U.S. Ambassador Orison Rudolph Aggrey was born in Salisbury, North Carolina, the son of James Emman Kwegyir, an African immigrant who became an American college professor, and Rose Rudolph (Douglass) Aggrey, an African American woman. He earned a B.S. degree from Hampton Institute, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1946, and an M.S. in journalism from Syracuse University (New York) in 1948. After encountering difficulty in obtaining a reporting post with a major white daily newspaper in 1950, he applied for a position with the information and cultural branch of the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. Despite his high scores on the Civil Service entrance examinations, he also encountered difficulty with his application. Aggrey was offered a post only after George L. P. Weaver, who was then assistant Secretary of Labor for international affairs (and one of the most important blacks in the administration of President Harry S. Truman), interceded on his behalf.

Aggreys first assignment took him to Lagos, Nigeria where he was information officer in the U.S. Information Service office.  On many occasions Aggrey, the second highest ranking person in the office, actually ran the mission. Ironically, at the same time that Aggrey acquired the Lagos post, he received an offer to join the staff of a Providence, Rhode Island daily newspaper, but he chose to remain in the foreign service.

After two years in Lagos, Aggrey returned to the United States and requested a new assignment in France. In France, he was placed second in command at the U.S. Information Service mission at Lille, in the northern part of the country. Shortly afterward he arrived, the man in charge of the office was transferred to Hanoi, North Vietnam. Again, unexpectedly, Aggrey was left in charge of a foreign mission. During this tenure, however, the head of the Information Service visited the Lille mission, while on a tour of facilities in France. He was so impressed with the interest in U.S. cultural programs which Aggrey had fostered among

Dred Scott and his wife Harriet filed suit against Irene Emerson for their freedom. The Dred Scott case was first brought to trial in 1847 in the first floor, west wing courtroom of St. Louis Courthouse. A black slave from Missouri who claimed his freedom on the basis of seven years of residence in a free state and a free territory.

John Pepper Clark , pseudonym J.P. Clark-Bekederemo (born April 6, 1935, Kiagbodo, Nigeria), the most lyrical of the Nigerian poets, whose poetry celebrates the physical landscape of Africa. He was also a journalist, playwright, and scholar-critic who conducted research into traditional Ijo myths and legends and wrote essays on African poetry.

While at the University of Ibadan, Clark founded The Horn, a magazine of student poetry. After graduating with a degree in English in 1960, he began his career as writer and journalist by working as a Nigerian government information officer and then as the features and editorial writer for the Daily Express in Lagos (1960–62). A year’s study at Princeton University on a foundation grant resulted in his America, Their America (1964), in which he attacks American middle-class values, from capitalism to black American life-styles. After a year’s research at Ibadan’s Institute of African Studies, he became a lecturer in English at the University of Lagos and coeditor of the literary journal Black Orpheus.

Clark’s verse collections Poems (1962) and A Reed in the Tide (1965) do not display the degree of craftsmanship apparent in the work of his fellow Nigerian Christopher Okigbo; but in his best poems his sensual imagination makes successful use of the patterns of traditional African life. His Casualties: Poems 1966–68 (1970) is concerned primarily with the Nigerian civil war. Other poetry collections include A Decade of Tongues (1981), State of the Union (1985, as J.P. Clark Bekederemo), and Mandela and Other Poems (1988).

Of his plays, the first three (published together under the title Three Plays in 1964) are tragedies in which individuals are unable to escape the doom brought about by an inexorable law of nature or society. Song of a Goat (performed 1961), a family tragedy, was well received throughout Africa and Europe for its dramatic skill and the poetic quality of its language. The Masquerade (performed 1965) again portrays a family tragedy, but it is The Raft

Smokey Joe Williams , byname of Joseph Williams (born April 6, 1886?, Seguin, Texas, U.S.—died Feb. 25, 1951?, New York, N.Y.), American baseball player who was an early star of the Negro leagues.

Williams was a 6-foot 4-inch (1.93 metre) right-handed pitcher who combined a high-velocity fastball with very good control. Williams was occasionally called “Cyclone,” a nickname, like “Smokey,” derived from the speed of his pitch. He played between 1905 and 1932, in an era when record keeping was less than accurate and sometimes nonexistent. There is not even agreement on his birth and death dates (the dates cited here are from the Baseball Hall of Fame). The same uncertainty exists when attempting to document Williams’s career. Many of his important accomplishments were not recorded in newspapers but were simply passed by word of mouth. Nonetheless, many observers of Negro league baseball consider Williams the best black pitcher of all time, even superior to the legendary Satchel Paige.

During his 27-year career, Williams played with 11 teams, although most of his time was split between two clubs: the New York Lincoln Giants and the Homestead Grays. He began his career near his hometown, pitching for independent black baseball teams in San Antonio and Austin, Texas. He reportedly won 28 games in 1905 and 32 games in 1909. In 1912 Williams went to New York City to play with the Lincoln Giants and was with them off and on until 1925, when he joined the Homestead Grays. He remained with Homestead until he retired in 1932. In 1930 Williams recorded 27 strikeouts in a 12-inning game against the Kansas City Monarchs. In exhibition games that Williams pitched against teams composed of white major leaguers, he won 20 games and lost 7. Williams also played in Cuba for three winter seasons, winning 22 games and losing 15. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1999.

Actor Billy Dee Williams, known in such works as Mahogany and two Star Wars sequels, was born in New York city.

Born in Fredricksburg, VA to white master and Black slave

mother. Moved to St. Louis as a teen and became a

scout with the Rocky Mount Fur Co.

In 1824 he was adopted the Crow Indian Nation and

married a Crow woman. He was given two Indian names

Bloody Arm and Bulls Robe and fought many wars

with them. He later moved West and discovered Beckwourth

Pass in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.

Matthew Henson reached the North Pole. Traveling with the Admiral Peary Expedition, Henson, with his exceptional navigational skills managed to reach the North Pole almost 45 minutes before Peary and the rest of the men.

Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, Principal of the Institute for Colored Youth, Philadelphia, named minister to Haiti and became the first major Black diplomat and the first American Black to receive a major appointment from the United Stated Government.

An Act to protect all Persons in the United States in their Civil Rights, and furnish the Means of their Vindication.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States; and such citizens, of every race and color, without regard to any previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall have the same right, in every State and Territory in the United States, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property, and to full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of person and property, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, and penalties, and to none other, any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, to the contrary notwithstanding.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person having at any time been held in a condition of slavery or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of white persons, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.

Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That the district courts of the United States, within their respective

First Scottsboro trial began in Scottsboro, Alabama. Trial of nine Black youths accused of raping two white women on a freight train became a cause celebré.

The Olivet Baptist Church (OBC), founded on April 6, 1850, was at one time the largest Protestant church in the world, reaching 20,000 members under the leadership of Pastor Lacey Kirk Williams. It is the second oldest black church in Chicago, Illinois and the oldest African American Baptist church in the city. Olivet became known early on as a “mother” church of Chicago, since so many Baptist congregations broke off from it over the years.

Olivet was originally founded as Xenia Baptist in 1850 before becoming Zoar Baptist Church. When Zoar merged with Zion Baptist in 1861, Olivet was born. The church has occupied several different buildings over the years, one of which was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1873. By 1902, the church boasted 4,000 members, and in 1907 it purchased the building it now occupies at 31st Street and South Parkway on Chicago’s South Side. Olivet has only had three pastors since 1916: Lacey Kirk Williams, Joseph H. Jackson, and Dr. Michael A. Noble.

Both Williams and Jackson believed that Booker T. Washington’s model of racial uplift, rather than social action and confrontation, was the best method to achieve legal equality with whites. Jackson, who headed the church from 1941 until 1990 and was President of the National Baptist Convention, vocally opposed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s methods of civil disobedience during the Civil Rights Movement. He disagreed with any tactics that would provoke conflict between African Americans and whites, fearing that these efforts could hurt the struggle for legal equality in the court system. Eventually, a split erupted in the Baptist church and King left with others to form the Progressive Baptist Convention.

A pillar of the African American community in Chicago, Olivet’s mission has always extended beyond the religious. Early on, it was an active station on the Underground Railroad. It worked to maintain peace during the Chicago Riots of 1919, hosting gatherings of African American leaders while they strategized about how to best restore

James Augustine Healy, first Black Roman Catholic bishop in America, born to Irish planter and slave on plantation near Macon, Georgia.