People, Locations, Episodes

Solomon Northup born

*Solomon Northup was born on this date in 1807. He was a Black musician, abolitionist and author. Born in Rhode Island, he was taken with the Northup’s when they moved to Hoosick, New York, in Rensselaer County.   His father Mintus was a freedman who had been a slave in his early life in service […]

James Pennington Abolitionist leader born

The birth of the Reverend James William Charles Pennington in 1807 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black educator, clergyman, orator, author, and abolitionist.

James Westley Hurse born

*James Wesley Hurse was born on this date in 1866.  He was a Black minister. Born in Colyerville, Tennessee, he spent his early years on a farm in nearby Mason, TN. He left home as a teenager and worked in Memphis at a variety of odd jobs before moving to Kansas City at the age […]

Civil Rights pioneer Mary McLeod Bethune

Mary McLeod Bethune, African American civil rights administrator and educator was born on this date in 1875.

A musical legend, Noble Sissle

Noble Sissle, an African American musician and lyricist, was born on this date in 1889.

Afro Cuban national poet, Nicolas Guillen

Nicolas’ Guillen was born on this date in 1902. He was an Afro Cuban poet, writer, journalist, and social activist.

From Camageuey, Cuba, he was the sixth child of Argelia Batista y Arrieta and Nicolas’ Guillen y Urra, both of whom were of mixed African-Spanish decent. Guillen’s fathe, a journalist, introduced him to Afro-Cuban music when he was very young. His father was assassinated by the Cuban government, and as Nicolas and his brothers and sister finished school in pre-revolutionary Cuba, they encountered the same racism Black Americans lived with before the 1950s.

Clayton Bates, Dancer born

The birth of Clayton Bates, an African American tap dancer, is marked on this date in 1907.

He was born in rural Fountain Inn, S.C., where his mother, Emma, raised him alone after his father abandoned them. He loved to dance and started dancing at the age of five. When he was 12, he lost his left leg after it was mangled in the conveyor belt of a cotton separator at a mill where he was working. With no hospital nearby for Black people, his leg was amputated on the table in his mother’s kitchen. After the mill accident, people said he would never dance again.

The St. Paul Colored Gophers, a special baseball team

The St. Paul Colored Gophers of 1907 are celebrated on this date. They were a small club of African American baseball players formed in St. Paul, MN, 40 years before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier.

African Times and Orient Review published

*On this date in 1912, we celebrate the publication of African Times and Orient Review.  This was a Pan-Asian and Pan-African journal.  Launched by Duse Mohamed Ali, a black British actor and journalist, with the help of John Eldred Taylor.   It was inspired by the first Universal Races Congress in 1911 in the United Kingdom and wrote of the global intersectionality of non white communities.  That […]

David Dinkins born

*On this date in 1927, David Dinkins was born.  He is a Black politician, lawyer, and author.  who from 1990 to 1993, served as the 106th Mayor of New York City. He was the first and, to date, the only African American to hold that office.   David Norman Dinkins was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Sarah “Sally” Lucy and William Harvey Dinkins […]

Richard Hatcher, a pioneering urban mayor

*Richard Hatcher was born on this date in 1933. He is an African American politician and law professor.

Lee Morgan, trumpeter born

*Lee Morgan was born on this date in 1938.  He was a Black jazz trumpeter and composer.     Edward Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the youngest of Otto Ricardo and Nettie Beatrice Morgan’s four children.  Originally interested in the vibraphone, he soon showed a growing enthusiasm for the trumpet. Morgan also knew how to play the alto saxophone. On his thirteenth […]

Arthur Ashe, an athlete with character

Arthur Ashe was born on this date in 1943. He was an African American tennis player, author, activist and the first Black man to win a major tennis tournament.

Actor Ron Glass born

*Ron Glass was born on this date in 1945. He was an African American actor.

Bahamas gains Independence from the U.K.

*On this date in 1973, the Bahamas gained independence from the United Kingdom. The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American Revolutionary War, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists to the Bahamas; they took their slaves with them and established plantations on land grants. African slaves and their descendants constituted the […]