Washington: Police in the US state of South Carolina charged a white officer Tuesday with the murder of a black man, one of a string of police shootings of African Americans in recent months.

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Here are some previous high-profile shootings of unarmed black men which have stoked accusations of racism and police brutality.

July 17, 2014: African American father-of-six Eric Garner, 43, dies after being held in a police chokehold while he is being arrested for selling individual cigarettes illegally in New York. A coroner declares the death a homicide, but a grand jury opts not to charge the white officer involved, unleashing demonstrations in several cities.

August 9: A white police officer kills an unarmed black teenager, aspiring college student Michael Brown, 18, unleashing sometimes violent protests and heavy-handed police tactics in Ferguson, Missouri. The later decision not to indict the police officer, Darren Wilson, prompts riots in Ferguson and raises racial tensions.

August 11: Ezell Ford, 25, an unarmed black man who is mentally disabled according to his family is killed by Los Angeles police officers as he walked in the street. His autopsy shows he was shot three times, including once in the back at close range.

November 20: An unarmed black man, Akai Gurley, 28, a father of a young daughter, is shot by an Asian-American officer who opens fire in a dimly lit staircase at a Brooklyn, New York apartment block. On the day of his funeral on December 7, New Yorkers take to the streets to denounce the spate of police killings. The police officer, Peter Liang, was charged with manslaughter.

November 22: In Cleveland, Ohio, a video emerges of US police officers shooting dead Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy carrying a replica gun, just seconds after confronting him.

Ohio was also the scene of another fatal shooting in August, when police responding to a 911 call shot and killed a black man, John Crawford, in a Walmart store while he was carrying a toy gun sold there.

March 6, 2015: Tony Terrell Robinson, 19, is killed in Madison, Wisconsin, by a police officer. The killing comes on the eve of the commemoration in Selma, Alabama of the 50th anniversary of the brutal repression of a protest demanding civic rights for blacks.

March 9: In the state of Georgia, a white policeman kills an unarmed black man, Anthony Hill, 27, who appeared to suffer from mental problems according to the police, who said he jumped on an officer, naked.

April 7: White police officer Michael Slager, 33, is charged after a video surfaced of the April 4 shooting that killed 50-year-old Walter Scott in the city of North Charleston in South Carolina.