Black History Every Day
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September 16, 1933—“Emperor Jones” is released on this day by United Artists. It starred social activist Paul Robeson as Brutus Jones. It was the first Hollywood film with a Black leading man and a White supporting cast.
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September 17, 1861—Hampton Institute (now university) is established by leaders of the American Missionary Association (AMA) after the Civil War to provide education to freedmen.
Mary Smith Peake was hired as the first teacher and held the first class on September 17, 1861.
HU has now become one of the nation’s leading predominately Black educational institutions.
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September 18, 1919 – An American football pioneer, Fritz Pollard becomes the first Black person to play Professional football for a major team, the Akron Indians. Pollard was also the first Black man to play in the Rose Bowl and was the first African American coach.
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Sept. 19, 1963 – Iota Phi Theta Fraternity was founded on this year at Morgan State University.
Twelve men were influenced by the civil rights movement (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Black Panthers, Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael and more) in establishing the fraternity. It is one of the Divine 9, a collection of predominantly Black fraternities and sororities.
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September 20, 1664—Maryland enacts the nation’s first “Anti-Amalgamation Law.” It outlawed marriages between Black men and White women.
Soon, several other colonies followed it's example. It was not until the 1960s that SCOTUS in the famous Loving v. Virginia case declared all such laws un-Constitutional. In 2000 Alabama officially became the last state to strike from the books its law banning interracial marriages.
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September 21, 1872 ~1st Black Student At Annapolis Naval Academy
John Henry Conyers of South Carolina became the first Black student at Annapolis Naval Academy.
From the beginning, he met with difficulty, being subjected to all manner of hazing by his fellow midshipmen. He was cursed at, spat upon and physically manhandled. Some of his classmates even attempted to drown him. He later resigned.
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September 22, 1862 ~ President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, that set a date of January 1, 1863 to end slavery for more than 3 million enslaved people. The proclamation also recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.
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September 23, 1961, Thurgood Marshall was appointed by then-President John F. Kennedy to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, a position he held until 1965, when Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, named him solicitor general.
Following the retirement of Justice Tom Clark in 1967, President Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court, a decision confirmed by the Senate with a 69-11 vote.
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September 24, 1935~Boxer Joe Louis becomes the first Black boxer to draw a million dollar gate. Louis captured his 22nd consecutive win over Max Baer with a fourth-round knockout.
Nicknamed "the Brown Bomber", he is widely regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time. He was victorious in 25 consecutive title defenses, a record for all weight classes. He had the longest single reign as champion of any boxer in history.
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September 25, 1974~ Barbara Hancock (pictured center in the dark dress) became the first black woman in American history to become a White House Fellow. She was then an educated young lady who earned the prestigious fellowship after going through the general application process.
Hancock’s historic fellowship was made official by the administration of U.S. President Gerald Ford.
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September 26, 1962~Malvin Russell Goode became the first black network news correspondent when he was hired by ABC News as its UN reporter. This was prompted by complaints from Jackie Robinson about the lack of black reporters.
In 1971, he became the 1st Black member of the Radio and Television News Directors Association.
In 1990, the National Association of Black Journalists inducted Mr. Goode into its hall of fame.
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September 27, 1950—Ralph J. Bunch is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful negotiation of an Arab-Israeli truce in Palestine the previous year.
He is the first African American to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and in 1963, in 1963, President John F. Kennedy honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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September 28, 1868 ~ Opelousas Massacre
Deemed one of the bloodiest incidents of racial violence in the Reconstruction era, hundreds of blacks were killed by armed white militias in an ethnic war.
The goal was to reverse political gains made by Black citizens after the Civil War, intimidate them from exercising their newly found rights and restore the racial hierarchy of the slavery era.
https://www.history.com/news/voter-suppression-history-opelousas-massacre
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September 29, 1975 ~ WGPR-TV Detroit became the first fully owned and operated African-American TV station in the US.
In 1994, CBS bought WGPR and dropped all existing programming in favor of CBS and syndicated programs, changing the call letters to WWJ-TV.
The original studios for WGPR-TV are still in use and, have been preserved as a museum and recognized as a cultural landmark in the National Register of Historic Places.
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September 30, 1962 ~ James Meredith entered the University of Mississippi escorted by US Marshals. Due to violence opposing his entry, they had to leave and return on the next day October 1, which is viewed by many as his official first day at Ole Miss.
When Meredith initially applied to the University of Mississippi he was accepted, when his race was discovered, he was denied entry.
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October 1, 1952 ~ Joe Black became the first black pitcher to win a World Series game. Black pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1952 World Series and helping his team to defeat the New York Yankees 4-2.
Black was also the 1952 Rookie of the Year.
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October 2, 1967 Chief Justice Earl Warren swears in Thurgood Marshall, the first Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hometown Fact: In 2005, BWI's name officially becomes Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Recognizing the achievements and the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall, an exhibit chronicling his life and career is displayed on the upper level of the BWI terminal.
#BlackHistory #Maryland
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October 3, 1974 ~ Frank Robinson named manager of the Cleveland Indians and became the first Black manager in the major leagues.
He is the only player in baseball history to win the MVP Award in each league (Cincinnati, 1961; Baltimore, 1966). He was also the Rookie of the Year (1956), World Series MVP (1966), All-Star Game MVP (1971), a Gold Glove winner (1958), and the Triple Crown (1966).
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October 4, 1951 ~ Henrietta Lacks died at the age of 31 from the effects of cervical cancer on October 4, 1951, after treatment in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, but her cells (HeLa) cells lived on.
HeLa cells have had a profound and lasting impact on the fields of medicine, biology, and scientific research, contributing to numerous breakthroughs and advancements that have benefited humanity.
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October 5, 1869 ~ 1st Reconstruction legislature (27 Blacks, 150 whites) met in Richmond, VA.
With the passage of the Reconstruction Act of 1867, newly enfranchised Black people gained a voice in government for the first time winning election to southern state legislatures and Congress.
Less than a decade later, reactionary forces—including the KKK—would reverse the changes in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South.
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October 6, 1923 ~Jack Trice, the first black athlete at Iowa was trampled by rival athletes during his “first real college game.” He died two days later at age 21
In the decades after his death, his story receded from memory, only resurfacing every so often. In 1997, after a long fight, Iowa State arena was renamed Jack Trice Stadium, the only Division I Football Bowl Subdivision stadium across the US to bear the name of a Black man.
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October 6, 1871~ Fisk Jubilee Singers begin their 1st national tour
A cappella group of 9 students from Fisk University set out to raise $20,000 for the financially troubled institution.
They were instrumental in preserving African American spirituals and bringing them to a wider audience.
This was the 1st world tour by a musical act. The efforts helped fund education of freed slaves and put Nashville on the map as a global music center.
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October 7, 1993~ Writer, Toni Morrison, awarded the Nobel Prize in literature
Toni Morrison (1931–2019) "who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality. She became the first black woman of any nationality and the second American woman to win the prize since Pearl S. Buck in 1938.
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October 8, 2004 ~Kenyan ecologist Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai becomes the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Her work was considered both unwelcome and subversive in her own country, where her outspokenness constituted stepping far outside traditional gender roles.
Upon winning, the committee commended her “holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights, and women’s rights in particular.”
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October 9, 2009—In a move which surprised just about everyone, President Barack Obama is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama had been in office for less than 9 months at the time but the Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway, said it was impressed by his “promise” of disarmament and diplomacy.
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October 10, 1935—George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” a Black spiritual opera, premiers on Broadway in New York City. It starred Todd Duncan from Howard University. The play becomes one of the most popular Black-themed shows ever to hit Broadway. The 1959 movie version stars Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge.
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October 11, 1939~The NAACP organizes the NAACP Education and Legal Defense Fund which goes on to win many important legal battles guaranteeing civil and educational rights for Blacks.
LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Although it can trace its origins to the legal department of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall founded LDF as a separate legal entity in 1940 and LDF became totally independent from the NAACP in 1957.
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Around October 12, 1945~Jesse James Payne was lynched in Madison County, FL. The lynching came to typify the lies that prompted many a lynching.
Payne got into an argument with his White boss and threatened to expose his boss’ illegal dealings. But the boss then spread a rumor that he had molested his daughter and Payne was lynched.
This was not unusual in FL which by 1920 had the nation’s highest lynching rate relative to its population.
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October 13, 1914~Garret Morgan, an African-American inventor and community leader, invents and patents the gas mask. He is renowned for a heroic rescue in 1916 in which he and three others used the mask he’d developed to save workers trapped within a water intake tunnel, 50 feet beneath Lake Erie.
Morgan made numerous other inventions, but is widely remembered the gas mask and traffic signal.
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October 14, 1834~Henry Blair of Maryland successfully patents his corn-planting machine. The patent is one of the first to be filed by a black person in America.
In 1836 he obtained a second patent for a cotton planter. Blair had been a successful farmer for years and developed the inventions as a means of increasing efficiency in farming.
#BlackHistory #History #Farming #BlackCoSo
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At the time that his patents were granted, US patent law allowed both freed and enslaved people to obtain patents (Blair was freed). In 1857, this law was challenged by a slave-owner who claimed that he owned "all the fruits of the slave's labor," including his slave's inventions. This resulted in a change of the law in 1858 which stated that slaves were not citizens, and therefore could not hold patents. In 1871, the law was changed to grant all men patent rights.
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October 15,1883~The U.S. Supreme Court declares the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. The decision was spurred by the end of Reconstruction and helped to usher in the Jim Crow period in the South whereby Black rights won during Reconstruction were taken away.
Black Americans would have to wait eight decades before Congress passed another civil rights law barring discrimination in public accommodations and employment.
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October 16, 1940~Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr. is named the first Black general in the regular U.S. Army.
Davis was a career officer in the United States Army. One of the few black officers in an era when American society was largely segregated. In 1940 he was promoted to brigadier general, the army's first African American general officer.
Davis died in 1970 at the age of 90.
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October 17, 1871—President Ulysses Grant declared martial law suspends the writ of habeas corpus in nine South Carolina counties in order to combat a Ku Klux Klan terror campaign against Blacks and some progressive Whites.
Grant pretty much crushed the Klan during this period. It would not rise again until the 1920s.
https://omny.fm/shows/this-day-in-history-class/u-s-president-ulysses-s-grant-suspends-habeas-corp
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October 18, 1968 ~ Robert (Bob) Beamon sets record for long jump at the Summer Olympics in Mexico City with a first jump of 8.90 m.
His world record stood for 23 years until it was finally broken in 1991 when Mike Powell jumped 8.95 m at the World Championships in Tokyo, but Beamon's jump is still the Olympic record and 55 years later remains the second-longest wind-legal jump in history.
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October 19, 1870~The first African Americans elected to the U.S. House of Representatives came from South Carolina: Joseph H. Rainey, Robert C. Delarge, and Robert B. Elliott.
Rainey was actually seated first and thus became the first African American sworn in as a member of Congress representing South Carolina's 1st District.
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October 20, 1951~The "Johnny Bright Incident" a violent, and likely racially motivated, on-field assault of Bright during a college football game during which his jaw was broken.
Bright chose to forego the NFL draft, opting instead to play in the CFL due to concerns about the potential challenges he might face as the first black player in the NFL. Remarkably, Bright's yards per carry average of 5.5 still stands as a record to this day.
After the assault, the football uniform was changed so that the helmet included the face shield/mask.
The Brutal Tackle That Changed the Face of Football - The Johnny Bright Story
#BlackHistory #Football
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNHjI2pLe-s
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October 21, 1975 ~The Black Fashion Museum is opened in Harlem by Lois Alexander.
The museum traced the historical contributions of black designers and clothing makers to fashion.
Established in Harlem, it was relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1994 and operated until 2007, when the Black Fashion Museum Collection was accepted into the collections of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
@nursefrombirth that whole museum is amazing including the building.