| Apr 1 |
Dr. Charles R. Drew, medical researcher who developed techniques for processing and preserving blood, died in a car accident, 1950. |
| Apr 2 |
Georgetown coach John Thompson becomes first African American coach to win NCAA basketball tournament, 1984. |
| Apr 3 |
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in support of the striking sanitation workers in Memphis, TN, 1968. |
| Apr 4 |
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, 1968. |
| Apr 5 |
Booker Taliaferro Washington, educator, author and political leader, was born enslaved on the Burroughs Plantation in Virginia, 1856. |
| Apr 6 |
Matthew A. Henson becomes one of the first people to reach the North Pole, 1909. |
| Apr 7 |
Granville T. Woods patents (#315,368) apparatus for transmission of messages by electricity, 1885. |
| Apr 8 |
Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth as Major League Baseball’s all-time home-run leader, 1974. |
| Apr 9 |
Marian Anderson performed her critically acclaimed concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, 1939. |
| Apr 10 |
Robert Lee Elder became the first African American to play in the Masters Golf Tournament, 1975. |
| Apr 11 |
Percy Lavon Julian, research chemist and pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs from plants, was born in Montgomery, Alabama, 1899. |
| Apr 12 |
Harold Washington becomes first African American mayor of Chicago, 1983. |
| Apr 13 |
Sidney Poitier became the first African American man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the movie “Lilies of the Field”, 1964. |
| Apr 14 |
First abolitionist society in U.S. is founded in Philadelphia, 1775. |
| Apr 15 |
Jackie Robinson became the first African American major league baseball player of the modern era, 1947. |
| Apr 16 |
Slavery abolished in the District of Columbia, 1862. |
| Apr 17 |
Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, businessman, politician and the first elected African American municipal judge, was born in Philadelphia, PA, 1823. |
| Apr 18 |
Alice Walker wins Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Color Purple, 1983. |
| Apr 19 |
Stationed in Germany, Major Gen. Frederic E. Davidson becomes first Black to lead an army division, 1972. |
| Apr 20 |
George Faison became the first African American to win the Tony Award for Best Choreographer – “The Wiz”, 1975. |
| Apr 21 |
Locksley Wellington “Slide” Hampton, jazz trombonist, composer and arranger, was born in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, 1932. |
| Apr 22 |
Catherine L. Hughes, business executive and founder of Radio One & TV One, was born Catherine Elizabeth Woods in Omaha, Nebraska, 1947. |
| Apr 23 |
Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus patents photographic print washer patent number 537,968. 1895. |
| Apr 24 |
David Harold Blackwell, the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, was born in Centralia, Illinois, 1919. |
| Apr 25 |
The United Negro College Fund was founded to raise funds for private historically Black colleges and universities, 1944. |
| Apr 26 |
Sarah Boone patents ironing board, patent number 473,653. 1892. |
| Apr 27 |
Coretta Scott King, civil rights leader and author, was born in Marion, Alabama, 1927. |
| Apr 28 |
Sojourner Truth, abolitionist & women’s rights activist, first African American woman to be honored with a bust in the U.S. Capitol, 2009. |
| Apr 29 |
Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, hall of fame pianist, composer and big band leader, was born in Washington, D. C., 1899. |
| Apr 30 |
Michelle J. Howard, first African American woman to command a U.S. Navy ship and first female four-star admiral, was born in Riverside, CA, 1960. |
