1775 – Shortly after taking command of the troops fighting for independence from Britain, General George Washington (the first president of the United States) had his aide-de-camp issue orders banning blacks from serving in the Continental Army. The decision was approved by the Continental Congress in November 1775. There was concern that blacks who fought for American independence would be taken for granted as demanding the abolition of slavery. Slaveowners, including Washington, did not want that.
1927 – On this day in 1927, the first black man elected mayor of New York City, David Dinkins, was born. He was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and served as mayor of New York City from 1989 to 1993.
1943 – On this day, tennis sensation Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, Virginia. He became the first black man to win the Wimbledon men’s singles title, defeating Jimmy Connors in 1975. Ashe received a transfusion of tainted blood and died of AIDS in February 1993.
1972 – The Democratic Party holds its presidential convention in Miami, Florida. New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm is the first black person to actively seek the party’s presidential nomination, receiving 151.95 votes on the first ballot. Senator George McGovern is ultimately nominated. Chisholm was the first black woman elected to the United States Congress in 1968. She was born in Brooklyn, New York to a Barbadian mother and a Guyanese father. Chisholm’s catchphrase was “Can’t be bought, can’t be bossed around.” She died in January 2005.
1905 – The Niagara Movement (the precursor to the NAACP) is founded during a meeting near Niagara Falls, New York. Among the most prominent blacks at the meeting were intellectual and activist W.E.B. DuBois, newspaper publisher William Monroe Trotter, and Ida B. Wells Barnett.
1915 – Mifflin Wister Gibbs dies. Gibbs worked with Frederick Douglass to free black slaves through the Underground Railroad. He later became publisher of California’s first black newspaper, the Mirror of the Times. He was also the first African-American elected district judge in the state.
2010 – Gospel legend Walter Bishop Hawkins dies. The Grammy Award-winner passed away at his home in Ripon, California. Bishop Hawkins was a member of the influential Hawkins family. His brother was Edwin Hawkins, who was briefly married to gospel great Tramaine Hawkins.
1887 – Mound Bayou, Mississippi, perhaps the best-known historically all-black town in the United States, was founded by former slaves Isaiah Montgomery and his cousin Benjamin T. Green. It was built as a refuge for former slaves during a time of increasing Jim Crow segregation and terrorism by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. It is believed to be the oldest surviving all-black town in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the town had 2,100 residents.
1937 – On this day, actor, comedian and political activist William “Bill” Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cosby went from being a nightclub comedian to an actor appearing in black exploitation films in the 1970s and then becoming the star of NBC’s hit television series, “The Cosby Show,” from 1984 to 1992. The show won numerous awards and acclaim for its portrayal of a middle-class African-American family.
1949 – Though rarely talked about today, Frederick M. Jones was one of the most productive black American inventors. Jones has at least 60 patents to his credit. However, he is best known for his invention of air conditioning; specifically, he designed an automated refrigeration system for long-distance trucks and trains, which he patented on this day in 1949. Jones was born in Covington, Kentucky, near Cincinnati, in 1893 and died in 1961.
1863 – One of the bloodiest race riots (or perhaps “racial” riots) in American history began. Historically known as the New York City Draft Riots, it was sparked by angry opposition to the enlistment laws passed by Congress that required white men to fight in the Civil War. Many whites rioted because they opposed the draft and feared that freed blacks would compete with them for jobs. The riot lasted from July 13 to July 16 and was finally put down with the help of federal troops. However, by the time the riot ended, an estimated 100 people were dead and 300 injured (most of them black). The draft also reflected a fact that is usually omitted in standard American history textbooks: the class nature of many laws. In this case, conscription only applied to poor and working-class whites. Wealthy whites were officially exempt from conscription by paying a conscription fee.
1868 – Oscar J. Dunn, a former slave, becomes lieutenant governor of Louisiana, the highest state elected office held by an African-American at the time. Another black man, Antoine Dubucré, becomes state treasurer. However, the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1872 and the subsequent Jim Crow laws of racial discrimination virtually wiped out all of black political gains after the Civil War. It took almost 100 years (until the 1960s) for blacks to again match the political gains of the post-Civil War period.
1885 – Sarah E. Good (1855-1905) was an American entrepreneur and inventor. She is known as one of the first African-American women to receive a U.S. patent in 1885 for her cabinet bed.
1779 – Pompey Lamb, a notorious black spy, provided intelligence to the American Revolutionary Army that led to victory in the Battle of Stony Point in New York, the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War. Lamb worked as a fruit and vegetable delivery man for the British Army.
1822 – Philadelphia becomes one of the first large cities to open public schools to blacks. The first schools were segregated for black boys only. A school for girls opened four years later, in 1826. The city’s public schools remained segregated until the 1930s.
1867 – Maggie Walker, the first African-American businesswoman to found and serve as president of a bank, is born.
1862 – Ida B. Wells Barnett, reform journalist and anti-lynching activist, is born in Holly Springs, Mississippi. Wells Barnett was a true radical activist. Her editorials so infuriated white people in the Memphis, Tennessee area that a mob burned down the building where her newspaper was housed. She was also one of the founders of the NAACP, and in 1884 committed a “Rosa Parks”-like act when she refused to give up her seat on a train to a white person. It took the conductor and two other men to remove her from her seat and throw her off the train.
1882 – Violet N. Johnson is born. She becomes the first black woman admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court on January 29, 1926.
About the Author
