01 December 1641 – 1992

1641 – Massachusetts becomes the first colony to give statutory recognition to the institution of slavery.

1821 – Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) proclaims independence from Spain.

1873 – The 43rd Congress (1873-75) convenes with seven African American congressmen: Richard H. Cain, Robert Brown Elliott, Joseph H. Rainey and Alonzo J. Ransier, South Carolina; James T. Rapier, Alabama; Josiah T. Walls, Florida; John R. Lynch, Mississippi.

1873 – Mifflin Wister Gibb is elected city judge in Little Rock, Arkansas and becomes the first African American to hold such a position.

1873 – Bennett College (Greensboro, North Carolina) and Wiley College (Marshall, Texas) are founded.

1874 – Queen Esther Chapter No. 1, Order of the Eastern Star, is established at 708 O Street, N.W., Washington, DC in the home of Mrs. Georgiana Thomas.  The first Worthy Matron is Sister Martha Welch and the first Worthy Patron is Bro. Thornton A. Jackson.  This establishes the first Eastern Star Chapter among African American women in the United States.

1877 – Jonathan Jasper Wright, the first African American state supreme court justice, resigns from the state supreme court in South Carolina.  He resigns knowing that whites would soon force him off the bench after overthrowing the Reconstruction government.  He will later join the ancestors, in obscurity, of tuberculosis.

1892 – Minnie Evans, visual artist and painter, is born. One of her more famous works will be “Lion of Judah.”   She will be inducted into the Wilmington, NC “Walk of Fame.”

1934 – Billy Paul, rhythm and blues singer, best known for his song, “Me and Mrs. Jones”, is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1935 – Lou Rawls is born in Chicago, Illinois.  A successful rhythm, blues, and jazz singer, he will record over 30 albums including “Unmistakably Lou”, a 1977 Grammy winner for best R & B vocal performance.  He will also be a strong supporter of African American colleges, as host of the annual UNCF telethon.

1940 – Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III is born in Peoria, Illinois.  Raised in a brothel owned by his grandmother, Pryor will try music as a drummer before his big comedy break on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and a series of successful, Grammy-winning comedy albums.  Pryor will also make movies, most notably “Stir Crazy” and “Silver Streak”.  Pryor will also battle drug abuse and illness in his career, including his near death from burns inflicted while freebasing cocaine and a battle against multiple sclerosis.

1955 – Rosa Parks, a seamstress, refuses to take a back seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus.  Her refusal to move will result in her arrest and will begin a 382-day boycott of the bus system by African Americans and mark the beginning of the modern American Civil Rights movement.

1958 – The Central African Republic is made an autonomous member of the French Commonwealth of Nations.

1980 – George Rogers, of the University of South Carolina, is named the Heisman Trophy winner.  Rogers will go on to achieve success with the Washington Redskins.

1980 – United States Justice Department sues the city of Yonkers, New York, citing racial discrimination.

1981 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpasses Oscar Robertson as basketball’s second all-time leading scorer (second only to Wilt Chamberlain).  Kareem gets to the total of 26,712 points as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah Jazz 117-86.  Chamberlain’s record will fall in 1984, when Kareem’s scores reach 31,259.  Kareem will wind up his career in 1989 with 38,387 points.

1982 – Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” is released and will go on to become the best-selling album in history, with over 40 million copies sold worldwide.

1987 – James Baldwin, author, joins the ancestors in St. Paul de Vence, France, of stomach cancer, at the age of 63.  He explored the plight of oppressed African Americans in 20th century America in a variety of literary forms.   His output included novels and plays, but it was above all, as an essayist, that he achieved a reputation as the most literary spokesman in the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s.  His three most important collection of essays were “Notes of a Native Son” in 1955, “Nobody Knows My Name” in 1961, and “The Fire Next Time” in 1963.  The most highly regarded of his novels were the first three, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” in 1953, “Giovanni’s Room” in 1956, and “Another Country” in 1962.

1989 – Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey joins the ancestors in New York City. Ailey began his professional career with Lester Horton, founded, and was the sole director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958.  Initially performing four concerts annually, he took the company to Europe on one of the most successful tours ever by an American dance troupe.  Among his honors were the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1977, and Kennedy Center Honors.

1992 – Pearl Stewart becomes the first African American woman editor of the Oakland Tribune, which has a circulation of over 100,000.

02 December 1859 – 1992

1859 – John Brown, abolitionist who planned the failed attack on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, is hanged at Charles Town, West Virginia.

1866 – Harry T. Burleigh, singer and composer, is born in Erie, Pennsylvania.  He will be educated at the National         Conservatory of Music in New York City, where he will meet and form a lasting friendship with Anton Dvorak.  He will eventually be awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.  Burleigh will be best known for his arrangements of the Negro spiritual “Deep River”.

1884 – Granville T. Woods receives a patent for his first electric device, an improved telephone transmitter.

1891 – North Carolina A&T College, Delaware State College and West Virginia State College are established.

1891 – The Fifty-second Congress convenes. Only one African American congressman has been elected – Henry P. Cheatham of North Carolina.

1891 – Charles Harris Wesley, historian, educator, and administrator, is born.  His published works include, “Neglected History,” “Collapse of the Confederacy,” “Negro Labor in the United States,”and “1850-1925: A Study of American Economic History.”

1908 – John Baxter “Doc” Taylor joins the ancestors as a result of of typhoid pneumonia at the age of 26.   Taylor had been a record-setting quarter miler and the first African American Olympic gold medal winner in the 4 x 400-meter medley in the 1908 London games.

1912 – Henry Armstrong is born in Columbus, Mississippi,  Better known as “Hammering Hank,” Armstrong will become the only man to hold three boxing titles at once in the featherweight, welterweight, and lightweight divisions.

1922 – Congressman, Charles C. Diggs is born.

1923 – Roland Hayes becomes the first African American to sing in the Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.

1940 – Willie Brown, NFL defensive back for the Denver Broncos and the Oakland Raiders, is born.

1943 – “Carmen Jones,” a contemporary reworking of the Bizet opera “Carmen” by Oscar Hammerstein II with an all-black cast, opens on Broadway.

1953 – Dr. Rufus Clement, president of Atlanta University, is elected to the Atlanta Board of Education.

1975 – Ohio State running back Archie Griffin becomes the first person ever to win the Heisman Trophy twice, when he is awarded his second trophy in New York City.   He amassed a career record of 5,176 yards and 31 consecutive 100 yard plus games.

1989 – Andre Ware of the University of Houston, becomes the first African American quarterback to win the Heisman Trophy.

1992 – Dr. Maya Angelou is asked to compose a poem for William Jefferson Clinton’s presidential inauguration.

03 December 1841 – 1997

1841 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond returns to the United States after a year and a half in Great Britain.   He had been serving as a delegate to the world Anti-Slavery Convention in London.  He brings with him an “Address from the People of Ireland” including 60,000 signatures urging Irish-Americans to “oppose slavery by peaceful means and to insist upon liberty for all regardless of color, creed, or country.”

1843 – The Society of Colored People in Baltimore, is the first African American Catholic association whose documentation has been preserved. Their notebook will begin today and continue until September 7, 1845.

1847 – Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney begin the publication of “The North Star” newspaper, one of the leading abolitionist newspapers of its day.

1864 – The Twenty-Fifth Corps, the largest all African American unit in the history of the U.S. Army, is established by General Order # 297 of the War Department, Adjutant General’s Office.  The Colored Troops of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina were organized into the Twenty-Fifth Corps under the command of Major General G. Weitzel.

1866 – John Swett Rock, a Massachusetts lawyer and dentist joins the ancestors.  He had become the first African American certified to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.   Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase appointed Dr. Rock to present cases before the Supreme Court on December 31, 1865.

1868 – The trial of ex-Confederacy president, Jefferson Davis starts, marking the first United States trial with African Americans included in the jury.

1883 – The Forty-Eighth Congress (1883-85) convenes. Only Two African Americans are included as representatives. They are James E. O’Hara of North Carolina and Robert Smalls of South Carolina.

1883 – George L. Ruffin is appointed a city judge in Boston, Massachusetts.

1922 – Ralph Gardner is born in Cleveland, Ohio.  He will become a pioneer chemist whose research into plastics leads to the development of so-called “hard plastics.”  His innovations in the manipulation of catalytic chemicals will lead to the products for the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries as well as plastics.

1951 – President Truman names a committee to monitor compliance with anti-discrimination provisions in U.S. government contracts and sub-contracts.

1956 – Wilt Chamberlain plays in his first collegiate basketball game and scores 52 points.

1962 – Edith Spurlock Sampson is sworn in as the first African American woman judge.

1964 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins for his contribution to “the advancement of the American people and the national purpose.”

1964 – The Independence Bank of Chicago is organized.

1964 – J. Raymond Jones is elected leader of the New York Democratic organization (Tammany Hall).

1970 – Jennifer Josephine Hosten become the first African American Miss World.

1979 – An University of Southern California running back, Charles White, is named the Heisman Trophy winner for 1979.  White, who gained a career regular season total of 5,598 yards, will play professionally for the Los Angeles Rams.

1982 – Thomas Hearns unifies the world boxing titles in the junior middleweight division by capturing the WBC title over Wilfredo Benitez.

1988 – Barry Sanders wins the Heisman Trophy.

1988 – In South Africa, 11 black funeral mourners are slain in Natal Province in an attack blamed on security forces.

1990 – “Black Art – Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art” opens at the Dallas Museum of Art.  United States and Caribbean artists represented among the more than 150 works include Richmond Barthe’, John Biggers, Aaron Douglas, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent Johnson, and Houston Conwill.

1997 – President Clinton hosts his first town hall meeting on America’s race relations in Akron, Ohio.

04 December 1783 – 1992

1783 – George Washington’s farewell address to his troops is held at Fraunces Tavern in New York City.  The tavern is owned by Samuel “Black Sam” Fraunces, a wealthy West Indian of African and French descent who aided Revolutionary forces with food and money.

1807 – Prince Hall, activist and Masonic leader, joins the ancestors in Boston, Massachusetts.

1833 – The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded in Philadelphia by James Barbados, Robert Purvis, James McCrummell, James Forten, Jr., John B. Vashon and others.

1895 – Fort Valley State College is established in Georgia.

1895 – The South Carolina Constitutional Convention adopted a new constitution with “understanding clause” designed to eliminate African American voters.

1899 – The Fifty-Sixth Congress convenes with only one African American congressman, George H. White, from North Carolina.

1906 – Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is founded on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, becoming the first African American Greek-letter organization.

1909 – The New York “Amsterdam News” is founded by James Anderson.   Originally priced at two cents, it will grow to a circulation of almost 35,000 by 1990.

1915 – The NAACP leads protest demonstrations against the showing of the racist movie, “Birth of a Nation.”

1915 – The Ku Klux Klan receives its charter from Fulton County, Georgia Superior Court. The modern Klan will spread to Alabama and other Southern states and reach the height of its influence in the twenties.  By 1924, the organization will be strong in Oklahoma, Indiana, California, Oregon, Indiana, and Ohio, and have an estimated four million members.

1927 – President Coolidge commutes Marcus Garvey’s sentence. Garvey will be taken to New Orleans and deported to his native Jamaica.

1927 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Anthony Overton, publisher, insurance executive and cosmetics manufacturer, for his achievements as a businessman.

1927 – Duke Ellington’s big band opens at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem.  It is the first appearance of the Duke’s new and larger group.  He will play the club until 1932.

1943 – Professional baseball’s commissioner Landis announces that any club may sign Negroes to a playing contract.

1956 – Bernard King, professional basketball player (New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets), is born.

1958 – Dahomey (Benin), and the Ivory Coast become autonomous within the French Community of Nations.

1969 – The Pulitzer Prize for photography is awarded to Moneta Sleet Jr. of Ebony magazine.  He is the first African American male cited by the Pulitzer committee.

1969 – Clarence Mitchell Jr., director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP, is awarded the Spingarn Medal “for the pivotal role he….played in the enactment of civil rights legislation.”

1969 – Two Black Panther leaders, Fred Hampton(Illinois State Chairman) and Mark Clark, join the ancestors after being killed in a Chicago police raid.  The two men are shot while sleeping in their beds.  Fred Hampton is just 20 years old.

1977 – Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Empire, crowns himself.

1981 – According to South Africa, Ciskei gains independence, but is not recognized as an independent country outside South Africa.

1982 – Hershel Walker, a University of Georgia running back who amassed an NCAA record of 5,097 yards in three seasons, is named the Heisman Trophy winner.  He is only the seventh junior to win the award.  He will go on to play with the New Jersey Generals of the U.S. Football League as well as in the NFL with the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys.

1990 – The Watts Health Foundation reports revenues in excess of $100 million for the first year in its history. Established in 1967, the Foundation grew from its initial site on riot-torn 103rd Street to serve over 80,000 residents of the Greater Los Angeles area with its HMO, United Health Plan, and its numerous community-based programs.  Led by CEO Dr. Clyde Oden, it is the largest community-based health care system of its kind in the nation.

1992 – United States troops land in the country of Somalia.

05 December 1784 – 1984

1784 – African American poet Phyllis Wheatley joins the ancestors in Boston at the age of 31.  Born in Africa and brought to the American Colonies at the age of eight in 1761, Wheatley was quick to learn both English and Latin.   Her first poem was published in 1770 and she continued to write poems and eulogies.  A 1773 trip to England secured her success there, where she was introduced to English society.  Her book, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”, was published late that year.  Married for six years to John Peters, Wheatley and her infant daughter died hours apart in a Boston boarding house, where she worked.

1832 – Sarah Gorham, the first woman appointed by the African Methodist Episcopal Church to serve as a foreign missionary in 1881, is born.

1881 – The Forty-Seventh Congress (1881-83) convenes. Only two African American congressmen have been elected, Robert Smalls of South Carolina and John Roy Lynch of Mississippi.

1895 – Elbert Frank Cox is born in Evansville, Indiana.  He will become the first African American to earn a doctorate degree in mathematics (Cornell University – 1925).

1918 – Charity Adams (later Earley) is born.  She will become the first African American commissioned officer in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps in 1942. She served in the Army for four years and held the rank of Lt. Colonel at the time of her release from active duty.

1931 – James Cleveland is born in Chicago, Illinois.  He will sing his first gospel solo at the age of eight in a choir directed by famed gospel pioneer Thomas Dorsey.  He will later sing with Mahalia Jackson, The Caravans, and other groups before forming his own group, The Gospel Chimes, in 1959.   His recording of “Peace Be Still” with the James Cleveland Singers and the 300-voice Angelic Choir of Nutley, New Jersey, will earn him the title “King of Gospel.”

1932 – (“Little”) Richard Penniman is born in Macon, Georgia.  He will be known for his flamboyant singing style, which will be influential to many Rhythm and Blues and British artists.’ His songs will include “Good Golly Miss Molly”, “Tutti Frutti”, and “Lucille.”

1935 – The National Council of Negro Women is established by Mary McLeod Bethune.

1935 – Langston Hughes’s play, “The Mulatto”, begins a long run on Broadway.

1935 – Mary McLeod Bethune is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for her work as founder-president of Bethune Cookman College and her national leadership.

1946 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Thurgood Marshall, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, “for his distinguished service as a lawyer before the Supreme Court.”

1946 – President Truman created The Committee on Civil Rights by Executive Order No. 9808. Sadie M. Alexander and Channing H. Tobias were two African Americans who will serve as members of the committee.

1947 – Jersey Joe Wolcott defeats Joe Louis for the heavyweight boxing title.  It is also the first time a heavyweight championship boxing match is televised.

1949 – Ezzard Charles defeats Jersey Joe Walcott for the heavyweight boxing title.

1955 – The Montgomery bus boycott begins as a result of Rosa Parks’ refusal to ride in the back of a city bus four days earlier. At a mass meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church, Martin Luther King Jr. is elected president of the boycott organization. The boycott will last a little over a year and be the initial victory in the civil rights struggle of African Americans in the United States.

1955 – Asa Philip Randolph and Willard S. Townsend are elected vice-presidents of the AFL-CIO.

1955 – Carl Murphy, publisher of the Baltimore Afro-American, is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his contributions as a publisher and civil rights leader.

1957 – New York City becomes the first city to legislate against racial or religious discrimination in housing market (Fair Housing Practices Law).

1957 – Martin Luther King Jr. is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1981 – Marcus Allen, tailback for the University of Southern California, wins the Heisman Trophy.  Six years later, Tim Brown of the Notre Dame “Fightin’ Irish” will win the award.

1984 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at age 37, is the oldest player in the National Basketball Association. He decides to push those weary bones one more year by signing with the Los Angeles Lakers – for $2 million.

06 December 1806 – 1977

1806 – The African Meeting House is established in Boston, Massachusetts and will become the oldest African American house of worship still standing in the United States.  This house of worship will be constructed almost entirely by African American laborers and craftsmen, but funds will be contributed by the white community.  Because of the leadership role its congregation takes in the early struggle for civil rights, the African Meeting House will become known as the Abolition Church and Black Faneuil Hall. Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison will be speakers there.

1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland.  She will return to the South nineteen times and bring out more than three hundred slaves.

1865 – Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, abolishing slavery is completed.  The proclamation of its acceptance will take place on December 18, 1865.

1869 – The National Black labor convention meets in Washington, DC.

1870 – Joseph H Rainey becomes the first African American in the House of Representatives, from the state of South Carolina.

1871 – P.B.S. Pinchback is elected president pro tem of the Louisiana Senate and acting lieutenant governor.  He is the first African American to serve in these positions in state government.

1875 – The Forty-Fourth Congress of 1875-1877 convenes with a high of eight African Americans taking office.   They are Senator Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi and congressmen Jeremiah Haralson of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, John Roy Lynch of Mississippi, John A. Hyman of North Carolina, Charles E. Nash of Louisiana,; and Joseph H. Rainey and Robert Smalls of South Carolina.

1892 – Theodore Lawless is born.  He will become a medical pioneer.

1932 – Don King is born.  He will become the most controversial and best known boxing promoter in the history of the sport.

1949 – Blues legend Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter joins the ancestors in New York City.

1956 – Nelson Mandela and 156 others are jailed for political activities in South Africa.

1960 – 500 store owners sign pledges of nondiscrimination in Tucson, Arizona.

1961 – Dr. Frantz O. Fanon, noted author of “Black Skins, White Masks” and “Wretched of the Earth”, joins the ancestors in Washington, DC. He succumbs to leukemia at the National Institutes of Health.

1977 – South Africa grants Bophuthatswana its independence The constitution in effect after South Africa’s first all-race elections in April 1994 will abolish this black homeland, which will be reabsorbed into South Africa.

07 December 1874 – 1993

1874 – White Democrats kill seventy-five Republicans in a massacre at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1885 – The Forty-Ninth Congress (1885-87) is convened. Two African American congressmen, James E. O’Hara of North Carolina and Robert Smalls of South Carolina are in attendance.

1931 – Comer Cottrell is born in Mobile, Alabama.  In 1970, he will become founder and president of Pro-line Corporation, the largest African American-owned business in the southwest, which he will start with $ 600 and a borrowed typewriter.  An entrepreneur with a wide range of interests, Cottrell will also become the first African American to own a part of a major league baseball team, the Texas Rangers, in 1989.

1941 – During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller of Waco, Texas, a messman aboard the battleship Arizona who had never been instructed in firearms, heroically downs three Japanese planes before being ordered to leave the ship.  Miller will be awarded the Navy Cross for his bravery.

1941 – The Downtown Gallery in New York City presents the exhibit “American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Century”.  Included in the exhibit is work by Robert Duncanson, Horace Pippin, Eldzier Cortor, Richmond Barte’ and others.

1941 – Lester Granger is named executive director of the National Urban League.

1941 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to novelist Richard Wright, “one of the most powerful of contemporary writer,” for “his powerful depiction in his books, ‘Uncle Tom’s Childre-n,’ and ‘Native Son,’ of the effect of proscription, segregation and denial of opportunities to the American Negro.”

1942 – Reginald F. Lewis is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will receive his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1968.  He will eventually become a partner in Murphy, Thorpe & Lewis, the first African American law firm on Wall Street.  In 1989, he will become president and CEO of TLC Beatrice International Holding Inc.  With TLC’s leverage acquisition of Beatrice International Food Company, Lewis becomes the head of the largest African American-owned business in the United States.  TLC Beatrice had revenues of $1.54 billion in 1992. He will join the ancestors in January, 1993, succumbing to brain cancer.

1972 – W. Sterling Cary is elected president of the Nation Council of Churches.

1978 – Billy Sims is awarded the Heisman Trophy at the annual awards dinner sponsored by the Downtown Athletic Club.  The running back from the University of Oklahoma is the sixth junior to win the award.

1981 – John Jacobs is named president of the National Urban League.

1985 – Bo Jackson of Auburn University wins the Heisman Trophy.

1990 – Rhythm and Blues artist, Dee Clark, joins the ancestors in Smyrna, Georgia at the age of 52.

1991 – K. Ferguson Kelly received United States Army-PACIFIC Commander’s Certificate for exemplary achievement during intense preparation and execution of various events to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the “Attack on Pearl Harbor” and for providing personal security for the Secretary of Defense “Dick Channey”.

1993 – The South African transitional executive council is set up. 

08 December 1850 – 1999

1850 – The first African American woman to graduate from college is Lucy Ann Stanton.  She completes the two-year ladies’ course and receives the Bachelor of Literature degree from Oberlin College in Ohio.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issues his Proclamation on Amnesty and Reconstruction for the restoration of the Confederate states into the Union. He offers them a full pardon and restoration of their rights if they are willing to take an oath of loyalty to the Union and accept the end of slavery.

1868 – Writer, Henry Hugh Proctor is born.  He will be best known for his book, “Between Black and White: Autobiographical Sketches.”  He will join the ancestors in 1933.

1873 – The National Equal Rights Convention adopts a resolution to include African Americans.

1896 – J.T. White patents the lemon squeezer.

1925 – Entertainer, Sammy Davis Jr. is born in New York City.  He will begin his career at the age of four in vaudeville, performing with his father.  Sammy will star on Broadway in “Mr. Wonderful” and in movies with “Porgy and Bess”, Ocean’s Eleven, and “Robin and the Seven Hoods.”  He will release over 40 albums and will win many gold records. He will join the ancestors on May 16, 1990.

1925 – James Oscar “Jimmy” Smith is born in Norristown, Pennsylvania.  He will become a modern jazz organist with hits such as “Walk on the Wild Side.”  He will rule the Hammond organ in the ’50s and ’60s.  He will revolutionize the instrument, showing it could be creatively used in a jazz context and popularized in the process.  His Blue Note sessions from 1956 to 1963 were extremely influential.  He toured extensively through the ’60s and ’70s. His Blue Note recordings will include superb collaborations with Kenny Burrell, Lee Morgan, Lou Donaldson, Tina Brooks, Jackie McLean, Ike Quebec and Stanley Turrentine among others.

1933 – Clerow Wilson is born.  “Flip” Wilson is the tenth in a family of twenty-four children, eighteen of whom survived.  He will become a popular comedian and will star in his own prime time comedy show on television, “The Flip Wilson Show.”  He will join the ancestors in 1998.

1936 – “Gibbs vs The Board of Education” in Montgomery County, Maryland is the first of a succession of suits initiated by the NAACP, that eliminated wage differentials between African American and white teachers.

1936 – “The Michigan Chronicle” is founded by Louis E. Martin.

1936 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to John Hope, posthumously, for his achievement as president of Morehouse College and for his creative leadership in the founding of the Atlanta University Center.

1939 – Jerry Butler is born in Sunflower, Mississippi.  He will become a rhythm and blues singer with his group, The Impressions and will be best known for his songs, “Never Give You Up”, “For Your Precious Love,” “He Will Break Your Heart,” and “Only the Strong Survive.” He will become involved in the election of Chicago’s first African-American mayor, Harold Washington, work as Cook County Commissioner and will serve as a Chicago City Alderman.

1962 – The Reverend John Melville Burgess is consecrated as suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts — the first African American bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church to serve a predominantly white diocese.

1967 – Major Robert H. Lawrence, Jr., the first African American astronaut, joins the ancestors when his F-104 Starfighter crashes at Edwards Air Force Base in California s Mojave Desert.

1972 – Representative George Collins joins the ancestors in an airplane crash, near Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois, at the age of 47.

1972 – Attorney Jewel Lafontant is named Deputy Solicitor General of the United States.

1977 – Earl Campbell, a running back with the University of Texas, is awarded the Heisman Trophy.  Campbell will play for the Houston Oilers and be elected to the Football Hall of Fame in 1990.

1983 – Mike Rozier, of the University of Nebraska, is awarded the Heisman Trophy.

1987 – Kurt Lidell Schmoke is inaugurated as the first African American mayor of Baltimore, Maryland.

1988 – Barry Sanders, a running back with Oklahoma State University, is awarded the Heisman Trophy.

1991 – Tap dancing legends Fayard and Harold Nicholas and six others receive Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, DC.

1998 – Nkem Chukwu, a Nigerian American, delivers Ebuka, the first of eight children at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. In what doctors consider a medical first, the other seven siblings will be delivered on December 20. Only seven will survive.

1999 – A Memphis, Tennessee jury hearing a lawsuit filed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s family, finds that the civil rights leader had been the victim of a vast murder conspiracy, not a lone assassin.

09 December 1867 – 1989

1867 – The Georgia constitutional convention, consisting of 33 African American and 137 whites, opens in Atlanta, Georgia.

1872 – P. B. S. Pinchback is sworn in as governor of Louisiana after H.C. Warmoth is impeached “for high crimes and misdemeanors.”  He becomes the first African American governor of a state.

1875 – Carter G. Woodson is born in New Canton, Virginia.  He will become known as the “Father of Black History.”  In 1926 Woodson created the first of what is an annual celebration of African American achievement. It starts as Negro History Week, but will become Black History Month.

1919 – Roy deCarava is born in New York City.  He will become a leading photographer of the African American experience.  The first African American photographer to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, his first book, “The Sweet Flypaper of Life,” will be a collaboration with poet Langston Hughes.   He will also found and direct Kamoinge Workshop for African American photographers in 1963.

1922 – John Elroy (Redd Foxx) Sanford, is born in St. Louis, Missouri.  His off-color records and concerts will catapult him to fame and his own television show, “Sanford and Son,” and a later series, “The Royal Family,” his last before he suddenly joins the ancestors in 1991.

1938 – The first public service programming aired when Jack L. Cooper launches the “Search for Missing Persons” show.

1953 – Lloyd B. Free is born in Brooklyn, New York.  He will become a professional basketball player and will later change his name to World B. Free.  He will be a NBA guard with the Philadelphia 76ers, San Diego Clippers, Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers, and the Houston Rockets.  He will leave the NBA in 1988 with 17,955 career points and a career scoring average of 20.3 points per game.

1961 – Tanganyika gains independence from Great Britain and takes the name Tanzania.

1961 – Wilt Chamberlain of the NBA Philadelphia Warriors scores 67 points vs. the New York Knicks.

1962 – Tanzania becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth.

1963 – Zanzibar gains independence from Great Britain.

1971 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Undersecretary of the United Nations from 1955 to his retirement in October, 1971, joins the ancestors in New York City at the age of 67.

1971 – Bill Pickett becomes the first African American elected to the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame.  He is the cowboy that invented the bulldogging event famous in today’s rodeos.

1976 – Tony Dorsett is awarded the Heisman Trophy.  Dorsett, a running back for the University of Pittsburgh, amasses a total of 6,082 total yards and will go on to play with the Dallas Cowboys and help lead them to the Super Bowl.

1984 – The Jackson’s Victory Tour comes to a close at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, after 55 performances in 19 cities. The production is reported to be the world’s greatest rock extravaganza and one of the most problematic.  The Jackson brothers receive about $50 million during the five-month tour of the United States – before some 2.5 million fans.

1984 – Walter Payton of the Chicago Bears records another first as he runs six plays, as quarterback.  He is intercepted twice, but runs the ball himself on four carries.   The Green Bay Packers still win 20-14.  Payton says after the game, “It was OK, but I wouldn’t want to do it for a living.”

1984 – Eric Dickerson, of the Los Angeles Rams, becomes only the second pro football player to run for more than 2,000 yards (2,105) in a season.  He passes O.J. Simpson’s record of 2,003 as the Rams beat the Houston Oilers 27-16.

1989 – Craig Washington wins a special congressional election in Texas’ 18th District to fill the seat vacated by the death of George “Mickey” Leland.

10 December 1810 – 1999

1810 – Tom Cribb of Great Britain defeats beats African American Tom Molineaux in the first interracial boxing championship.  The fight lasted 40 rounds at Copthall Common in England.

1846 – Norbert Rillieux invents the evaporating pan, which revolutionizes the sugar industry.

1854 – Edwin C. Berry is born in Oberlin, Ohio.  He will become a hotel entrepreneur and erects a 22-room hotel, Hotel Berry, in Athens, Ohio.  He will be known, at the time of his retirement in 1921, as the most successful African American small-city hotel operator in the United States.

1864 – A mixed cavalry force, including Fifth and Sixth Colored Cavalry regiments, invades southwest Virginia and destroys salt mines at Saltville.  The Sixth Cavalry was especially brilliant in an engagement near Marion, Virginia.

1910 – Smarting from the humiliation of seeing the Ty Cobb-led Detroit Tigers tie the Negro Havana Stars in a six game series 3-3, the “Indianapolis Freeman” states: “The American scribes refused to write on the matter, it cut so deep and was kept quiet.”  Not quiet enough, however, to prevent a ban on Negro teams, even the Cuban-named clubs, from playing whites.

1943 – Theodore Wilson is born in New York City. He will become an actor and will star on television in “That’s My Mama” (Earl the Postman), and “Sanford Arms”.

1950 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is the first African American to be presented the Nobel Prize.  He is awarded the Peace Prize for his efforts as under-secretary of the United Nations, working for peace in the middle east.

1963 – Zanzibar becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.

1964 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. receives the Nobel Peace Prize.  In his acceptance speech, he dramatically rejects racism and war and reaffirms his commitment to “unarmed truth and unconditional love.”  He is the youngest person to earn the award.

1965 – Sugar Ray Robinson permanently retires from boxing with six victories in title bouts to his credit.

1967 – Otis Redding and four members of the Bar-Kays (Otis’ backup group) are killed in the crash of a private plane near Madison, Wisconsin.  Redding is 26 years old.  His signature song, “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” was recorded just three days before his death.  It will be #1 for four weeks beginning February 10, 1968.

1982 – Pamela McAllister Johnson becomes the first African American woman publisher of a mainstream newspaper, the “Ithaca Journal.”

1984 – South African Anglican Bishop, Desmond Tutu receives the Nobel Peace Prize.

1999 – Actress Shirley Hemphill joins the ancestors in West Covina, California at the age of 52. She was best known for her role as the “waitress with an attitude” on the television series, “What’s Happening!”

11 December 1872 – 1981

1872 – America’s first African American governor takes office as Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor of Louisiana.

1916 – John E. Bush, former slave and teacher, joins the ancestors. He had been appointed receiver of the United States Land Office in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1898.

1917 – 13 African American soldiers are hanged for alleged participation in a Houston riot.

1917 – The Great Jazz migration begins as Joe Oliver leaves New Orleans and settles in Chicago, to be joined later by other stars.

1917 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Harry T. Burleigh, composer and singer, for excellence in the field of music.

1926 – Willie Mae Thornton is born in Montgomery, Alabama.  She will be better known as “Big Mama” Thornton, a blues singer whose recording of “Hound Dog” in 1952 will be mimicked by Elvis Presley, much to his success.  She also recorded the hits “Ball & Chain,” and “Stronger than Dirt.”

1928 – Lewis Latimore joins the ancestors in Flushing, New York. Employed as a chief draftsman, Mr. Latimore created the drawings for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1870.

1931 – The British Statute of Westminster gives complete legislative independence to South Africa.

1940 – Lev T. Mills, who will become an artist and chairman of the art department at Spelman College, is born in Tallahassee, Florida.  His prints and mixed-media works will be collected by the Victoria & Albert and British Museums in London and the High Museum in Atlanta and include glass mosaic murals for an Atlanta subway station and the atrium floor of Atlanta’s City Hall.

1954 – Jermaine Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana.  He will become a singer and musician with his brothers and perform with their group, The Jackson Five.

1961 – U.S. Supreme Court reverses the conviction of sixteen sit-in students who had been arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1961 – Langston Hughes’ musical, “Black Nativity,” opens on Broadway.

1964 – Sam Cooke joins the ancestors after being killed.  Bertha Franklin, Manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, claimed she killed the singer in self-defense after he’d tried to rape a 22-year-woman and then turned on Franklin.

1980 – George Rogers, a running back for the University of South Carolina, is awarded the Heisman Trophy.   He achieved 21 consecutive 100-yard games with the gamecocks and led the nation in rushing.

1981 – Muhammad Ali’s boxes in his 61st & last fight, losing to Trevor Berbick.

12 December 1870 – 1986

1870 – Joseph Hayne Rainey is the first African American to serve in Congress representing South Carolina.  He is  sworn in to fill an unexpired term.

1872 – U.S. Attorney General George Williams sends a telegram to “Acting Governor Pinchback,” saying that the African American politician “was recognized by the President as the lawful executive of Louisiana.”

1899 – Boston native, dentist, and avid golfer, George F. Grant receives a patent for a wooden golf tee.  Prior to the use of the tee, wet sand was used to make a small mound to place the ball. Grant’s invention will revolutionize the manner in which golfers swing at the ball.

1911 – Josh Gibson is born.  He will become the home run king of the Negro Baseball League.

1912 – Henry Armstrong is born in St. Louis, Missouri.  In 1938 he will become the first boxer to hold three titles after winning the lightweight boxing championship.

1913 – James Cleveland “Jesse” Owens is born in Oakville, Alabama.  He will become a world-class athlete in college, setting world records in many events.  He will go on to win 4 gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, spoiling Hitler’s plans to showcase Aryan sports supremacy.

1918 – Famed jazz singer Joe Williams is born in Cordele, Georgia. Williams will sing for seven years in Count Basie’s band, where he will record  such hits as “Every Day I have the Blues.”

1929 – Vincent Smith is born in New York City.  Smith will exhibit his works on four continents and be represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of American Art, and the National Museum of Afro-American Artists in Boston.

1938 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Missouri that a state must provide equal educational facilities for African Americans within its boundaries.  Lloyd Gaines, the plaintiff in the case, disappears after the decision and is never seen again.

1941 – Dionne Warwick is born in East Orange, New Jersey.  Warwick will sing in a gospel trio with her sister Dee Dee and cousin Cissy Houston, and begin her solo career in 1960 singing the songs of Burt Bacharach and Hal David.  She will become a three-time Grammy winner.

1943 – Grover Washington, Jr. is born.  He will become a reknown jazz artist and famous for his recording of “Mr. Magic.”

1961 – Martin Luther King Jr., along with over seven hundred demonstrators is arrested in Albany, Ga., after five mass marches on city hall to protest segregation.  The arrests trigger the militant Albany movement.

1963 – Kenya achieves its independence from Great Britain with Jomo Kenyatta as its first prime minister.

1963 – Medgar Wiley Evers is awarded the Spingarn Medal posthumously for his civil rights leadership.

1965 – Johnny Lee, an actor best known for his portrayal of “Calhoun” on “The Amos ‘n’ Andy Show,” joins the ancestors at the age of 67.

1965 – Gale Sayers, of the Chicago Bears, scores 6 touchdowns and ties the NFL record.

1968 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to be ranked Number One in tennis.

1975 – The National Association of Black Journalists is formed in Washington, DC.  Among its founding members are Max Robinson, who will become the first African American anchor of a national network news program, and Acel Moore, a future Pulitzer Prize winner.

1979 – Rhodesia becomes the independent nation of Zimbabwe.

1986 – Bone Crusher Smith knocks out WBA champion Tim Witherspoon in Madison Square Garden in New York City.

13 December 1903 – 1997

1903 – Ella Baker is born in Norfolk, Virginia.  A civil rights worker who will direct the New York branch of the NAACP, Baker will become executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960’s during student integration of lunch counters in the southern states.  She also will play a key role in the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and its voter registration drive in Mississippi.

1913 – Archibald Lee Wright is born in Benoit, Mississippi.  Better known as Archie Moore, he will become a boxer and win the light heavyweight crown in 1952.  He will reign as champion until 1960.

1924 – Larry Doby is born.  He will become the first African American in baseball’s American League, playing for the Cleveland Indians.  He will be the 1954 RBI leader.

1944 – The first African American women complete officer training for the WAVES (Women’s Auxiliary Volunteers for Emergency Service).  They had been admitted to the corps two months earlier.

1958 – Tim Moore, an actor best known for his portrayal of Kingfish on the Amos ‘n’ Andy television show, joins the ancestors at the age of 70.

1981 – Popular African American comedian Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham joins the ancestors after a stroke at the age of 75.   He became famous in mainstream America, late in his life for his “here comes de judge” routine popularized in television’s “Laugh-In.”

1989 – President De Klerk of South Africa meets with imprisoned Nelson Mandela, at de Klerk’s office in Cape Town, to talk about the end of apartheid.

1997 – Charles Woodson, of the University of Michigan, is awarded the Heisman Trophy.  He is the first defensive player ever to win the coveted prize.

14 December 1829 – 1991

1829 – John Mercer Langston is born in Louisa County, Virginia.  He will have a distinguished career as an attorney, educator, recruiter of soldiers for the all African American 5th Ohio, 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments, dean of the law school and president of Howard University, diplomat, and U.S. congressman.

1915 – Jack Johnson becomes the world heavyweight boxing champion.

1920 – Clark Terry is born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He will become a trumpeteer and flugelhorn player who will be known for his association with Duke Ellington on the 1950’s, his innovative flugelhorn sound, and unusual mumbling scat singing.

1939 – Ernest “Ernie” Davis is born.  He will become the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy (1961).   He will join the ancestors succumbing to leukemia, before he is able to play in the National Football League.

1945 – Stanley Crouch is born in Los Angeles, California.  He will become a drummer, poet, and writer for “The Village Voice.” Among his books will be “Notes of a Hanging Judge,” published in 1990.

1963 – Singer Dinah Washington joins the ancestors after a sleeping pill overdose at the age of 39 in Detroit, Michigan.  She popularized many, many great songs, including “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes”, “Unforgettable” and several hits with Brook Benton, including “Baby (You’ve Got What it Takes)” and “A Rockin’ Good Way (To Mess Around and Fall in Love)”.

1968 – Sammy Davis Jr. is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his “superb and many-faceted talent,” and his contributions to the civil rights movement.

1968 – Classes of San Francisco State University are suspended after demonstrations by the Black Student Union and Third World Liberation Front.

1972 – Johnny Rodgers, a running back with the University of Nebraska, is awarded the Heisman Trophy.  Rodgers gained a total of 5,586 yards for the Cornhuskers in three years.

1980 – Elston Howard, a New York Yankee catcher for many years, joins the ancestors.

1991 – Desmond Howard, of the University of Michigan wins the Heisman trophy.

15 December 1644 – 1985

1644 – A Dutch land grant is issued to Lucas Santomee, son of Peter Santomee, one of the first 11 Africans brought to Manhattan.  Among the land granted to Santomee and the original Africans is property in Brooklyn and Greenwich Village.

1706 – A slave named Onesimus arrives in the home of Cotton Mather.  The slave’s experience and explanation of African inoculation will result in Mather’s encouragement of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to inoculate for smallpox in 1721.

1864 – In one of the decisive battles of the Civil War, two brigades of African American troops help crush one of the South’s finest armies at the Battle of Nashville.   African American troops open the battle on the first day and successfully engage the right flank of the rebel line.  On the second day Col. Charles R. Thompson’s African American brigade makes a brilliant charge up Overton Hill.  The Thirteenth U.S. Colored Troops will sustain more casualties than any other regiment involved in the battle.

1896 – Julia Terry Hammonds receives a patent for the apparatus for holding yarn skeins.

1934 – Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman to head a bank, joins the ancestors at the age of 69.

1934 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Award is awarded to William Taylor Burwell Williams, Tuskegee dean and agent of the Jeanes and Slater funds, for his achievements as an educator.

1939 – Cindy Birdsong is born.  She will become a singer with Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells and Diana Ross and the Supremes.

1941 – Lena Horne records the torch classic for Victor Records, that will become her signature song: “Stormy Weather.”

1943 – Thomas W. “Fats” Waller joins the ancestors, outside Kansas City, Missouri at the age of 39, from pneumonia.  The self-taught piano player began recording as a teenager and became one of a small group of African American pianists to make piano rolls for the growing player piano industry.  Waller’s first solo recording in 1926 led to his own radio show and three tours of France.  Waller was known for such popular songs as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter,” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”  He also wrote music for the stage and the movies, most notably “Stormy Weather.”

1943 – The San Francisco Sun-Reporter is established.  Its co-founder, Thomas Fleming will be its editor and a working journalist into his nineties.

1943 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to William H. Hastie “for his distinguished career as a jurist and as an uncompromising champion of equal justice.”

1950 – Ezzard Charles knocks out Nick Barone to retain his heavyweight boxing title.

1954 – The Netherlands Antilles become a co-equal part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

1961 – Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, psychologist and educator, is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for pioneering studies that influenced the Supreme Court decision on school desegregation.

1961 – Police use tear gas and leashed dogs to stop a mass demonstration by fifteen hundred African Americans in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

1980 – Dave Winfield signs a ten-year contract with the New York Yankees, for somewhere between $1.3 and $1.5 million.   He will become the wealthiest player in the history of U.S. team sports.  The total package for the outfielder is said to be worth over $22 million dollars.

1985 – Businessman J. Bruce Llewellyn and former basketball star Julius Erving become owners of Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling, the fourth-largest African American business in the United States.