| May 1 |
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks became the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry “Annie Allen.”, 1950. |
| May 2 |
The Children’s Crusade began in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963. |
| May 3 |
The Supreme Court of the United States decided in the case of Shelley v. Kraemer that courts could not enforce racial covenants on real estate, 1948. |
| May 4 |
Thirteen Freedom Riders set off from Washington D.C. to New Orleans, LA, 1961. |
| May 5 |
Eugene Marino becomes first African American installed as a Roman Catholic archbishop in the U.S., 1988. |
| May 6 |
William Howard “Willie” Mays, Jr. hall of fame baseball player, was born in Westfield, Alabama, 1931. |
| May 7 |
Joseph R. Winters patents first fire escape ladder, 1878. |
| May 8 |
Matthew A. Cherry of Washington, D. C. received patent number 382,351 for improvements in velocipede (bicycle/tricycle), 1888. |
| May 9 |
John Albert Burr received patent number 624,749 for an improved rotary blade lawn-mower, 1899. |
| May 10 |
Pickney Benton Stewart Pinchback, the first African American to become governor of a state in the United States, was born in Macon, GA, 1837. |
| May 11 |
William Grant Still, the “Dean of African American Classical Composers” was born in Woodville, Mississippi, 1895. |
| May 12 |
Albert L. Murray, literary, music and social critic and novelist, was born in Nokomis, Alabama., 1916. |
| May 13 |
Joe Louis, hall of fame boxer known as “the Brown Bomber,” was born Joseph Louis Barrow in La Fayette, Alabama, 1914. |
| May 14 |
Rosa Jinsey Young, “the mother of Black Lutheranism in Alabama,” was born in Rosebud, Alabama, 1890. |
| May 15 |
Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity (the Boulé), the first African American Greek lettered organization, was founded in Philadelphia, PA, 1904. |
| May 16 |
Dr. William Harry Barnes becomes first African American board-certified medical specialist, 1927. |
| May 17 |
U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education decision, 1954. |
| May 18 |
Plessy vs. Ferguson, Supreme Court upholds the doctrine of “separate but equal” education and public accommodations, 1896. |
| May 19 |
Malcolm X, was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska, 1925. |
| May 20 |
John Matthew Shippen, Jr., the first African American professional golfer, died, 1968. |
| May 21 |
Katherine Mary Dunham, hall of fame dancer, choreographer, author, educator, activist and “Matriarch and Queen Mother of Black Dance,” died, 2006. |
| May 22 |
James Mercer Langston Hughes, poet, novelist and playwright, died, 1967. |
| May 23 |
Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, 1900. |
| May 24 |
Coleman Alexander Young, the first African American Mayor of Detroit, Michigan, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1918. |
| May 25 |
Madam C.J. Walker, first American woman to become a millionaire through her own business, died, 1919. |
| May 26 |
Miles Dewey Davis III, hall of fame jazz trumpeter, bandleader and composer, was born in Alton, Illinois, 1926. |
| May 27 |
Ernest Gideon Green became the first African American to graduate from Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1958. |
| May 28 |
Horace King, the most respected bridge builder in AL, GA, and northeastern MS during the mid-1800s, died, 1885. |
| May 29 |
Sojourner Truth delivered her famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, 1851. |
| May 30 |
Vivian Malone becomes the first African American to graduate from the University of Alabama, 1965. |
| May 31 |
The Tulsa Race War in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma occurred, resulting in 35 city blocks of residences being destroyed and 10,000 predominantly African American people left homeless, 1921. |
