Important dates in American Black History

    January 1
1863 Abraham Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation.
    January 2
1965 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. calls for nonviolent protests if Alabama blacks are not allowed to register and vote.
    January 4
1920 National Negro Baseball League started.
1971 The Congressional Black Caucus organized.
    January 7
1955 Marian Anderson debuts as first African-American to perform at Metropolitan Opera.
    January 15
1908 Alpha Kappa Alpha, first African-American sorority, founded at Howard University.
    January 16
NASA names black astronauts Maj. Frederick D. Gregory, Maj. Furion S. Bluford and Dr. Ronald E. McNair.
    January 24
1865 Congress passes 13th Amendment, which, on ratification, abolishes slavery.
    January 29
1926 Violette Neatly Anderson becomes first black woman lawyer to argue a case before U.S. Supreme Court.

    February 3
1956 Autherine Lucy enrolls as the first African-American student at the University of Alabama.
    February 14
1879 B.K. Bruce of Mississippi becomes first African-American to preside over U.S. Senate.
    February 19
1923 In Moore vs. Dempsey decision, U.S. Supreme Court guarantees due process of law to blacks in state courts.
    February 21
1965 Malcolm X assassinated in New York.

    March 2
1907 Congress declares the importation of slaves into United States illegal.
    March 3
1865 Freedmen’s Bureau established by federal government to aid newly freed slaves.
    March 11
1959 Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun opens at Barrymore Theater, New York, the first black woman to premiere on Broadway.
    March 13
1773 Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, black pioneer and explorer, founded Chicago.
    March 14
1956 Montgomery bus boycott ends when municipal bus service is desegregated.
    March 16
1827 Freedom’s Journal, the first U.S. black newspaper, is founded.
    March 30
1870 Fifteenth Amendment ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to African-Americans.

    April 4
1968 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated in Memphis, Tenn.
    April 10
1947 Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson becomes first African-American to play major league baseball.
    April 15
Sidney Poitier becomes first black to win Academy Award for Best Actor for Lilies of the Field.
    April 24
1944 United Negro College Fund incorporated.
    April 29
1992 Four L.A. police officers acquitted of civil rights violations in the beating of Rodney King, prompting riots.

    May 1
1867 First four students enter Howard University.
    May 4
1961 Freedom Riders begin protesting segregation of interstate bus travel in the South.
    May 17
1954 U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
    May 24
1854 Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), first black college, founded.

    June 2
1971 Samuel L. Gravely Jr. becomes first African-American admiral in U.S. Navy.
    June 5
1987 Dr. Mae C. Jemison becomes first black woman astronaut.
    June 19
1865 Blacks in Texas are notified of Emancipation Proc-lamation issued in 1863. Juneteenth marks the event.
    June 25
1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt issues executive order establishing Fair Employment Practices Commission.

    July 3
1688 The Quakers in Germantown, Pa., make first formal protest against slavery.
    July 14
1955 George Washington Carver monument, first national park honoring an African-American, is dedicated in Joplin, Mo.
    July 25
1777 First black Baptist Church in America organized by eight slaves at Silver Bluff, S. C.
    July 26
1948 President Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in U.S. armed forces.
    July 28
1868 14th Amendment granting blacks full citizenship rights becomes part of the U.S. Constitution.

    August 9
1936 Jesse Owens wins fourth gold medal at Summer Olympics in Berlin.
    August 18
1859 Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig is first novel published by a black writer.
    August 21
1831 Nat Turner leads slave revolt in Virginia.
    August 28
1963 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers I Have a Dream speech during March on Washington, D.C.
    August 30
1967 Thurgood Marshall confirmed as first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

    September 1
1891 Halle T. D. Johnson becomes first woman of any race to practice medicine in Alabama.
    September 10
1855 John Mercer Langston elected township clerk of Brownhelm, Ohio, becoming first black to hold elective office in the United States.
    September 15
1963 Four African-American girls killed in Birmingham, Ala., church bombing.
    September 17
1983 Vanessa Williams crowned Miss America.
    September 24
1957 Nine children integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.
    September 30
1962 James Meredith enrolls as first African-American student at University of Mississippi.

    October 2
2000 James Perkins sworn in as Selma, Ala.’s, first black mayor.
    October 3
1956 Nat King Cole becomes first black performer to host his own TV show.
    October 7
1993 Toni Morrison becomes first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
    October 16
1995 Million Man March held in Washington, D.C.

    November 5
1968 Shirley Chisholm of New York elected first African-American woman to Congress.
    November 7
1989 L. Douglas Wilder elected governor of Virginia, becoming nation’s first black governor since Reconstruction.
    November 20
1865 Howard Seminary (later Howard University) founded in Washington, D.C.
    November 26
1969 Charles Gordone becomes first black playwright to receive the Pulitzer Prize for No Place to Be Somebody.

    December 1
1987 Carrie Saxon Perry becomes first black woman mayor of a major U.S. city (Hartford, Conn.) .
    December 3
Frederick Douglas publishes first issue of North Star.
    December 5
1955 Organization of Birming-ham bus boycott marks start of the Civil Rights Movement.
    December 9
1872 P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana becomes first African-American governor in United States.
    December 10
1950 Dr. Ralph J. Bunche becomes first black awarded Nobel Peace Prize.