FACTBOX: Significant events in black American history

(Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is in a tight race with Sen. Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination to run against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November presidential election. Obama would be the first U.S. black president.

Following is a timeline of some of the significant events in black American history.

1619 - The first African slaves arrive in Virginia.

1787 - The U.S. Constitution states that Congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808.

1793 - The invention of the cotton gin increases demand for slave labor in the South. Fugitive Slave Act seeks to require free states to return fugitive slaves, but is rarely enforced in the North.

1808 - Importation of slaves banned.

1831-1861 - Around 75,000 slaves escape to the North and freedom using an "underground railroad".

1831 - Nat Turner leads a slave rebellion in Virginia, is captured and executed.

1850 - Fugitive Slave Act revised to require law enforcement to return runaway slaves, forcing Northerners to choose between slavery and abolition.

1857 - U.S. Supreme Court decides the case of slave Dred Scott who sued for his freedom. Court said slaves were private property and no slave or descendant could be a U.S. citizen; Congress had no authority to outlaw slavery in federal territories.

1861 - The Confederacy is founded when the South secedes from the United States. The Civil War begins.

1863 - President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, declaring all slaves in Confederate states free.

1865 - The civil war ends. Lincoln is assassinated. The 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlaws slavery.

1868 - The 14th amendment grants full citizenship to all African-Americans.

1870 - The right to vote is given to black males.

1896 - The Supreme Court holds that racial segregation is constitutional, paving the way for segregation in the South.