Why was this Inauguration Historic? After over 400 years of residency, contributions and appeals for equality before the law, an American of African descent becomes President of the United States.

1607 The first permanent settlement in America. The first Africans were brought to Jamestown, VA in 1607…..as slaves.

1865-1870 Slavery is abolished, black people are granted citizenship & black men are given the right to vote. (Constitutional amendments 13,14,15)

1870 – 1963 Many of these changes in the constitution are ignored: Black citizens in the South are discouraged from voting with poll taxes & literacy tests. Jim Crow Laws separate blacks from whites in schools and in public places.

1955 Supreme Court (Brown V. Board of Education) decides that separate education facilities for black & white students are not equal and requires that public schools to integrate students.
1958 Arkansas ignores this SC decision: President Eisenhower challenges the Arkansas Governor by sending in the National Guard, when he refuses to allow 9 black students to enter Central High.

1963 Martin Luther King has a Dream

1964 The Civil Rights Act and the Voting rights Act – Federal Laws that say again that Americans can not be discriminated against when they vote and when they use public facilities.

1965 Barack Obama is born..

2009 An African American is inaugurated as 44th President of the United States, 402 years after the first Africans arrives in America.

-Janet