In July 2020, Navy Lt. j.g. Madeline G. Swegle, became the U.S. Navy's first Black female tactical jet aviator. Here she stands in front of a T-45C Goshawk jet trainer aircraft on the Training Air Wing 2 flight line at Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas. (Photo by Navy Lt. Michelle Tucker.)
A Railroad to Freedom
For much of our nation’s history black Americans lived in slavery. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act imposed strict penalties on anyone caught aiding in their escape from slavery.
During this time a movement known as the Underground Railroad was underway to help black Americans escape from slavery. Former slaves, including Harriet Tubman organized this secret operation which eventually helped more than 100,000 black Americans find freedom.
In early 1863, black Americans received a taste of justice after the Emancipation Proclamation, and the subsequent 13th Amendment freed them from slavery. However, much work remained in the work of making the dream of racial justice a reality.
Protesting Injustice
In the 1950s, unjust segregation laws across the nation physically separated black and white Americans. These unjust laws required black Americans to sit at the back of buses, drink from different water fountains, use different public pools and a variety of other deprave action.
In 1955 civil rights activists Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, and Mary Louise Smith were arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, because they refused to give up their bus seats, which were reserved for whites. Their arrests signaled the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott—a thirteen-month-long protest of segregation, when protestors chose not to ride the city’s buses.
These non-violent protests continued into the 1960s with the Freedom Riders seeking to expose segregation on buses throughout the nation.
Thanks to the efforts of these and other courageous Americans, a number of key court decisions soon declared that segregation on the nation’s buses was unconstitutional.