Built Into the System: A Timeline of Systemic Racism

Systemic racism is not about individual hatred. It is about rules.

Laws. And who those laws were designed to protect. From the beginning,

race shaped power in America. Indigenous land was taken through colonial law.

Africans were enslaved by legal codes. Spanish colonial systems created racial hierarchies in the Southwest.

Government established who owned land, who labored without freedom, and who held

power. The United States was founded on liberty. But liberty came

with exceptions. Slavery was protected. Indigenous sovereignty was ignored. Citizenship was limited

in practice. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act legalized displacement. Indigenous nations were