| The 1970's: A Selective Timeline 1970
| Among over 3,000 senior officers at the top of 50
U.S. corporate firms, only 3 are African-Americans.
Tony Morrison's first novel, The Bluest Eye, is
published.
Jimi Hendrix dies of a drug overdose.
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1971
| Pittsburgh Mayor Flaherty announces a $60 million
capital improvement plan. Shaft, a movie about a
Harlem private eye, grosses $6 million and creates a new
genre of African-American targeted films, whose emphasis
on sex and violence caused them to be know as 'blaxploitation
flicks'. The genre makes a comeback in 1997 with Quentin
Tarentino's film Jackie Brown. |
1972
| More than 8000 African-Americans attend the first
National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana.
Their platform demands proportional Congressional
representation, increased spending to combat crime and
drug traffic, and a guaranteed family income of $6500
for a family of four. Pittsburgh Mayor Flaherty
unveils a new city transit plan which will spend $82
million on expanding the trolley service and upgrading
rail lines to the city's suburbs.
Sanford and Son, starring comedian Redd Foxx, makes
its debut and becomes the second highest rated show on
television. |
1973
| The treaty ending the Vietnam War is signed in
Paris. A decade of conflict has resulted in 47,382
American casualties of which 6,000 or 15% were
African-American troops. Maynard Jackson is elected
Mayor of Atlanta, becoming the first African-American to
be elected mayor of a major Southern city. |
1974
| Richard Nixon resigns from the office of the
Presidency after admitting responsibility for the
Watergate scandal. The complex web of events which
comprise the scandal center on the burglary of the
office of the Democratic National Committee in June of
1972 and include extortion, wire tapping, obstruction of
justice, destruction of evidence, and illegal use of
taxpayers' money. Nixon's transgressions are blamed for
instilling a permanent cynicism in the American people
for politicians, particularly the President. In 1999
people compare President Clinton's actions in the
Lewinsky scandal to Nixon's in Watergate. |
1975
| The thirty-five foot, paved brick shoreline
promenade of Baltimore's Inner Harbor is completed.
Previous to this, the harbor was a shipyard for work
boats and lined with old wooden docks. James and
Laughlin Steel Corporation lays off 1200 Pittsburgh
workers, bringing the total number of unemployed workers
there to 2,600.
Arthur Ashe becomes the first African-American to win
the singles title at the Wimbledon tennis
championship. |
1976
| The Maryland Science Center at the Inner Harbor is
completed and opens to the public.
for colored girls who have considered suicide when
the rainbow is enuf is produced on Broadway to
critical and popular acclaim. |
1977
| U.S. Steel lays off 4500 Pittsburgh employees.
More black men will die this year from homicide than
died in the Vietnam War.
The television mini-series Roots, portraying
transportation of slaves from Africa and generations of
forced servitude by American blacks, is seen by more
than 130 million viewers- more than half the U.S.
population. |
1978
| A referendum majority of 54% approves construction
of Harborplace along the Inner Harbor. Opposition
comes from the black community who express great concern
that the stores will not have anything to offer
African-American consumers. Twenty years later members
of the Fells Point community protest further commercial
development of Inner Harbor East. A National Urban
League poll reveals that 77% of African-Americans
surveyed feel employment and economic development are
their principal concerns. |
1979
| The Small Business Administration publishes a study
revealing that one out of every five recipients of
federal aid for minority-owned businesses is in fact a
front for a white-owned business. Gloria Gaynor's "I
Will Survive" is among the year's best-selling records. |
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