CALENDAR - Alabama African American History

THE 2018 CALENDAR

2018 Alabama African American History cover

Please select a month below to view the featured black history events we’ve chosen for this year. Click the calendar cover above to download a copy. Calendars from past years can be downloaded from the Archives.

JANUARY

Jan 1	President Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, 1863.
Jan 2	Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in the United States, was born in Philadelphia, 1898.
Jan 3	William Tucker, the first recorded African American born in the American colonies, was born in Jamestown, Virginia, 1624.
Jan 4	Grace Bumbry, opera singer, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, 1937.
Jan 5	Alvin Ailey, Jr., hall of fame choreographer and activist, was born in Rogers, Texas, 1931.
Jan 6	Louis Allen Rawls, soul, jazz and blues singer, died in 2006.
Jan 7	Zora Neale Hurston, authorand playwright, was born in Notasulga, Alabama, 1891.
Jan 8	Charles Deslondes leads slave revolt in Louisiana, 1811.
Jan 9	Earl Gilbert Graves, Sr., publisher, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder of Black Enterprise magazine was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1935.
Jan 10	George Washington Carver, agricultural scientist, inventor, and educator born in 1864.
Jan 11	Reuben V. Anderson, first African American to be appointed to Mississippi Supreme Court, 1985.
Jan 12	U.S. Supreme Court rules that African Americans have the right to study law at state institutions, 1948.
Jan 13	Douglas Wilder becomes first African American U.S. governor (Virginia) since Reconstruction, 1990.
Jan 14	Dudley Randall, founder of Broadside Press, was born in Washington, D.C, 1914.
Jan 15	Martin Luther King, Jr., clergy-man, activist and leader of the Civil Rights Movement, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, 1929.
Jan 16	Marcelite Jordan Harris, the first African American female general in the United States Air Force, was born in Houston, Texas, 1943.
Jan 17	Three-time heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky, 1942.
Jan 18	Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, pioneer heart surgeon, was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, 1856.
Jan 19	John Harold Johnson, publisher (Ebony and Jet magazines), author, and businessman was born in Arkansas City, Arkansas, 1918.
Jan 20	Colin Luther Powell became the first African American United States Secretary of State, 2001.
Jan 21	Leonard Roy Harmon, the first African American to have a navy ship named in his honor, was born In Cuero, Texas, 1917.
Jan 22	Susan Rice confirmed as U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., the first African American female to hold that position, 2009.
Jan 23	“Roots” the television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s book “Roots: The Saga of an American Family,” began airing on ABC, 1977.
Jan 24	Jackie Robinson is first African American elected to Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962.
Jan 25	Black Entertainment Television began broadcasting, 1980.
Jan 26	Angela Yvonne Davis, political activist and educator, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, 1944.
Jan 27	Leontyne Price made her Metropolitan Opera debut, 1961.
Jan 28	Ronald Ervin McNair, physicist & NASA astronaut, died, along with six other crew members, during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger, 1986.
Jan 29	Violette Nealy Anderson becomes the first African American woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, 1926.
Jan 30	Franklin Thomas named president of Ford Foundation, 1979.
Jan 31	Benjamin Lawson Hooks, attorney, minister and civil rights leader, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, 1925.

FEBRUARY

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.

MARCH

Mar 1	The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was signed into law by President Ulysses Grant, 1875.
Mar 2	David Satcher, physician, United States Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health, was born in Anniston, Alabama, 1941.
Mar 3	Thomas L. Jennings, first African American to receive a U.S. patent (number 3306x) for a dry-scouring process, now known as dry-cleaning, 1821.
Mar 4	Garrett Augustus Morgan, Sr., inventor and entrepreneur, was born in Paris, Kentucky, 1877.
Mar 5	Crispus Attucks, one of the first casualties of the American Revolution, was killed in the Boston Massacre, 1770.
Mar 6	The Supreme Court decided Dred Scott v. Sandford. This opinion declared that slaves were not U.S. citizens and could not sue in Federal courts, 1857.
Mar 7	The first Selma to Montgomery march ended when marchers were attacked by state and local police at the Edmund Pettus Bridge “Bloody Sunday”, 1965.
Mar 8	Alexander T. Augusta, surgeon, Civil War veteran, and highest- ranking African American officer in the Union Army, born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1825.
Mar 9	Oscar Stanton De Priest, the first African American elected to Congress in the 20th century, was born in Florence, Alabama., 1871.
Mar 10	Harriet Tubman, abolitionist, Union Army spy and suffragist, died. Tubman was buried with military honors, 1913.
Mar 11	Ralph David Abernathy, minister and civil rights leader, was born in Linden, Alabama, 1926.
Mar 12	Virginia Hamilton, children’s books author, was born in Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1936.
Mar 13	Cowtown/Work to Ride polo team from Philadelphia, PA, first African American team to win the National Interscholastic Polo Championship, 2011.
Mar 14	Quincy Delight Jones, Jr., trumpeter, music conductor and arranger, record producer, and film composer, was born in Chicago, Illinois, 1933.
Mar 15	Joseph Jenkins Roberts, the first President of the Republic of Liberia, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1809.
Mar 16	Mississippi became the last state to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which abolished slavery, 1995.
Mar 17	Nathaniel Adams “Nat King” Cole, hall of fame jazz pianist and singer, was born in Montgomery, Alabama, 1919.
Mar 18	Fred Shuttlesworth, minister and civil rights activist, was born Freddie Lee Robinson in Mount Meigs, Alabama, 1922.
Mar 19	Rev. Leon Sullivan elected to board of directors of General Motors, 1971.
Mar 20	Jan E. Matzeliger received patent 274,207 for his Automatic Method for Lasting Shoes, 1883.
Mar 21	Lewis H. Latimer of New York City shared patent number 255,212 for a Globe Supporter for Electric Lamps, 1882.
Mar 22	Joseph Paul Reason, the first African American four-star admiral in the United States Navy, was born in Washington, D. C., 1941.
Mar 23	Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr., the first African American mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, was born in Dallas, Texas, 1938.
Mar 24	Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg, the first African American female to hold a commercial pilot license, was born in Griffin, Georgia, 1907.
Mar 25	Aretha Louise Franklin, hall of fame pianist, singer and songwriter, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, 1942.
Mar 26	Thomas J. Martin of Dowagiac, Michigan received patent number 125,063 for improvements in the fire extinguisher, 1872.
Mar 27	Arthur Mitchell, hall of fame dancer and choreographer, was born in Harlem, New York, 1934.
Mar 28	William Christopher “W. C.” Handy, hall of fame blues composer and musician, died, 1958.
Mar 29	Andrew Jackson Beard, hall of fame inventor, was born in Woodland, Alabama, 1849.
Mar 30	The Fifteenth Amendment was adopted into the Constitution granting African American men the right to vote, 1870.
Mar 31	Thomas M. Peterson of Perth Amboy, NJ cast the first vote by an African American after the passage of the 15th Amendment, 1870.

APRIL

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.

MAY

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.

JUNE

June 1	Morgan Porterfield Freeman, Jr., actor and film director was born in Memphis, Tennessee, 1937.
June 2	Charles Sifford, hall of fame golfer who helped to desegregate the PGA of America, was born in Charlotte, NC, 1922.
June 3	Josephine Baker, entertainer and actress, was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, 1906.
June 4	Roland G. Fryer, Jr., youngest African American ever granted tenure at Harvard University, was born in Daytona Beach, 1977.
June 5	John Wesley Carlos, hall of fame track and field athlete and 1968 Olympics medal ceremony protester, was born in Harlem, New York, 1945.
June 6	Tommie Smith, hall of fame track and field athlete and 1968 Olympics medal ceremony protester, was born in Clarksville, Texas, 1944.
June 7	Gail Fisher became the first African American to win an Emmy Award, 1970.
June 8	William D. “Willie” Davenport, hall of fame track and field athlete, was born in Troy, Alabama, 1943.
June 9	William Pinkney became the fourth American and the first African American to sail solo around the world, 1992.
June 10	Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., publisher, entrepreneur, orator and Black Nationalist, died., 1940.
June 11	George Wallace stood in the doorway of Foster Auditorium blocking Malone and Hood, from enrolling, 1963.
June 12	Medgar W. Evers, civil rights leader, is assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi, 1963.
June 13	Thurgood Marshall nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Lyndon Johnson, 1967.
June 14	Nat (pronounced Nate) Love, one of the most famous cowboys of the Old West, was born in Davidson County, Tennessee, 1854.
June 15	Ella Jane Fitzgerald, hall of fame jazz and pop vocalist also known as the “First Lady of Song,” died, 1996.
June 16	Eddie Levert, lead vocalist of the R&B vocal group The O’Jays, was born in Bessemer, Alabama, 1942.
June 17	Minuteman Peter Salem fights in the Battle of Bunker Hill, 1775.
June 18	Sallie Martin, the “Mother of Gospel Music” and entrepreneur, died, 1988.
June 19	African Americans in Texas are notified of Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863. “Juneteenth,” marks the event, 1865.
June 20	Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr., singer, songwriter and record producer, was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, 1949.
June 21	James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, civil rights activist, were murdered near Philadelphia, MS, 1964.
June 22	Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling at 2:04 of 1st round at Yankee Stadium, 1938.
June 23	Wilma Rudolph, first American woman to win 3 Gold medals in track and field in a single Olympic Games, was born in Clarksdale, TN, 1940.
June 24	Jeanine Menze became the first African American female to earn United States Coast Guard aviation designation, 2005.
June 25	James H. Meredith, the first African American student at the University of Mississippi, was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, 1933.
June 26	James Weldon Johnson, author, diplomat, poet, songwriter of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, and civil rights activist died, 1938.
June 27	Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet, was born in Dayton, Ohio, 1872.
June 28	U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Muhammad Ali for refusing to be inducted into the military, 1971.
June 29	Charles Everett Dumas became the first person to high jump seven feet, 1956.
June 30	Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist, was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1917.

JULY

July 1	Frederick Carlton “Carl” Lewis, hall of fame track and field athlete, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, 1961.
July 2	The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964.
July 3	Macon Bolling Allen became the first African American licensed to practice law in the United States, 1844.
July 4	Arthur George “A. G.” Gaston, entrepreneur and businessman, was born in Demopolis, Alabama, 1892.
July 5	Andrew Jackson Beard of Woodlawn, Alabama received patent number 478,271 for an improved rotary steam engine, 1892.
July 6	Donnie L. Cochran, first African American to command the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, was born near Pelham, GA, 1954.
July 7	Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, hall of fame baseball player, was born in Mobile, Alabama, 1906.
July 8	The Clotilda, the last known United States slave ship to bring enslaved Africans to the U. S., arrived in Alabama with 110 African captives, 1860.
July 9	Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs first successful open heart surgery, 1893.
July 10	Mary Jane McLeod Bethune, hall of fame educator and civil rights leader, was born in Mayesville, South Carolina, 1875.
July 11	W.E.B. DuBois and William Monroe Trotter organize the Niagara Movement, a forerunner of the NAACP, 1905.
July 12	Frederick McKinley Jones received three patents (numbers 2,475,841 – 2,475,843). Patent 2,475,841 was for a portable air-cooling unit for trucks, 1949.
July 13	Thurgood Marshall becomes first African American appointed U.S. solicitor general, 1965.
July 14	Sarah E. Goode, first African American woman to receive a patent (322,177) for her invention of the cabinet bed, 1885.
July 15	Maggie Lena Walker, hall of fame businesswoman, educator and the first female bank president, was born in Richmond, Virginia, 1864.
July 16	Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, journalist and civil and women’s rights activist, was born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi, 1862.
July 17	Billie Holiday, hall of fame Jazz singer and songwriter known as “Lady Day,” died, 1959.
July 18	Nelson R. Mandela, first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election, was born in Mvezo, South Africa, 1918.
July 19	William Henry Hastie was confirmed as Judge of the Third U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the first African American federal circuit judge, 1950.
July 20	Violet Palmer, the first woman to officiate a National Basketball Association game, was born in Compton, California, 1964.
July 21	The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Inc. was founded in Washington, D.C., 1896.
July 22	Emlen Lewis Tunnell, the first African American inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, died, 1975.
July 23	Jackie Robinson becomes first African American baseball player in the major leagues inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1962.
July 24	Alexander Dumas, playwright and novelist, was born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie in Picardy, France, 1802.
July 25	Garrett A. Morgan, Sr. used his gas mask to rescue men trapped in an underground tunnel, 1916.
July 26	President Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in armed forces, 1948.
July 27	The Chicago Race Riots, the worst of the country’s riots during the Red Summer of 1919, began, 1919.
July 28	14th Amendment, granting African Americans full citizenship rights, becomes part of the Constitution, 1868.
July 29	Keeth Thomas Smart, the first American to be named the top-ranked fencer internationally, was born in Brooklyn, New York, 1978.
July 30	Elizabeth R. Haynes, first African American woman to serve on the national board of the YWCA, was born in Lowndes County, AL, 1883.
July 31	Whitney Moore Young, Jr., civil rights leader, was born in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky, 1921.

AUGUST

Aug 1	Michael Duane Johnson became the first man to win Gold medals in the 200 and 400 meter races at the same Olympic Games, 1996.
Aug 2	James Arthur Baldwin, novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and civil rights activist, was born in Harlem, New York, 1924.
Aug 3	Frank Godden instrumental in the growth of the Santa Clarita Valley’s Val Verde, known as “the black Palm Springs,” died, 2012.
Aug 4	Barack Hussein Obama II, the first African American President of the United States, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1961.
Aug 5	Shirley Jackson, first female and African American president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was born in Washington, D. C., 1946.
Aug 6	President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the National Voting Rights Act, guaranteeing African Americans the right to vote, 1965.
Aug 7	Ralph Johnson Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize winner, political scientist and diplomat, was born in Detroit, Michigan, 1904.
Aug 8	William Augustus Hinton, bacteriologist, pathologist, educator, and first African American to publish a medical textbook, died, 1959.
Aug 9	Jesse Owens wins fourth gold medal at Summer Olympics in Berlin, 1936.
Aug 10	General Colin Powell is nominated chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first African American to hold the post, 1989.
Aug 11	Alex Haley, author of “Roots” and “The Autobiography of Malcom X”, was born in Ithaca, New York, 1921.
Aug 12	Emma Ophelia DeVore, the first prominent African American model in the United States, was born in Edgefield, South Carolina, 1922.
Aug 13	The Brownsville Raid of 1906, “Brownsville Affair,” resulted in the largest U.S. Army dismissal, 167 African American soldiers, 1906.
Aug 14	Maria Halle Berry, first African American to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, 1966.
Aug 15	Monroe Nathan Work, sociologist and bibliographer, and publisher of the “Negro Year Book”, was born in Iredell County, North Carolina, 1866.
Aug 16	Carol Elizabeth Moseley Braun, the first African American woman elected to the United States Senate, was born in Chicago, Illinois, 1947.
Aug 17	Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr., publisher, entrepreneur, orator and Black Nationalist, was born in St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica, 1887.
Aug 18	James H. Meredith became the first African American to graduate from the University of Mississippi, 1963.
Aug 19	Benjamin Banneker, wrote a letter to then U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson pointing out the hypocrisy of slavery, 1791.
Aug 20	The first 20 Africans were brought to what would become Jamestown, Virginia aboard a Dutch ship, 1619.
Aug 21	George Franklin Grant, pioneering dentist and inventor of the golf tee, patent number 638,920, died, 1910.
Aug 22	The Haitian Revolution began when slaves in Saint Domingue (Haiti) rose in revolt and plunged the colony into a 12 year war, 1791.
Aug 23	The National Negro Business League was founded in Boston, Massachusetts with Booker T. Washington as its first president, 1900.
Aug 24	Bayard Rustin, civil rights leader and the chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, died, 1987.
Aug 25	Althea Gibson, first African American to win the French, Wimbledon, and U. S. Open singles titles, was born in Silver, South Carolina, 1927.
Aug 26	19th Amendment to the Constitution ratified, giving women the right to vote, 1920.
Aug 27	William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, civil rights activist, historian and author, died, 1963.
Aug 28	March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and Dr. King delivers his “I have a dream” speech, 1963.
Aug 29	Michael Joseph Jackson, hall of fame singer and the “King of Pop,” was born in Gary, Indiana, 1958.
Aug 30	Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. becomes the first African American to travel in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger, 1983.
Aug 31	Marva Collins, educator and author, was born in Monroeville, Alabama, 1936.

SEPTEMBER

Sep 1	Halle Tanner Dillion Johnson becomes first woman of any race to practice medicine in Alabama, 1891.
Sep 2	Joseph Hatchett, becomes first African American Supreme Court justice in FL, 1975.
Sep 3	Dorothy Maynor, concert soprano and founder of the Harlem School of Arts, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, 1910.
Sep 4	Lewis Howard Latimer, draftsman and hall of fame inventor, was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, 1848.
Sep 5	Claudette Colvin, civil rights pioneer, arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat on March 2, 1955, was born in Montgomery, AL, 1939.
Sep 6	Lee Roy Young, Jr. became the first African American Texas Ranger in the police force’s 165-year history, 1988.
Sep 7	Earl Manigault, street basketball player known as “The Goat,” was born in Charleston, South Carolina, 1944.
Sep 8	Ruby Bridges Hall, first African American to desegregate a southern elementary school, was born in Tylertown, MS, 1954.
Sep 9	Sonia Sanchez, poet and playwright, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, 1934.
Sep 10	Hoyt William Fuller, editor, critic and leading figure in the Black Arts Movement, was born in Atlanta, Georgia, 1923.
Sep 11	James Charles Evers, first African American elected mayor of a MS city since Reconstruction, was born in Decatur, MS, 1922.
Sep 12	Mae Carol Jemison becomes first African American woman to travel in space, 1992.
Sep 13	Nell Carter, singer and film, stage, and television actress, was born Nell Ruth Hardy in Birmingham, Alabama, 1948.
Sep 14	Prince Hall, the founder of “Black Freemasonry,” was born (approximate birth date), 1735.
Sep 15	The 16th Street Baptist Church bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963.
Sep 16	Frederick McKinley Jones became the first African American awarded the National Medal of Technology, 1991.
Sep 17	Vanessa Williams becomes first African American woman named Miss America, 1983.
Sep 18	Booker T. Washington delivered his “Atlanta Compromise” speech at the Cotton States and International Expo in Atlanta, GA, 1895.
Sep 19	The first International Congress of Black Writers and Artists was convened at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, 1956.
Sep 20	Charles Howard Wright, physician, author and museum founder, was born in Dothan, Alabama, 1918.
Sep 21	Clifford Leopold Alexander, Jr., lawyer, businessman and the first African American Secretary of the Army, was born in New York City, 1933.
Sep 22	The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ordered an end to segregation on interstate transportation and within transportation facilities, 1961.
Sep 23	Nancy Green, born a slave, one of the first African Americans hired to promote a corporate trademark “Aunt Jemima”, died, 1923.
Sep 24	Executive Order 11246 was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson requiring equal employment opportunity, 1965.
Sep 25	William Craft, subject of “Running…; or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery”, was born in Macon, GA, 1824.
Sep 26	William Levi Dawson, professor, choir director, and composer, was born in Anniston, Alabama, 1899.
Sep 27	Donald Cortez Cornelius, television show host and producer (Soul Train), was born in Chicago, Illinois, 1936.
Sep 28	The National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. was formed in Atlanta, Georgia, 1895.
Sep 29	The Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes (The National Urban League) founded in New York City, 1910.
Sep 30	Charles Sylvan “Cholly” Atkins, dancer and Tony Award winning choreographer, was born in Pratt City, Alabama, 1913.

OCTOBER

Jan 1

President Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation, 1863.

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.

NOVEMBER

Nov 1	John H. Johnson published the first issue of Ebony Magazine, 1945.
Nov 2	President Ronald Reagan signed the legislation creating a federal Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, 1983.
Nov 3	John Baxter Taylor, Jr., the first African American to win an Olympic Gold medal, was born in Washington, D. C., 1883.
Nov 4	Barack Obama was elected the first African American President of the United States, 2008.
Nov 5	Shirley Chisolm of Brooklyn, N.Y., becomes the first African American woman elected to Congress, 1968.
Nov 6	James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson compose “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, widely regarded as the Black national anthem, 1901.
Nov 7	Douglas Wilder becomes the first African American to be elected governor in the United States, 1989.
Nov 8	Crystal B. Fauset, elected state representative in PA, becoming the first African American woman to serve in a state legislature, 1938.
Nov 9	Benjamin Banneker, mathematician, inventor, astronomer, surveyor and almanac author, was born in Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, 1731.
Nov 10	Benjamin Thornton received patent number 1,831,331 for an Apparatus for automatically recording telephone messages, 1931.
Nov 11	George R. Carruthers awarded patent 3,478,216 for his Image Converter for Detecting Electromagnetic Radiation, 1969.
Nov 12	The National Negro Opera Company was founded in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania by Mary Cardwell Dawson, 1941.
Nov 13	Whoopi Goldberg, actress, comedienne and activist, was born Caryn Elaine Johnson in New York City, 1955.
Nov 14	Condoleezza Rice, professor, diplomat and national security expert, was born in Birmingham, Alabama, 1954.
Nov 15	Lydia Newman of New York City received patent number 614,335 for a new and improved hair brush, 1898.
Nov 16	William Christopher “W.C.” Handy, hall of fame blues composer and musician, was born in Florence, Alabama, 1873.
Nov 17	Samuel L. Younge, Jr., first African American college student to die in the Civil Rights Movement, was born in Tuskegee, AL, 1944.
Nov 18	Harold W. Moon, one of only two people to be enshrined in the Canadian and the Pro Football Hall of Fame, was born in Los Angeles, CA, 1956.
Nov 19	Annette Gordon-Reed, first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for History “The Hemingses of Monticello….” born in Livingston, TX, 1958.
Nov 20	Dominique M. Dawes, member of the first U.S. women’s team to win an Olympic Gold in gymnastics, was born in Silver Spring, MD, 1976.
Nov 21	George Branham, III, the first African American to win a Professional Bowlers Association title, was born in Detroit, Michigan, 1962.
Nov 22	William J. Powell, the first African American to design, build and operate his own golf course, was born in Greenville, Alabama, 1916.
Nov 23	John L. Love, received patent 594,114 for a pencil sharpener that used a crank to sharpen pencils, 1897.
Nov 24	Oscar Palmer Robertson “The Big O”, hall of fame basketball player, was born in Charlotte, Tennessee, 1938.
Nov 25	Percy Sledge, hall of fame R&B and soul performer, was born in Leighton, Alabama, 1940.
Nov 26	Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and women’s rights activist, died, 1883.
Nov 27	James Marshall “Jimi” Hendrix, hall of fame guitarist, singer and songwriter, was born in Seattle, Washington, 1942.
Nov 28	Berry Gordy, Jr., hall of fame record producer and founder of Motown Records, was born in Detroit, Michigan, 1929.
Nov 29	Coleman Alexander Young, the first African American Mayor of Detroit, Michigan, died, 1997.
Nov 30	James Arthur Baldwin, novelist, playwright, poet, essayist and civil rights activist, died, 1987.

DECEMBER

Dec 1	Rosa Louise McCauley Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus, 1955.
Dec 2	Odetta Holmes, singer, actress, songwriter, human rights activist, “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”, died, 2008.
Dec 3	Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of North Star, 1847.
Dec 4	The American Anti-Slavery Society was founded to abolish slavery in the U.S. under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, 1833.
Dec 5	Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott began, 1955.
Dec 6	The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted, 1865.
Dec 7	Comer Cottrell, businessman and founder of Pro-Line cosmetics, was born in Mobile, Alabama, 1931.
Dec 8	Sammy Davis, Jr., singer, dancer, film and stage actor, was born in New York City, 1925.
Dec 9	P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana becomes first African American governor in U.S., 1872.
Dec 10	Ralph J. Bunche becomes first African American awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 1950.
Dec 11	Henrietta Bradberry, received patent number 2,390,688 for a waterproof pneumatically operated way to fire torpedoes under water, 1945.
Dec 12	George Franklin Grant received patent number 638,920 for his invention of the golf tee, 1899.
Dec 13	Jamie Foxx, stand-up comedian, actor and singer, was born Eric Marlon Bishop in Terrell, Texas, 1867.
Dec 14	Ernest Davis, hall of fame college football player and the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy, was born in New Salem, PA, 1939.
Dec 15	William A. Hinton, first African American on Harvard Medical School faculty, developer of Hinton test to detect syphilis, was born in Chicago, IL, 1883.
Dec 16	Andrew Jackson Young, Jr., first African American to be nominated as the Ambassador to the United Nations, 1976.
Dec 17	Condoleezza Rice became the first female to hold the position of United States National Security Advisor, 2000.
Dec 18	Raiford Chatman “Ossie” Davis, actor, director, playwright and social activist, was born in Cogdell, Georgia, 1917.
Dec 19	Carter Godwin Woodson, “father of Black history”, educator, historian, author and journalist, was born in New Canton, Virginia, 1875.
Dec 20	South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union, 1860.
Dec 21	Josh Gibson, hall of fame Negro League baseball player, was born in Buena Vista, Georgia, 1911.
Dec 22	Jerry Pinkney, award winning illustrator of children’s books, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1939.
Dec 23	Madam C.J. Walker, businesswoman and America’s first self-made female millionaire, was born Sarah Breedlove in Delta, LA, 1867.
Dec 24	Ernest Nathan “Dutch” Morial, the first African American Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana, died, 1989.
Dec 25	Cabell “Cab” Calloway III, hall of fame jazz singer and bandleader, was born in Rochester, New York, 1907.
Dec 26	John A. “Jack” Johnson, becomes first African American World Heavyweight Boxing Champion with a 14th round TKO of Tommy Burns, 1908.
Dec 27	Ruth Carol Taylor, nurse, journalist and the first African American airline stewardess in the United States, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, 1931.
Dec 28	Oscar-winning actor Denzel Washington, was born in Mount Vernon, New York, 1954.
Dec 29	Thomas J. Bradley, the first African American Mayor of Los Angeles, California, was born in Calvert, Texas, 1917.
Dec 30	Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods, one of the most successful golfers of all time, was born in Cypress, California, 1975.
Dec 31	Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas, first African American gymnast to win the Olympic individual all-around Gold medal, born in Virginia Beach, VA, 1995.