| Feb 1 |
National Freedom Day. President Lincoln signed resolution that proposed the 13th Amendment which would officially abolish slavery, 1865. |
| Feb 2 |
Alfred L. Cralle received patent # 576395 for a lever operated ice cream scoop, a design still widely used today, 1897. |
| Feb 3 |
Eric H. Holder Jr. sworn in as the nation’s first African American attorney general, 2009. |
| Feb 4 |
Rosa Parks, civil rights pioneer, who sparked the 1955 Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, 1913. |
| Feb 5 |
Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron, hall of fame baseball player, was born in Mobile, Alabama, 1934. |
| Feb 6 |
Arthur Ashe Jr., hall of fame tennis player, humanitarian and activist, dies, 1993. |
| Feb 7 |
The first day of Negro History Week, originated by historian Carter G. Woodson. Negro History Week later became Black History Month, 1926. |
| Feb 8 |
Debra Janine “Debi” Thomas became the first African American to win the United States National Ladies’ Figure Skating title, 1986. |
| Feb 9 |
Bernard Anthony Harris, Jr. becomes first African American astronaut to walk in space, 1995. |
| Feb 10 |
Mary Violet Leontyne Price, internationally acclaimed opera singer, was born in Laurel, Mississippi, 1927. |
| Feb 11 |
Nelson Mandela of South Africa is released from prison after 27 years, 1990. |
| Feb 12 |
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded, 1909. |
| Feb 13 |
Edward Gay Robinson, hall of fame football coach, was born in Jackson, Louisiana, 1919. |
| Feb 14 |
Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, women’s suffragist, editor, author and statesman, was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, 1818. |
| Feb 15 |
Henry Lewis becomes the first African American to lead a symphony orchestra in the United States, 1968. |
| Feb 16 |
James Baskett, first African American male actor to receive an Oscar, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, 1904. |
| Feb 17 |
James Nathaniel “Jim” Brown, hall of fame football player and actor, was born in St. Simons Island, Georgia, 1936. |
| Feb 18 |
Toni Morrison, recipient of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature and the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved was born in Lorain, Ohio, 1931. |
| Feb 19 |
Vonetta Flowers becomes Winter Olympics’ first African American gold medalist, 2002. |
| Feb 20 |
Sidney Poitier, actor, director, author and diplomat, was born in Miami, Florida, 1927. |
| Feb 21 |
John Robert Lewis, civil rights leader, politician and author, was born in Troy, Alabama, 1940. |
| Feb 22 |
James Reese Europe, ragtime and jazz bandleader, arranger and composer, was born in Mobile, Alabama, 1881. |
| Feb 23 |
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, civil rights activist, historian and author, was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 1868. |
| Feb 24 |
Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes first African American woman to receive a medical degree (New England Female Medical College), 1864. |
| Feb 25 |
Hiram R. Revels, first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate. He filled the seat once held by Jefferson Davis, 1870. |
| Feb 26 |
Civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson dies after being shot by state police in Marion, Alabama, 1965. |
| Feb 27 |
Marian Anderson, world- renowned opera singer and civil rights activist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1897. |
| Feb 28 |
Michael Jackson, musician and entertainer, wins eight Grammy Awards, 1984. |
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