*Kobe Bryant was born on this date in 1978. He was an African American professional basketball player and has become an investor.
Kobe Bean Bryant was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the youngest of three children and the only son of former NBA player and former WNBA head coach Joe “Jellybean” Bryant and Pamela Cox Bryant. He is also the maternal nephew of John “Chubby” Cox. His parents named him after the famous beef of Kobe, Japan. He started playing basketball when he was 3 years old, and his grandfather would mail him videos of NBA games, which Bryant would study.
learn moreJames Blake was born on this date in 1979. He is a former African American professional tennis player.
James Riley Blake is from Yonkers, New York, His African American father was Thomas Blake, Sr., and his mother Betty is British. His brother, Thomas Jr., is also a professional tennis player, and he has two older half-brothers, Christopher and Howard.
Blake graduated from Fairfield High School, in Fairfield, CT, in 1997. He attended Harvard University and left after his sophomore year to pursue a career in tennis.
learn more*Ronaldo was born on this date in 1980. He is an Afro Brazilian soccer player (footballer). From Porto Alegre, Brazil, Ronaldo de Assis Moreira is more commonly known as Ronaldinho Gaúcho because he is from the Rio Grande do the Sul state of Brazil. His nickname Ronaldinho is Portuguese for “little Ronaldo” and was initially […]
learn moreVenus Williams was born on this date in 1980. She is an African American tennis player and entrepreneur.
Born in Lynwood, California, Venus Ebone Starr Williams is the daughter of Richard Williams and Oracene Price and the older sister of Serena Williams. She turned professional tennis player on October 31, 1994. In that match in the second round of her first professional tournament in Oakland, Williams nearly upset the top seed Arantxa Sanchez andVicario before losing the match.
learn moreSerena Williams was born on this date in 1981. She is an African American tennis player and entrepreneur and the younger sister of tennis player Venus Williams.
Serena Jameka Williams was born in Saginaw, MI. When she and her four sisters were young, their parents, Richard and Oracene, lived in Compton, CA. She won her first tournament and eventually entered 49 tournaments before the age of 10, winning 46 of them. At one point, she replaced her sister Venus as the number one ranked tennis player aged 12 or under in California. She never bragged about all her winnings.
learn more*Shani Davis was born on this date in 1982. He is an African American world-class speed skater.
learn more*Larry Fitzgerald Jr. was born on this date in 1983. He is an African American football player in the National Football League (NFL).
Larry Darnell Fitzgerald Jr. was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota the older of two sons of Larry and Carol Fitzgerald Sr. He graduated from the Academy of Holy Angels high school and attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he played for the schools football team. From 2002 to 2003, he was generally considered one of the best wide receivers in college football.
learn more*Cullen Jones was born on this date in 1984. He is an African American competitive swimmer and Olympic gold medalist in freestyle sprint events.
learn moreOn this date in 1984 John Thompson, of Georgetown University, became the first Black coach to win the NCAA basketball tournament.
That evening Georgetown beat Houston in the NCAA final, 84-75, to win its only national championship.
learn more*On this date in 1984, an African American won the 25th Annual Armed Forces Chess Championship Tournament.
Chess player and Air Force Sergeant Emory A. Tate, Jr., stationed at Ft. Meade, Maryland accepted the first annual Haskell Small Award for taking individual honors. Tate won the tournament, which was held in Washington, D.C. that week in September 1984.
learn moreLeBron James, an African American professional basketball player, was born on this date in 1984.
He was born in Akron, Ohio, the only child of Gloria James who was 16 at the time his birth and just six months shy of graduating from high school. His childhood improved when his mother began a relationship with Eddie Jackson. Young James did not have much contact with his biological father and Jackson became a father figure to him. He regularly attended James’ high school basketball games.
learn more*Lewis Hamilton was born on this date in 1985. He is a Black English Formula One Race Car Driver.
From Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, Lewis Carl Hamilton’s grandparents immigrated to the United Kingdom from Grenada in the 1950s, his grandfather worked on the London Underground. His mother Carmen, and father Anthony (who is now an IT Consultant), named Lewis after the American Olympic gold medal winning athlete Carl Lewis. His parents separated when he was two. Hamilton grew up with his father, step-mother and half-brother Nicholas who suffers from cerebral palsy.
learn moreOn this date in 1986, Michael Jordan set an NBA playoff scoring record.
Jordan scored 63 points that evening against Boston Celtics.
learn moreOne this date, George Branham, was the first African American to win a Professional Bowlers Association, (PBA) championship. He defeated Mark Roth from Detroit in Glendale Heights, Illinois, on this date in 1986. . .
learn more*Colin Kaepernick was born on this date in 1987. He is a Black civil rights activist, an American football (NFL) quarterback, and a retired free agent. Colin Rand Kaepernick was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Heidi Russo, who is white. His African American father separated from Russo before Kaepernick was born. Russo placed him up for adoption with a white […]
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