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Texas Southern University (1947- )
Texas Southern University, a state-supported institution of higher learning located just southeast of downtown Houston, was established on March 3, 1947 when the Fiftieth Texas State Legislature passed a bill establishing a Negro University with a law school to be located in Houston. This bill
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Source: Black Past
Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, Houston, Texas (1868- )
Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, the first African American Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, was organized in January 1866 by former slaves.  These individuals were assisted by white missionaries from the First Baptist Church and the German Baptist Church.  Antioch’s members worshiped at the two
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Source: Black Past
Hip Hop Culture Timeline: 1970 to 1983
The Last Poets, a collective of spoken word artists release their debut album. Their work is considered a predecessor to rap music as it is part of the Black Arts
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Source: ThoughtCo
Sponsored by New York University
Wilson, Lionel (1915-1998)
Lionel Wilson, lawyer, judge, and politician, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 4, 1915 to Jules and Louise Wilson.  In 1918 the family moved to Oakland, California, where his parents believed a smaller and less-noticeable black community would afford them greater freedoms and less
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by BARBinc
Jan
23
1998
Mike Jones
Michael Jones, or simply known as Mike Jones, is an American rapper, born in January 6, 1981, in Houston, Texas. He also pursues an acting career on an occasional basis. Jones initially wanted to pursue a different career than that in music, given his extraordinary craze for basketball. He
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by Eastern Bank
Jan
6
1981
LeBron James
LeBron James is an American basketball superstar who currently plays for the National Basketball Association (NBA) team “Cleveland Cavaliers”. He is six feet, eight inches tall and weighs 250 pounds. He was born to a 16 year old single mother named Gloria Marie James on December
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Source: Black History Resources
Lil' Romeo
Percy Romeo Miller Jr, or more commonly referred to as Lil’ Romeo, is a celebrated American personality. Born on August 19, 1989 in New Orleans, Louisiana, Miller is the son of Hip Hop star Master P.  He is not only an outstanding singer and rapper, but has become a successful actor, basketball
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAP) Boston Chapter
Aug
19
1989
Duke Ellington
Duke Ellington was an eminent twentieth century African American composer and pianist. He was also a bandleader of jazz orchestras which he led from 1932 till his demise. He served the American music industry for over 50
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAP) Boston Chapter
Apr
29
1899
Wilt Chamberlain
Born: 8/2/936 Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaDied: 0/2/999 Los Angeles, CaliforniaWilt Chamberlain was an American basketball player. He played for the Philadelphia/San Francisco Warriors, the Philadelphia 76ers, and the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA); he played for the
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Barbara Jordan
Barbara Jordan (21 Feb 1936 – 17 Jan 1996) was the leader of the Civil Rights Movement and an American politician. She was not just a democrat but the first African-American, man or woman, to be elected post Reconstruction to the Texas Senate. On her death, Jordan became the first African-American
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Boston Professional Chapter
Bob Gibson
Born on November 9, 1935 during the time of the Great Depression and World War II, Bob Gibson was the youngest amongst seven siblings whose father had died of tuberculosis before Bob Gibson’s birth. Even though Gibson was born in Nebraska’s biggest city, Omaha, the family was struck by poverty and
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by Greater Boston Veterans Collaborative
Nov
9
1935
Smythe, Hugh Heyne (1913-1977)
Diplomat, scholar and author Hugh Heyne Smythe was born on August 19, 1913 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His mother was a housemaid and his father, who died when Smythe was three years old, was a mailman. One of five siblings, at age six Smythe was forced to start work as a paperboy to help support
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Source: Black Past
Freddy Adu
Freddy Adu of Tema, Ghana, was born in 1989 and moved to the United States with his family at the age of eight. Adu had a nag for soccer from a young age and began competing in neighborhood matches at the age of four. From then on, Adu practiced every day to make his game
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Source: Black History Resources
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffery Jordan is an American basketball legend who played for the Chicago Bulls and Washington Wizards for 15 seasons. Jordan was born on February 17, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina. In high school he played baseball, football, and basketball. When he
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts
Feb
17
1963
African American History
A brief biography of the inventor can be found below the
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Source: ThoughtCo
Morrison, Chloe Anthony Wofford "Toni" (1931- 2019)
Born Chloe Anthony Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio to parents George and Ella Ramah Wofford, novelist Toni Morrison grew up in a working class family.  She received a B.A. degree from Howard University after majoring in English and minoring in the classics.  Wofford earned an
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Source: Black Past
Feb
18
1931
Portrait of Black Chicago
The captions are John Whites own, written some time after he took his photographs. In some cases White used virtually the same caption for several
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Source: Archives Library Information Center (ALIC)
Roberts, Robin René (1960- )
American television broadcaster Robin René Roberts is the anchor of Good Morning America, an ABC morning news show broadcast from its studios in New York, New York.  In December 2013, she quietly came out as a lesbian in a Facebook post that acknowledged her long-time girlfriend, Amber
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Source: Black Past
Nov
23
1960
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee was an American actress, screenwriter, poet, playwright and civil rights activist who had an illustrious career spanning more than 50 years. She was born on October 27, 1922 in Cleveland, Ohio. She grew up in Harlem, New York and began acting as a teenager. She attended Hunter College and
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Source: Black History Resources
Jun
11
2014
Firefight: The Century-Long Battle to Integrate the New York City Fire Department
In the following article Ginger Adams Otis, a staff writer at the New York Daily News and a longtime city reporter, describes her more-than-decade-long research following the evolution of a landmark civil rights case brought by the Vulcan Society, a determined group of activist black New York City
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Source: Black Past
The Texas Western Miners (1966)
The 1966 championship game for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball tournament came down to a test between a small southwestern institution, El Paso’s Texas Western College Miners, and an accomplished four-time NCAA tournament winner, the University of Kentucky
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Source: Black Past
Johnnie Cochran
Johnnie Cochran was a lawyer, who handled several high profile celebrity cases. He was born on October 2, 1937 in Shreveport, Louisiana. He received his Bachelors’ degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1959. Initially selling insurance policies for a living, Cochran soon began
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) Boston Professional Chapter
Mar
29
2005
Holder, Eric H. (1951- )
Eric H. Holder, Jr., U.S. Attorney General since 2009, was born on January 21, 1951 in the Bronx, New York to parents of Barbadian descent, Eric, a real estate agent and Miriam Holder, a telephone operator.  Holder was raised in East Elmhurst, Queens, a community which included a number of famous
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAP) Boston Chapter
Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner: An Ultramarathoning Legend and Unsung Hero in the Struggle for Racial Equality in America.
In the following account, sports historian Charles Kastner describes the remarkable athletic career of Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner of Seattle, Washington. Gardner was arguably the greatest ultramarathoner in Pacific Northwest history. For a detailed discussion of Gardner’s participation
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts
Barkley, Charles Wade
Barkley, Charles Wade | FactMonster
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Source: Fact Monster - Black History
Cook, Suzan Denise Johnson (1957– )
Suzan Johnson Cook is a religious leader, pastor, motivational speaker, and diplomat who was born on January 28, 1957, in Harlem, New York. Her father, Wilbert Johnson, was a trolley driver and later founder of a successful security company, and her mother Dorothy Johnson, was a public school
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by National Black MBA Association (NBMBAA) Boston Professional Chapter
May
16
2011
Nelly
Nelly is an American rap musician and entrepreneur from Missouri who is known for chart topping singles such as Dilemma, Country Grammar and Hot In Here and for founding his own clothing line, non-profit charities and appearances in film and television roles. He was born as Cornell Haynes Jr. on
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Source: Black History Resources
Nov
2
1974
Emory O. Jackson, the Birmingham World, and the Fight for Civil Rights in Alabama
In the article below, Kimberley Mangun, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Utah, describes her ongoing research on the Birmingham (Alabama) World and its longtime editor, Emory O. Jackson. Mangun is writing a cultural biography of Jackson and the
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) Boston Metropolitan Chapter
(1886) T. Thomas Fortune, “The Present Relations of Labor and Capitol”
In 1886, T. Thomas Fortune, born enslaved in Florida thirty years earlier, was already a newspaper owner and publisher in New York City and author of Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the Old South (1884), the first significant work to argue that class conflict rather than racial strife
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Source: Black Past
May
1
1886
Dr. J.
Julius Erving scores his 25,000th career point, becoming the ninth professional basketball player to achieve this mark.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Dec
20
1983
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