Archive
On Sept. 2, 1766, abolitionist and inventor James Forten was born in Philadelphia. Forten, a free Black man, became a sailmaker and…
On Sept. 1, 1867, Robert Tanner Freeman became the first Black graduate of Harvard Dental School, making history as one of the…
On this day, Aug. 28, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped and brutally murdered while visiting relatives in Mississippi. The Black teenager…
On Aug. 26, 1874, 16 Black men were dragged from the jail in Trenton, Tennessee, by a white mob of masked men.…
On Aug. 22, 1989, Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was shot and killed in West Oakland,…
On Aug. 19, 1958, the NAACP Youth Council, led by teacher Clara Luper and her students, launched a sit-in at the Katz…
On Aug. 7, 1948, Alice Coachman became the first Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal, triumphing in the high jump…
On July 30, 1944, New York made history by electing Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to Congress — the first Black man elected…
Emmett Till was born in Chicago on July 25, 1941. He would have turned 84 years old today. A bright, fun-loving child,…
James Enos “Jim” Clyburn was born July 21, 1940, in Sumter, South Carolina, and today marks his 85th birthday. From his early…
On July 14, 1953, the George Washington Carver National Monument was dedicated in Diamond, Missouri, becoming the first U.S. monument to honor…
Arthur Ashe, a former world No. 1 tennis player and humanitarian, was born July 10, 1943, in Richmond, Virginia. Ashe began his…