ield near the courthouse. Before climbing the gallows, he made one last prophecy, saying there would be a storm after his execution and that the sun would refuse to shine. There was, in fact, a storm in Jerusalem on that day, but Turner was not talking about the weather he was predicting a major disturbance in the American psyche. The storm he saw came in the generation of crisis that his act helped precipitate. 4. Free at Last! T) Felix Haywood, who was there, it was the Time of Glory when men and women walked on golden clouds. To Frederick Douglass, it was a down-payment on the redemption of the American soul. To Sister Winny in Virginia, to Jane Montgomery in Louisiana, to Ed Bluff in Mississippi, to Black people all over the South and all over America, it was the Time of Jubilee, the wild, happy, sad, mocking, tearful, fearful time of the unchaining of the bodies of Black folks. And the air was sweet with song. Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty! We re free at last. W. E. B. Dubois was not there, but he summed the whole thing up in phrases worthy of the ages. It was all, he said, foolish, bizarre, and tawdry. Gangs of dirty Negroes howling and dancing; poverty-stricken ignorant laborers mistaking war, destruction, and revolution for the mystery of the free human soul; and yet to these Black folk it was the Apocalypse. And he added. All that was Beauty, all that was Love all that was Truth, stood on the top these mad mornings and sang with foe stars. A great human sob shrieked in the Events in African-American History wind, and tossed its tears upon the sea_ free, free, free. Contrary to the common view, the emancipation of Blacks didn t happen at one time or even in one place. It started with the first shot fired at Fort Sumter. It continued during the war and in the Jubilee summer of 1865, and it has not been completed. For the slaves, who created the foundation of American wealth, never received the 40 acres of land that would have made freedom meaningful. It was in this milieu that African-Americans embarked on a road called freedom. As the road twisted and turned, doubling back on itself their enemies and their problems multiplied. But they endured, and endure. 5. Booker T. Washington vs. W. E. B. DuBois THERE was a big parade in Atlanta on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 1895, and a huge crowd gathered in the Exposition Building at the Cotton States Exposition for the opening speeches. Several Whites spoke and then former Gov. Rufus Bullock introduced Professor BookerT. Washington. The 39-year-old president of Tuskegee Institute moved to the front of the platform and started speaking to the segregated audience. Within 10 minutes, reporter James Creelman wrote, the multitude was in an uproar of enthusiasm handkerchiefs were waved . .. hats were tossed into the air. The fairest women of Georgia stood up and cheered. What was the cheering about? Metaphors mostly and words millions of Whites wanted to hear. Washington told Blacks: Cast down your buckets where you are. To Whites, he offered the same advice: Cast down your bucket [among] the most patient, faithful, law-abiding and unresentful people the world has seen Suddenly, he flung his hand aloft, with the fingers held wide apart. In all things purely social, he said, we can be as separate as the fingers, yet [he balled the fingers into a fist] one as the hand in all things essential to mutual P Se crowd came to its feet, yelling. Washington s Atlanta Compromise sneech made him famous and set the tone for race relations for some 20 years. One year after his speech, the Supreme Court rounded a fateful fork, endorsing 135 6. AFRICAN AMERICANS in 7lessy vs. Ferguson the principle of separate but equal. 1 Vashington s refusal to make a direct anc open attack on Jim Crow and his im-plic it acceptance of segregation brought hin into conflict with W.E.B. DuBois and| a group of Black militants who or gan ized the germinal Niagara Movement. At its first national meeting at Hai pers Ferry in 1906, the Niagara militants said, We claim for ourselves every Ie right that belongs to a freeborn sindl Am< rican, political, civil, and social; and unti we get these rights we will never ceas e to protest and assail the ears of America. So saying, the Niagara militants laid the foundation for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoj le which merged the forces of Black milit mcy and White liberalism. 6. The Great Migration HI >TORY does not always come with Irums beating and flags flying. So; netimes it comes in on a wave of silenqe. Sometimes it whispers. despai It dras like that in the terrible days of lir that preceded the unprece-dentep explosion of hope and movement that is Thi terna and oi called The Great Migration. ; event, which was the largest inmigration in American history le of the central events of African- American history, started in the cracks of histon, masse; the stat in the minds and moods of the of Blacks, who were reduced to tus of semi-slaves in the post-Re- constrjjction period. Pushed back toward lavery by lynchings, segregation and the sharecropping systems, they turner around within themselves and decide d that there had to be another way ar d another and better place. The feeling moved, became a mood, an im- perativ amble, e, a command. Without pre-| without a plan, without leader- I i ship, tne people began to move, going from the plantation to Southern cities, going from there to the big cities of the K' IThere, they found jobs in war-Idustries and sent letters to a North. time ir cousin saying: fr an aunt or sister or brother, Come! And they came, hundreds ahd hundreds of thousands. The first wa re (300,000) came between 1910 and 192 0, followed by a second wave (1,300,0 X)) between 1920 and 1930, and third (500,000) and fourth (2,500,000) waves, even larger, in the 30s and 40s. In the big cities of the North, Blacks emancipated themselves politically and economically and created the foundation of contemporary Black America. 7. Brown vs. Board of Education THE marshal s voice was loud and clear. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. The marshal paused and intoned the traditional words. God save the United States and this Honorable Court! It was high noon on Monday, May 17, 1954, and the Supreme Court was crammed to capacity with spectators. Among the dozen or so Blacks present was Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel of the NAACP, who leaned forward in expectation. Cases from four states (South Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, Kansas) and the District of Columbia were before the Court, which had been asked by Marshall and his associates to overturn the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision and declare segregation in public schools unconstitutional. All America awaited the long-expected decision which would come on a Monday. But which Monday? No one knew, and there was no sign on the faces of the justices that the issue was going to be settled on this day. The Court disposed of routine business and announced decisions in several boring cases involving the sale of milk and the picketing of retail stores. Then Chief Justice Earl Warren picked up a document and said in a firm, quiet voice: I have for announcement the judgment and opinion of the Court in No. 1 Oliver Brown et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka. It was 12:52 p.m. A shiver ran through the courtroom, and bells started ringing in press rooms all over the world. Warren held the crowd in suspense, reviewing the history of the cases. Then, abruptly, he came to the heart of the matter: Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors ma deprive the children of tl group of equal educatio tunities? Warren paused ai believe that it does. The t unanimous: 9-0. The words raced across and were received by diffe according to their diffei Southern diehards like H madge issued statements of promised a generation of li the implications of the deci enormous that many Arne shocked into silence and Farmville, Va., a 16-year-named Barbara Trent bur when her teacher announc sion. We went on studying said later, but things were and will never be the same 8. Montgomer the Freedom Movement IT was a quiet, peaceful