Library of Congress
1619
The First Africans Brought to America
The first enslaved Africans were brought to Virginia by an English privateer ship, the White Lion, in late August 1619. Thanks to Nikole Hannah-Jones and her 1619 Project with the New York Times, the journey of those first “20 and odd Negroes” is now mainstream knowledge and used to spark conversations about the centuries-long fight for freedom in the Black American community.