Dr. Robert C. Weaver worked many years on the state, local and federal level as a quiet cog in the civil rights machine behind the scenes. In 1966, he became the first Black person to be appointed to a presidential cabinet position and the first secretary of the Housing and Urban Development. Weaver was born […]
Alphonse Mouzon was one of the early leaders of the Jazz Fusion movement of the late ’60’s and early ’70’s. Mouzon was a versatile drummer who influenced other musicians beyond his spaces of jazz and R&B. He passed earlier this week after a battle with a rare form of cancer. Mouzon was born November 21, […]
The first intercollegiate football contest between Black colleges took place on this day in 1892. Biddle College, now Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, N.C., and Livingstone College in Salisbury, N.C., played against one another on Livingstone’s snowy front lawn and gave way to a bowl game that celebrates HBCU football’s excellance. According to historians of […]
The Birmingham Bus Boycotts in Alabama took place on this day in 1956, led by the efforts of late minister and civil rights figure Dr. Fred Shuttlesworth. The boycott lasted until 1958 and while it wasn’t as effective as other such protests across the Deep South, the movement laid plenty of necessary groundwork and bolstered the […]
Fans of the long-running Star Trek franchise will be witness to a new era next year. A new spin-off series, Star Trek: Discovery, features a historic first as Sonequa Martin-Green will become the first Black female lead character of the show. Mrs. Martin-Green will be familiar to fans of AMC’s zombie apocalypse smash hit, The […]
Viola Irene Desmond became a part of Canadian history for her defiant act in 1946 against a racist movie theater’s seating policy. While Desmond never saw justice during her lifetime, the country will honor her by making the late hairdresser and civil rights figure the face of its $10 bill. Desmond was born July 6, […]
Over the course of its history, The Negro Leagues spawned a series of baseball legends with many going on to dominate in the formerly all-White Major League Baseball organization. Catcher Josh Gibson, the home run king of the Negro League, never got a chance to go to the big show, but was properly recognized […]
Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary-General, was elected to the post on December 18, 1996 after serving decades as an international civil servant for the organization. Mr. Annan’s efforts with the U.N. a led to he and the organization jointly being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001. Kofi Atta Annan was born April […]
Sharon Weston Broome has made political history twice in the state of Louisiana. Over the weekend, she was elected the first Black woman to serve as Mayor-President of the East Baton Rouge Parish. Broome, 60, will also effectively be the first Black woman mayor of Baton Rouge and will preside over several smaller townships […]
On this date in 1968, a student-led strike at San Francisco State University led to the suspension of classes. The Black Student Union and a multicultural group of student activists known collectively as the Third World Liberation Front joined forces to challenge SFSU to make ethnic studies a part of its curriculum and to protest […]
Jelly Roll Morton famously introduced himself as the inventor of jazz. While that claim has been questioned over time, the New Orleans pianist undoubtedly planted the early seeds of innovation in the genre. Morton was born Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe on October 20, 1890, although some sources cite 1885. A Creole, Morton was of Spanish, French […]
The Baton Rouge lunch counter protests of 1960 were inspired by the Greensboro protests of that same year. A group of Southern University students were expelled from school because of their peaceful protests in support of Greensboro, but their case was overturned on December 11, 1961 with help from the NAACP and President John F. […]
