THE 2018 CALENDAR

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. |