One of the most horrid aspects of slavery is the loss of the ability to set the course of one's own life. Even to this day, social justice forms itself around the empowerment of those who society deprives of this fundamental capability. Slave owners from day one have always had to keep their slaves in line, through means of legislation, intimidation, and deprivation. One early example of this was Negro Act of 1740 passed after the Stono Rebellion, which forbade slaves from learning how read, growing their own crops, or meeting together. Even after slavery, the Jim Crow laws kept blacks lower than whites, and to this day, there is less prominent but just as tangible disenfranchisement of African Americans. This timeline showcases numerous events that demonstrate both the disempowerment of blacks and the attempts by blacks of reclaiming equality.

1773- Phillis Wheatley was the first published black author in America, in spite of mass illiteracy of slaves.

Excerpt from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773)

Some view our sable race with scornful eye
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember Christians, negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.


1789- Olaudah Equiano published the first autobiographical slave narrative written without heavy input by a white man. Therefore, there was very little holding him back from highlighting every injury that slavery inflicted on Africans, such as the separation of families and friends, which naturally affected their childhood development and deprived them of a social network that is often taken for granted among unopressed people.

Excerpt from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

I now totally lost the small remains of comfort I had enjoyed in conversing with my countrymen; the woman too, who used to wash and take care of me, were all gone different ways, and I never saw one of them afterwards.

August 22, 1831- Nat Turner leads a revolt in Southhampton County, VA, and in retaliation many blacks suffered from harassment under the pretense of searching for conspirators, as detailed by Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. This served to remind blacks who held the power, and intimidate them from even giving the appearance of a slave revolt.

Excerpt from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861)

No two people that had the slightest tinge of color in their faces dared to be seen talking together.


1843- At the National Negro Convention, Henry Garnet proposed a radial call to arms in rebellion against slavery. He gave a message of empowerment, claiming that slaves still had the capacity to fight back, in spite of legal and educational limitations.

Excerpt from "An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America" (1843)

Brethren, the time has come when you must act for yourselves. It is and old and true saying that, "if hereditary bondmen would be free, they must themselves strike the blow."


September 3, 1838- Frederick Douglass successfully flees north, the culmination of lifetime of self empowerment despite the system against him. Douglass is a model of self-empowerment, with his autobiography detailing how he taught himself to write as well as his iconic physical rebellion against the overseer Covey.

Excerpt from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845)

From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom... I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.


July 19-20, 1848- The Seneca Falls Convention was the first of many women's rights conventions. There are numerous parallels between women's and blacks' oppression and civil rights movements that suggest a leaning toward progressive sentiments in America, and Frederick Douglass was a notable attendee at the convention, and reported on it in his newspaper, The North Star.

Excerpt from Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, given at another women's rights convention. (1851)

I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me- and ar'n't I a woman?


1852- Martin R. Delany's The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States was a series of essays about the causes and solutions to inequality. In chapter five in particular, he criticized blacks who settled for menial servant jobs rather than striving for positions of leadership and status.

Excerpt from The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States (1852)

Let us determine to equal the whites among whom we live, not by declarations and unexpressed self-opinion, for we have always had enough of that, but by actual proof in acting, doing, and carrying out practically, the measures of equality.


1857- Frances E. W. Harper's collection Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects covered numerous aspects of slavery and Christian living, and made her very famous. One of her later essays, "Our Greatest Want" criticized those who would fall in line with the disempowering status quo rather than work toward a system where all have equal opportunity.

Excerpt from Our Greatest Want (1859)

He [Moses] turned from them all and chose rather to suffer with the enslaved, than rejoice with the free. He would have no union with the slave power of Egypt.