TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY—August 31

August 31, 1935—Professional baseball player Frank Robinson is born in Beaumont, TX. He goes on to become the first black manager in major league baseball.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY—August 30

August 30, 1901—Roy Wilkins, 2nd Executive Director of NAACP, is born. 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/images/129image.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/129wilkins.htm&h=306&w=200&sz=7&tbnid=zNnTtCah_DfE-M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=64&zoom=1&usg=__CcJd-0OCFdR2ETqnwGvnWpUR6t0=&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aSdAUIX4LIaZ0QHIhIHoDA&ved=0CEkQ9QEwBQ&dur=90

       

August 30, 1800—Gabriel Prosser's slave revolt in Virginia is discovered.

August 30, 1838—The first African American magazine, Mirror of Freedom, begins publication in New York City.

August 30, 1843—African Americans participate in a national political convention for the first time at the Liberty Party Convention held in Buffalo, NY. Samuel R. Ward leads the convention in prayer; Henry Highland Garnet is chosen as a member of the nominating committee; and Charles R. Ray is selected as  one of the convention's secretaries.

 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY—August 29th

August 29, 1979—Sheridan Broadcasting Corp purchases Mutual Black Network, making it the first completely Black owned radio network in the world.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 28, 1963—Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his "I Have A Dream" speech at Lincoln Memorial during the March On Washington, 1963.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 27, 1963—W. E. B. DuBois, editor, author and civil rights leader, dies in Ghana, Africa.

His book, The Souls of Black Folk, published in 1903, is a classic in Black History and literature.

Today in Black History—Hale Woodruff

August 26, 1900—The celebrated painter Hale Woodruff is born in Cairo, IL  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hale_Woodruff 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY—Colored Nurses

                 

August 25,1908—National Association of Colored Nurses is founded.

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/national-association-colored-graduate-nurses-founded

August 25, 1927—Althea Gibson, tennis champion, born in South Carolina.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY—August 24, 1950 Edith Sampson, first Black delegate to United Nations appointed by President Harry S. Truman.

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/edith-sampson-lawyer-judge-and-first-black-woman-named-un-delegate

Learn more about this extraordinary woman in Book of Black Heroes: Great Women in the Struggle, published by Just Us Books.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 23, 1900—National Negro Business League, founded.

http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/booker-t-washington-founds-national-business-league

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 22, 1867—Fisk University incorporated. This historically Black institution of higher education, located in  Nashville, Tenn. opened in 1866.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 21, 1831—Nat Turner begins his slave revolt in Southampton County, VA.  Turner was captured and hanged but his revolt caused fear throughout the South. State legislatures passed new laws to reinforce the ones they had already enacted, prohibiting the education of slaves and free blacks, restricting rights of assembly and other civil rights for free blacks, and requiring white ministers to be present at black worship services.

August 21, 1904— Jazz great William “Count” Basie is born in Red Bank, NJ. Basie was one of the world’s most popular jazz band leaders.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 20, 1856—Wilberforce, an African-American institution of higher learning, is established in Ohio. It is the nation’s oldest private historically black institution.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 19, 1791—Benjamin Banneker, free African American scientist, astronomer, mathematician, surveyor and farmer, publishes his first almanac.  

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 18, 1859—Our Nig by Harriett Wilson, the first novel written by an African American to be published, is released.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 17, 1887—Marcus Garvey, founder of the United Negro Improvement Association and the “Back to Africa Movement” of the 1920s, is born in Jamaica.

Read more about Marcus Garvey in the forthcoming revision of Book of Black Heroes from A to Z, published in fall 2012 by Just Us Books.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 16, 1887—Journalist and author Louis Lomax is born in Valdosta, GA. He was the first African-American television journalist.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 15, 1824—Freed African-American slaves establishes Liberia, an independent country in West Africa.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 14, 1883—Ernest Just, pioneering biologist is born in Charleston, SC.

Read more about his life and his research in Book of Black Heroes: Scientists, Healers and Inventors, published by Just Us Books.

http://www.justusbooksonlinestore.com/products/BOOK-OF-BLACK-HEROES%3A-SCIENTISTS%2C-HEALERS-AND-INVENTORS.html

August 13, 1892—The Afro-American Newspaper, headquartered in Baltimore, MD, is founded.www.afro.com/

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 12, 1922—Cedar Hill, the home of Black abolitionist and leader Frederick Douglass in Washington, DC is dedicated as a National Memorial.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 11, 1921—Alex Haley, author of Roots and The Autobiography of Malcolm X, is born in Ithaca, NY.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 10, 1989—General Colin Powell is named Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking position in the US military.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 9, 1936—Jesse Owens wins his fourth Gold Medal at the Olympics Games held in Berlin, Germany, making a mockery out of Adolph Hitler’s Aryan race supremacy theory.

Read more about him in AFRO-BETS Book of Black Heroes from A to Z, published by Just Us Books, pub date: October 2012.

August 8, 1866—Matthew Henson, the first person to reach the North Pole is born in Culver City, MD.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 7, 1904—Ralph Bunche, diplomat and the first “Nobel Peace Prize” winner, is born in Detroit, MI. 

  August 7, 1948—Alice Coachman becomes first African-American woman to win gold at the Olympics games held in London, England. She set an Olympic record in the women’s high jump.

 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 6, 1965—The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which outlaws discriminatory voting practices, is signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 5, 1900—James Augustine Healy, the first Black Roman Catholic Bishop dies. He was ordained a Bishop of Portland, OR in 1875.  

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 4, 1810   Robert Purvis, prominent abolitionist and Black leader is born in Charleston, SC.
Read more about Purvis at http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/6442 

August 4, 1961   Barack Obama, the first African American to be elected President of the United States, is born in Honolulu, HA.
Read more about President Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/president-obama 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 3, 1960—The African nation of Niger gains its independence.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 2, 1924—Prominent African-American author, James Baldwin is born. His books include The Fire Next Time, Nobody Knows My Name and Notes of a Native Son. 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

August 1, 1834   Slavery is outlawed in British colonies.

August 1, 1895   Benjamin E. Mays, renowned educator and former president of Morehouse College is born.

QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

“Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress.”

—Frederick Douglass, Civil Disobedience Manual 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 31, 1874 – Patrick Francis Healy becomes president of Georgetown, one of the nation’s leading universities. He is the first person of African ancestry to head a major university in the United States.