On November 14, 1915, one of the most prolific educators and political leaders in U.S. history, Booker T. Washington, died in Tuskegee, Alabama. Washington fell ill while in New York City, and was brought to his home in Tuskegee, where he died at the age of 59. He was buried on the campus of Tuskegee […]

Richard (“Dick”) Gregory was born (1932). Jesse James Payne was lynched in Madison County, Florida (1945). Forty-six Black and white sailors injured in race riot on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk of North Vietnam (1972). Basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain died at age 63 (1999). Take a look at some more moments in Black History below: […]

Jamaican national hero, Paul Bogle, leads a successful protest march to the Morant Bay Courthouse (1865). The elevator as well as safety devices for elevators where invented by Alexander Miles, Patent # 371,207 (1887). C.O. Bailiff patented the shampoo headrest (1898). NAACP organizes the Education Fund and Legal Defense (1939) Prison uprising, Washington, D.C., jail […]

African Americans replace reluctant whites on the field of battle due to rising white desertions in the Continental Army (1777). Monroe Baker, a well-to-do Black businessman, named mayor of St. Martin, Louisiana (1867). He was probably the first Black to serve as mayor of a town. First Reconstruction legislature met in Richmond, Virginia (1869). Booker […]

Fannie M. Richards was born (1841). She became an educator and civil rights activist. Black and white abolitionists smashed into a courtroom at Syracuse, NY, and rescued a fugitive slave (1851). John Mercer Langston founded and organized the Law Department of Howard University (1868), the first in a black school. Morgan State College was founded […]

Singer Johnny Mathis was born (1935). The birth of Elombe Brath: Political activist, talk show host and co-founder of the Patrice Lumumba Coalition and co-founder of the first Naturally Natural beauty contest (1936). University of Mississippi students and adults from Oxford, Miss., rioted on the university campus (1962). Large force of federal marshals escorted James […]

First African Lodge established by Prince Hall (1784). Edward Thomas Demby elected suffragan bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Arkansas (1918). US merchant ship Booker T. Washington gets its first Black captain, Hugh Mulzac (1940). President John F. Kennedy sends federal troops in to aid the integration of University of Mississippi (1962). Lt. Gov. […]

African American abolitionist David Walker born in Wilmington, North Carolina (1785). The Opelousas Massacre occurred in Louisiana in which an estimated 200 to 300 black Americans were killed (1868). “Purlie Victorious”, a farce by playwright Ossie Davis, opens on Broadway (1961). Governor Barnett found guilty of civil contempt of the federal court. United States Court […]