1868: Black activists fought to establish the 14th Amendment to recognize all individuals born to or naturalized in the United States to be citizens.

1869: American abolitionist Frederick Douglass denounced the Chinese Exclusion Act in his “Composite nation” Speech.

1897: The U.S. Supreme Court, based on the 14th Amendment, favored Wong Kim Ark’s case and recognized birthright citizenship (jus soli).

Since the 1890s, freedom fighters from Asia and Black America have been learning from each other.

Mohandas Gandhi gained insights from the American abolitionists and Booker T. Washington. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was directly influenced by Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. These mutual influences continued in aspects of philosophic, religious, and scientific practices among their followers.

• Read more: When Martin Luther King’s mentors met with Gandhi in the 1930s (crossculturalsolidarity.com)

There are numerous examples of Filipino-African American families, such as Rufina Clementi and her husband Sgt. Francis Jenkins (a Buffalo Soldier in the US Army), who were the first Filipino American family to settle in Seattle in 1909. Cecelia Suyat Marshall was wife to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The descendants of both families have continued to be involved in Black civil rights and public service.

During the 1920s-1930s, Hucheshwar Gurusidha Mudgal was reporter and acting managing editor for The Daily Negro Times and the Negro World by Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey (in New York).

Since the 1950s, many Asian Americans have worked with Black American civil rights activists to fight for freedom for all. Here are a few examples: Yuri Kochiyama in Berkeley/Oakland, Grace Lee Boggs in Detroit, Kiyoshi Kuromiya and Rev. Mineo Katagiri, who also established the Asian Coalition for Equality striving for a multiracial coalition in 1969.

• Find other Asian Americans in the People’s History of the United States (Zinn Education Project)

CK Yang, a Taiwanese athlete of Austronesian heritage and Rafer Johnson, the first African American flag bearer at the 1960 Olympics competed fiercely in the sports arena while developing a lifetime friendship that transcended boundaries. 

Full Documentary Decathlon: The CK Yang & Rafer Johnson Story 奧運傳奇：楊傳廣與強森

The Civil Rights Movement protected equal rights of all races, including immigrants in the United States. It further paved the road of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act that brought in immigrants from Asia.

The number of immigrants from various Asian nations grew from 7.3 million in the 1970s to 14.1 million in 2019, a 29-fold increase since the 1960s.

Not only African American soldiers, but also Black leaders used their platforms to speak about the unjust war in Vietnam. In 1967, Dr. Martin L. King gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech. In 1969 African American journalist Wallace Terry II, working for TIME, interviewed almost 400 Black soldiers: more than half believed that US racism should have been their fight, not their engagements in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Japanese and African Americans joined forces to repeal The Emergency Detention Act that had lead to presidential power to establish concentration camps.

• Read more: The Asian American Response to Black Lives Matter Is Part of a Long, Complicated History (TIME)

In 1968/1969, young people in their early 20s took initiatives and built multiracial coalitions in California that helped create the field of Ethnic Studies, where racial/ethnic minorities could learn about their histories and contributions to the United States.

In 1982, Chinese American Vincent Chin was brutally murdered. When the perpetrators of this hate crime went unpunished, Rev. Jesse Jackson visited Lily Chin, Vincent’s mother to show support.

Almost 40 years later, when Anti-Asian hate increased expeditiously during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rev. Jesse Jackson continued showing his support for Asian Americans.

In 1986, the Black Korean Alliance consisted of 20 African Americans and Korean Americans convinced to build better relationships through dialogue.

In 1991 shortly after Rodney King was severely beaten, a Korean store owner, Soon Ja Du, accused Latasha Harlins —a young Black American woman— of stealing and fatally shot her. After Du’s sentencing and the police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted in 1992, anger toward the continuous unjust treatment of Black people’s lives erupted into a violent conflict in L.A.

In 1992, the Black Korean Alliance was dissolved.

In 1988, Japanese Americans received reparations from the United States government for their mass imprisonments during World War II. Almost 4 decades later, Japanese Americans are continuing the fight for justice, but this time for Black Americans who are still affected by their country's history of slavery. The fight is occurring from city-wide to country-wide levels, and committees are now being formed to approach the sensitive and necessary topic.