VOICES OF HISTORY
Significant events of 1972-1995

Series - sidebar to Part Four

1973: Vietnam peace pacts are signed. Last U.S. troops leave March 29.

1974: President Richard Nixon resigns after Watergate.

1975: Arthur Ashe wins the singles tennnis title at Wimbledon, becoming the first black winner of a major men's singles championship.

1975: Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, dies. Minister Louis Farrakhan reclaims and rebuilds the Nation of Islam.

1976: Barbara Jordan, congressional representative from Texas, delivers the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

1977: Alex Haley's Roots: The Saga of an American Family (1976) is adapted for television, becoming a huge success.

1977: Benjamin L. Hooks becomes the executive director of the NAACP, succeeding Roy Wilkins. Hooks stresses the need for affirmative action and increased minority voter registration.

1978: In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, the Supreme Court rules against fixed racial quotas but upholds the use of race as a factor in making decisions on admissions for professional schools.

1978: Sociologist William Julius Wilson publishes The Declining Significance of Race, which maintains that class divisions and global economic changes, more than racism, created a large black underclass.

1980: Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Jimmy Carter for the presidency.

1981: Civil-rights leader Andrew Young is elected mayor of Atlanta.

1982: Playwright Charles Fuller wins the Pulitzer Prize for drama for A Soldier's Play, which examines conflict among black soldiers on a Southern army base during World War II.

1983: Writer Alice Walker receives the Pulitzer Prize for The Color Purple.

1983: Harold Washington wins the Democratic nomination and is elected the first African-American mayor of Chicago. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination, becoming the first African-American to make a serious presidential bid.

1984: The Cosby Show becomes one of the most popular TV shows, winning praise for its broad cross-cultural appeal and avoidance of racial stereotypes.

1986: The U.S. officially observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day for first time.

1989: Colin Powell is nominated chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the first black officer to hold the highest U.S. military post.

1989: L. Douglas Wilder becomes the first U.S. black governor since Reconstruction.

1990: John Edgar Wideman becomes the first author to twice receive the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, for his novels Sent for You Yesterday (1983) and Philadelphia Fire (1990).

1991: The Senate votes 52-48 to confirm Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Supreme Court following charges of sexual harassment. Thomas replaces the retiring Thurgood Marshall.

1992: Riots break out in Los Angeles, sparked by the acquittal of four white police officers caught on videotape beating Rodney King, a black motorist. The riots cause at least 55 deaths and $1 billion in damage.

1992: Mae Jemison becomes the first African-American woman astronaut, spending more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle Endeavour.

1992: Carol Moseley-Braun becomes the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, representing Illinois.

1993: Poet Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1970), composes and delivers a poem for the inauguration of President Clinton.

1993: Cornel West, progressive postmodern philosopher, finds a mainstream audience with the publication of his text Race Matters, which examines the black community around the time of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

1993: Poet Rita Dove, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Thomas and Beulah, is chosen as poet laureate of the United States.

1994: Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

1995: Minister Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam leader, gains influence as the most prominent organizer of the "Million Man March" of African-American men in Washington, D.C.