Tyra Banks Is New Executive Producer, Host of Dancing With the Stars

Max Robinson

The first Black network anchor, Max Robinson, who joined ABCs World News Tonight died on this day of complication from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), in Washington, DC.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

20

1986

Top 10 Famous African American Scientists and their Contributions

We live in the twenty-first century with modern comforts to help make our lives simpler and easier. It wouldn’t have been possible without the unrelenting efforts of numerous scientists and their useful inventions. America is one of the major hubs of new scientific discoveries and behind those are

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Source: Famous African Americans

Dash, Julie (1952- )

Filmmaker Julie Dash was born on October 22, 1952 in Queens, New York. She received her B.A. in film production from City College of New York in 1974 and went on to earn a two-year fellowship to the Center for Advanced Film Studies at the American Film Institute (AFI) in Los Angeles. At AFI, Dash

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Source: Black Past

Oct

22

1952

Mercer, Mabel Alice Wadham (1900-1984)

Mabel Mercer was one of the most important jazz cabaret singers of the 20th Century. Her personal singing style emphasizing interpretation, diction, lyrics, and projection over vocal proficiency influenced numerous leading singers including Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Nat

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Source: Black Past

Ralph Bunche

Born: 8/7/1904 Detroit, MichiganDied: 12/9/1971 New York City, New YorkRalph Johnson Bunche was an American political scientist, academic, and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel.Business / Schooling: Awards / Achievements:

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Boone, Ashley A., Jr. (1938-1994)

The son of a postal worker and stay-at-home mother, Ashley Augustus Boone Jr. was born and raised in what he described as a “lower middle class” environment in Springfield, Massachusetts. His parents, nonetheless, recognized the primacy of education and, like his brother and two

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Source: Black Past

First Scat Singing Ever Recorded

Don Redman performed the first recorded scat vocals while a member of Fletcher Hendersons Orchestra. Scat singing is an improvised vocal instrumentation composed of nonsense syllables. Don Redman scatted a few bars of My Papa Doesnt Two-Time No Time, recorded in New York by Columbia. Although Louis

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Apr

16

1924

Carl Lewis

Born: 7/1/1961 Birmingham, AlabamaUS, athletics Nine time Olympic gold medallist, Carl Lewis won gold over three Olympics and was the great star of 1980s track and field.Business / Schooling: Awards / Achievements:

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jul

1

1961

Death of artist Charles White (61), in Los Angeles

Death of artist Charles White (61), in Los Angeles.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Oct

3

1979

Agrippa Hull: Revolutionary Patriot

In the following article, University of California at Los Angeles historian Gary B. Nash describes little-known Revolutionary War soldier who was attached by General George Washington to serve with Polish military engineer Tadeuz Kosciuszko. This account is part of a larger history of three

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Source: Black Past

May

21

1848

"Yes We Can": Barack Obama's Road to the White House, 2008

Barack Obamas campaign for the Presidency in 2008 has been described by many political analysts as brilliant and virtually flawless. Despite his inexperience in national politics and limited experience in state politics (Obama was first elected to political office in 1994), he assembled

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Source: Black Past

Fort, Syvilla (1917-1975)

Syvilla Fort, born on July 3, 1917 in Seattle, was a professional dancer in the 1930s and early 1940s and prominent dance instructor in New York City for three decades between 1948 and 1975. Her dance style, which combined African, Caribbean, and American rhythms, influenced hundreds of

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Source: Black Past

Nov

8

1975

(1987) Clarence Thomas, “Why Black Americans Should Look to Conservative Politics”

Much has been said about blacks and conservatism. Those on the Left smugly assume blacks are monolithic and will by force of circumstances always huddle to the left of the political spectrum. The political Right watches this herd mentality in action, concedes that blacks are monolithic, picks up

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Source: Black Past

Barack Obama

Best Known

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Lincoln Motion Picture Company

African American audiences were generally ignored by the major motion picture studios in the first two decades of the 20th Century. Nonetheless, demand for films aimed at black theaters in both the South and larger Northern cities prompted the formation of several “black” motion picture

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Source: Black Past

Chubby Checker born

Birthday of Singer Chubby Checker, born Ernest Evans, in Philadelphia. Checker was best known for The Twist a hit song that soon became a style of dance.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Oct

3

1941

Rap artist Nortorious B.I.G. dies

Rap artist the Nortorious B.I.G. is killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles. He was 24.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Mar

9

1997

Otis Redding - These Arms of Mine (Piano Cover by Alex Serra)

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Source: Black Inventors

James Cameron, Founder Black Holocaust Musem born

James Cameron

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Aug

7

1930

Civil Rights Timeline

The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that sanctioned

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Watson, Diane Edith (1933- )

Diane Edith Watson was born November 12, 1933 in Los Angeles, California and has spent the majority of her life in the Los Angeles area. Her father was a Los Angeles policeman and her mother worked nights at a post office after her parents divorced when Watson was

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Source: Black Past

Nov

12

1933

Samuel L. Jackson

Actor Samuel Jackson was born on this day in Washington, DC. Jackson will begin his acting career as a student at Morehouse College. He will star in over 40 movies including box office hits The Long Kiss Goodnight, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and A Time to Kill.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

21

1941

The Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical

The Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School (later Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science) is chartered in Los Angeles. It is the only African American focused medical school west of the Mississippi

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Aug

2

1966

ABC-TV begins televising the Roots mini-series (which would go on to be the most

ABC-TV begins televising the Roots mini-series (which would go on to be the most watched mini-series in history), based on Alex Haleys book

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jan

23

1977

Battle, Kathleen (1948- )

American soprano Kathleen Battle was born on August 13, 1948 in Portsmouth, Ohio. Battle’s father was a steelworker and her mother was an active participant in the gospel choir at the family’s local African Methodist Episcopal Church. Battle attended Portsmouth High School and upon graduation was

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Source: Black Past

Aug

13

1948

A Chicago Picketing

Dont Buy Where You Cant Work campaign began in Chicago with picketing of Chain stores on South Side, fall. The campaign spread to New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities and continued throughout the Depression.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

30

1929

Zephaniah, Benjamin (1958 - )

Benjamin Zephaniah, poet, playwright, novelist and activist, was born on April 15, 1958, the first of eight children, in Birmingham, England. Zephaniah grew up in Wandsworth until the age of nine when his mother, a Jamaican nurse, fled his father, a postman from Barbados. Leaving behind his twin

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Source: Black Past

Apr

15

1958

“The Yellow Rose of Texas”: The Ironic Origins of a Popular Song

While many Americans are familiar with the song, The Yellow Rose of Texas, few know the story of Emily West, the African American woman who was the inspiration for its creation. In the excerpt below from a longer article that first appeared in 1996, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Source: Black Past

Baltimore Orioles manager Frank Robinson

Baltimore Orioles manager Frank Robinson is named assistant general manager of the club, the third African American to become as assistant GM.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

4

1991

Katherine Dunham (1910-)

American dancer, choreographer, and scholar. She was a pioneer in the use of folk and ethnic choreography, and considered one of the founders of the anthropological dance movement. With Aida in 1963, she became the first Black to choreograph for the Metropolitan Opera in New York city.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Sep

6

2001

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