Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated by dragging the pointer on the timeline bar, located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile. To filter by a specific topic, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. To learn more, click “Read More” below.

Read More
Two men seen pushing a cart full of raw materials on a railway. In the background, there are crops.
Photograph of Jamaican workers on the Panama Canal.

Black workers on the Panama Canal are assigned to areas with high malaria infection rates.

1903

EPD
GLSO
BH
SRA
Photograph of Jamaican workers on the Panama Canal.

The white American administrators who oversee the construction of the Panama Canal believe that Black people have a "special tolerance" to malaria and are innately less sickened by infection. As such, Black workers are brought from the Caribbean, a region that has very little malaria, and the complete opposite to the racist stereotype proves to be true as the Black workers grow sicker with malaria than many of their white counterparts.