irst Black person to play in an NBA All-Star Game

Joe Louis

Born: 5/13/1914 La Fayette, AlabamaDied: 4/12/1981 Paradise, NevadaJoseph Louis Barrow, best known as Joe Louis, was an American professional boxer. He held the world heavyweight championship from 1937 to 1949, and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all timeAwards

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Dominique Wilkins

Jacques Dominique Wilkins is a retired professional basketball player who is known as one of the best dunkers in NBA history. He was born on January 12, 1960 in Paris, France as his father was an Air Force Officer who was stationed there at the time of his birth. His family moved back to the United

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Source: Black History Resources

Jan

12

1960

Abrahams, Peter (1919-- )

Twentieth century African novelist and journalist Peter Henry Abrahams was born in Vrededorp (near Johannesburg), South Africa, on March 19, 1919. Abrahams’ father, James Henry Abrahams Deras was the son of former Ethiopian landowners who had taken him across Europe before settling in South

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Source: Black Past

Mar

19

1919

Reggie Jackson

Born May 18, 1946, Reggie Jackson of Pennsylvania belonged to a family of eight with the head of the family working as a tailor. The parents soon separated and Jackson was sent to live with his

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Source: Black History Resources

May

18

1946

Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

The Haitian Revolution has often been described as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western Hemisphere. Slaves initiated the rebellion in 1791 and by 1803 they had succeeded in ending not just slavery but French control over the colony. The Haitian Revolution, however, was

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Source: Black Past

Franklin, Shirley Clarke (1945- )

Shirley Clarke Franklin became Atlanta, Georgia’s first African American female mayor in 2001, as well as the first woman to be a mayor of a major southern city. Clarke was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on May 10, 1945 to parents Eugene Haywood Clarke and Ruth Lyons Clarke. She attended

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Source: Black Past

Dec

10

2009

(1998) Clarence Thomas, "Speech to the National Bar Association"

On July 28, 1998, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas gave the keynote speech at the National Bar Association, the predominately black national lawyerss association, at its annual convention held that year in Memphis, Tennessee. The speech appears

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Source: Black Past

Jul

28

1998

Diggs, Charles (1922–1998)

Charles Diggs was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1922. His father was Charles Coles Diggs and his mother was Mayme Jones Diggs. Young Diggs had an upper middle class background; his father, a prominent mortician and real estate developer, served in the Michigan State Senate. Diggs eventually took

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Source: Black Past

McCollum, Ruby (1909-1992)

Born Ruby Jackson on August 31, 1909, Jackson was a wealthy married African American woman in Live Oak, Florida, who was arrested and convicted for killing a prominent white doctor in 1952, who at the time was also a Florida State

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Source: Black Past

Black Panther Party

Founded in October of 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPP) became the most famous black power organization of the late 1960s. Newton and Seale met in 1965 at Merritt College where they were exposed to a burgeoning wave of Black

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Source: Black Past

Jackson, Mahalia

Jackson, Mahalia məhăl´yə [key], 1911–72, American gospel singer, b. New Orleans. She sang in church choirs during her childhood. Moving (1927) to Chicago, she worked at various menial jobs and sang in churches and at revival meetings, attracting attention for her vigorous, joyful gospel style. As

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Smith, James McCune (1813-1865)

Although many twenty-first century readers are aware of his work only through his introduction to Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom, Dr. James McCune Smith was one of the most broadly accomplished black intellectuals and activists in antebellum America. Born in New York on April

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Source: Black Past

Congdon Street Baptist Church (1819- )

Congdon Street Baptist Church is the oldest African American church in Rhode Island. The church, located on College Hill, sprang from the effort of the black community in the city to provide a place for people of color to worship and a locale for a secular school for black children in the

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Source: Black Past

Mar

9

1819

Jennings, Gladys (1925- )

GladysE. Kidd, educator, nutritionist, mentor, philanthropist, and granddaughter ofslaves was born on October 11, 1925 in Columbus,Ohio to Henry Wesley Cooper, aPresbyterian minister and Charlotte Melinda Cooper, a schoolteacher. She attended the all black elementary andmiddle schools. While in

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Source: Black Past

Oct

11

1925

Condoleezza Rice

Born: /4/954 Birmingham, AlabamaCondoleezza Condi Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. BushBusiness / Schooling:

University of

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Eleven Years in the U.S. Navy: The Strange Saga of Robert Shorter

In the account below historian Lorraine McConaghy uses the story of black sailor Robert Shorter to indicate that while the Civil War freed nearly four million slaves, it also set in motion the status decline of antebellum African American

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Source: Black Past

Kansas State Colored Convention (1863)

The first Kansas State Colored Convention was a call from black Kansans to be granted a future of “Liberty, Justice and Equality” under the United States government. The first Kansas Colored Convention was held in Leavenworth, Kansas on October 13-16, 1863 in the African Methodist

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Source: Black Past

Jan

13

1863

The Myth of the Buffalo Soldiers

Nineteenth Century African American soldiers who served in the Western United States have generally been known a “Buffalo Soldiers.” In this article, however, military historian Frank N. Schubert, challenges modern popular perceptions of the soldiers, among them the significance of

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Source: Black Past

Lawrence Taylor

Named Lawrence Julius Taylor at the time of his birth in 1955 in Williamsburg, Virginia, Taylor was late in joining football as compared to the others in his field. Since he did not start playing until his junior year at Lafayette High School, Taylor was not highly recruited and so ended up at the

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Source: Black History Resources

The BlackPast.org Author's List

Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience Yes

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Source: Black Past

Taylor, Marshall W. (1878-1932)

He was a black pioneer in sports long before Jackie Robinson, Joe Louis, Jesse Owens, and even the legendary Jack Johnson. He did not play baseball as Robinson did, nor was he a pugilist as were Johnson and Louis, and although he participated in a sport where the main objective was speed, he was

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Source: Black Past

George Gervin

Born on April 27, 1952 in Detroit, Michigan, George Gervin is a retired professional basketball player who is known to be one of the greatest shooting guards in NBA

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Source: Black History Resources

Apr

27

1952

The Creole Case (1841)

The Creole Case was the result of an American slave revolt in November 1841 on board the Creole, a ship involved in the United States coastwise slave trade. As a consequence of the revolt, 128 enslaved people won their freedom in the Bahamas, then a British possession. Because of the number of

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Source: Black Past

Lusaka, Zambia (1913- )

Lusaka is the largest city in the Republic of Zambia with a population of 1.8 million. It serves as Zambia’s capital and the country’s commercial center. The city is located in the agricultural region of central Zambia and is connected through train and road to all major parts of the

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Source: Black Past

Allensworth, California

In 1908 four black men formed the California Colony and Home Promoting Association. The Association purchased 20 acres along the Santa Fe rail line from the Pacific Farming Company, at a railway stop called Solita. They divided this land into individual parcels to form the first town in California

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Source: Black Past

NBA community reacts to Moses Malone's death

The death of 76ers great Moses Malone rocked the sports world

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Source: Savoy Network

Espy, Mike (1953- )

Alphonso Michael Espy in 1986 became the first black Congressman elected from Mississippi since John R. Lynch, who served during Reconstruction. He was also the first African American to hold the post of Secretary of Agriculture. Mike Espy was born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. He received

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Source: Black Past

Dec

2

1998

(1993) Lani Guinier, “Seeking a Conversation on Race"

By 1993 Lani Guinier, a Yale Law School graduate, had crafted an impressive career as an NAACP attorney who specialized in voting rights cases, member of the law faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, and special assistant in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department in the Carter

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Source: Black Past

Jun

4

1993

Holy Cross Catholic Church, Corpus Christi, Texas (1914- )

Holy Cross Catholic Church, the first church for African American Catholics inCorpus Christi, Texas, was organized before the parish obtained a physicalbuilding. Before African Americans in that area had achurch, they attended Saint Patrick’s Church, and some joined the MexicanChurch, Our Lady of

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Source: Black Past

Sep

16

1917

Philander Smith College [Little Rock] (1877-- )

Philander Smith is a private liberal arts college in Little Rock, Arkansas and is known as a Historically black college/university (HBCU). Established originally as Walden Seminary in 1877 by the United Methodist Church, the school was named after the first Freedmen’s society

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Source: Black Past

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