Powerful quake shakes Alaska towns, creates small tsunami

Duke Ellington

Born: 4/29/899 Washington, D.C., United StatesDied: 5/24/974 New York City, New YorkDuke Ellington was an American composer, pianist and bandleader of jazz orchestras. He led his orchestra from 923 until his death, his career spanning over 50 yearsAwards / Achievements:

960, Hollywood Walk

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Angela Bassett

Angela Bassett is a well known African American actress and director. She was born in New York in August 1958 to Betty Jane and Daniel Benjamin Bassett. Her ancestors adopted the name of Bassett after William Henry Bassett, who was a slave who adopted the name of his former master. Shortly after

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Source: Black History Resources

Wilberforce University (1856- )

Wilberforce University was established near Xenia, Ohio in 1856 as a joint venture between the Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Named after 18th century abolitionist William Wilberforce, it was the first private, historically black university in the United

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Source: Black Past

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, a landlocked country in south-central Africa, is slightly smaller than California. It is bordered by Botswana on the west, Zambia on the north, Mozambique on the east, and South Africa on the

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

The Manumission of Monimia Travers: A Slave Freed at Fort Vancouver

Few people identify slavery with Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. However, there were slaves in the region particularly in the decade before the Civil War. In the following article, Gregory Paynter Shine, the Chief Ranger and Historian at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, describes the

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Source: Black Past

Figure skating pioneer dies

Mabel Fairbanks, 85, the first black women to be inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame died following a long illness. Fairbanks coached Olympians Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Sep

29

2001

Jenkins, Joseph Charles (1914-1959)

Joseph Charles Jenkins, the first African American naval officer, paved the way for the beginning of desegregation in the United States Coast Guard. Jenkins was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1914. Unfortunately, there is little information regarding his

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Source: Black Past

Huey P. Newton

Huey Percy Newton was an African American leader and co-founder of the Black Panther Party. He was the youngest of seven children born to Armelia Johnson and Walter Newton on February 17, 1942 in Monroe, Louisiana and named after the former Governor of Louisiana, Huey Long. His family was not very

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Source: Black History Resources

Aug

22

1989

Laurence Fishburne

Laurence Fishburne is an American actor, writer, director and producer. He was born on July 30, 1961 in Augusta, Georgia to Hattie Bell and Laurence John Fishburne, Jr. His parents divorced when he was very young and he moved to Brooklyn, New York with his mother while visiting his father once

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Source: Black History Resources

Jul

30

1961

Dziko, Trish Millines (1957- )

Trish Millines Dziko is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Technology Access Foundation. A native of New Jersey, Dziko focused on college and ultimately became a first-generation college student. Ms. Dziko also made history by becoming the first woman to be awarded a full basketball

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Source: Black Past

Oct

1

1996

NAACP attacked issues concerning schools

NAACP began frontal attack on segregation and discrimination at elementary and high school levels, arguing that segregation was discrimination in cases before three-judged federal courts in South Carolina and Kansas. The South Carolina court, with a strong dissent from Judge E. Waites Warning, held

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

30

1951

Black students are banned from a Little Rock high school, by Arkansas governor O

Black students are banned from a Little Rock high school, by Arkansas governor Oval Faubus who calls out the National Guard, 1957

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Sep

4

1957

Alex Haley

Alex Haley wrote Roots, one of the most celebrated novels of the 1970s. Haley spent 20 years in the Coast Guard (1939-59) then began a second career as a writer, working for magazines ranging from Readers Digest to Playboy. Haley was a ghostwriter on his first major book: The Autobiography of

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Evelyn Bundy Band (c. 1926)

Formed in 1926, the Evelyn Bundy Band was one of the earliest and most influential local jazz ensembles to contribute to the Seattle, Washington jazz

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Source: Black Past

Underground Railroad, The (1820-1861)

The Underground Railroad was established to aid enslaved people in their escape to freedom. The railroad was comprised of dozens of secret routes and safe houses originating in the slaveholding states and extending all the way to the Canadian border, the only area where fugitives could be assured

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Source: Black Past

The Black National Anthem

Lift Every Voice and Sing

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Source: Black Past

California Fugitive Slave Law adopted

The California Fugitive Slave Law, introduced earlier by state Senator Henry A. Crabb, was adopted by the State Legislature. It authorized any slave owner claiming a runaway to obtain warrant for the slaves arrest.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Apr

15

1850

Streeter, Mel (1931-2006)

Mel Streeter was born in Riverside, California in 1931. He attended the University of Oregon on a basketball scholarship and was the second African-American basketball player at Oregon after declining an offer by legendary basketball coach John Wooden to attend UCLA, because UCLA did not have an

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Source: Black Past

Jun

15

2006

Squires, Bernard (1904-1947)

Bernard Squires was the president of the Omaha chapter of the Urban League from 1935 to 1939 and the Seattle chapter of the Urban League from 1939 to 1943. Squires was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1904. He graduated from high school in Toledo, and went on to Ohio State University before graduating in

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Source: Black Past

Jun

1

1939

Taye Diggs

Taye Diggs was born on January 2, 1971 in Newark, New Jersey. He is the oldest of five children born to Marcia and Andre Young. Diggs grew up in Rochester, New York where he attended Allendale Columbia School. He later transferred to School of the Arts. He also received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from

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Source: Black History Resources

Jan

2

1971

Belizean Kriols

By the 1500s, black slaves had been distributed through much of the Caribbean. Slavery, however, began much later in Central America. By 1724 the British were transporting slaves from Jamaica to Belize to cut logwood, particularly Mahogany. These slaves became known as

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Source: Black Past

(1837) William Whipper, “Non-Resistance to Offensive Aggression”

? Few Americans are aware of the deep roots of peace activism in the African American community. Benjamin Banneker, the 18th Century mathematician and astronomer, recommended that a “Secretary of Peace” be added to the President’s cabinet whose chief function would be to craft measu

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Source: Black Past

Sep

9

2016

Towns, Edolphus (1934- )

Currently in his 13th term in Congress, Edolphus Towns is a Democratic Representative from the State of New York. Towns was born in Chadbourn, North Carolina on July 21, 1934, and attended the public schools of Chadbourn before graduating with a B.S. degree from North Carolina Agricultural and

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Source: Black Past

Jul

21

1934

Fort Pillow Massacre (1864)

On April 12, 1864, some 3,000 rebels under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest overran Fort Pillow, a former Confederate stronghold situated on a bluff on the Tennessee bank of the Mississippi, some 40 miles north of Memphis. The garrison consisted of about 600 Union soldiers, roughly evenly

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Source: Black Past

Apr

12

1864

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Document Number: PL 88-352

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Source: Black Past

Jan

31

1968

Lt. Gen. Frank E. Petersen (1932-).

On June 6, 1950, Frank Petersen enlisted in the Navy. At the age of 20, he was the first Afro-American to be named a naval aviator in the Marine Corp. He was also the first African American to command a fighter squadon, a fighter air group, an air wing, and a major

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

6

1950

Jackson, James Lloyd (1920-2008)

James Lloyd Jackson was one of the little known heroes of the D-Day Landing at Normandy Beach in France in 1944. Jackson was born in Lakeland, Florida on February 25, 1920 to Essie May Holly and Amos Jackson. He graduated from Lakeland High School in 1938. For the next five years he worked for the

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Source: Black Past

Dec

27

1953

Howell, Abner Leonard (1877-1966)

Abner Leonard Howell was a star athlete in Utah whose accomplishments went largely ignored during the peak of his football career because of his

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Source: Black Past

Aug

9

1877

Negro Repertory Company (Seattle) 1936-1939

The Negro Repertory Company (NRC) was established in 1936 by Florence and James Burton, directors of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse (SRP), as the Negro unit of the Federal Theatre Program, a part of the WPA. In its short life it produced ambitious and controversial plays that reached a wide

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Source: Black Past

Oct

27

1936

Smith, Charles Z. (1927-2016)

On July 18, 1988, Charles Z. Smith became the first African American to serve on the Washington Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court by Washington’s then Governor Booth Gardner and was subsequently elected to his position on the court for a two-year term in 1988. Justice Smith was elected

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Source: Black Past

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