

O se boloke Morena
O se boloke Sechaba
Setshaba sa etsho
Setshaba sa Afrika

Makube njalo
Makube njalo
Kude kube ngunaphakade
Kude kube ngunaphakade

Come spirit 
Come Spirit 
Come spirit, holy spirit 
Lord Bless 
Her Sons and daughters 

Lord save our nation 
Rid it of wars and troubles 

Save it 
Save it 
Our nation 
Our nation of Africa 

Save it Lord 
Save our nation 
Our nation 
Our nation of Africa 

So let it be 
So let it be 
Until eternity 
Until eternity 

.J. Toussaint edits and publishes the Alexandria, Louisiana, Progressive Age.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Messenger of Allah, and founder of  the Nation of Islam, is born as Elijah Poole in Sandersville, Georgia.

George W. Kelley patents his steam table.

1898
In the Spanish–American War, American Africans in the 9th and 10th Negro Cavalry Regi- ments render heroic service. They are particularly remembered for their participation in the famous charge up San Juan Hill. Colonel Theodore Roosevelt delights in telling the part they play along with his Rough Riders. It is said that without the aid of these African troops, the gallant Colonel could not have gone up the hill. At the Battle of El Caney, the 25th Negro Calvary captures a Spanish fort.

The Reverend J.H. Grant publishes the National Republican in Greenville, Georgia.

The Fashoda quarrel between France and England occurs when the French Colonel Marchaud, while crossing Central Africa from the west coast, tries to seize the Upper Nile.

Amos E. Long and Albert A. Jones, African inventors, patent their cap for bottles, jars, etc.

Germany acquires Kiau–Chau, China.

The Fair Play is published in Fort Scott, Kansas.

The Red Shirts terrorize Africans in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, by Samuel Coleridge–Taylor, son of a West African doctor and an English mother, is produced at the Royal College of Music in London.

J.R. Bennett edits the Crystal in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Hawaii is annexed to the United States.

D.L. Robinson edits the Tribune in Wichita, Kansas.

A.J. Rickman patents his invention of an overshoe.

The Madison, Georgia, Gleanor is first published.

African Wars of Resistance culminate in the defeat of the Venda people by the then South African Republic.

The Reverend Emanuel Johnson edits the New Light in Forrest City, Arkansas.

Congress passes an Amnesty Act removing the last disabilities from ex–Confederates.

The Galveston, Texas, City Times begins its publication history. The newspaper is defunct after 1930.

The first musical–comedy sketch written and performed by Blacks, Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk by Will Marion Cook, is presented in New York City.

The Atlanta Age, edited by W.A. Pledger(?), begins publishing in Georgia.

This year 127 African Americans are lynched by white mobs.

E.H. Quo edits the Plain–Dealer in Valdosta, Georgia.

One of the earliest trade unions in the West Indies — the Carpenters, Bricklayers, and Painters Union (commonly called the Artisans Union) — is organized in Jamaica.

The Milwaukee, Wisconsin Weekly begins publishing and continues until 1915.

S.W. Rutherford starts the National Benefit Insurance Company.

The first full–length musical comedy written, produced and performed by Africans, A Trip to Coontown by Robert Cole, is staged in New York City.

Blanche Kelso Bruce dies in Washington, DC. At the time of death he is Register of the U.S. Treasury.

Cuba becomes independent of Spain after Spanish–American War. The U.S. Marines occupy Cuba until 1902.

To date African people have published three magazines, three daily papers, 11 school papers, 136 weekly papers. Of the weeklies, 13 are published by religious, secret and fraternal organ- izations.

The Montgomery Enterprise begins its two–year publication history in Alabama.

An Anglo–Egyptian army led by Kitchener conquers the Mahdist state in the Nile Valley at the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan near Khartoum; 11,000 Sudanese are killed while the invader’s dead number only forty–eight.

The Chronometer, edited and published by the Reverend S.T. Hawkins, appears in Americus, Georgia.

E.C. Spaulding opens the North Carolina Mutual Benefit Insurance Company.

Paul Robeson is born in Princeton, New Jersey.

Afro–Cubans and U.S. Army personnel clash repeatedly as discrimination against people of African descent continues on the island.

J.S. Jones edits and publishes the Searchlight in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The West Indian Department of Agriculture attempts to introduce a diversified economy.

1899
The Philadelphia Negro, 1638–1896, a sociological study by W.E.B. DuBois, is published by the University of Pennsylvania.

The Observer is published in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Horatio Alger, author of boys’ books and creator of the American “from–rags–to–riches” myth, dies.

R.T. Berry edits the Louisville, Kentucky Reporter.

Outbreak of the Anglo–Boer War in South Africa. This War continues for three years.

The Negro Appeal  is published in Annapolis, Maryland.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington is born in Washington, DC.

The Minnesota Afro–American begins publication on May 27. Six years later it is defunct.

Leonard C. Bailey patents his invention of a folding bed.

Between 1899–1937 about 150,000 African aliens legally enter the U.S.

The Macon Sentinel is first published in Georgia.

A race riot breaks out at Wilmington, North Carolina; eight Africans are killed.

The Advance of Wilmington, Delaware is first published. The paper is defunct after 1901.

One hundred seven African Americans are brutally lynched.

The New Era is edited by C. Marcellus Dorsey in Wilmington, Delaware.

The Maple Leaf Rag is published by the “King of Ragtime,” Scott Joplin.

The Valdosta, Georgia, Afro–American Mouthpiece begins publication.

With J.W. Wheeler as editor and W.E. Henderson as publisher, the Palladiumbegins its publication history in St. Louis, Missouri.

The Sixth Atlanta Conference for the Study of the Negro Problem reports that during the years 1870–1899 African people paid more than $15 million in tuition and fees to private educational institutions, more than $45 million in indirect taxes, and $25 million in direct school taxes.

The True Reformer is published in Littleton, North Carolina.

The Afro–American Citizen is published in Charleston, South Carolina and continues to publish for one year.

From 1895 to 1899 only three American Africans receive PhDs. During the same period 1,244 whites receive doctorates.

The Georgia Investigator begins publication in Americus.

Aaron Douglas, a well–known African artist, is born in Topeka, Kansas.

The Chicago Broadax is first published.

Imperium in Imperio, the first Black Nationalist novel, is published by Sutton Griggs. The storyline of Sutton Griggs' novel tells of a young Black Nationalist who forms a revolutionary secret society whose ultimate aim is to seize Texas and establish an African Republic.

". . . there's an interesting 'interracial' subplot in Sutton Griggs's 1899 novel . . . In it, a young African American woman commits suicide rather than marry the man she loves (a very light mulatto lawyer, one of the central figures of the book) because she has read a book, 'White Supremacy and Negro Subordination,' that has convinced her that 'the intermingling of the races in sexual relationship was sapping the vitality of the Negro race and, in fact, was slowly but surely extermi- nating the race.' Unable to resist his appeal while she lives, but unwilling to con- tribute to the extinction of her people, she chooses death" (From: "Richard Yarborough" YARBOROU@humnet.ucla.edu).

Nick Chiles edits the Topeka, Kansas, Plaindealer; in the 1970s, it moves to Kansas City.

Africans represent 32% of Cuba’s population.

1900
In the United States, there are 8,833,994 American Africans, 11.6 percent of population; 89.7% of the African population lives in the South and represents one–third of the South’s population.

While Governor of the Gold Coast (Ghana), Sir Frederick Hodgson totally misapprehends the significance of the Golden Stool of Asante. He demands that this sacred object be brought for him to sit on! This disrespectful act touches off a bitter war between the British and the Asante.

"For the Asante people of West Africa the spiritual symbol of their nation is the famous Golden Stool. It represents the very soul of the nation. Tradition has said that this stool, covered with pure gold, flew out of the sky and landed on the lap of the first Asantehene, (Asante King), King Osei-Tutu, who united the Asante people in the seventeenth century. Osei-Tutu's chief priest declared that the soul of the new nation resided in the stool and that the people must preserve and respect it. The Asantes on certain occasions fought to protect the Golden Stool whenever its safety was threatened.
    "In March 1900, European Governor Hodgson told the Asantes to bring the Stool for him to sit on. Three days after the tactless governor had made his demand, war broke out. The Supreme Commander in this war was a brave, intelligent Asante woman called Yaa Asantewaa the Great. The Asantes never surrendered their cherished Golden Stool. 
    "The Golden Stool is never allowed to sit on the ground. It is made of gold, 18 inches high, 24 inches long and 12 inches wide. When a new Asantehene is enstolled, he is merely lowered and raised three times over the Golden Stool without touching it. Whenever the Golden Stool is taken out on special occasions, the King of Asante follows it. 
    "The Enstoolment Ceremony is performed to give honor and respect to the spiritual embodiment of a living person who represents the highest expression of esteem and dignity among the Asante nation. 
    "Not even the Asanthene is the guardian of the Golden Stool, the symbol that represents his right to rule. No one may claim to be the legitimate ruler of the Asante without possession of this stool. Although they were finally conquered, the Asantes never lost possession of their Golden Stool. Today, the Golden Stool remains in Ghana, an enduring symbol of the Asante culture" (from: http://www.primeheritage.com/history.htm).