1979 Frank E. Petersen, Jr ~ becomes the U.S. Marine Corps’s first Black Brigadier General 1965 Constance Baker Motley elected Manhattan Borough president, the highest elective office held by a Black woman in a major American city. 1942 Haki Madhubuti ~ is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is an author, activist, and the founder […]

1992 John Singleton ~ (film director) becomes the first Black director to be nominated for an Academy Award 1919 WEB Dubois ~ (activist) organizes the first Pan-African Congress 1940 William “Smokey” Robinson ~ (singer and recording artist) is born Detroit, Michigan

1942 Huey Newton ~ (founder of the Black Panther Party) born 1963 Michael Jeffrey Jordan ~ (basketball legend) is born in Brooklyn, New York 1982 Thelonious Monk ~ Thelonious Monk, one of the founders of the bebop style and one of only five jazz musicians to appear on the cover of Time magazine, dies of a […]

  1900 For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson writes the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. With music by his brother, J. Rosamond, the song is first sung by 500 children in Jacksonville, Fla. It will become known as the “Negro National Anthem”. 1903 American baritone opera singer Todd Duncan, the first […]

1977 Clifford Alexander Jr ~ becomes the first Black Secretary of the Army 1915 Josh White ~ (folk and blues singer) is born in Greenville, South Carolina 1990 Nelson Mandela ~ (South African president and politcal activist) released from prison after 27 years 1979 Actress and singer Brandy is born Brandy Rayana Norwood in McComb, […]

1688 First formal protest against slavery by organized white body in English America made by Germantown (Pa.) Quakers at monthly meeting. The historic “Germantown Protest” denounced slavery and the slave trade. 2006 Shani Davis ~ (speed skater) becomes the first Black to be awarded with an individual gold medal in the Winter Olympics 1931 Toni […]