January 25, 1972, Shirley Chisholm announced her presidential bid. She became the first African American to run for a major party's nomination for President of the United States. "I am not the candidate of black America, although I am…
January 24, 1993, Thurgood Marshall passed away at the age of 83. He was a lawyer and civil rights activist, who later served as a Supreme Court Justice from October 1967 until October 1991. His most famous Cases was argued before the…
January. 20, 1838, The free Black neighborhood of Weeksville was founded in Brooklyn in what is now Crown Heights. Named after a man named James Weeks. In 1838 slavery was abolished in New York State. Later Weeks would buy a plot of l…
January 15, 1929 is Martin Luther King Jr Day, Martin Luther King was an activist and Baptist minister who played a major role in the civil rights movement from the 1955 until his assassination in 1968. King was the leader and spokesm…
January 17, 1942, Muhammad Ali was born. Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, he was professional boxer, entertainer, and activist. He is widely regarded the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time and named Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrate…
January 12th 1865, "40 acres and a Mule" was created. With the Civil War coming to a close Union General William Tecumseh Sherman met with 20 black leaders in a Savannah mansion on Macon Street to put together the plans for "40 acres and a mule&rd…
January 6th, 2003, Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley passed away from heart failure. She was an educator turned activist, after her son Emmett Till was murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly "inappropriately" interacting with White Woman. …
On Dec. 26, 1908, In Sydney, Australia, Jack Johnson became the first African American World Heavyweight champion beating Tommy Burns Jack Johnson in his quest to become the first black heavyweight champion wanted to fight Jim Jeffrie…
December 21st, 1956, Montgomery, Alabama, public buses were officially integrated. This happened following a successful boycott of city buses led by Martin Luther King Jr and the NAACP, it lasted 381 days. Sparked on December 1, 1955…
December 12, 1938, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states providing college education to white students must provide in-state education to African Americans. The decision came after the University of Missouri refused admission to Lloyd Gaines on…
Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, an event that shocked the world. A Civil Rights Leader, Baptist minister and founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), His assassination led to a…
The 15th Amendment: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” The 15th amendment followed in …
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenagers - The nine teenagers were Charlie Weems, Ozie Powell, Clarence Norris, Andrew and Leroy Wright, Olen Montgomery, Willie Roberson, Haywood Patterson and Eugene Williams, They were falsely accused of rapin…
The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 had passed some months earlier but had done very little in some parts of the Country to ensure African Americans of the basic right to vote. No place embodied this trend than more than Dallas County, Alabama, wh…
Black Panther Party was founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966, originally their goal was to end police brutality in Oakland, but after SNCC member Stokeley Carmichael began calling for the uplift and self-determination of African-America…
Chicago in 1919 was a sprawling city that epitomized Americans new industrialism. It was the nations second largest city with over 2.7 million people. Immigrants from all parts of Europe transformed Chicago in a network of segregated neighborhood …
Ma Rainey a singer who was recognized as one of the first great blues vocalist. Born Gertrude Pridgett, she was born in Russell County, Alabama or Columbus, Georgia, in either 1886 or 1882, one of three children of Thomas and E…
The war effort during World War 1 led to increase demand for industrial products made in the North but without the European immigrants they had been using, this left many industries without an adequate supply of unskilled workers. This lead to manuf…
The Black Renaissance was a cultural movement with the Harlem Renaissance being a centerpiece of that movement. The Harlem Renaissance was the development of the Harlem neighborhood in New York City as a black cultural mecca in the early 20th Centur…