*The Double V Victory of Black history is celebrated on this date in 1941. President Franklin Roosevelt gave his “Four Freedoms” speech on that date. During World War II, the black press and several prominent black leaders called for a “Double V” victory against fascism abroad and against Jim Crow at home. It was easy […]
learn more*On this date in 2023, Super Bowl LVII marked the first time both teams started Black quarterbacks. Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles played against Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs. In 1988, Washington’s Doug Williams became the first Black quarterback to start — and win — a Super Bowl. Williams was the MVP of the game after […]
learn more*On this date in 2023, Tyre Nichols died from injuries incurred by Memphis, TN. Police Department. Five Black police officers from the city’s Scorpion Unit severely beat 29-year-old Tyre Nichols, a Black man, during a traffic stop. The episode happened on January 7, resulting in his death three days later in the hospital. The officers […]
learn more*The first performance of the Afro-American Symphony is celebrated on this date in 1931. Also known as Symphony No. 1. It is the first symphony written by an African American and performed for a United States audience by a leading orchestra. “Afro-American” and Symphony No. 1 in A-flat major is a 1930 composition by William Grant Still. It […]
learn more*On this date in 1969, United States v. Montgomery County Board of Education was decided. In this action, the United States District Court in Montgomery, Alabama, ordered the local Montgomery County Board of Education to bring about racial desegregation of the faculty and the staff of the local county school system. This action commenced in […]
learn more*The Ashworth Act was passed on this date in 1840. The Texas Senate passed this legislation. It made the Ashworth Family, freedmen, and formerly enslaved people in the Republic of Texas exempt from a new law stipulating that all Black Texans either leave or be enslaved. The Ashworths were Portuguese North Africans. They migrated from South Carolina, […]
learn more*The Texas Revolution began on this date in 1835. This conflict was a rebellion of white and Tejanos (Hispanic Texans) in armed resistance to the centralist government of Mexico. The revolution began after a decade of political and cultural clashes between the Mexican government and Texas’s increasingly large population of white-American settlers. Mexico officially abolished […]
learn more*The birth of Emily D. West is celebrated on this date, c.1815. She was a Black indentured servant and a folk heroine whose presence during the Texas Revolution is identified with the song “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” West was a free Mulatto woman from New Haven, Connecticut. In 1835 she was contracted to James Morgan to […]
learn more*The opening of Voodoo Macbeth was on this date in 1936. This play was a New York production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth through the Federal Theatre Project. Orson Welles adapted and directed the show, moved the play’s setting from Scotland to a fictional Caribbean Island, and recruited an entirely Black cast. It earned the nickname for his production from the […]
learn more*On this date in 2022, The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was passed. This legislation was landmark United States federal law that makes lynching a federal hate crime. The bill was named after 14-year-old Emmett Till, lynched in Mississippi in 1955, sparking national and international outrage. Representative Bobby Rush introduced a bill, H.R. 35, on January 3, 2019, during […]
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