In August 1619, a ship arrived at the Jamestown colony in Virginia, and the first slaves transported from Africa were forced onto the shores of what would become the United States of America. Thus began a 400-year legacy of slavery, oppression, institutionalized racism, a corrupted Constitution, a traumatizing and bloody civil war, the assassination of a president, a culture embedded with inequality and injustice, and a struggle to understand our history and what our future can be as a country. The information below is a HTML files with detailed information to research on the Darkbird18's 1619 Project and American Slavery Files. Just click on the link and the website Video or PDF will be displayed. Black history in the United States is a rich and varied chronicle of slavery and liberty, oppression and progress, segregation, and achievement. Though captive and free Africans were likely present in the Americas by the 1400s, the kidnapped men, women, and children from Africa who were sold first to European colonists in 1619, and later to American citizens, became symbolic of the early years of Black history in the United States. The fate of enslaved people in the United States divided the nation during the Civil War. After the war, the racist legacy of slavery persisted, spurring movements of resistance, including the Underground Railroad, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Selma to Montgomery March, and, later, the Black Lives Matter movement. Through it all, Black leaders, artists, and writers have emerged to shape the character and identity of a nation.