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Marian Anderson
Born: 2/27/1897 Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaDied: 4/8/1993 Portland, OregonAn African American operatic and concert singer that was renowned thoughtout the world for her extraordinary contralto voice. The first African American to sing at the Metropolitan Opera.B40Awards / Achievements:
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Association of Latino Professionals For America (ALPFA) Boston Professional Chapter
Smalls, Robert (1839-1915)
Robert Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 5, 1839 and worked as a house slave until the age of 12. At that point his owner, John K. McKee, sent him to Charleston to work as a waiter, ship rigger, and sailor, with all earnings going to McKee. This arrangement continued until
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Source: Black Past
May
13
1862
George Washington, founder of the town of Centerville (later Centralia), Washing
George Washington, founder of the town of Centerville (later Centralia), Washington in 1875, dies
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Prospanica Boston Professional Chapter
Aug
26
1905
Black Leaders Protested Discrimination
Black leaders protested discrimination in the armed forces and war industries at a White House meeting with President Roosevelt.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Illinois Math and Science Academy
Sep
27
1940
Grambling State University (1901-- )
Grambling State University was founded in 1901 in Grambling, Louisiana. In the post- Civil War effort to build schools for former African American slaves, several colleges were established in Louisiana.  All of them were concentrated in the more populous southern portion of the state including
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Source: Black Past
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)
Sand Dunes, Atlantic City (1885) was purchased for the White House Art Collection and displayed in the Green Room
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Dec
0
1996
James & Lydia Sims
During World War II, Lydia Sims moved from Newark, New Jersey, to Spokane with her husband, James Sims, an Army Air Force soldier stationed at Geiger Airfield.  At the end of the war, the Sims family decided to remain in Spokane.  For 10 years they lived in the Garden Springs housing
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Source: Black Past
Mar
19
1969
What Comes Naturally: The Loving v. Virginia Case in Historical Perspective
When Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter decided to get married in June 1958, laws banning interracial marriage had been in effect for nearly three centuries.  The colonies of Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts had banned intermarriage in 1664, 1691, and 1705.  After the American Revolution, states
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Source: Black Past
Jun
12
1967
Race, Gender, Jazz & Local 493: Black Women Musicians in Seattle: 1920-1955
During its brief and rocky tenure from 1918 to 1924, pianist Gertrude Harvey Wright was one of four women in Seattle’s first black musicians’ union, the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 458.  Wright,  Virginia Hughes, a “Mrs. Austin,” and (Edythe) “Turnham,” all
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Source: Black Past
Owens, Major Robert (1936- )
Former New York Congressman Major Robert Owens was born on June 28, 1936 in Collierville, Tennessee.  He graduated from Hamilton High School in Memphis in 1952 at the age of 16.  Owens received a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College in 1956, and an M.S. in Library Science from Atlanta
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Source: Black Past
Jun
28
1936
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gaye Jr. was a legendary singer and recording artist who came to be known as the “Prince of Soul”. Gaye was born on April 2, 1939 in Washington, D.C. He was raised by his father “Reverend Marvin Gay Sr.” who was a very strict guardian. Gaye was musically
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Source: Black History Resources
Apr
2
1939
(1905) Theodore Roosevelt, “Lincoln and the Race Problem”
On February 13, 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt gave a speech at the New York City Republican Club as a tribute to Abraham Lincoln.  The speech, which also allowed Roosevelt to expound on his contemporary views of race in the United States, appears
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Eastern Bank
Feb
13
1905
Toni Morrison
Born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio as Chloe Anthony Wofford, Toni Morrison is an American author, editor and professor who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature for being an author “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of
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Source: Black History Resources
Feb
18
1931
Aynaw, Yityish “Titi” (1992- )
Yityish “Titi” Aynaw was crowned Miss Israel on February 27, 2013.  She made history when she became the first Miss Israel of African ancestry.  Born in Gondar Province, Ethiopia, Aynaw arrived in Israel in March 2003 along with her older brother and grandparents at the age of 12 after
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Source: Black Past
Sponsored by Diversity In Action
Feb
27
2013
Mercer, Mabel Alice Wadham (1900-1984)
Mabel Mercer was one of the most important jazz cabaret singers of the 20th Century. Her personal singing style emphasizing interpretation, diction, lyrics, and projection over vocal proficiency influenced numerous leading singers including Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Nat
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Source: Black Past
Nine Caravans of poor people arrived in Washington
Nine Caravans of poor people arrived in Washington for first phase of Poor Peoples Campaign. Caravans started from different sections of country on May 2 and picked up demonstrators along the way. In Washington, demonstrators erected camp called Resurrection City on sixteen-acre site near Lincoln
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Source: Blackfacts.com
May
11
1967
March for jobs and freedom
A. Philip Randolph helped plan a march on Washington(Lincoln Memorial) to demonstrate to the government the strengh and commitment of black people to civil rights. A. Philip Randolph fought for justice and for the advancement of African Americans.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association (MBLA)
Aug
28
1963
Ragsdale, Marguerita (1948- )
Marguerita Dianne Ragsdale was born in April 1948 in Richmond, Virginia to Lillie and Vernon Ragsdale and raised alongside her five sisters on a farm in McKenney, Dinwiddie County, Virginia. After starting her undergraduate work at Virginia State University in Petersburg, she transferred to
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Source: Black Past
Samuel " Black Sam" Fraunces
George Washington gives his farewell address to his troops at Fraunces Tavern in NYC owned by ,Samuel Black Sam Fraunces a wealthy West Indian of African and French descent who aided Revolutionary forces with food and money
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Museum of African American History in Massachusetts
Dec
4
1783
The First U.S. Merchant Ship
Booker T. Washington, the first U.S. merchant ship commanded by a Black captain (Hugh Mulzac), launched at Wilmington, Delaware.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts
Sep
29
1940
Ten thousand students, led by Jackie Robinson,
Ten thousand students, led by Jackie Robinson, Harry Belfonte and A. Phillip Randolph, participated in the Youth March for Integrated Schools in Washington. Daisy Bates, head of the Arkansas chapter of the NAACP, and the nine students who integrated Little Rockss Central High School were awarded
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Oct
25
1958
Michael Sam
Michael Sam is an American footballer who plays for the Dallas Cowboys. He is also one of the few openly gay players in the National Football League (NFL). He was born Michael Alan Sam Jr. to Jo Ann and Michael Sam, the seventh of eight children in the family. He attended Hitchcock High School in
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Source: Black History Resources
Voters Wounded Trying To Registration
Two youths involved in voter registration drive in Mississippi were wounded by shotgun blasts fired through the window of a home in Ruleville. James Forman, of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), asked the president to convene a special White House Conference to discuss means of
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sep
11
1962
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt was a singer and actress who recorded the hit holiday song “Santa Baby”. She was born on January 17, 1927 in South Carolina to an African American mother and a white father. She was raised by Anna Mae Riley, as her biological mother had abandoned her. It wasn’t until later
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Source: Black History Resources
Sponsored by National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) Boston Metropolitan Chapter
Jan
17
1927
The Authorizing of enlistment of free blacks
Alarmed by impact of the Dunmore proclamation, Washington reversed himself and authorized the enlistment of free Blacks.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Sponsored by Prospanica Boston Professional Chapter
Dec
31
1775
Death of Thaddeus Stevens
Death of Thaddeus Stevens (76), architect of the Radical Reconstruction program, in Washington.
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Source: Blackfacts.com
Aug
11
1868
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz musician who is widely credited as being one of the creators of modern day jazz. He was born on October 10, 1917, in Rocky Mount, North Carolina to Thelonious and Barbara Monk. He had an older sister named Marion and a younger brother named Thomas. When
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Source: Black History Resources
Oct
10
1917
Cayton, Susie Revels (1870-1943)
Susie Sumner Revels, a daughter of Hiram Revels, the first U.S. Senator of African descent, arrived in Seattle, Washington from Mississippi in 1896. Her reason, she stated, during a 1936 Washington Pioneers Project interview, was the man she was going to marry was here. He was Horace Roscoe
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Source: Black Past
Jul
12
1896
(1948) Henry A. Wallace, “Radio Address”
Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, Jr., in 1948 became the Presidential nominee of the Progressive Party.  Wallace ran a spirited campaign which unlike almost any before, took on the question of racial discrimination and segregation against African Americans in the South.  What follows is his
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Source: Black Past
Sep
13
1948
Duncan, Todd (1903-1998)
Born Robert Todd Duncan in Danville, Kentucky in 1903, Todd Duncan was the first African American to perform in an otherwise all-white cast in the New York City Opera’s production of
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Source: Black Past
Mar
2
1998
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