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African Americans
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Barack Obama waves on stage with his wife Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia at an election-night rally in Chicago, surrounded by American flags and cheering crowds.
Collage spells African American English in cutout letters; at right, a large open mouth, a hand with megaphone, and chat bubbles with laptop.
Portrait of Crispus Attucks, shown from the chest up wearing a dark coat and white cravat, with short hair and a neutral expression.
Two reenactors and an illustration of a Black soldier from the First Rhode Island Regiment stand against a background of historical handwritten text.
How the Whitney Plantation teaches the history of slavery
The Confessions of Nat Turner Freedmen Henry Highland Garnet United States: extension of slavery Martin R. Delany
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Brown v. Board. L-R: George E.C. Hayes, Washington, D.C. lawyer, Thurgood Marshall, special counsel for the NAACP; and James Nabrit, Jr., Professor and Attorney at law at Howard University, pose outside Attorneys who argued the case against segregation stand together smiling in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. after the decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka on May 17, 1954. In this case, the Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
How Well Do You Know Your African American History? Education, Politics, and Protest
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Do You Know These African American Innovators? Quiz
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African Americans

Written by
Hollis Lynch
Professor Emeritus of History, Columbia University. Author of Edward Wilmot Blyden: Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832-1912.
Hollis Lynch
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
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ā€¢History

The extension of slavery to new territories had been a subject of national political controversy since the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the area now known as the Midwest. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 began a policy of admitting an equal number of slave and free states into the Union. But the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 (both grounded in the doctrine of popular sovereignty), along with the U.S....

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