Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Explore the people, places, events, achievements, struggles and stories that shaped our journey.
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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Meet the people whose lives, choices and achievements shaped the journey.
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Katherine Johnson’s mathematical calculations helped guide some of America’s most important early space missions while she confronted the racial and gender barriers faced by Black women in twentieth-century America.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
The Compacts of Free Association (COFA) are international agreements establishing and governing the relationships of free association between the United States and the three Pacific Island sovereign states: Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau. As a result, these countries are sometimes known as the Freely Associated States (FASs). All three agreements next expire in 2043. These countries, together with the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, formerly constituted the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a United Nations trusteeship administered by the United States Navy from 1947 to 1951, and by the U.S. Department of the Interior from 1951 to 1986 (to 1994 for Palau). The compacts came into being as an extension of the US–UN territorial trusteeship agreement, which obliged the federal government of the United States "to promote the development of the people of the Trust Territory toward self-government or independence as appropriate to the particular circumstances of the Trust Territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned." Under the compacts, the U.S. federal government provides guaranteed financial assistance over a 15-year period administered through its Office of Insular Affairs in exchange for full international defense authority and responsibilities. The Compacts of Free Association were initiated by negotiators in 1980, and signed by the parties in the years 1982 and 1983. They were approved by the citizens of the Pacific states in plebiscites held in 1983. Legislation on the compacts was adopted by the U.S. Congress in 1986, and signed into law on November 13, 1986.
A referendum on the Compact of Free Association was held in Palau on 10 February 1983. Voters were asked three questions: Whether they approved of the Compact of Free Association between Palau and the United States Whether they approved of an agreement which placed restrictions on the US with regard to storing and using radioactive, chemical and biological materials in Palau What their preference for a future political status was if the Free Association (question one) was rejected. They were offered the choice of either "a relationship with the United States closer than Free Association" or independence. The first two propositions were both approved, nullifying the need for the results of the third. Voter turnout was 78.5%.
A fourth referendum on the Compact of Free Association was held in Palau on 2 December 1986, after the previous three referendums had failed to achieve the 75% in favour necessary. Voters were asked whether they approved of the Compact of Free Association between Palau and the United States signed on 10 January 1986. It was approved by 66% of voters with a turnout of 82%.
A seventh referendum on the Compact of Free Association was held in Palau on 6 February 1990, after the previous six referendums had failed to achieve the 75% in favour necessary. Voters were asked whether they approved of the Compact of Free Association between Palau and the United States signed on 10 January 1986. Although it was approved by voters, the quorum of 75% in favour was not reached, resulting in the referendum failing.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
