By the Numbers: Black History Month

26.2

Poverty rate for blacks (in 2014), compared to the national rate of 14.58 percent.

50.6

The percentage of the population in Washington, D.C., that is black.

1619

The year the first Africans arrived as slaves in Virginia.

1793

Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin dramatically increases the demand for slave labor.

1808

Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa.

1846

Frederick Douglass launches his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, in Rochester, N.Y.

1849

Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery and becomes one of the most effective leaders of the Underground Railroad.

1857

The Dred Scott decision holds that Congress does not have the right to ban slavery and that slaves are not citizens.

1863

President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, which gives freedom to slaves.

1865

The 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery is ratified (on Dec. 6).

1868

The Dred Scott decision is nullified by the ratification of the 14th Amendment.

1869

Howard University’s law school becomes the country’s first black law school.

1870

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified and gives blacks the right to vote. That was also the year Hiram Revels of Mississippi is elected as this country’s first black U.S. Senator.

1909

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is founded in New York and led by W.E.B. DuBois.

1926

Year of the first celebration of Black History Week, which was set for the second week in February to coincide with the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

1947

Jackie Robinson breaks the color barrier in major league baseball when Branch Rickey signs him to the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1948

The year President Harry Truman issued an executive order integrating the U.S. armed forces.

1954

The year of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan., which declares that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional.

1955

The year Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, causing a yearlong bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. The city’s buses were desegregated on Dec. 21, 1956.

1957

The civil rights group called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is established by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Charles K. Steele and Fred L. Shuttlesworth.

1962

James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. After rioting breaks out, President Kennedy dispatches 5,000 federal troops to Mississippi.

1963

250,000 people attend the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (where King delivered his “I have a dream” speech).

1976

The year black history got its own month. It was recognized along with the nation’s bicentennial.

1983

Guion Bluford, Jr., becomes the first African American in space during a flight of the space shuttle Challenger.

2001

Colin Powell becomes the first black U.S. Secretary of State.

2003

Condoleezza Rice becomes the first black female U.S. Secretary of State.

2008

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Chicago becomes the first black to be nominated as a major party nominee for president. On Nov. 4 he became the first black elected to the U.S. presidency.

$35,398

The annual median income of black households (in 2014), compared with the national average of $53,657.

1.3 million

The black population of Cook County, Ill., making it the most black-populated county in the nation.

2.2 million

The number of black U.S. military veterans.

2.6 million

The number of black-owned firms in the country (2012 figure).

3.8 million

The black population in New York state, which makes it the most black-populated state in the nation.

45.7 million

The number of blacks in the United States (2014 figures).

74.5 million

The projected black population by July 1, 2060, or 17.9 percent of the nation’s total population.

Source: U.S. Census, infoplease.com