Gregory Oliver Hines was a renowned actor, dancer, singer and choreographer, born on February 14, 1946 in New York City, New York.

Contralto singer Carol Brice was born in Sedalia, North Carolina on April 16, 1918 into a musical family.  Eventually she became one of the first African American classical singers with an extensive recording repertoire.  Brice trained at Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia and then enrolled in Talladega College in Alabama, where she received her Bachelor of Music degree in 1939. She later attended Julliard School of Music between 1939 and 1943 where she trained with Francis Rogers. In 1943 Brice became the first African American musician to win the prestigious Walter W. Naumburg Foundation Award.

Carol Brice first attracted public acclaim at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 when she performed in the opera, “The Hot Mikado.”  Her next major public performance came in 1941, when she sang at a Washington concert honoring the third inauguration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Her brother, the pianist Jonathan Brice, was frequently her accompanist at concerts and competitions.

Ms. Brice’s Broadway career accelerated after World War II when her talent for both opera and musical theatre became apparent. In 1946 she received her first recording contract from Columbia Records for Manuel de Fallas El Amor Brujo, which was performed with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner. She sang with the Pittsburgh Symphony for all of 1946 and later performed as Addie in the New York City Opera’s 1958 production of Marc Blitzstein’s Regina.  Brice remained with the New York City Opera until 1963.  She performed with Volksoper in Vienna, Austria from 1967 to 1971 and the Houston Grand Opera from 1976 to 1977.  She played Maria in the Houston Grand Opera production of Porgy and Bess. The recording of that performance won a Grammy and the entire show moved to Broadway where it won a 1977 Tony Award for Most Innovative Production of a Musical Revival.

Brice also had a successful career on Broadway.  She played Kakou in the original Broadway cast of Harold Arlen’s Saratoga (1958) and Maude in the 1960

Possible birthday of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and orator. Born into slavery as Frederick Baile, Douglass purchased his freedom in 1845 and went on to become the greatest abolitionist of his time.

Richard Allen born in slavery in Philadelphia.

Morehouse College organized in Augusta, Georgia. The institution was later moved to Atlanta. New registration law in Tennessee abolished racial distinctions in voting.

National Negro Congress organized at Chicago meeting attended by 817 delegates representing more than 500 organizations. Asa Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was elected president of the new organization.

Its time to #RestoreTheVote: Lily Eskelsen García

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Lily talks about the cruel Trump/DeVos Budget

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Lily Eskelsen García on MSNBC

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Lily Eskelsen Garcia visits Hawaiis Teachers

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2015 Back to School Tour Visits Georgia

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2015 Read Across America - Orlando, Florida

NEA President Lily Eskelsen García: Why use the NEA Foundation Online Courses?

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The Civil Rights of the Whole Child for a Whole Education: Clinton School of Public Service

2015 NEA Human and Civil Rights Womens Observance

One City, Two Schools. Time to Close the Gap

Keep our students and their families together: Lily Eskelsen García

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School Equity: Lily Eskelsen García at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute

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From Lily to Dennis Van Roekel: Thank You!

Social justice activist Larry Hamm helps NEA honor Black History Month on February 14, 2015, at NEA headquarters in

Richard Allen was born into slavery on February 14, 1760, on the Delaware property of Benjamin Chew.

Entertainer and dancer Gregory Hines born

Tomie Louis Gaines was born on November 3, 1922 to Sally Gaines Glenn and Fred Glenn in Hartwell, Georgia. Gaines served in the early twentieth century with the last of the Buffalo Soldiers, the nineteenth century regiments commissioned immediately after the Civil War. Gaines served in World War II from March 1943 to December 1945 with the 27th Cavalry Regiment (Horse) (Colored), 5th Cavalry Brigade, and the 2nd Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army. 

A medic during the war, Gaines spent time in Italy, Japan, and the Philippines. He tended soldiers on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, patched the wounded in a field hospital in Italy, and was injured by German bombers in the aftermath of the raid. He was known to treat enemy troops with the same care and respect as he did his fellow American soldiers.

Following his discharge from the army, Gaines settled in Nicholtown, a predominantly African American community in Greenville, South Carolina, where he worked for various companies, including Transit Homes, Inc., the Arrow Shirt Company, and a janitorial service. He also worked as a truck driver and retired painter. In 1965 he married Clara Mae Smith, and they had three children.

Gaines was a lifelong member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) Post #6734, and was very much involved in their activities and events. He was also a lifetime active member of the Post’s acclaimed Honor Guard, and until just before his death he still maneuvered and fired the unique World War II M-1 rifles with drill-team precision at veterans’ funeral ceremonies. Whenever Gaines entered the Post’s building, his comrades would shout, “Buffalo Soldier! The living legend!”

In interviews about his military service, which he preferred not to discuss, he would say only that the war hurt. It made “… men out of boys and left scars above and below the surface. It hurts sometimes. It’s not the matter of fact of who did what, as long as it’s over.”

In Greenville on February 14, 2016, at the age of ninety-three, Tomie L. Gaines passed away. Some

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African American History Timeline: 1901-2000

African American History Timelines:

1492-1600

1601 - 1700

1701 - 1800

1801 - 1900

1901 - 2000

2001 -

African Americans in the West Timeline

Year Events SubjectCountryStateEra

1901 The last African American congressman elected in the 19th Century, George H. White, Republican of North Carolina, leaves office. No African American will serve in Congress for the next 28 years. 01-01 Black Politics

United States

North Carolina

1901-2000

1901 On October 11, when Bert Williams and George Walker record their music for the Victor Talking Machine Company, they become the first African American recording artists. 10-11 Black Entertainment

United States

New York

1901-2000

1901 On October 16, only one month after becoming President, Theodore Roosevelt holds an afternoon meeting at the White House with Booker T. Washington. At the end of the meeting the President informally invites Washington to remain for dinner, making the Tuskegee educator the first black American to dine at the White House with a president. Roosevelts casual act generates a national furor. 10-16 Segregated America

United States

District of Columbia

1901-2000

1901 Booker T. Washingtons autobiography Up From Slavery is published. 1901 Art and Literature

United States

Alabama

1901-2000

1902 In May jockey Jimmy Winkfield wins the Kentucky Derby in an era when African American jockeys dominate the sport. 05-01 African American Athletes

United States

Kentucky

1901-2000

1903 W.E.B. Du Boiss The Souls of Black Folk s is published on April 27. In it Du Bois rejects the gradualism of Booker T. Washington, calling for agitation on behalf of African American rights. 04-27 Segregated America

United States

New York

1901-2000

1903 Maggie Lena Walker founds St. Lukes Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Virginia. 04-28 Black Business

United States

Virginia

1901-2000

1904 Educator Mary McLeod