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Langston Hughes, a voice of the Harlem Renaissance, writes of a black man banished to the kitchen when company arrives. This same man looks to the future, for a day when he will sit at the table to eat with company, because he, too, is an American.

'Henry Brown left Richmond, Va. a slave and arrived in Philadelphia—in a freight box—a free man. Abolitionists who cheered Brown's 27-hour journey to freedom chose not to publicize it, fearing that others following in his path would be in danger.

Written to celebrate President Abraham Lincoln's birthday, this hymn follows the journey of African Americans in this country, remembering the rough road traveled but thanking God for seeing them to a bright future.

With her husband away fighting in World War II, Amy's mother gets a job playing baseball in the first professional women's league.

The first Black Southerner to have a book of poetry published, Horton's plea for freedom personifies liberty and beseeches her to stamp out oppression and break his chains.

The Alabama Sanctity of Marriage Amendment, or Alabama Constitution Amendment 774, was ratified by voters in 2006.

With this law, passed by the General Assembly in 2009, Vermont became the fourth state to recognize same-sex marriages.

Enacted in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act, formally titled “An Act to execute certain treaty stipulations relating to Chinese,” was one of the first laws limiting immigration into the United States.

Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a critical piece of that legally protected citizens from discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender or religion. The following is one title, or part, of the law.

In this excerpt, Virginia Woolf declares that any talented woman born in the 16th, 17th, 18th or even 19th centuries would have been so hindered from sharing her gifts due to her sex--and if she somehow overcame this obstacle, her name would not have been tied to her work.