African Americans are an ethnic group in the United States. The first achievements by African Americans in diverse fields have historically marked footholds, often leading to more widespread cultural change. The shorthand phrase for this is "breaking the color barrier".Juguo, Zhang (2001). W. E. B. Du Bois: The Quest for the Abolition of the Color Line. Routledge. .Herbst, Philip H (1997). The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States. Intercultural Press, p. 57. .
One prominent example is Jackie Robinson, who became the first African American of the modern era to become a Major League Baseball player in 1947. This was the beginning of the end of some 60 years of racial segregation, during which African American players were confined to the Negro leagues.Sailes, Gary Alan (1998). "Jackie Robinson: Breaking the Color Barrier in Team Sports". African Americans in Sport: Contemporary Themes, Transaction Publishers, p. 8.
16th century
1528 Estevanico becomes the first Black person to explore what would become the continental United States in the Narváez expedition.
1539 Estevanico becomes the first Black person and first non-Native American person to explore what would become New Mexico.
17th century
1604 First black person to arrive in what is now Maine: explorer and interpreter Mathieu Da Costa
1624 First African American who was born in the British colonies that later became the United States: William Tucker (Virginia colony)
1651 First African American to own land in the United States, July 24, 1651: Anthony Johnson (colonist)
1670 First African American to own land in Boston: Zipporah Potter Atkins"Collections Relevant to African American History at the Massachusetts Historical Society: Slavery, Plantations, and the Slave Trade." Massachusetts Historical Society. www.masshist.org. Retrieved January 22, 2016.
18th century
1730s–1770s
1738 First free African-American community: Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose (later named Fort Mose) in Spanish FloridaAboard the Underground Railroad – Fort Mose Site, National Park Service
1746 First known enslaved African American person to compose a work of literature: Lucy Terry with her poem "Bars Fight", composed in 1746 and first published in 1855 in Josiah Holland's History of Western Massachusetts.
1760 First known African-American published author: Jupiter Hammon (poem "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries", published as a broadside)
1767 First African-American clockmaker, Peter Hill, was born.
1768 First known African American to be elected to public office: Wentworth Cheswill, town constable and justice of the peace in Newmarket, New Hampshire.He was of mixed race, one-quarter African and three-quarters European, and listed in the U.S. Census as white.
1770 First casualty and first African-American casualty of the American Revolution: Crispus Attucks, Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay. He was killed in the Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770.
1773 First known African-American woman to publish a book: Phillis Wheatley (Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral) First separate African-American church: Silver Bluff Baptist Church, Aiken County, South CarolinaThis claim is contested by the First Baptist Church, Petersburg, Virginia (1774) and the First Colored Baptist Church, renamed First African Baptist Church, Savannah, Georgia (recognized 1788, first congregation 1773).
1775 First African American to join the Freemasons: Prince Hall
1778 First African-American U.S. military regiment: the 1st Rhode Island Regiment
1780s–1790s
1783 First African American to formally practice medicine: James Derham, who did not hold an M.D. degree. (See also: 1847)
1785 First African American ordained as a Christian minister in the United States: Rev. Lemuel Haynes. He was ordained in the Congregational Church, which became the United Church of Christ
1792 First major African-American Back-to-Africa movement: 3,000 Black Loyalist slaves, who had escaped to British lines during the American Revolutionary War for the promise of freedom, were relocated to Nova Scotia and given land. Later, 1,200 chose to migrate to West Africa and settle in the new British colony of Settler Town, which is present-day Sierra Leone.
1794 First African Episcopal Church established: Absalom Jones founded African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania First African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church founded: Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, Philadelphia, was founded by Richard Allen
1799 First African American to attend college (Washington and Lee University): John Chavis; later went on to be a preacher and educator for both black and white students.
19th century
1800s
1804 First African American ordained as an Episcopal priest: Absalom Jones in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1807 First African-American Presbyterian Church in America: First African Presbyterian Church founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by John Gloucester a former slave.
1810s
1816 Richard Allen founded the first fully independent African-American denomination: African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and mid-Atlantic states
1817 The First African Baptist Church was the first African-American church west of the Mississippi River. It had its beginnings in 1817 when John Mason Peck and the formerly enslaved John Berry Meachum began holding church services for African Americans in St. Louis. Meachum founded the First African Baptist Church in 1827. Although there were ordinances preventing blacks from assembling, the congregation grew from 14 people at its founding to 220 people by 1829. Two hundred of the parishioners were slaves, who could only travel to the church and attend services with the permission of their owners.
1820s
1821 First African American to hold a patent: Thomas L. Jennings, for a dry-cleaning process First African American theatre, the African Grove Theatre, was founded in New York City by: William Alexander Brown
1822 First African-American captain to sail a whaleship with an all-black crew: Absalom Boston There were six black owners of seven whaling trips before Absalom Boston's in 1822.
1823 First African American to receive a degree from an American college: Alexander Twilight, Middlebury College (See also: 1836)
1826 First African American to graduate from Bowdoin College: Future governor of the Republic of Maryland, John Brown Russwurm First African American to graduate from Amherst College: Edward Jones (missionary)
1827 First African-American-owned-and-operated newspaper: Freedom's Journal, founded in New York City by Rev. Peter Williams Jr., Samuel Cornish, John Brown Russwurm and other free blacks
1828 First African American to graduate from Dartmouth College: Edward Mitchell
1829 First African American to attend Princeton Theological Seminary (and any United States theological seminary) and graduate: Theodore S. Wright
1830s
1832 First governor of African descent in what is now the United States: Pío Pico, an Afro-Mexican, was the last governor of Alta California before it was ceded to the U.S. Like all Californios, Pico automatically became a U.S. citizen in 1848.
1836 First African American elected to serve in a state legislature: Alexander Twilight, Vermont (See also: 1823) First African American to found a town and establish a planned community: Free Frank McWorter (New Philadelphia, Illinois) First African American governor of the Republic of Maryland or any other colony in Africa: John Brown Russwurm
1837 First formally trained African-American medical doctor: Dr James McCune Smith of New York City, who was educated at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and returned to practice in New York. (See also: 1783, 1847)
1840s
1844 First African American approved to practice law: Macon Bolling Allen from the bar association of Portland, Maine
1845 First African American to practice law: Macon Bolling Allen from the Boston bar
1847 First African American to graduate from a U.S. medical school: Dr. David J. Peck (Rush Medical College) (See also: 1783, 1837)
1848 First African-American president of any nation: Joseph Jenkins Roberts, Liberia
1849 First African-American college professor at a predominantly white institution: Charles L. Reason, New York Central College
1850s
1850 First African-American woman to graduate from a college (graduated with a Literary Degree from the Ladies' Literary Course of Oberlin College): Lucy Stanton
1851 First African-American member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits): Patrick Francis Healy (See also: 1866, 1874)
1852 First African-American student at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania: Sarah Mapps Douglass
1853 First novel published by an African American: Clotel; or, The President's Daughter, by William Wells Brown, then living in London.Because it was published in the UK, the book is not the first African-American novel published in the United States. This credit goes to one of two disputed books: Harriet Wilson's Our Nig (1859), brought to light by Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 1982; or Julia C. Collins' The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride (1865), brought to light by William L. Andrews, an English literature professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Mitch Kachun, a history professor at Western Michigan University, in 2006. Andrews and Kachun document Our Nig as a novelized autobiography, and argue that The Curse of Caste is the first fully fictional novel by an African American to be published in the United States. First African American to build and serve as captain of his own ship: Joseph P. Taylor of Portland, Maine
1854 First African-American Catholic priest: James Augustine Healy (see 1875 and 1886) First institute of higher learning created to educate African-Americans: Ashmun Institute in Pennsylvania, renamed Lincoln University in 1866. (See also firsts in 1863) First African-American physician to be admitted as a member of a medical society in the United States (the Massachusetts Medical Society): John van Salee de Grasse First African-American performer to perform before British royalty (command performance for the queen at Buckingham Palace): Elizabeth Greenfield
1858 First published play by an African American: The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom by William Wells Brown First African-American woman college instructor: Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Wilberforce University First African-American Missionary Bishop of Liberia: Francis Burns of Windham, New York; of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
1860s
1861 First North American military unit with African-American officers: 1st Louisiana Native Guard of the Confederate Army First African-American US federal government civil servant: William Cooper Nell
1862 First African-American woman to earn a B.A.: Mary Jane Patterson, Oberlin College First recognized U.S. Army African-American combat unit: 1st South Carolina Volunteers
1863 First college owned and operated by African Americans: Wilberforce University in OhioFounded earlier; not fully owned and operated by African Americans until 1863. (See also: 1854) First African-American president of a college: Bishop Daniel Payne (Wilberforce University) First African-American physician to hold a commission in the U.S. Army and the first African-American hospital administrator: Alexander Thomas Augusta First African-American chaplain in the United States Colored Troops: Henry McNeal Turner First African American to earn the Medal of Honor: William Harvey Carney
1864 First African-American woman in the United States to earn an M.D.: Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
1865 First African-American field officer in the U.S. Army: Martin Delany First African-American attorney admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court: John Stewart Rock