People, Locations, Episodes

The Fair Employment Practice Committee is Created

*The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) was created on this date in 1941. Officially termed Executive Order 8802 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, its purpose was: “banning discriminatory employment practices by Federal agencies and all unions and companies engaged in war-related work.”   This was a significant advancement for African Americans, initiated primarily by three individuals and […]

Executive Order 8802 is Signed

*On this date in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, which prohibited ethnic or racial discrimination in the nation’s defense industry. It also established the Fair Employment Practice Committee, the first federal action, though not a law, to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination in the United States. Many citizens of […]

The John M. Langston Bar Association is Formed

*The founding of the John M. Langston Bar Association is celebrated on this date in 1943.    They began as a small support group of Black attorneys in Los Angeles. Attorney Crispus Attucks Wright and other pioneering Black lawyers began a “law club.”   They founded the association in response to other bar city associations’ policies of excluding […]

Nat Glover Jr., Administrator born

*Nat Glover was born on this date in 1943. He is a Black college administrator, former police officer, and sheriff.   Nathaniel Glover Jr. was born and attended public schools in Jacksonville. As a young man, he experienced the racism of the early 1960s when he stumbled into Ax Handle Saturday. On that day, white men, including some members of the Ku Klux […]

Sharon Pratt, Policy Administrator born

*Sharon Pratt was born on this date in 1944. She is a Black lawyer, politician, and administrator. From Washington D.C., she was born to D.C. Superior Court judge Carlisle Edward Pratt and Mildred “Peggy” (Petticord) Pratt. Three years later, a sister, Benaree, was born. After she lost her mother to breast cancer at an early […]

Duvall v. School Board is Ruled

*On this date in 1944, Duvall v. School Board was ruled on. This case involved equal pay for certified schoolteachers in South Carolina regardless of race.  On November 10, 1943, NAACP lawyers filed the case with the federal district court to equalize the salary of Viola Louise Duvall, a Black educator from Charleston’s Burke High School. The […]

Algernon J. Cooper, Jr., Lawyer and Administrator born.

*Algernon J. Cooper, Jr. was born on this date in 1944. He is a Black politician and lawyer. Algernon Johnson Cooper, Jr., his sister Peggy, and brother Gary were born in Mobile, Alabama, to Gladys Catherine Mouton and Algernon Johnson Cooper, Sr. Cooper attended St. Peter Claver Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama, until he attended […]

Korematsu v. The United States is Decided

*On this date in 1944, Korematsu v. the United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944), was decided. This was a landmark United States Supreme Court case upholding the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The case exemplifies the racial intersectionality between Asian Americans and African Americans in the United States. The decision has widely been criticized, with some scholars describing it as “an […]

Lena Baker is Executed

*On his date in 1945, Lena Baker, an African American mother of three, was electrocuted at the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.

She was convicted for the fatal shooting of E. B. Knight, a white Cuthbert, GA mill operator she was hired to care for after he broke his leg. She was 44 and the only woman ever executed in Georgia’s electric chair. For Baker, a Black maid in the segregated south in the 1940’s, her story was a tough sell to a jury of 12 white men. And rumors that she was romantically involved with victim E. B. Knight did not help.

Kathleen Cleaver, Black Panther Activist and Educator born

Kathleen Cleaver was born on this date in 1945. She is an African American educator, lawyer, writer, and activist.

Born in Dallas Texas, Kathleen Neal Cleaver’s father was a sociology professor at Wiley College and her mother held a degree in Mathematics. With her father’s work, the family spent many of her early years abroad in Liberia, the Philippines, and Sierra Leone. Cleaver completed high school at the Georgia School in Philadelphia in 1963.

The Women’s Political Council is Formed

*The Woman’s Political Council (WPC) was organized on this date in 1946. Founded in Montgomery, Alabama, it was an early force active in the 20th-century American Civil Rights movement, formed to address the racial issues in the city. WPC’s founding members included Mary Fair Burks, Jo Ann Robinson, Irene West, Thelma Glass, and Euretta Adair. The […]

Morgan v. Virginia is Ruled

On this date in 1946, the U. S. Supreme Court decided Morgan v. Virginia, a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled that segregation in interstate bus travel was unconstitutional.

Lee Roy Young, Law Enforcement Officer born

*Lee Roy Young was born on this date in 1947. He was a Black law enforcement officer, Texas Ranger.   Lee Roy Young was born in Del Rio, TX. After graduating high school, he served four years in the United States Navy from 1966 to 1970. After being discharged from the Navy, he earned an […]

Shelly v. Kraemer is Ruled

*On this date in 1948, the United States Supreme Court rendered its landmark decision in Shelley v. Kraemer. Holding, by a vote of 6 to 0 (with three judges not sitting), the court ruled that courts cannot enforce racially restrictive covenants since this would constitute state action denying due process of law in violation of […]

Clarence Thomas, Conservative Judge born

Clarence Thomas was born on this date in 1948. He is an African American lawyer and associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Thomas was born in the Pin Point, GA, community near Savannah. His father left his family when he was two years old. His mother was eventually unable to make ends meet and he then was raised by his grandfather.