Texas constitutional convention

Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was a 19th century composer and founder of the ragtime genre of music. He was born in Linden, Texas, somewhere between late 1867 to early 1868 and was the youngest of six children born to Giles Joplin (a former slave) and Florence Givens. His family was musically inclined which gave

fave

Source: Black History Resources

Apr

1

1917

Ailey, Alvin (1931-1989)

Alvin Ailey was born in Rodgers, Texas during the Great Depression. He overcame racism, poverty, and homophobia to become one of the most celebrated choreographers in American history. His single teenage mother Lula Ailey washed clothes, picked cotton, and worked in domestic service in various

fave

Source: Black Past

Forde, George Patrick Alphonse (1882-1967)

George Patrick Alphonse Forde was an important physician in early 20th century Houston, Texas. Forde was born in Barbados in September 1882. Educated in the Caribbean, Forde first became aware of the possibility of a medical profession while he worked in a Panama Canal

fave

Source: Black Past

Segregation Movements

Tennessee started modern segregation movement with Jim Crow railroad car and was followed by Florida (1887), Mississippi (1888), Texas (1889), Louisiana (1890), Alabama, Kentucky, Arkansas and Georgia (1891), South Carolina (1898), North Carolina (1899), Virginia (1900), Maryland (1904), Oklahoma

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

24

1881

Juanita Jewel Shanks Craft (1902-1985) and the Long Civil Rights Movement in Texas

A small but growing number of black women are slowly being recognized for their contributions to the “long” civil rights movement, the nearly century-long struggle by African Americans against all forms of racial discrimination. In the account below University of Texas-El Paso

fave

Source: Black Past

Oct

4

2013

The Harlem Renaissance in the American West

In the following article historians Bruce Glasrud and Cary Wintz discuss their new book, The Harlem Renaissance in the American West which argues that the literary and artistic outpouring by African Americans during the third decade of the 20th Century was a national phenomenon which included the

fave

Source: Black Past

Algeria

Nearly four times the size of Texas and the largest country on the continent, Algeria is bordered on the west by Morocco and Western Sahara and on the east by Tunisia and Libya. The Mediterranean Sea is to the north, and to the south are Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. The Saharan region, which is

fave

Source: Fact Monster - Black History

Bessie Coleman

Born: 1/26/1892 Atlanta, Texas, United StatesDied: 4/30/1926 Jacksonville, FloridaBessie Coleman was an American civil aviator. She was the first female pilot of African American descent and is also the first Native American woman to hold a pilot license.She is also the first person of African

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Thomas Bradley

Thomas Bradley was born on this day in Calvert, Texas and went on to become mayor of Los Angeles by winning 56% of the vote.

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

29

1917

Race riot, Beaumont, Texas

Race riot, Beaumont, Texas. Two killed.

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

16

1943

Wooten, Howard A. (1920-1948)

Tuskegee Airman Howard Adolphus Wooten was born on April 20, 1920 in Lovelady, Texas to parents Johnnie C. Morris Wooten and Howard L. Wooten. His father was the principal of the “colored school” in Lovelady, a town 100 miles north of Houston, and his mother also was a teacher

fave

Source: Black Past

Aug

20

1948

Anderson, Lucy Hicks [Tobias Lawson] (1886-1954)

Lucy Hicks Anderson lived as a woman in Oxnard, California, from 1920 until 1945, when it was discovered that she was biologically male. Today she might be described as a transgender person, but that term did not exist during her lifetime. Although she did not refer to herself as a transgendered

fave

Source: Black Past

Edythe Turnham Orchestra

Also called Edythe Turnham and her Knights of Syncopation, the Edythe Turnham Orchestra was a prominent fixture in the Seattle music scene during its “Jazz Age” (1920-1933). It was led by the husband and wife team of Edythe and Floyd Turnham and was one of the two main Seattle bands to

fave

Source: Black Past

Apr

30

1926

Dewitty, Thelma (1912-1977)

Thelma Dewitty was the first black teacher to be hired by the Seattle Public Schools. She had been a teacher in Corpus Christi, Texas for 14 years and began her Seattle teaching career in September 1947, after intervention on her behalf by the Seattle Urban League, NAACP, the Civic Unity

fave

Source: Black Past

Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson is one of the most interesting inventors ever, not simply because of his invention but more so because of his celebrated and controversial life. Johnson was born on March 31, 1878 in Galveston, Texas under the name John Arthur Johnson and spent much of his teenage life working on boats

fave

Source: Black History Resources

North Carolina constitutional convention (15

North Carolina constitutional convention (15 Blacks, 118 whites) met in Releigh.

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Jan

14

1868

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

fave

Source: Black Past

(1867) The Reconstruction Acts

Chap. CLIII - An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States [Passed over President Johnsons veto March

fave

Source: Black Past

Debbie Allen, dancer/producer born

Debbie Allen DANCER, ACTRESS, PRODUCER Birthplace: Houston, Texas Debbie has starred in such popular television programs series such as Fame and A Different World. She recently collaborated with movie producer, Steven Spielberg to produce the powerful movie Amistad.

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Jan

16

1950

Muhammad Ali convicted in Houston, Texas, federal

Muhammad Ali convicted in Houston, Texas, in federal courts for violating Selective Service Act by refusing induction into the armed services. He was fined $10,000 and sentenced to five years in prison. Ali, an opponent of the Vietnam War, had refused to report for service on grounds that he was

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Jun

20

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

fave

Source: Black Past

Cottonpickers organized union and strike

Cottonpickers organized union and staged strike for higher wages in Texas.

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Sep

3

1891

Coleman, Bessie (1892–1926)

In 1921, Bessie Coleman became the first black woman to gain an international permit to fly. After learning French, she attended the famous flight school Ecole d’Aviation des Frères Caudron in Northern France. No schools in America would train a black person. She was inspired to fly by the stories

fave

Source: Black Past

Bluford, Guion Stewart, Jr. ["Guy"] (1942- )

Guy Bluford, a member of the SDS-8 space shuttle Challenger crew in 1983, was the first African American in space. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Bluford was interested in math and science and knew he wanted to work in aerospace engineering before graduating high school. His high school

fave

Source: Black Past

Aug

30

1983

Black Baseball in Minnesota: The Pipestone Black Sox

In the following article historian Bruce A. Glasrud follows the exploits of an all black baseball team in the southwestern Minnesota town of Pipestone in the 1920s which at the time had virtually no black residents. Nonetheless the team competed with other white, all-black, and racially integrated

fave

Source: Black Past

In the Land of Czars and Commissars: African Americans in Russia, the Soviet Union, and Post-Soviet Russia, 1824-2015

It was in May 1824 that Nancy Gardner Prince, rescued from alife of poverty and hardship in Massachusetts through a recent marriage, foundherself in a most surreal circumstance unlike any previously experienced by anAfrican American in this region of the world. After recently arriving in

fave

Source: Black Past

Ellis, William Henry (1864-1923)

William Henry Ellis, an African American businessman who challenged racial constructs in the United States by “passing” as Hispanic, was born a slave to Charles and Margaret Ellis on June 15, 1864. His parents had been brought by Joseph Weisiger from Kentucky to Texas in 1853. In 1870

fave

Source: Black Past

Sep

24

1923

Georgia constitutional convention

Georgia constitutional convention (33 Blacks, 137 whites) open in Atlanta.

fave

Source: Blackfacts.com

Dec

9

1867

Scott, Gloria Dean Randle (1938- )

Civic and educational leader Gloria Dean Randle Scott, the first African-American president of the Girl Scouts of America and the twelfth president of Bennett College, was born on April 14, 1938 in Houston, Texas to Juanita Bell and Freeman Randle. Scott grew up in Houston, attending Blackshear

fave

Source: Black Past

Apr

14

1938

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

fave

Source: Black Past

BlackFacts Details

Texas constitutional convention

Maxine Waters Reclaims Her Time On The Breakfast Club

Barack Obama Facts

Spirituality Facts

Literature Facts

Education Facts

I have a Dream - MLK