American history is fraught with rebellions and protests by Black Americans against the ever-present reality of racism. Contrary to the propaganda, Black people have a long history of fighting back against the forces of white supremacist systems. 

From 1791 to 1804, the Haitian Revolution was a revolt led by the enslaved in Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti. It was the first recorded successful slave revolt in modern history. In 1822, Denmark Vesey, who was formerly enslaved, launched an insurrection plot to coincide with Bastille Day in Charleston, South Carolina.

Sojourner Truth spoke out for Black women’s rights, and Ida B. Wells Barnett was a nationally known activist against lynching.

These and many other movements, where the genesis and spirit of protest, have informed activism by Black Americans to this day. Black Americans have not only fought against racism but against sexism, for economic equality, for LGBTIQA+ rights, and much more. In honor of the Black protest tradition let’s delve into Activism Through the Decades: A Timeline of Black Protests Movements in America.

The Civil Rights Movement (1940s-1968) In modern times, the Civil Rights Movement is the most influential of social movements spearheaded by Black Americans. Deploying tactics such as boycotts, marches, and sit-ins, the movement was effective on many fronts. While many say the movement was launched by the Montgomery Bus Boycott with Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King,  its roots can be traced to A. Phillip Randolph, leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters--the first successful African-American union. According to AFL-CIO, “Randolph directed the March on Washington movement to end employment discrimination in the defense industry and a national civil disobedience campaign to ban segregation in the armed forces. The nonviolent protest and mass action effort inspired the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.”

During the 1940s, Adam Clayton Powell became the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York and any state in the Northeast. He helped pass legislation such as making it a federal crime to have segregated public schools. Leaders such as Ella Baker of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Fannie Lou Hamer, vice-chair of the Freedom Democratic Party, Medgar Evers with the NAACP, Whitney Young of the Urban League, and many others helped shape the movement. As a result of their collective efforts, landmark legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were signed into law.

Black Power Movement (Late 1960s-Early 1970s) In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Black Power Movement was birthed. Emerging from the civil rights movement and deeply influenced by the works of Malcolm X,  the movement advocated a more militant response to racial oppression. Stokely Carmichael, (later known as Kwame Ture) was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and popularized the slogan "Black Power" in 1966.

The Black Panthers, led by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton, held to a Marxist–Leninist philosophy and was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California.  The Party’s 10-point program was instrumental in all children receiving free lunch in public school. The organization believed in the right to bear arms and they wanted all Black men exempt from military service, “We believe that Black people should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military by whatever means necessary.” 

Black Nationalism and Pan-African thought was also a major focus of the movement. Others such as Angela Davis, Fred Hampton, Eldridge Cleaver, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, Albert Cleage, H. Rap Brown, The Last Poets, Gil Scott Heron, and several others were seminal figures in the Black Power Movement.

Black Arts Movement (1965-1975) An offshoot of the Black Power Movement, the Black Arts Movement served as the artistic and cultural arm of the Black protest movements. Made up of poets, painters, dramatists, and musicians, BAM critiqued the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class with artistic precision. The movement began when Amiri Baraka opened the Black Arts Repertory Theater in Harlem. “Provoked by the assassination of Malcolm X, Baraka envisioned a black artistic school responsive to the black community, attached to the militant politics of the Black Power movement, and rooted in the same urban landscape as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s,” according to F.B. Eyes Digital Archive at Washington University in St. Louis. 

Soon afterward, the movement spread throughout the nation. Nikki Giovanni, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Maya Angelou, Ntozake Shange, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan were just some of the notable figures of the movement. Without question, BAM laid the cultural and artistic groundwork for hip-hop.

Black Lives Matter (2013-present) In 2013, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, three radical political organizers organized Black Lives Matter as a Black-centered political-movement. It was first established as a response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman who murdered Trayvon Martin. Black Lives Matter was also on the ground for the Ferguson Protests that followed the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, bringing attention to rogue police officers who killed Black citizens. In 2020, the BLM protest spread throughout the country in response to the murder of George Floyd by police. It sparked widespread protests against racial injustice and police brutality. It would morph into one of the largest protest movements in the history of the United States.