Chronology of African-American History: Significant Events and People from 1619 to the Present

A long overdue book that summarises almost 400 years of the African diaspora in the region that we now call the United States. Unsurprisingly, the descriptions of events and people prior to the Civil War is very sparse. While free Negroes existed then, little documentation survives, and few of the people managed to achieve mention and prominence in the broader society. The very lack of detail bears silent witness to the suffering.The chronology only starts picking up detail in the 1950s, as the civil rights movement rises. What is striking are the empty decades before this. Some of you may well say empty centuries.