First Black Political Convention

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Aug

7

1930

Emory O. Jackson, the Birmingham World, and the Fight for Civil Rights in Alabama

In the article below, Kimberley Mangun, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah, describes her ongoing research on the Birmingham (Alabama) World and its longtime editor, Emory O. Jackson. Mangun is writing a cultural biography of Jackson and the

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Source: Black Past

Cooper, J. Gary (1936– )

J. Gary Cooper, military, government, and business leader, was appointed United States Ambassador to Jamaica by President Bill Clinton in 1994. He was the first African American to occupy the position. Prior to his appointment, he had a distinguished military

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Source: Black Past

Oct

2

1936

W.E.B. DuBois and the Making of the Encyclopedia Africana, 1909-1963

In their introduction to Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, co-editors Henry Louis Gates and Kwame Anthony Appiah describe W.E.B. DuBois’s half century campaign to publish an encyclopedia that would encompass the African diaspora. That introduction appears

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Source: Black Past

Meek, Kendrick (1966- )

Kendrick Meek, former highway patrolman, Florida state representative, and state senator, has served in the United States House of Representatives as a Democratic representative from Florida’s 17th District since 2003. Meek was born on September 6, 1966 in Miami, Florida, and is the son of former

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Source: Black Past

Sep

6

1966

Muhammad, Benjamin Franklin Chavis

Muhammad, Benjamin Franklin Chavis | FactMonster

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Young, Andrew (Seattle)

Andrew J. Young (not related to Martin Luther King’s lieutenant and Southern Christian Leadership Conference member of the same name) was a civil rights activist in Seattle during the middle part of the twentieth century. A lawyer, Young first reached prominence when he served as the assistant

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Source: Black Past

Oct

8

1966

Pearman, Raven-Symoné Christina (1985- )

Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman, better known as “Raven-Symoné,” is an American actress and recording artist. Her entertainment career began when she starred in advertisements for well-known brands such as Jell-O and Cool Whip and as a young model for the Ford Modeling

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Source: Black Past

Dec

10

1985

Fort Worth, Texas, Where the West and the South Meet: A Brief History of the City's African American Community, 1849-2012

In the article below, Fort Worth historian Richard Selcer introduces us to the African American community which has been a presence in this city since its founding in

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Source: Black Past

Aug

26

1850

(1934) W.E.B. Du Bois, “A Negro Nation Within a Nation"

W.E.B Du Bois, a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) through most of his life was a staunch integrationist. In 1934 however he advanced the argument that since integration would not happen in the nation any time soon, African Americans had to

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Source: Black Past

Jun

26

1934

Price, Mary Violet Leontyne (1927- )

Born to James and Kate Price on February 10, 1927, in Laurel, Mississippi, Leontyne Price became one of the world’s leading opera sopranos and among the first African Americans to gain prominence in major performance halls in that musical genre. Her parents were amateur musicians and instilled in

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Source: Black Past

Feb

10

1927

(2004) Bill Cosby, “The Pound Cake Speech”

On May 17, 2004, the NAACP staged a gala celebration at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Comedian, actor, and philanthropist Bill Cosby was asked to deliver the main address. Cosby

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Source: Black Past

May

17

2004

Mfume, Kweisi (Frizzel Gray) (1948 - )

Kweisi Mfume was born as Frizzel Gray in Baltimore, Maryland on October 24, 1948, the eldest of four children. Gray experienced a troubled childhood with the abandonment of his father and death of his mother as well as economic instability, but made a successful return to his academic studies in

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Source: Black Past

Feb

15

1996

Medgar W. Evers assassinated

Medgar W. Evers (37), NAACP field secretary in Mississippi, assassinated in front of his Jackson home by a segregationist.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

12

1963

W.E.B. DuBois

Born: 2/23/868 Great Barrington, MassachusettsDied: 8/27/963 Accra, GhanaWilliam Edward Burghardt W. E. B. Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a relatively tolerant and

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Feb

3

1998

Merriwether, Raymond (1924–2011)

Raymond (Ray) Merriwether, prominent Seattle, Washington African American architect, real estate developer, and newspaper owner, was born in Taylor, Texas on June 19, 1924 to Colie and Annie Merriwether. After graduating from high school Merriwether attended barber school and served a short time

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Source: Black Past

May

23

2011

Norton, Eleanor Holmes (1937- )

Eleanor Holmes Norton was born on June 13, 1937 in Washington, D.C. to parents Coleman and Vela Holmes. Both her parents were government employees. Growing up in a well educated and politically conscious household caused Eleanor Holmes to be very aware of the surrounding struggles for African

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Source: Black Past

Jun

13

1937

Walter F. White honored by NAACP

Walter F. White, an Atlanta-born writer and civil rights leader, was honored by the NAACP in New York City for his work as the organizations Executive Secretary, his investigations of lynchings, and his lobbying for a federal anti-lynching law.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jul

2

1937

Patrick, Deval L. (1956 - )

Deval L. Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts was elected in 2006. He became at that time only the second African American elected as a state Governor in the history of the United States. Patrick was born on July 31, 1956 in Chicago to Laurdine Pat Patrick and Emily Mae Wintersmith, and raised in

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Source: Black Past

Jul

31

1956

Virginia Students Protest Segregated Schools

Students attending Moton High School, Prince Edward County, Virginia led a walk out to protest separate and unequal school

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Apr

23

1951

Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary Jane McLeod Bethune was a renowned educator and African American leader of the 20th century. She was born on July 10, 1875 in South Carolina to parents who had been former slaves. She was one of 17 children in her family, and all of them, including Mary, worked at the cotton plantations along

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Source: Black History Resources

May

18

1955

Alvin Ailey

Born to a teen mother whose husband left her early on, Alvin Ailey grew up in the small Texas town of Navasota with a family that was facing financial difficulties. Drawing inspiration from the black church services and the music at the local dance hall, Ailey left for Los Angeles at the age of 12

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Source: Black History Resources

The Pan-African Congresses, 1900-1945

Pan-Africanist ideals emerged in the late nineteenth century in response to European colonization and exploitation of the African continent. Pan-Africanist philosophy held that slavery and colonialism depended on and encouraged negative, unfounded categorizations of the race, culture, and values of

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Source: Black Past

Death of Charles Hamilton Houston

Death of Charles Hamilton Houston (54), architect of the NAACP legal campaign Washington, D.C.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Apr

22

1950

Evans, Melvin Herbert (1917–1984)

Melvin Herbert Evans was born on August 7, 1917, in Christiansted, St. Croix, Virgin Islands. He attended public schools until entering Howard University where he received his B.S. in 1940. In 1944 he received his M.D. from Howard College of Medicine, whereupon he served in a variety of medical

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Source: Black Past

Jan

3

1979

Haley, George (1925- )

Ambassador George Williford Boyce Haley served as the U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Gambia from 1998 until 2001. Haley was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1998 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He then traveled to Banjul, the capital of Gambia to assume his post as head of the

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Source: Black Past

Aug

28

1925

McGee, Henry Wadsworth, Sr. (1910-2000)

The first African American Postmaster of a major postal facility, Henry W. McGee, Sr. was born in Hillsboro, Texas, in 1910, and moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1927. McGee was the first person to rise from the ranks of letter carriers to achieve the status of Postmaster, a post to which he was

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Source: Black Past

Wells, Barry L. (1942- )

Ambassador Barry L. Wells has had an extensive career in international affairs with the United States Foreign Service after an earlier period as a university professor and administrator. Wells was born in 1942 in Columbus, Ohio and graduated from East High School in that city in 1959. He received

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Source: Black Past

Ida B. Wells Barnett

Ida Wells was born a slave on July 16, 1862, in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to James and Elizabeth (Warrenton) Wells. The oldest in a family of four boys and four girls, she acquired from her parents a love of liberty and self-sufficiency that characterized her

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Mar

25

1931

Death of Mary McLeod Bethune, educator/activist

Death of Mary McLeod Bethune (79), educator and civil rights leader, Daytona

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Source: Blackfacts.com

May

18

1955

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