On this day in 1961, white students yelled racial slurs and hung in effigy Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes after they became the first Black students to integrate the University of Georgia.

On this day in 1908, newly elected Gov. Austin Crothers vowed to disenfranchise all Black Marylanders and “to maintain the political supremacy of the white race.”

On this day in 1807, a ship named “Fair American” delivered 88 kidnapped Africans to Charleston, South Carolina. 21,000 Africans were trafficked through Charleston in 1807 alone.

On this day in 1959, Richard and Mildred Loving were convicted of interracial marriage in Virginia, given a one-year suspended sentence, and banished from the state.

The federal government barred a list of 200 words and phrases from Head Start funding applications, including "disability" and "Black." Many of the banned words are explicitly referenced in the Head Start Act which was signed in 2007.

On this day in 1923, a mob of over 200 white men attacked the Black community in Rosewood, Florida. The white mob killed over 30 Black men, women, and children and burned the town to the ground.

On this day in 1962, the city of Montgomery announced it would lock bathrooms, plug water fountains, and remove waiting area seats at the municipal airport rather than comply with integration orders.

On this day in 1895, federal authorities imprisoned 19 Hopi leaders at Alcatraz Island on sedition charges for opposing the U.S. government's forced education and assimilation of Indigenous children.

On this day in 1944, three white men in Florida lynched a Black 15-year-old named Willie James Howard for sending a love note to a white girl.

On this day in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which made no attempt to free enslaved Black people in non-rebelling states.

On this day in 1907, depicting Black men as violent and subhuman, a former U.S. senator argued for the death penalty as punishment for interracial relationships.

On this day in 1767, enslavers trafficked 90 kidnapped Africans through Savannah, Georgia, after subjecting them to a Transatlantic journey that killed at least 20 people.

The work of the Equal Justice Initiative is more critical than ever. We remain steadfast in our commitment to stand with the condemned, provide services to the poor, and expand our public education work. Thank you for your support.

On this day in 1890, U.S. troops fired at and killed more than 250 Lakota people in a massacre at Wounded Knee; over half were women, children, and elderly tribal members.

On this day in 1956, days after the end of an anti-segregation bus boycott, sniper gunshots struck a pregnant Black woman named Rosa Jordan as she rode an integrated bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

On this day in 1919, a mob of white men near Franklinton, North Carolina, lynched a 23-year-old Black veteran named Powell Green.

On this day in 1862, U.S. forces hanged 38 Dakota men in Minnesota who had been involved in a war between Dakota people and white settlers that began after broken promises to deliver food to local tribes.

On this day in 1956, Ku Klux Klan members in Alabama bombed the home of civil rights activist the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth while he was celebrating Christmas with family.

On this day in 1865, Confederate veterans established the Ku Klux Klan in Pulaski, Tennessee. Devoted to white supremacy, the Klan became America’s most prominent terrorist group.

On this day in 1946, the all-white University of Tennessee men's basketball team forfeited rather than play against Duquesne University's team and its one Black player.

On this day in 1853, a sheriff in Tuskegee, Alabama, advertised the planned sale of a 23-year-old enslaved Black man named Bob to settle a lawsuit against Bob’s enslaver.

On this day in 1837, Congress renewed and expanded a rule that prohibited any discussion about the abolition of slavery. The rule remained in effect for seven years.

On this day in 1986, white teens brutally beat two young Black men looking for assistance in Queens, New York. One of the Black men was struck and killed by a car while attempting to flee.

On this day in 1865, following the emancipation of Black people, South Carolina passed a law requiring labor contracts to refer to white people as "masters" and Black people as "servants."

On December 18, 1952, Georgia Gov. Herman Talmadge announced he would sooner end public education in Georgia than allow Black children to attend school with white children. Gov. Talmadge was not an outlier.

On this day in 1862, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant expelled all Jewish people from the Tennessee District, which included parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi, based on antisemitic stereotypes and rumors.

"Reflection of Self," by Lionel Smit at Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, Alabama. Plan your visit to the Legacy Sites: legacysites.eji.org 📷 Stephen Gabris

On this day in 1945, the home of the Shorts, the first Black family to live in Fontana, California, erupted in flames, killing Mrs. Short and her two children. Mr. Short later died from his injuries.

A.P. Hill took up arms against the U.S. government to further the goals of the Confederacy and maintain slavery. The son of a wealthy white family, slavery surrounded his life. The name of Fort A.P. Hill was reinstated earlier this year.

On this day in 1897, a mob of 400 white men lynched a Black man named Tom Waller in Lawrence County, Mississippi. They had a large picnic while preparing to hang him.

The National Monument to Freedom stands inscribed with over 100,000 names that represent the four million formerly enslaved Black people who won freedom after the Civil War. Plan your visit: legacysites.eji.org 📷 Stephen Gabris

On this day in 1948, police wrongfully arrested 17 Black men after two white girls falsely reported that they had been attacked by a Black man. The girls later admitted they had lied.

On this day in 1893, a judge in Knoxville, Tennessee, sent an entire multiracial family to jail on felony miscegenation charges.

The park service removed the two official federal holidays that honor Black history from its 2026 list of free entrance days, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth—and added President Trump's birthday.

On this day in 1922, more than 1,000 white people lynched Arthur Young in Perry, Florida. It was the second racial terror lynching in Taylor County in five days. The mob then attacked the Black community, burning homes and community buildings.

On this day in 1917, the U.S. Army executed 13 Black soldiers who were sentenced to death and denied any right to appeal for defending themselves after a white mob attacked them.

Fred Gray is a civil rights icon. He began his storied career in 1955 by representing Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks, whose cases sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The newly dedicated Fred D. Gray Boardroom at Elevation celebrates his life and work.

On this day in 1960, Black football players from a California college were subjected to racial segregation and forced to lodge separately from white teammates while in Florida for the national championship game.

On this day in 2014, a report revealed that the CIA tortured Muslim detainees during the “War on Terror." The torture was so dehumanizing that people were likened to “dogs who had been kenneled.”

This morning, EJI announced an expansion of our multi-year relationship with Montgomery Public Schools. Our new "Reading Is Your Superpower" project will see EJI's donation of 11,000 books to MPS first and second graders.

On this day in 1915, a white mob raped and lynched a Black woman named Cordelia Stevenson in Columbus, Mississippi, and left her naked body hanging by a railroad to terrorize the Black community.

On this day in 1874, white mobs attacked and killed dozens of Black citizens in Vicksburg, Mississippi, who had organized to help a duly elected Black sheriff regain his office.

The National Memorial For Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, is the nation's first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were enslaved, terrorized by lynching, humiliated by racial segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous.

On this day in 1915, the Supreme Court upheld a law providing that an American woman could be stripped of citizenship upon marriage to a foreign husband. U.S. men marrying foreign women were permitted to keep their citizenship.

The Montgomery Advertiser reports on how tourism in Montgomery and across Alabama continues to grow, and the role EJI's Legacy Sites have played in the sustained growth and economic development.

On this day in 1910, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled an eight-year-old girl was prohibited from attending her local public school because she was one-sixteenth Black.

On this day in 1969, Chicago Police officers assassinated Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by firing over 90 bullets during a pre-dawn apartment raid.

On this day in 1970, Cesar Chavez was sentenced to an indefinite jail term for his work boycotting lettuce produced by farms that had used coercive tactics against the United Farm Workers.

For #GivingTuesday, we continue our fight for justice. Please join us and make a donation as we work to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial injustice. support.eji.org/give/153413/...

On this day in 1975, Montgomery police shot and killed Bernard Whitehurst Jr., a 32-year-old Black man they claimed they mistook for a robbery suspect.