Kentucky refuses to ratify Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and does not do so until 1976.
February 23, 2020
Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, is shot and killed by a white man in Glynn County, Georgia,who is not arrested until the failure to bring charges sparks nationwide protests.
February 22, 1898
After Frazier Baker is appointed postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina, enraged local white people burn his home, fatally shoot him and his infant daughter, and wound his wife and other children.
February 21, 1891
A mob of white men in Glynn County, Georgia, hangs two Black men, Wesley Lewis and Henry Jackson, from a tree, shoots them over 1000 times, then leaves them on display for thousands of white spectators.
February 20, 1956
Arrest warrants based on a 34-year old anti-boycott statue are issued for 89 people involved in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
February 19, 1942
President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, leading to the forced internment of 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry living in the western United States.
February 18, 1965
Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old Black man, is shot by a white officer after police attack a peaceful civil rights protest in Marion, Alabama; he dies eight days later.
February 17, 1947
In Greenville, South Carolina, a mob of white men lynches Willie Earle, slashing chunks of flesh from his body before blasting him with a shotgun; 31 men charged with the murder are later acquitted.
February 16, 1847
Missouri outlaws education of Black people and bans immigration of free Black people into the state.
February 15, 1804
New Jersey passes gradual emancipation act, becoming the last Northern state to abolish slavery.