Boston, Massachusetts opens its first public school for African American children.

Only a few short years after proving themselves in battle during the War of 1812, the U.S. Army is forbidden to accept either blacks or mulattoes into their ranks.

Eighty-six free African Americans board the Mayflower of Liberia bound for Sierra Leone from the harbor of New York. Sierra Leone is a British colony at the time, which welcomes free and fugitive slaves.

Congress passes The Missouri Compromise. This historical piece of legislation preserves the delicate unity of the nation by allowing Missouri to join the Union as a slave state. At the same time, the legislation prohibits slavery north and west of the twenty-thirty degree parallel within the Louisiana Territory.

U.S. Census showed that Blacks made up 18.4 percent of the U.S. population on this date. There were approximately 1,771,656 Blacks in America in 1820.

Poet, lawyer, educator, and abolitionist George B. Vashon was born on this date. Vashon helped found Howard University and was instrumental in establishing its law school.

Enrollment at the New York African Free School reached 500 on this date.

Working with the British, the U.S. Congress declares the foreign slave trade to be piracy, punishable by death. Four naval vessels are sent to patrol the western coast of Africa to hunt for slavers. After four years, the program is called off and the ships return to port.

Elihu Embree begins publishing The Emancipator in Tennessee. It is the first abolitionist paper to be published in the South.