New Census Data Shows Changing Complexion of California; Political Power Shifts

Ku Klux Klan received charter from Fulton County,

Ku Klux Klan received charter from Fulton County, Ga., Superior Court. Modern Klan spread to Alabama and other Southern state and reached height of its influence in the twenties. By 1924 the organization was strong in Oklahoma, Indiana, California, Oregon, Indiana, and Ohio. At the height of its

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

4

1915

Nicodemus, Kansas (1877- )

Nicodemus, Kansas was founded in 1877 at the end of the Reconstruction Period. It soon became one of the most famous mostly black communities in the country formed by freedpeople migrating west. Nicodemus is located on the plains in the northwest corner of the state along the Solomon River in

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Source: Black Past

Boseman, Benjamin Anthony (1840-1881)

Benjamin A. Boseman, physician, politician, and postmaster, was free born in New York in 1840 to Benjamin A. and Annaretta Boseman. He was the oldest of five children, two girls and three boys. Boseman grew up in Troy, New York where his father served as a steward on the steamboat Empire in the

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Source: Black Past

Feb

23

1881

Political Upset

Lt. Gov. Mervyn Dymally defeated in California election. Senator Edward W. Brooke defeated in Massachusetts election.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Nov

7

1978

Chuck Berry

Charles Anderson Edward Berry, better known as Chuck Berry, is popularly considered the father of Rock ‘n’ Roll. He was born on October 18, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri to Martha and Henry Berry, who were grandchildren of slaves. His ancestors had migrated from the rural south to Missouri to look

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Source: Black History Resources

Oct

18

1926

Miller, Thomas E. (1849-1938)

Politician and educator, Thomas E. Miller was born in Ferrebeeville, Beaufort County, South Carolina on June 17, 1849. Miller was the son of free black parents, and moved with them to Charleston, South Carolina in 1851 where he attended the all-black schools in the city. After the Civil

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Source: Black Past

Apr

8

1938

Gordone, Charles (1925- )

Charles Gordone was born Charles Edward Fleming on October 12, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio to parents William and Camille Fleming. He took his stepfather’s surname of Gordon when his mother remarried when he was five years old. The family moved to Elkhart, Indiana, his mother’s hometown, when Charles

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Source: Black Past

Nov

13

1995

James, Charles A. (1922- )

Ambassador Charles A. James was born in 1922 in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he attended public schools. After high school, James enrolled at Westchester State Teachers College in Pennsylvania (now Westchester University) where he studied for one year before

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Source: Black Past

Sep

16

1976

Slavery in Oregon: The Reuben Shipley Saga

Few Americans realize that the institution of slavery reached the Pacific Northwest in the two decades before the Civil War. A small number of the white settlers who followed the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City brought bondservants. Oregon historian R. Gregory

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Source: Black Past

Jul

13

1853

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

Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. (1935-1967)

Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., was the first African American selected to be an astronaut. He was also a test pilot and senior United States Air Force pilot with over 2,500 flight

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Source: Black Past

Oct

2

1935

Gayton, John T. (1866-1954)

John T. Gayton, one of Seattle, Washington’s earliest black residents, a community leader, and patriarch of one of the city’s most outstanding black families, came to Seattle in 1889. He was born in Benton, Mississippi to former slaves. With little formal education, he moved to Yazoo

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Source: Black Past

Morial, Ernest Nathan (1929-1989)

Born in New Orleans, Ernest Morial grew up in the city’s Seventh Ward. His father was a cigar maker and his mother was a seamstress. Graduating from Xavier University, a historically black Catholic institution, he became the first African American to receive a law degree from Louisiana State

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Source: Black Past

St. Philip’s Protestant Episcopal Church, New York City (1809- )

St. Philip’s Protestant Episcopal Church was the first African American Episcopal parish in New York City, New York. It was also one of the largest Christian congregations in the United States at one

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Source: Black Past

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

Phillips Chapel CME Church, Las Cruces, New Mexico (1911- )

In 1911 a group of African Americans and Hispanics joined to build a small chapel, one of the first for the town of Las Cruces, New Mexico Territory. Their church, Phillips Chapel Colored Methodist Episcopal (now Christian Methodist Episcopal) CME Church is located in the Mesquite Historic District

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Source: Black Past

May

10

2013

Rick James

Name at birth: James

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Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Admittance of student to U of California Medical

U.S. Supreme Court ordered the University of California Medical School at Davis to admit Allan P. Bakke in so-called reverse discrimination suit.

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Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

28

1978

Williams, Sidney (1942- )

Former professional football player, businessman, and diplomat, Sidney Williams was born in Shreveport, Louisiana on March 24, 1942. Raised in Houston, Texas, he attended the city’s Phillis Wheatley High School and upon graduation in 1959 enrolled at Southern University in Baton

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Source: Black Past

Shorter AME Church, Denver, Colorado (1868- )

Shorter AME Church was organized in 1868. Two women, Mary Smith and Mary Randolph founded the church. The original members met on the South Platte River in 1863 until the Church was given land located at 19th and Holiday (now Market Street) by a major Fillmore, an officer in the Union Army during

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Source: Black Past

Muhammad, Khalid Abdul (1948-2001)

Khalid Abdul Muhammad was an African-American activist, a one-time member of the Nation of Islam and national chairman of the New Black Panther Party. Muhammad was born Harold Moore Jr. on January 12, 1948, to Harold Moore Sr and Lottie B. Moore in Houston, Texas. Moore’s Aunt, Carrie Moore

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Source: Black Past

Dollarhide, Douglas (1923-2008)

Douglas Dollarhide was the first African American mayor of the city of Compton, California, and a pioneer and role model for future black politicians across the state of

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Source: Black Past

Jun

28

2008

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

Tamblyn, George

George Tamblyn is a Seattle Lawyer and a member of Advocates Law Group. He attended Colgate University and Cornell Law School. He specializes in commercial transactions, real estate, and related litigation. He is a former Ph.D candidate in History at the University of Washington (concentrating in

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Source: Black Past

Murray, George Washington (1853–1926)

South Carolina Congressman George Washington Murray was born near Rembert, Sumter County, South Carolina, on September 22, 1853 to slave parents. He attended public schools, the University of South Carolina, and the State Normal Institute at Columbia, where he graduated in 1876. After

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Source: Black Past

McGee, Henry Wadsworth, Sr. (1910-2000)

The first African American Postmaster of a major postal facility, Henry W. McGee, Sr. was born in Hillsboro, Texas, in 1910, and moved to Chicago, Illinois in 1927. McGee was the first person to rise from the ranks of letter carriers to achieve the status of Postmaster, a post to which he was

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Source: Black Past

Jordan, June (1936-2002)

June Meyer Jordan, writer, editor, poet, educator, environmental and social activist, was the only child of Granville Ivanhoe and Mildred Maude Fischer Jordan who were Jamaican immigrants. June was born in Harlem on July 9, 1936. June’s father worked as a night shift postal clerk and her mother

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Source: Black Past

Jul

9

1936

Sullivan, Louis Wade (1933- )

After witnessing poverty and discrimination in Depression-era Georgia, Louis Wade Sullivan committed his career to education and public service, rising to become Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush. He also was the founder and long-time president of Morehouse

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Source: Black Past

Jordan, Barbara (1936-1996)

Barbara Charline Jordan was born in Houston Texas’s Fifth Ward on February 21, 1936. She received her education in public schools in Texas and graduated from Texas Southern University in 1956 with a B.A. in political science and history. Jordan then received her LL.B. from Boston University School

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Source: Black Past

Jan

17

1996

Bradley, Tom (1917-1998)

Thomas J. “Tom” Bradley, five-term Mayor of Los Angeles and the first major black candidate for Governor of California, was born in Calvert, Texas, on December 29, 1917, the son of Lee Thomas Bradley, a railroad porter, and Crenner Bradley, a maid. He was the grandson of former

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Source: Black Past

Sep

30

1998

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