Oct 1 |
The 24th Infantry Regiment (the deuce four), the last all-Black military unit, was deactivated in Korea, 1951. |
Oct 2 |
Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the first African American Justice of the Supreme Court, 1967. |
Oct 3 |
Nat King Cole becomes first African American to host his own TV show, 1956. |
Oct 4 |
Geoffrey S. Fletcher, first African American to receive an Academy Award for writing “Precious…” was born in New London, CT, 1970. |
Oct 5 |
Autherine Juanita Lucy, the first African American student to attend the University of Alabama, was born in Shiloh, Alabama, 1929. |
Oct 6 |
Fannie Lou Townsend Hamer, voting rights activist and civil rights leader, was born in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1917. |
Oct 7 |
Toni Morrison became the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1993. |
Oct 8 |
Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., clergyman and civil rights leader, was born Jesse Louis Burns in Greenville, South Carolina, 1941. |
Oct 9 |
Eugene Jacques Bullard, the only African American pilot in World War I, was born in Columbus, Georgia, 1894. |
Oct 10 |
Frederick Douglass Patterson, educator and founder of the United Negro College Fund, was born in Washington, D. C., 1901. |
Oct 11 |
Granville T. Woods patents telephone system and apparatus, patent number 371,241., 1887. |
Oct 12 |
Wilton Norman “Wilt” Chamberlain, only player in NBA history to score 100 points in a game and average 50 points per game in a season, died, 1999. |
Oct 13 |
Shirley Ann Caesar, hall of fame gospel singer and songwriter known as “First Lady of Gospel,” was born in Durham, North Carolina, 1938. |
Oct 14 |
At age 35, Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes youngest man ever to win Nobel Peace Prize, 1964. |
Oct 15 |
The AL Penny Savings Bank was founded in Birmingham, AL. One of the first 3 African American owned and operated U.S. financial institutions, 1890. |
Oct 16 |
Million Man March held in Washington, D.C., 1995. |
Oct 17 |
Mae Carol Jemison, hall of fame astronaut, physician and the first African American woman in space, was born in Decatur, Alabama, 1956. |
Oct 18 |
Terry McMillan, author, was born in Port Huron, Michigan, 1951. |
Oct 19 |
Richard Arrington, Jr., the first African American Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, was born in Livingston, Alabama, 1934. |
Oct 20 |
Fayard Antonio Nicholas, half of the hall of fame Nicholas Brothers dance team, was born in Mobile, Alabama, 1914. |
Oct 21 |
Valerie Thomas received patent number 4,229,761 for her invention of the Illusion Transmitter, 1980. |
Oct 22 |
The Supremes become the first all-female music group to attain a No. 1 selling album (The Supremes A’ Go-Go), 1966. |
Oct 23 |
William A. Leidesdorff, one of the first Black settlers in CA, often called the first Black millionaire, was born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands, 1810. |
Oct 24 |
Marjorie S. Joyner, inventor of the permanent wave machine, patent number 1,693,515, was born in Monterey, VA, 1896. |
Oct 25 |
Emmett W. Chappelle, hall of fame scientist and researcher, was born in Phoenix, Arizona, 1925. |
Oct 26 |
Regina Marcia Benjamin, former Surgeon General of the United States, was born in Mobile, Alabama, 1956. |
Oct 27 |
Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes first African American general in U.S. Air Force, 1954. |
Oct 28 |
Leonard Randolph “Lenny” Wilkens, hall of fame basketball player and coach, was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1937. |
Oct 29 |
Martha Minerva Franklin, hall of fame nurse and founder of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses, was born in New Milford, CT, 1870. |
Oct 30 |
Richard Arrington elected first African American mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, 1979. |
Oct 31 |
Ethel Waters, hall of fame gospel, blues and jazz vocalist and actress, was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, 1896. |