How To Get Alicia Keys's Rope Twists From 'So Done' Music Video

Price, Mary Violet Leontyne (1927- )

Born to James and Kate Price on February 10, 1927, in Laurel, Mississippi, Leontyne Price became one of the world’s leading opera sopranos and among the first African Americans to gain prominence in major performance halls in that musical genre. Her parents were amateur musicians and instilled in

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Source: Black Past

Feb

10

1927

Ashanti

Name at birth: Ashanti Douglas

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th President of the United States of America and the first African American to have held the post. He was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham. His parents separated when he was an infant and divorced when he was 2 years

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Source: Black History Resources

Jan

20

2009

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was a famous American jazz musician. He was born on May 26, 1926 to a wealthy African American family in Alton, Illinois. His father was a dentist who also owned a ranch in Arkansas. Davis developed an appreciation for music at an early age after listening to gospel music at

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Source: Black History Resources

May

26

1926

Constitution of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, 1918

The Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities’ League is a social, friendly, humanitarian, charitable, educational, institutional, constructive and expansive society, and is founded by persons desiring to the utmost to work for the general uplift of the Negro peoples of the

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Source: Black Past

(1808) Rev. Peter Williams, “An Oration On The Abolition Of The Slave Trade”

On March 2, 1807 Congress enacted a law that banned the external slave trade beginning January 1, 1808. With that act enslaved persons could no longer be brought to the United States. Although the law would be frequently violated until the eve of the Civil War, many black and white anti-slavery

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Source: Black Past

(1963) Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Religion and Race"

On January 14, 1963, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel gave the speech “Religion and Race,” at a conference of the same name that assembled in Chicago, Illinois. There he met Dr. Martin Luther King and the two became friends. Rabbi Heschel marched with Dr. King at Selma, Alabama in

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Source: Black Past

Jan

14

1963

Brandy Norwood

Brandy Rayana Norwood (better known as Brandy) is a Grammy award winning singer, actress and model. She was born in McComb, Mississippi, in 1979 and was the eldest child of a church pastor named William Ray Norwood Sr. and his wife Sonja Norwood. Her younger brother Ray J is also a singer and

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Source: Famous African Americans

Smith, Bessie (1894-1937)

Along with Ma Rainey and Mamie Smith, singer Bessie Smith helped pioneer the genre of blues music and propel it into popular culture. Her early death at the age of 43 cut short a career that influenced the direction of American music and contributed to the success of African Americans in the

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Source: Black Past

Sep

26

1937

Bankhead, Mary Lucille Perkins (1902–1994)

Mary Lucille Perkins Bankhead, lifelong resident of Salt Lake City and member of the Genesis Group leadership, was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on August 9, 1902. Her father, Sylvester Perkins, was a cowboy and farmer. Her mother, Martha Anne Jane Stevens Perkins Howell, was a homemaker and

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Source: Black Past

Jun

16

1994

Williams, Vanessa (1963- )

Vanessa Lynn Williams was born in Tarrytown, New York on March 18, 1963. She is the daughter of Helen and the late Milton Williams who were music teachers. She has a younger brother, Christopher, who is also an actor. Williams was the first African American woman to win the Miss America title on

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Source: Black Past

Fitzgerald, Ella (1917-1996)

Ella Fitzgerald was a female jazz singer considered without equal at the height of the jazz era. Her voice had an amazing and vibrant range that allowed her to sing nearly every jazz style. Ella was also an accomplished composer and bandleader who performed into the

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Source: Black Past

Apr

25

1917

Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was an internationally acclaimed African American author, poet, actress, dancer and civil rights activist. She was born as Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She had a rough childhood and was sent to live with her grandparents after her own parents’ divorce. At

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Source: Black History Resources

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

? Approved, September 18, 1850 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the persons who have been, or may hereafter be, appointed commissioners, in virtue of any act of Congress, by the Circuit Courts of the United States,

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Source: Black Past

Sep

18

1850

Michael Jackson, entertainer wins 8 Grammys

Musician and entertainer Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy Awards. His album, Thriller, broke all sales records to-date, and remains one of the top-grossing albums of all time.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Feb

28

1984

Daniels, Lee Louis (1959- )

An American actor, film producer, and director, Lee Louis Daniels was born on December 24, 1959. He is credited with directing some of the most controversial, yet memorable films of the last decade including hisdirectorial debut in 2004’s The Woodsman and 2006’s Shadowboxer. He also produced both

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Source: Black Past

Dec

24

1959

Watts, Andre (1946- )

Andre Watts is the subject of one of the more memorable stories in American music. In 1963, the 16 year old high school student won a piano competition to play in the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concert at Lincoln Center, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Within weeks of the contest the

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Source: Black Past

Jun

20

1946

Nikki Giovanni

Name at birth: Yolande Cornelia

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

The Genesis Group of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (1971– )

In 1971 Ruffin Bridgeforth, Darius Gray, and Eugene Orr, all African American Mormons, met at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to create a strategy for receiving greater support for the black members of the Latter Day Saints. In that year, there were only three or four hundred Latter-day

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Source: Black Past

Akon

Akon is an American Hip Hop artist who has produced several platinum albums, appeared in television and film roles, received several Grammy nominations and owns two record labels. He was born Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Bongo Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam in St. Louis, Missouri on April

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Source: Black History Resources

Apr

16

1973

Ella Fitzgerald

Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz icon of the 20th century. She was born on April 25, 1917 in Virginia to William and Temperance Fitzgerald. The couple separated soon after Ella’s birth, and Temperance moved to New York with her boyfriend, Joseph De Silva. She had a half sister named

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Source: Black History Resources

Jun

15

1996

Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is named Song and Record o

Roberta Flacks The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face is named Song and Record of the Year at the Grammys.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Mar

3

2002

Marie Laveau, the "Queen of the Voodoos,"

Marie Laveau, the Queen of the Voodoos, was dethroned because of old

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

7

1868

(1884) William H. Crogman, “Negro Education: Its Helps and Hindrances”

? William Henry Crogman, a native of the West Indian island of St. Martin, was educated at Pierce Academy in Massachusetts immediately after the Civil War. In 1868 he was named to the English faculty of newly organized Claflin College in South Carolina. By 1870 Crogman returned to college, ente

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Source: Black Past

Jul

16

1884

Flip Wilson

Flip Wilson was an American Comedian and Actor who was extremely famous due to his own weekly series, “The Flip Wilson Show”. Wilson was one of the first African-Americans to not only have a title show of his own, but one that primarily had a white audience. Wilson was featured on Time

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Source: Black History Resources

Dec

8

1933

Kathleen Battle, operatic soprano

1948 : Kathleen Battle, operatic soprano, winner of Grammy awards in 1987 and 1988, born

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Aug

13

1948

(1852) Frederick Douglass, “What, To The Slave, Is The Fourth Of July”

On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass was invited to address the citizens of his hometown, Rochester, New York. Whatever the expectations of his audience on that 76th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Douglass used the occasion not to celebrate the nation’s triumphs but

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Source: Black Past

Jul

5

1852

(1994) Sister Souljah, “We Are At War"

In 1993 Sister Souljah (born Lisa Williamson), a Bronx-born rapper, earned national notoriety thanks ironically to then Presidential candidate Bill Clinton who denounced her comments about the 1992 Los Angeles Riots as “hate driven and racist.” Sister Souljah responded with her own

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Source: Black Past

Whitney Houston

Whitney Elizabeth Houston was an American singer, songwriter and actress and one of the best selling artists of all time. She was born on August 9, 1963 in New Jersey to two time Grammy Award winner Cissy Houston. The legendary queen of soul, Aretha Franklin, was her godmother. Whitney Houston

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Source: Black History Resources

Aug

9

1963

Berry Lawson Case (1938)

On March 26, 1938, Berry Lawson, a twenty-seven-year-old African American waiter staying at the Mt. Fuji Hotel located on Yesler Way in downtown Seattle, Washington, was reportedly asleep in a chair in the hotel lobby. He was spotted by three Seattle Police Department officers, who approached

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Source: Black Past

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