NOTE:
01    First free school in New York City for blacks (1787)
03    Harold Ford elected United States Congressman from Tennessee (1974)
06    Supreme Court upheld housing rights in Louisville (1919)
07    Supreme Court banned segregation in recreational facilities (1955)
09    Howard University Medical school opened (1868)
12    Ernest N. Morial elected Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana (1977)
13    First anti-slavery political party (Liberty Party) organized (1839)
14    Trail began for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing case (1977)
15    B.C. Hannibal was the first full blooded Negro to cross the Alps (218 B.C.)

01 November 1787 – 1999

1787 – The first free school for African Americans, the African Free School opens in New York City.

1866 – The first Civil Rights Act is passed over the veto of President Andrew Johnson.

1910 – The first edition of Crisis magazine is published by the NAACP with W.E.B. Du Bois as its editor.

1927 – Florence Mills joins the ancestors in New York City after being hospitalized for an appendectomy at the age of 32. She was one of the most popular entertainers of her day, appearing in “Shuffle Along” and “From Broadway to Dixie” as well as having successful tours in the United States and Europe.

1929 – Grambling State University is founded in Grambling, Louisiana.

1940 – In the foreword to his book, “The Negro in Art”, Howard University professor Alain Locke introduces the most extensive retrospective of African American art published to date. The selections appearing in the book span almost 300 years and include the work of 100 black artists from Europe and the United States including Joshua Johnston, Edward Bannister, Henry O. Tanner, Romare Bearden, Hale Woodruff, Palmer Hayden, Allan Crite, James A. Porter, and James Lesesne Wells, among others.

1942 – John H. Johnson publishes the first issue of Negro Digest.

1945 – The first issue of Ebony magazine is published in Chicago, Illinois. The second publication of John H. Johnson’s fledgling company, Ebony will be the catalyst for a communications empire that will eventually include magazines, book publishing, and radio.

1946 – Dr. Charles S. Johnson becomes the first African American president of Fisk University.

1951 – Jet magazine is founded by John H. Johnson, publisher of Ebony magazine.

1981 – Antigua & Barbuda gain independence from Great Britain.

1998 – John Kagwe of Kenya wins the New York City Marathon for the second consecutive year.

1999 – Former Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton, the NFL’s all-time leading rusher, joins the ancestors after succumbing to cancer at the age of 45.
 

02 November 1875 – 1983

1875 – Democrats suppress the African American vote by fraud and violence and carry Mississippi elections. “The Mississippi Plan” staged riots, political assassinations, massacres and social and economic intimidation will be used later to overthrow Reconstruction governments in South Carolina and Louisiana.

1903 – Business and civic leader, Maggie Lena Walker, opens the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia, becoming the first female bank president in the United States.

1930 – Ras Tafari Makonnen is crowned Negus of Ethiopia, taking the name Haile Selassie I, 225th Emperor of Solomonic Dynasty.  His coronation will signify to thousands of Jamaicans and Garveyites in the United States, the fulfillment of the prophecy of their leader, Marcus Garvey.

1954 – Charles C. Diggs becomes the first African American representative to Congress from Michigan. He, along with William Dawson of Illinois and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. of New York, comprise the largest number of African Americans to date in Congress in the 20th century. Diggs will leave Congress in 1980 after being convicted of mail fraud and being censured by Congress.

1954 – NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Dr. Theodore K. Lawles for his research on skin-related diseases.

1958 – Willie McGee, baseball player (St. Louis Cardinals and 1985 National League MVP), is born.

1979 – Black activist Joanne Chesimard escapes from a New Jersey prison, where she was serving a life sentence for the 1973 slaying of a New Jersey state trooper. Chesimard, who takes the name Assata Shakur successfully flees the United States to Cuba.

1982 – Katie B. Hall is elected the first African American congressional representative from Indiana.

1983 – President Ronald Reagan signs a bill to establish a federal holiday in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday on the third Monday in January. It is the culmination of the efforts by many civil rights organizations and entertainers to name King’s birthday as a national holiday.

03 November 1868 – 1992

1868 – John W. Menard, of Louisiana, is elected as the African American representative to Congress. Menard defeats a white candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress.

1874 – James Theodore Holly, an African American who emigrated to Haiti in 1861, is elected bishop of Haiti.

1883 – Race riots occur in Danville, Virginia, resulting in the death of four African Americans.

1896 – South Carolina State College is established.

1905 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones is born in Boston, Massachusetts. She will win her first award in 1926 and have major exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation, the Salon des Artistes Francais in Paris, the National Academy of Design, and many others.  Despite her long career, she will not have a major retrospective of her work until the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mounts a show in her honor in 1973. She will join the ancestors on June 9, 1998.

1920 – “Emperor Jones” opens at the Provincetown Theater with Charles Gilpin in the title role.

1933 – Louis Wade Sullivan is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will become the founder and first dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human Services, the highest-ranking African American in the Bush Administration.

1942 – William L. Dawson is elected to Congress from Chicago.

1942 – Black and white advocates of direct, nonviolent action organized the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago. Three CORE members stage a sit-in at Stoner’s Restaurant in Chicago’s Loop.

1942 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to Asa Philip Randolph “for organizing the Sleeping Car Porters under the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and securing recognition for them; and because of his fearless, determined mobilization of mass opinion that resulted in… Executive Order No. 8802, which banned racial discrimination in defense industries and government work.”

1945 – Irving C. Mollison, a Chicago Republican, is sworn in as U.S. Customs Court judge in New York City.

1945 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Paul Robeson “for his outstanding achievement in the theater, on the concert stage, and in the general field of racial welfare.”

1949 – Larry Holmes is born in Easton, Pennsylvania. He will become a professional boxer and world heavyweight champion from 1978 to 1985. During his reign, he will defend his title more times than any other heavyweight in history, with the exception of Joe Louis.

1953 – Jeffrey Banks is born in Washington, DC. He will become an influential fashion designer and the youngest designer to win the prestigious Coty Award, for his outstanding fur designs.

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain of the NBA San Francisco Warriors, scores 72 points vs the Los Angeles Lakers.

1964 – John Conyers, Jr. is elected to the House of Representatives from Detroit, Michigan.

1970 – Twelve African Americans are elected to the Ninety-second Congress, including five new congressmen: Ralph H. Metcalfe (Illinois),  George Collins (Illinois), Charles Rangel (New York), Ronald Dellums (California), and Parren Mitchell (Maryland).

1970 – Wilson Riles is elected as the first African American superintendent of Public Instruction in California.

1970 – Richard Austin is elected as the first African American secretary of state in Michigan.

1974 – Harold G. Ford is elected U.S. Congressman from Tennessee.

1978 – Dominica is granted its independence by the Great Britain.

1979 – Klansmen fire on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, and kill five persons.

1981 – Coleman Young is re-elected mayor of Detroit. Thurman L. Milner is elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. James Chase is elected mayor of Spokane, Washington.

1983 – Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for President of the United States. Although unsuccessful in this and a later 1988 campaign, Jackson will win many Democratic state primaries. His candidacy will win him national attention and a platform for increased representation by African Americans in the Democratic Party.

1992 – Carol Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

1992 – James Clyburn is the first African American to represent South Carolina since Reconstruction. He had previously served for 18 years as South Carolina’s Human Affairs Commissioner.
 

04 November 1872 – 1999

1872 – Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback is elected as a U.S. congressman from Louisiana.

1872 – Three African Americans are elected to major offices in Louisiana elections: C.C Antoine, lieutenant governor; P.G. Deslonde, secretary of state; W.B. Brown, superintendent of public education.

1879 – T. Elkins receives a patent on the refrigeration apparatus.

1953 – Hulan Jack becomes first African American Manhattan Borough President in New York City.

1958 – World renowned opera singer, Shirley Verrett, makes her debut in New York City.

1959 – Ernie Banks, Chicago Cubs shortstop, wins the National League MVP.

1969 – Howard N. Lee and Charles Evers are elected the first African American mayors of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Fayette, Mississippi respectively.

1971 – Elgin Baylor announces his retirement from the Los Angeles Lakers. After 14 years in the NBA, Baylor had scored 23,149 points, the third highest in the league, and was the fifth-highest career rebounder.

1978 – William Howard Jr. is elected president of the National Council of Churches, at the age of 32.

1982 – Rayford Logan joins the ancestors in Washington, DC. He was an educator, historian, and author of numerous books on African Americans, including the “Dictionary of American Negro Biography.”  Among his honors was a 1980 NAACP Spingarn Medal.

1988 – Bill and Camille Cosby make a $20 million gift to Spelman College. In his remarks to newly inaugurated President Johnetta B. Cole, Cosby states, “I want Johnetta Cole to understand the love that Camille and I have for this college, the love we have for women who, in spite of odds against them, come to this school to challenge themselves, to challenge the school, then to challenge what we call ‘the outside world.'”

1988 – The Martin L. King, Jr. Federal Building is dedicated in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the first federal building in the nation to bear the name of the slain civil rights leader.

1999 – Daisy Bates, who is best known for counseling the “Little Rock Nine,” joins the ancestors at the age of 84. The “Little Rock Nine” were the students who broke the color barrier at all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957, Her leadership helped to inch America toward desegregated schools. She had dedicated her entire life to service in the civil rights struggle.
 

05 November 1828 – 1994

1828 – Theodore Sedgwick Wright becomes the first African American person to get a Theology Degree in the United States, when he graduates from Princeton Theological Seminary.

1867 – First Reconstruction constitutional convention opens in Montgomery, Alabama. It has eighteen African Americans and ninety whites in attendance.

1901 – Etta Moten (later Barnett) is born in San Antonio, Texas. She will become an actress starring in “Porgy and Bess” and have a successful career on Broadway. She will appear in the movie “Flying Down to Rio”(1933), singing and dancing the Carioca, and as a singer in “The Gold Diggers of 1933″(1933).  In her later years, she will be active as an Advisory Board Member of The Black Academy of Arts and Letters.

1917 – The Supreme Court (Buchanan vs Warley) rules that a Louisville, Kentucky, ordinance mandating blacks and whites live in separate areas is unconstitutional.

1926 – Negro History Week is initiated by Carter G. Woodson.

1931 – Ike Turner is born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He will become a singer, songwriter/pianist and will join forces in 1960 with his wife, Tina Turner. Without his union with Tina, Ike Turner would have been a small footnote in rock and roll history.

1935 – The Maryland Court of Appeals orders the University of Maryland to admit African American student, Donald Murray.

1956 – Art Tatum, joins the ancestors at age 46 in Los Angeles, California. Despite impaired vision, he received formal training in music and developed a unique improvisational style. He was an accomplished jazz pianist who impressed even classicist Vladimir Horowitz. Perhaps the most gifted technician of all jazzmen, Tatum had other assets as well, among them an harmonic sense so acute as to make him an almost infallible improviser.  This aspect of his style, as well as his great rhythmic freedom, influenced the young players who became the founders of a new style called bebop.

1956 – The Nat King Cole Show premiers. The 15-minute show starring the popular singer will run until June 1957 and reappear in July in a half-hour format. The first network variety series hosted by an African American star, it was canceled due to lack of support by advertisers.

1968 – Eight African American males and the first African American female, Shirley Chisholm, are elected to the U.S. Congress. Including previously elected Massachusetts senator Edward Brooke, it is the largest number of African American representatives to serve in Congress since the 44th Congress of 1875-1877.

1970 – The National Guard is mobilized in Henderson, North Carolina, as a result of racially motivated civil disturbances.

1974 – George Brown of Colorado and Mervyn Dymally of California are the first African American lieutenant governors elected in the 20th century, while Walter Washington becomes the first African American to be elected mayor of the District of Columbia, and Harold Ford is elected to Congress from Tennessee, the first African American from the state.

1974 – The Spingarn Medal is awarded to Damon J. Keith “in tribute to his steadfast defense of constitutional principles as revealed in a series of memorable decisions he handed down as a United States District Court judge.”

1989 – The first memorial to the civil rights movement in the United States is dedicated at a ceremony in Montgomery, Alabama. The memorial was commissioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal and educational organization located in Montgomery.

1994 – George Foreman, 45, becomes boxing’s oldest heavyweight champion by knocking out Michael Moorer in the 10th round of their WBA fight in Las Vegas, Nevada.

06 Novembr 1746 – 1992

1746 – Absalom Jones, a major leader of the African American Pioneer period, is born into slavery in Sussex, Delaware. Jones will become a friend of Richard Allen and together they will found the Free African Society, which would serve as a protective society and social organization for free African Americans.

1844 – Spain grants the Dominican Republic its independence.

1868 – Jonathan Gibbs, minister and educator, is appointed Secretary of State by the governor of Florida.

1884 – Author and abolitionist William Wells Brown joins the ancestors in Chelsea, Massachusetts. An escaped slave, Brown’s autobiography sold 10,000 copies, a record in his day. Brown also wrote the first known travelogue by an African American and authored the 1853 work “Clotel”; “Or The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States”, the first fictional work published by an African American.

1900 – James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson compose “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” It will become known as the “Negro National Anthem.”

1920 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to W.E.B. Du Bois for “the founding and calling of the Pan African Congress.”

1920 – James Weldon Johnson becomes the first African American executive secretary of the NAACP.

1928 – Oscar DePriest is elected to the Seventy-First Congress from Illinois’ First Congressional District (Chicago). Before becoming a U.S. Representative, DePriest was the first African American to serve on the Chicago City Council, having been elected alderman of the Second Ward in 1915. He is the first African American to win a seat in the United States House of Representatives in the twentieth century.

1928 – The Atlanta “Daily World” is founded by W.A. Scott Jr. The newspaper will become a daily in 1933.

1928 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Charles W. Chestnutt, the first African American to receive widespread critical recognition as a novelist. He was cited for his “pioneer work as a literary artist depicting the life and struggle of Americans of Negro descent.”

1937 – Eugene Pitt is born in Brooklyn, New York. He will become a rhythm and blues singer with The Genies – “Who’s that Knockin'” and lead singer for The Jive Five – “Never Never,” “What Time is It?,” “I’m a Happy Man” and “My True Story”.

1962 – Edward W. Brooke is elected Attorney General of Massachusetts, Gerald Lamb is elected Treasurer of Connecticut, and 5 African Americans are elected to the House of Representatives. Augustus “Gus” F. Hawkins, becomes the first African American congressman from the West (Los Angeles, California).

1962 – The U.N. General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South Africa for its apartheid policies and recommends member states apply economic sanctions.

1973 – Coleman Young is elected as the first African American mayor of Detroit, Michigan.

1973 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Wilson C. Riles, the superintendent of public instruction in California, “in recognition of the stature he has attained as a national leader in the field of education.”

1973 – The Symbionese Liberation Army ambushes Marcus A. Foster, superintendent of public schools in Oakland, California, after a Board of Education meeting. Two members of the group, were convicted of the slaying, but one of the men has his conviction overturned, based on a legal technicality.

1973 – Thomas Bradley is elected as the first African American mayor of Los Angeles, California. His political success was due to his masterful use of multi-racial coalition. African Americans at this time were not a large segment of the Los Angeles population.

1976 – FCC Commissioner Benjamin Hooks is elected NAACP executive director by the organization’s board of directors, succeeding Roy Wilkins. He will serve the organization for 16 years, retiring in 1992. Of his tenure he says, “We have maintained the integrity of this organization and kept our name out front and on the minds of those who would turn back the clock.”

1983 – Sgt. Farley Simon, a native of Grenada, becomes the first Marine to win the Marine Corps Marathon.

1990 – Harvey Gantt, former mayor of Charlotte, NC, loses his Senate race to incumbent Jesse Helms and the opportunity to become the first African American senator from the South since Reconstruction. Barbara-Rose Collins and Maxine Waters are elected to Congress from their home districts in Michigan and California, respectively, while Eleanor Holmes Norton is elected as a non-voting delegate from the District of Columbia.

1990 – Arsenio Hall gets a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

1992 – Vernon Jordan, along with Warren Christopher, is asked to lead the White House transition team, by President-elect William Jefferson Clinton.

07 November 1775 – 1999

1775 – Lord Dunmore, the British governor of the colony of Virginia, issues a proclamation granting freedom to any slave who is willing to join the British army in its fight against the American revolutionaries. The offer applies only to slaves owned by “rebels”. About 800 slaves will eventually accept the offer.

1876 – Edward Bouchet, is the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from a college in the United States (Yale University).

1876 – Edward Bannister, the first African American artist to win wide critical acclaim, is awarded a prize at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition for his work, “Under the Oak”.

1915 – Meharry Medical College is incorporated as a separate entity in Nashville, Tennessee.

1916 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Col. Charles Young, U.S. Army, for organizing the Liberian constabulary and establishing order on the frontiers of Liberia.

1934 – Arthur L. Mitchell, becomes the first African American Democratic congressman (Illinois), after defeating Republican Oscar Depriest in a Chicago election.

1938 – Delecta Clark is born in Blythesville, Arkansas. He will become a rhythm and blues singer better known as “Dee” Clark. He will move to Chicago as a child and be in the Hambone Kids with Sammy McGrier and Ronny Strong. They will recorded for Okeh Records in 1952 – the next year Clark will sing with the Goldentones. This group will later become the Kool Gents. Clark will go solo in 1957 and in 1958 enjoyed his first smash with “Nobody for You,” an Abner release that will reach number three Rhythm & Blues and just miss the Top 20 on the pop charts. He will continue a string of R&B winners with “Just Keep It Up,” “Hey Little Girl,” and “How About That” for Abner in 1959 and 1960. Clark will team with guitarist Phil Upchurch to write “Raindrops” in 1961, which will become his signature song. Raindrops will peak at number three Rhythm & Blues and number two pop, and will be his last major hit. He will join the ancestors in 1990.

1950 – Alexa Canady is born in Lansing, Michigan. She will become, at age 30, the first African American female neurosurgeon in the United States. She will be first in her class at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. She will become one of the finest neurosurgeons in the country, and be highly esteemed for her outstanding ability as a pediatric surgeon and researcher. Canady will become the director of neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital in Detroit and a clinical professor at Wayne State University.

1955 – In reviewing a Baltimore, Maryland case, the U.S. Supreme Court bans segregation in public recreational areas.

1963 – Elston Howard, of the New York Yankees, becomes the first African American to win the American League MVP award.

1967 – Carl Stokes of Cleveland, Ohio, and Richard Hatcher of Gary, Indiana, become the first African American mayors of these major United States cities.

1967 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Edward W. Brooke for his public service as the first African American U.S. senator since Reconstruction.

1967 – A report of the Senate Permanent Investigating Committee says there were seventy-five major riots in 1967, compared with twenty-one major riots in 1966. The committee reports that eight-three persons were killed in 1967 riots, compared with eleven in 1966 and thirty-six in 1965.

1970 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in Daytona Beach, Florida.

1972 – Reverend Andrew Young of Atlanta, Georgia and Barbara Jordan of Houston, Texas become the first southern African Americans elected to Congress since Reconstruction. Also elected for the first time was Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (California). Republican Senator  Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts was overwhelmingly endorsed for a second term.

1978 – Five African Americans are elected to Congress: William Gray III (Pennsylvania), Bennett Stewart (Illinois), Melvin Evans (Virgin Islands), Julian Dixon (California) and George “Mickey” Leland (Texas).

1989 – David Dinkins is the first African American elected mayor of New York City.

1989 – L. Douglas Wilder is elected as the first African American governor (D-Virginia) in the United States since Reconstruction.

1990 – The National Football League withdraws its plans to hold the 1993 Super Bowl in Phoenix due to Arizona’s refusal to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

1991 – Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar Magic Johnson announces his retirement from professional basketball after learning he has tested positive for the AIDS virus.

1999 – Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer since Ben Hogan in 1953, to win four straight tournaments.

1999 – Kenya’s Joseph Chebet wins the New York City Marathon.

08 November 1878 – 1983

1878 – Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor is born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He will become the world’s fastest bicycle racer for 12 years,

1920 – Esther Rolle is born in Pompano Beach, Florida. She will become an actress, primarily on television. She will win an Emmy Award for her role in “Summer of My German Soldier”. She will be best-known, however, for her role as Florida, in the television sit-com, “Good Times.” Even though Ms. Rolle will play characters who worked as maids, off-stage, she will be a tireless crusader against black stereotypes in Hollywood. She will join the ancestors in 1998 at the age of 78. Note: At the time of her death, her manager will give her date of birth as November 8, 1920, though some references list the year as 1922.

1932 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Robert R. Moton, president of Tuskegee Institute, for his “thoughtful leadership in conservative opinion and action.”

1938 – Crystal Bird Fauset of Philadelphia, is elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. She is the first African American woman elected to a state legislature.

1947 – Minnie Ripperton is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will study opera under Marion Jeffrey. She will spend months and months learning how to breathe and listening to and holding vowels. Eventually, she will begin singing operas and operettas with a show tune every so often. Despite her natural talent (a pure five to six octave soprano) for opera, Minnie will be more attracted to “Rock N Roll” and the promise of a touring career. She will eventually discontinue her classical training to follow her dream of becoming a famous songstress. It will, however, be her classical training which will bring her recording success. She will be best known for her recording of “Loving You.” She will join the ancestors in July, 1979 at the age of 31 after succumbing to breast cancer.

1953 – Alfre Woodard is born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She will become an actress after her education at Boston University, School of Fine Arts. She will receive a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Miniseries/Movie, an Emmy Award for Best Actress, as well as ACE and Screen Actors Guild Awards for Best Actress for her performance in the 1997 HBO original movie, “Miss Evers’ Boys.” Woodard’s many feature film credits include “Star Trek: First Contact,” “Heart and Souls,” “Primal Fear” opposite Richard Gere, the ensemble film “How to Make An American Quilt,” Spike Lee’s family drama, Crooklyn,” Dr. Maya Angelou’s “Down in the Delta” starring Wesley Snipes, and “Passionfish,” for which she will receive a 1998 Golden Globe Nomination for Best Actress. In 1984, she will receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance in Martin Ritt’s “Cross Creek.”

1959 – Elgin Baylor of the Minneapolis Lakers, scores 64 points and sets a National Basketball Association scoring record.

1960 – Otis M. Smith is elected auditor general of Michigan and becomes the first African American chosen in a statewide election since Reconstruction.

1966 – Edward W. Brooke (Republican, Massachusetts), is elected to the U.S. Senate and becomes the first African American senator since Reconstruction and the first African American senator elected by popular vote.

1966 – Frank Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles, the American League’s batting and home-run champion, is named the league’s Most Valuable Player.

1966 – John H. Johnson, publisher of Ebony and Jet magazines, is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal “for his productive imagination…in the perilous field of publishing” and “for his contributions to the enhancement of the Negro’s self-image through his publications.”

1983 – W. Wilson Goode of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Harvey Gantt of Charlotte, North Carolina, and James A. Sharp, Jr. of Flint, Michigan, are the first African Americans elected mayor of their respective cities.

09 November 1731 – 1990

1731 – Benjamin Banneker is born in Ellicott Mills (now Ellicott City), Maryland. He will become the builder of the first clock made in America. He also will become the key figure in the design of Washington, DC after Pierre L’Enfant quit and took his plans for DC with him. Banneker was able to save the project by reproducing the plans from memory, in two days, a complete layout of the streets, parks, and major buildings. From 1792 to 1802, Banneker will publish an annual Farmer’s Almanac, for which he did all the calculations himself. He will join the ancestors in 1806.

1868 – The Howard University Medical School opens with eight students.

1868 – Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton, declares martial law in ten counties and mobilizes the state militia in a Ku Klux Klan crisis.

1923 – Dorothy Dandridge is born in Cleveland, Ohio. She will try vaudeville and a stint at the Cotton Club before finding her most noteworthy success as an actress. She will appear in such works as “Porgy and Bess” and minor movie roles before her big break in a series of low-budget movies including “Tarzan’s Perils”. While simultaneously maintaining a singing career, Dandridge will have her greatest success in “Carmen Jones” opposite Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Diahann Carroll, and Brock Peters, which will earn her an Academy  Award nomination, a first for an African American actress. She will join the ancestors on September 8, 1965.

1925 – Oscar Micheaux’s movie “Body and Soul” is released. It marks the film debut of Paul Robeson.

1931 – Eugene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb is born. He will become a professional football star with the old Baltimore Colts. He will enter the NFL without ever playing college football. He will be considered one of the greatest defensive tackles in NFL history. He will join the ancestors in May, 1963.

1935 – Robert “Bob” Gibson is born in Omaha, Nebraska. He will become a professional baseball player and pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. He will be the National League MVP in 1968. During his career, he will amass 3,000 career strike-outs, win the Cy Young Award in 1968 and 1970, win the Baseball Writers Award in 1968, pitch in the 1964, 1967, and 1968 World Series, and win Nine Gold Glove Awards. He will enter the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1961 – The Professional Golfers Association eliminates their Caucasians only rule.

1965 – Willie Mays is named the National League’s Most Valuable Player.

1970 – William L. Dawson, Democratic congressman and party leader, in Chicago, Illinois, joins the ancestors at the age of 84.

1976 – The United Nations General Assembly endorses 10 resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa, including one that says the white- only government is “illegitimate.”

1982 – Sugar Ray Leonard retires from professional boxing for the first time, because of a recurring eye problem sustained in a welterweight title match.

1990 – Freedom Bank in New York City, one of the largest African American-owned banks in the nation, is declared insolvent. Its losses in 1988-1989 totaled $4.7 million, and it was expected to lose $2 million in 1990. A last-minute effort to revive the bank by raising funds from the local Harlem community will fail to meet the government-imposed deadline.

10 November 1891 – 1989

1891 – Granville T. Woods obtains a patent for the electric railway.

1898 – A race riot occurs in Wilmington, North Carolina resulting in the death of eight African Americans.

1898 – The National Benefit Life Insurance Company is organized in Washington, DC, by Samuel W. Rutherford. National Benefit will be the largest African American insurance company for several years.

1919 – Moise Tshombe is born. He will lead a secessionist movement in Katanga, the Congo’s (Zaire) richest province in 1960, following independence from Belgium. Tshombe will end his secession and accept a UN-brokered National Conciliation Plan in January 1963. Eighteen months of further negotiations will lead to him being appointed Prime Minister, but he will go into exile in 1965. He will join the ancestors in 1969.

1930 – Clarence Pendleton is born in Louisville, Kentucky. He will become the first African American chairman of the United States Civil Rights Commission in 1981(through 1988), where he will oppose affirmative action and busing to achieve school desegregation.

1951 – Hosea Richardson becomes the first African American jockey to ride in Florida.

1956 – David Adkin is born in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He will become a comedian and actor, better known as “Sinbad.” He will get his big break on television’s “Star Search” in 1984. He will appear in the television series “Different World,” and become the emcee of “At the Apollo.” His movie credits will include “Necessary Roughness,” “The Meteor Man,” “Coneheads,” “Sinbad- Afros and Bellbottoms,” “The Frog Prince,” “The Cherokee Kid,” “Jingle All The Way,” “First Kid,” ” and “Good Burger.” He will also produce and emcee the successful “Soul Music Festivals” held annually in Caribbean countries.

1957 – Charlie Sifford becomes the first African American to win a major professional golf tournament, by winning the Long Beach Open.

1960 – Andrew Hatcher is named associate press secretary to President John F. Kennedy. He is the highest-ranking African American, appointed to date, in the executive branch.

1968 – Ida Cox, blues singer of such songs as “Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues,” joins the ancestors in Knoxville, Tennessee.

1989 – The Rhythm and Blues Foundation presents its first lifetime achievement awards in Washington DC. Among the honorees are bluesmen Charles Brown, Ruth Brown, Percy Sledge (“When a Man Loves a Woman”), and Mary Wells (“My Guy”).

11 November 1831 – 1995

1831 – Nat Turner is executed for organizing and leading the armed slave insurrection in Jerusalem, Southampton County, Virginia. One of our greatest freedom fighters joins the ancestors.

1890 – D. McCree is granted a patent for the portable fire escape.

1895 – Bechuanaland becomes part of the Cape Colony in Africa.

1915 – Claude Clark, Sr. is born near Rockingham, Georgia. He will study at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Barnes Foundation, and the University of California, Berkeley, and become a renowned artist whose studies of urban life and social realism will be exhibited widely, including the New York World’s Fair of 1939, the Sorbonne, the Oakland Museum, the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles and in the major group exhibits Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art 1800-1950 and Two Centuries of Black American Art.

1918 – The Armistice is signed, ending World War I. Official records listed 370,000 African American soldiers and 1400 African American commissioned officers. A little more than half of of these soldiers served in the European Theater. Three African American regiments — the 369th, 371st, and 372nd — received the Croix de Guerre for valor. The 369th was the first American unit to reach the Rhine river (which separates  France from Germany). The first American soldiers to be decorated for bravery in France were Henry Johnson and Needham Roberts of the 369th Infantry Regiment.

1925 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to James Weldon Johnson, former U.S. consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua and NAACP executive secretary, for his work as an author, diplomat and leader.

1928 – Ernestine Anderson is born in Houston, Texas. Her introduction to jazz singing will begin at age 12 at the Eldorado Ballroom in Houston. She will perform with Russell Jaquet, Johnny Otis, and Lionel Hampton and be known for her warm, blues-influenced vocals.

1929 – LaVern Baker is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will become a rhythm & blues vocalist. She will be known for her recordings of “Tweedly Dee”, “I Cried a Tear”, and “Jim Dandy.”

1946 – Corrine Brown is born in Jacksonville, Florida. She will receive a bachelor’s degree in 1969 and a master’s degree in 1971 from Florida A&M University. She will also receive an education specialist degree from the University of Florida in 1974 and an honorary doctorate in law from Edward Waters College. She will be a college professor, a guidance counselor, and owner of a travel agency before entering politics. In 1982 she will be elected to the Florida House of Representatives, where she will serve for ten years. In 1992 she will be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida’s Third Congressional District.

1950 – Otis Armstrong is born. He will become a NFL runningback and the AFC’s leading rusher in 1974 with the Denver Broncos.

1965 – Prime Minister Ian D. Smith of Rhodesia proclaims independence from Great Britain.

1968 – Ronnie Devoe is born. He will become a singer with the groups “New Edition” and “Bell, Biv, and Devoe.”

1972 – Carl T. Rowan, journalist, becomes the first African American elected to the ‘Gridiron Club.’

1975 – Angola gains independence from Portugal after 500 years of colonial rule. Angola, in southeastern Africa, had been waging guerrilla warfare against Portuguese rule since 1961.  In 1974, back in Portugal, a group of young military officers overthrew the government. The new government quickly granted independence to Portugal’s colonies. Thus, on November 11, 1975 Angola officially became an independent republic.

1979 – The Bethune Museum and Archives is established in Washington, DC. The goal of the museum, which is housed in the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, is to serve as a depository and center for African American women’s history.

1984 – Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. dies of a heart attack in Atlanta, Georgia. Better known as “Daddy King,” he was the father of famed civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and was himself, an early civil rights leader. The elder King was pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the center for much of his son’s civil rights activity.

1985 – The city of Yonkers, New York is found guilty of segregating in schools & housing.

1989 – The Civil Rights Memorial is dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama.

1995 – The European Union’s 15 member states decide to pull their envoys out of Lagos to show their anger at Nigeria’s execution of human rights leaders.

12 November 1775 – 1977

1775 – General George Washington issues an order forbidding recruiting officers from enlisting African Americans.

1779 – Twenty slaves petition New Hampshire’s legislature to abolish slavery. They argue that “the god of nature gave them life and freedom upon the terms of most perfect equality with other men; that freedom is an inherent right of the human species, not to be surrendered but by consent.”

1882 – Lane College is founded in Jackson, Tennessee.

1896 – Moses Williams is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in the Battle of Cuchillo Negro Mountains, in New Mexico.

1922 – Sigma Gamma Rho sorority is founded in Indianapolis, Indiana, by seven school teachers: Mary Lou Allison (Gardner Little), Bessie Mae Downey (Martin), Hattie Mae Annette Dulin (Redford), Nannie Mae Gahn (Johnson), Dorothy Hanley (Whiteside), Cubena McClure, and Vivian White (Marbury). Founder Vivian White Marbury is still witnessing the progress of the sisterhood she helped create.

1941 – Opera instructor Mary Cardwell Dawson and coloratura Lillian Evanti establish the National Negro Opera Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to provide more opportunities for African Americans to sing and study opera. The company’s first opera, Verdi’s “Aida”, will be staged the following August at the annual meeting of the National Association of Negro Musicians. In its 21-year history, its performers will include Evanti, Minto Cato, and Robert McFerrin.

1974 – South Africa is suspended from the U.N. General Assembly over its racial policies.

1977 – Ernest N. (Dutch) Morial is elected mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the first African American to hold that post.

1977 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Alexander P. Haley “for his unsurpassed effectiveness in portraying the legendary story of an American of African descent.”

13 November 1839 – 1996

1839 – The first anti-slavery political party (Liberty Party) is organized and convenes in Warsaw, New York. Samuel Ringgold Ward and Henry Highland Garnet are two of the earliest supporters of the new political party.

1910 – Painter and printmaker, Wilmer Angier Jennings, is born in Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of Morehouse College and student of Hale Woodruff, Jennings will be employed by the Public Works for Art Project and Works Progress Administration in the 1930’s, where he will paint murals and landscape paintings, and produce prints.

1913 – Dr Daniel Hale Williams, the first physician to perform open heart surgery, becomes a member of the American College of Surgeons.

1940 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Hansberry vs. Lee that whites cannot bar African Americans from white neighborhoods.  The Supreme Court’s ruling in the case brought by wealthy real-estate broker Carl Hansberry of Chicago, allows the Hansberry family, including 10-year-old daughter Lorraine, to move into a white neighborhood.

1949 – Caryn Johnson is born in New York City. She will grow up in the ghettos of New York, overcome drug addiction and poverty, and become known as Whoopi Goldberg, multitalented comedian and actress and Academy Award winner for her supporting role performance in “Ghost” in 1991.

1951 – Janet Collins, becomes the first African American ballerina to appear with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

1956 – The Supreme Court upholds a lower court decision banning segregation on city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The Court establishes grounds for challenging bus segregation in nine states that have violated the 15th Amendment.

1956 – Dancer Geoffrey Holder begins a contract with the Metropolitan Opera. Holder will dance in 26 performances, including “Aida” and “La Perichole”, and his career will include dance, acting, and art collecting.

1967 – Carl Stokes becomes the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city when he is inaugurated mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.

1973 – Reggie Jackson, of the Oakland Athletics, unanimously wins the American League MVP award.

1985 – Dwight Gooden, the youngest 20 game winner in Major League baseball history, wins the Cy Young award. 

1992 – Riddick Bowe wins the undisputed heavyweight boxing title in Las Vegas with a unanimous decision over Evander Holyfield.

1996 – A grand jury in St. Petersburg, Florida, declines to indict police officer Jim Knight, who had shot African American motorist TyRon Lewis to death the previous month. The decision prompts angry mobs to return to the streets.

1996 – An all-white jury in Pittsburgh acquits a suburban police officer, John Vojtas, in the death of African American motorist Johnny Gammage in a verdict that angers African American activists.

14 November 1900 – 1966

1900 – In Washington, DC, a small group meets to form the Washington Society of Colored Dentists. It is the first society of African American dentists in the United States.

1915 – Booker T. Washington, educator, orator, and founder of Tuskegee Institute, joins the ancestors on the college’s campus at the age of 59. He was one the most famous African American educators and leaders of the 19th century, whose message of acquiring practical skills and emphasizing self-help over political rights was popular among whites and segments of the African American community. His 1901 autobiography, “Up From Slavery”, which details his rise to success despite numerous obstacles, became a best-seller and further enhanced his public image as a self-made man. As popular as he was in some quarters, Washington was aggressively opposed by critics such as W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter.

1920 – The New York Times and Tribune call Charles Gilpin’s portrayal of Brutus Jones in “The Emperor Jones”, a performance of heroic stature. Gilpin had premiered in the play earlier in the month with the New York-based Provincetown Players, which will influence his being named one of the ten most important contributors to the American theater of 1920 and the 1921 recipient of the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.
1934 – Ellis Marsalis is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. After high school, Marsalis will enroll at Dillard University (New Orleans) and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music education. Marsalis will eventually become New Orleans’ leading Jazz educator. He will become a lecturer at Xavier University and an adjunct teacher at Loyola University. Marsalis will enroll in the graduate program at Loyola University and will graduate with a Masters of Music Education. Marsalis’ teaching career will flower at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA). Many of his former students will be professional musicians locally as well as internationally. Three of his six sons, Branford, Wynton and Delfeayo as well as trumpeter Terence Blanchard, saxophonist Donald Harrison and pianist Harry Connick, Jr. will attain worldwide acclaim with recording contracts on major labels.

1934 – William Levi Dawson’s Symphony No. 1, Negro Folk Symphony, is the first symphony on black folk themes by an African American composer to be performed by a major orchestra.

1960 – Four African American girls are escorted by U.S. Marshals and parents to two New Orleans schools being desegregated.

1966 – Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) defeats Cleveland Williams by TKO in the third round in front of Boxing’s largest indoor crowd, assembled in the Houston Astrodome. He retains his world heavyweight title.

15 November 218 – 1998

218 – Hannibal, North African military genius, crosses the Alps with B.C. elephants and 26,000 men in an expedition to capture Rome.

1805 – Explorers Lewis and Clark reach the mouth of the Columbia River. Accompanying them on their expedition is a slave named York, who, while technically Clark’s valet, distinguished himself as a scout, interpreter, and emissary to the Native Americans encountered on the expedition.

1825 – African American feminist, Sarah Jane Woodson, is born in Chillicothe, Ohio.

1884 – The Berlin Conference, of European nations, is organized by German Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck to decide issues regarding the colonization of Africa. The Europeans attending the conference, decide which parts of the African continent would be “owned” by the participants, “allowing” only Liberia and Ethiopia to remain free countries. Representatives from Great Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, and Belgium negotiate their claims to African territory and establish a framework for making and negotiating future claims. Obviously, there is no one representing Africans at this conference. By 1900, nearly 90 percent of African territory will be claimed by European states. For more information on the Berlin Conference, review the web site http://campus.northpark.edu/history/WebChron/Africa/BerlinConf.html

1887 – Granville T. Woods receives a patent for the Synchronous Multiplier Railway Telegraph.

1897 – Langston University, a public co-educational institution, is founded in Langston, Oklahoma.

1897 – Voorhees College, a private co-educational institution affiliated with the Episcopal Church, is founded in Denmark, South Carolina.

1897 – John Mercer Langston joins the ancestors at the age of 67, in Washington, DC.

1928 – Roland Hayes opens his fifth American Tour at New York’s Carnegie Hall packed with admirers.

1930 – Whitman Mayo, actor (Grady -“Sanford & Son”), is born in New York City.

1937 – Yaphet Kotto, actor (“Brubaker”, “Alien”, “Raid on Entebbe”, “Eye of the Tiger”, “Roots”, “Live and Let Die”, “Midnight Run”, and TV’s “Homicide”), is born in New York City.

1950 – Dr. Arthur Dorrington, a dentist, becomes the first African American in organized hockey to suit up, a member of the Atlantic City Seagulls of the Eastern Amateur Hockey League.

1960 – Elgin Baylor, of the Los Angeles Lakers scores 71 points against the New York Knicks.

1969 – The Amistad Research Center is incorporated as an independent archive, library, & museum dedicated to preserving African American & ethnic history and culture. The center collects original source materials on the history of the nation’s ethnic minorities and race relations in the United States (over 10 million documents). The Amistad was organized by the Race Relations Department of Fisk University and the American Missionary Association in 1966. The library is now located in Tilton Hall on the campus of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1976 – The Plains Baptist Church, home church of President Jimmy Carter, votes to admit African American worshipers. The church had been under pressure to admit African Americans since Reverend Clennon King had announced his intentions to join the congregation.

1979 – The Nobel Prize in economics is awarded to Professor Arthur Lewis of Princeton University. He is the first African American to receive the coveted prize in a category other than peace.

1979 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Rosa L. Parks, who was the Catalyst in the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott of 1955-56.

1989 – President George Bush signs a bill to rename a Houston, Texas, federal building after George Thomas “Mickey” Leland, the Houston congressman who died in a plane crash earlier in the year.

1998 – Kwame Ture succumbs to prostate cancer in Guinea and joins the ancestors at age 57. He was born Stokely Carmichael in the country of Trinidad (1941) and in 1966 coined the phrase, “Black Power.”