People, Locations, Episodes

Errol W. Barrow, Barbadian Politician born

*Errol Walton Barrow was born on this date in 1920. He was a Barbadian politician.

Robert Friend, Tuskegee Airman born

*Robert Friend was born on this date in 1920.  He was a Black military officer and Tuskegee Airman.  Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Friend was interested in aviation from a young age. He read stories of World War I pilots in old magazines and made his makeshift airplanes for imaginative play. Friend had wanted to enlist […]

Lawrence Everett Dickson, Tuskegee Pilot born

*Lawrence Everett Dickson was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black soldier and Tuskegee Airman pilot.   He was a native of South Carolina, taught himself how to play the guitar, and spent two years studying chemistry at the City College of New York. Phyllis and Lawrence Dickson were married in November 1941. She was […]

Joseph Gomer, Tuskegee Airman born

*Joseph Gomer was born on this date in 1920. He was an African American businessman and former WW II Tuskegee Airman fighter pilot.

William Coleman Jr., Policy Administrator born

*William T. Coleman Jr. was born on this date in 1920. He was an African American lawyer, political cabinet member and administrator.

Hans Hauck, Black German Soldier born

*Hans Hauck was born on this date in 1920. He was a Black German soldier who served in the Wehrmacht during the Nazi regime in Germany. He was born in Frankfurt am Main. Hans Hauck’s father, Benmansur Belabissi, was a Black Algerian stationed in the occupied Saarland as a soldier in the French army; his mother […]

Nancy Leftenant, Nurse and Officer born

*Nancy Leftenant was born on this date in 1920. She was a Black nurse and military officer. Also known as “Lefty,” she was born in Goose Creek, South Carolina, to James and Eunice Leftenant. She graduated from Amityville High School, Amityville, New York, in 1939 and New York’s Lincoln School of Nursing in 1941. She […]

Byron De La Beckwith, Klansman born

*On this date in 1920, Byron De La Beckwith Jr. was born. He was a white-American white supremacist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan.  De La Beckwith was born in Colusa, California, the son of Susan Southworth Yerger and Byron De La Beckwith Sr., the town’s postmaster.   His father died of pneumonia when he was 5.  One year later, he […]

Charles Bussey, Military Officer born

*Charles Bussey was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black officer and a Korean War hero.    Charles Bussey was born in Kern, CA., and grew up in Bakersfield, California. After graduating from high school, Bussey attended Los Angeles City College for two years before enlisting in the US military.  Bussey was assigned […]

William Morgan, Dentist, and Tuskegee Airman born

*William Morgan was born on this date in 1921. He was an African American dentist and Tuskegee Airman.

William Bethel Morgan Jr. was from Wyano, Pennsylvania (Westmoreland County), a small coal mining community. His father was William Bethel Morgan, Sr., a coal miner, and his mother was Susie Harris Morgan a farmer. When he was just 8, in 1929, Morgan’s father died in a Wyano coal mining accident. Young Morgan and his mother moved onto a farm in Yukon, Pennsylvania as the only black family in town.

Clarence Beavers, Military Officer born

*Clarence Beavers was born on this date in 1921.  He was a Black United States Army sergeant and paratrooper.   Clarence Hylan Beavers was born in Harlem, New York, and was the 15th of 16 children to parents who fled the South before he was born to escape racism. His maternal grandfather was an escaped slave who served in the Union […]

Matthew J. Perry, Lawyer born

*Matthew J. Perry Jr. was born on this date in 1921. He was a Black attorney and judge. Born in Columbia, South Carolina, Matthew James Perry Jr. attended local segregated schools and started studying business. During World War II in the United States Army, he served from 1943 to 1946. He finished college after the […]

Lockard v. Evans Filed in Tulsa, Oklahoma

*On this date in 1921, Lockard v. Evans, et al., was filed in Tulsa County District Court, Oklahoma. This was legal action from a group of African American’s against the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma to rebuild their neighborhoods destroyed by the Tulsa Race Riots earlier that summer.

Constance Baker Motley, Lawyer, Judge, and Activist born

*On this date in 1921, Constance Baker Motley was born. She was an African American lawyer, judge, and politician.

From New haven, Connecticut she is one of nine children to a family who had migrated to America from the Caribbean island of Nevis. While attending school, she was active in the New Haven Youth Council, and the New Haven Adult Community council. Motley attended Fisk University, transferring to New York University-graduating in 1943 with a degree in economics. She attained her law degree from Columbia University in 1946.

John Patterson, Southern Politician born

*John Patterson was born on this date in 1921.  He was a white-American politician and lawyer.   John Malcolm Patterson was born in Goldville in Tallapoosa County in east-central Alabama. His father was attorney Albert Patterson. He joined the United States Army in 1939 and served in the North African, Sicilian, Italian, Southern France, and German campaigns of World War II. In 1945, he left the Army as a […]