Daniel Hale Williams, 1st physician to perform open heart surgery

is born.

Southern University closed because of demonstrations protesting expulsion of sit-in activists.

Grant Fuhr, goalie for the world champion Edmonton Oilers, is picked in the first round of the National

Hockey League draft to become the first Black professional hockey player

Willie O’Ree, the National Hockey League’s (NHL) first black player, is an African-Canadian, born on October 15, 1935, in Fredricton, New Brunswick. He began skating at an early age and quickly developed into one of the best players in eastern Canada.  O’Ree joined the Quebec Frontenacs, a junior hockey league team in 1954.  While there a puck struck O’Ree in the right eye during a game in Ontario. Eight weeks after being injured he returned to hockey but had lost almost all of the vision in his right eye.

Despite his injury O’Ree in 1956 was acquired by the Quebec Aces, a professional team.  O’Ree led them to a championship during his first season of play.  During the following season in Quebec, O’Ree was noticed by NHL scouts and invited to join the Boston (Massachusetts) Bruins to replace an injured player. He made his NHL debut on January 18, 1958 against the Montreal Canadiens, becoming the first black player in the League’s history. At that time in hockey there was little medical testing and no eye exams.  As a result O’Ree played 21 professional seasons with vision in only one eye.

O’Ree faced an uphill battle from his first game in the NHL.  For the rest of the season, his only one in the NHL, O’Ree endured constant racial slurs from both opposing players and fans. After O’Ree’s first season in the NHL, he found himself unceremoniously traded to the Hull-Ottawa Canadiens, a Montreal farm team. He learned of the trade, not from Boston Bruin officials but from a sportswriter who called him for his comments.   O’Ree returned to the Boston Bruins and the NHL for the 1961 season.  During his 43 games that year he scored four goals and had 10 assists.  

After returning to the Hull-Ottawa team for two seasons, O’Ree was traded to the Los Angeles Blades of the Western Hockey League (WHL). He later joined the San Diego Gulls, the first of a series of California teams.  O’Ree played a total of fourteen years in California where he scored thirty or more goals per season and won two Western Hockey League scoring

Daniel Hale Williams was born on January 18, 1856 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

The Jeffersons premiered on television, one of the first sitcoms about an African-American family. Formerly neighbors of the Bunkers on All in the Family, the Jeffersons moved to Manhattans East Side.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, pioneer in surgery was born

Robert C. Weaver becomes first Black presidential cabinet member when sworn in as Secretary of Housing

and Urban Affairs under the Johnson Administration

Richard Harvey Cain was born a free black in Greenbrier County, Virginia on April 12, 1825. In 1831 his parents moved to Gallipolis, Ohio where he attended school. Seventeen years later, in 1848, he joined the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and became a minister in Muscatine, Iowa. Cain moved to South Carolina in 1865 to lead a Charleston AME church and soon became involved in local politics.  In 1868, he was elected a member of the South Carolina State Constitutional Convention.  Later in the year he was elected to the South Carolina State Senate, a post he held until 1870.  Cain was editor and publisher of the South Carolina Leader which eventually became the Missionary Record.

In 1872, Richard Harvey Cain was elected to South Carolina’s at large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Cain served on the Agriculture Committee in the 43rd Congress. He is most remembered, however, for his support of a civil rights bill introduced into the House in 1870.  Although the bill failed to be enacted, during the debate he spoke eloquently and passionately about his own experiences during a trip to the nation’s capital where he was denied first class accommodations on a train.  By 1874, Cain’s at large seat was eliminated and he chose not so seek another office that year.  He continued, however, to be actively involved in the South Carolina Republican Party and in 1876 he returned to Congress representing the 2nd district of South Carolina.  Cain served one term and then returned to his ministerial duties in Charleston.  In 1880 Cain was elected a Bishop in the A.M.E. Church.  Soon afterwards he moved to Texas and became one of the founders of Paul Quinn College in Austin.   Bishop Cain served as the college’s first president between 1880 and 1884.  Three years later on January 18, 1887, Richard Harvey Cain died in Washington, D.C.

Congressman William L. Dawson elected chairman of House Expenditures Committee. He was the first Black to head a standing committee of Congress.