*The Red Cap Porter profession is marked on this date in 1890. This is a profession associated with post Reconstruction African American heritage. It was a practice of railroad station porters wearing red-colored caps to distinguish them from blue-capped train personnel with other duties. The first Red Cap began on Labor Day of 1890 by a Black porter in order […]
learn more*John Standard was born on this date in 1868. He was a Black inventor. From Newark, New Jersey, there is not much known about his early life other than that he was born to Mary and Joseph Standard. Standard’s improvements to kitchen appliances eventually lead to more innovations in both refrigerator and stove designs that would change the […]
learn more*On this date in 1902 we celebrate the founding of Black owned, Mechanics Savings Bank. This was a depository institution in the Jackson Ward neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. John Mitchell, Jr. African American was its founder. He also owned and edited the Richmond Planet. In 1905 the bank bought a three-story brick building at No. 310 East Broad Street. The bank’s Clay Street and […]
learn more*The first issue of the Richmond Planet is celebrated on this date in 1882. This was a Black newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. The paper was founded by 13 former Richmond slaves. It was edited first by Edwin Archer Randolph and then by John Mitchell, Jr. from 1884 until his death in 1929. He was the paper’s junior editor in 1912. The same year the paper covered the […]
learn moreWilliam Henry Baldwin Jr. was born on this date in 1863. He was a white-American corporate executive and philanthropist He was the son of William Henry Baldwin, a dry goods merchant, and Mary Chaffee. A direct descendant of an English settler who had arrived in Massachusetts before 1640, Baldwin grew up in a family noted for […]
learn more*The first issue of Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life was published in January, 1923. Opportunity was an academic journal published by the National Urban League (NUL). The journal acted as a sociological forum for the emerging topic of African American studies and was known for fostering the literary culture during the Harlem Renaissance. It was published monthly from 1923 to 1942 and then quarterly […]
learn more*On this date in 1845, The Anti-Slavery Bugle started publication. This was an abolitionist newspaper first published in New Lisbon (later renamed Lisbon), Ohio, and moved shortly after five issues to Salem, Ohio. Salem was home to many Quaker families and an active station of the Underground Railroad, providing the paper with more subscribers. James Barnaby was the publisher of the paper and received support from the Anti-Slavery […]
learn more*On this date in 1885, Mamie E. Scurlock was born. She was an African American educator and business manager. Born Mamie Estelle Fearing was from Washington, D.C. She taught elementary education in the D.C. District and Baltimore schools before managing her husband’s photographic studio. She married in Addison N. Scurlock in 1925, beginning a 52-year association with Washington’s preeminent Black photo […]
learn more*On this date in 1887, The New York Age began publication. This was a Black newspaper produced from 1887 to 1960 and was one of the most influential nonwhite newspapers of its time. The paper had its origins as the weekly New York Globe another Black newspaper that was published weekly from 1880 to November 8, 1884. Co-founded by editor Timothy Thomas Fortune, it became the New York Freeman from […]
learn more*The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP) was founded on this date in 1925. This the first labor organization led by Blacks to receive a charter in the American Federation of Labor (AFL). The BSCP gathered a membership of 18,000 passenger railway workers across Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Beginning after the American Civil War, the job of Pullman porter had become an […]
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