1966—Kwame Nkrumah is ousted in a military coup as president of the West African nation of Ghana. This was another event which changed the course of Black history for the worse. Nkrumah, educated at the predominantly Black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, had been a major intellectual and pragmatic force for Pan-Africanism and worldwide Black unity. From the time he became the first president of Ghana in March 1957, he had worked tirelessly for international Black advance and world peace. His ouster left a void which after 40 years has not been filled by any other African leader. Nkrumah died in 1972.
January 25
1851—The first Black Women’s Rights Convention is held in Akron, Ohio. The keynote speaker was anti-slavery activist Sojourner Truth.
1966—Constance Baker Motley becomes the first African-American woman appointed to a federal judgeship. She takes the bench in the Southern District of New York. Motley was a major civil rights hero helping win several important cases during the 1950s and ‘60s. Among the cases was the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, which desegregated the nation’s schools. She worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and helped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in several of his legal battles. Born in 1921 in New Haven, Conn., Motley died in 2006.
1980—Black Entertainment Television, the first Black owned company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, begins broadcasting from its headquarters in Washington, D.C. While still Black programmed, BET is now owned by media conglomerate Viacom.
February 26
1920—Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950) founds the first nationally organized celebration of Black American history (then called Negro History Week), which was first celebrated on this day in 1926. Woodson scheduled the week to coincide with the birthdays of Civil War President Abraham Lincoln and Black abolitionist Frederick Douglass. However, in 1976, Negro History Week was expanded into the current day Black History Month. For his efforts in promoting knowledge of Black historical achievements Woodson became known as the “Father of Black History.” In explaining the need for the celebration, Woodson once said, “Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”
1964—Heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay changes his name to Muhammad Ali after rejecting Christianity and joining the Elijah Muhammad-led Nation of Islam.
February 27
1748—This is the probable birth date of Prince Hall—the “Father of Black Masons.” Hall was a veteran of America’s war of independence from England, founder of the first African-American Masonic lodges and one of the most prominent Black leaders of his era. The charter for the first Black Masonic lodge was granted on Sept. 29, 1784. It was known as African Lodge #459 of Boston.
1869—Congress adopts the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution making it illegal for the U.S. government or any state to “deny or abridge” the right to vote “on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.” This was one of the so-called “Reconstruction Amendments (13th, 14th & 15th)” which essentially ended slavery, made Blacks full U.S. citizens and guaranteed the right to vote.
1872—Charlotte E. Ray graduates from the Howard University Law School becoming the first Black female lawyer in the United States. It also appears that she was the third female lawyer of any race. She was admitted to the Washington, D.C., bar the same year she graduated. But racism and sexism prevented her from making a living as a lawyer in the nation’s capital, so she moved to New York and got a job with the Brooklyn school system.
February 28
1708—One of the first recorded slave revolts in American history takes place on Newton, Long Island (New York). Seven Whites are killed. In retaliation, two Black male slaves and one Indian male slave were hung, while one Black female slave was burned alive.
1879—A date considered by many to mark the beginning of the great “Exodus of 1879,” when thousands of Blacks begin fleeing racism, violence and economic exploitation in the South for new lives in the Midwest, especially Kansas. One of the most prominent organizers of the exodus was former Tennessee slave Benjamin “Pap” Singleton. An estimated 20,000 Blacks took part in the exodus. They were driven in part by the Homestead Act which promised free land. But by 1880, efforts had already begun to curtail the movement of Blacks to the Midwest. In 1881, Pap Singleton was hauled before a Senate investigative committee looking into his role in the exodus.
1989—Philip Emeagwali is awarded the Golden Bell Prize for solving one of the 20 most difficult problems in computer science. The prize is widely considered the “Nobel Prize of Computing.” The feat of the Nigerian-born computer scientist involved, at the time, the world’s fastest computer computation—a staggering 3.1 billion calculations per second. He figured out how oil flows underground and thus better enabled companies to extract it.
March 1
1739—The British government is forced to sign a peace treaty with the Jamaican Maroons. The Maroons were escaped slaves or, to put it another way, Africans who refused to be slaves. When the Spanish lost Jamaica to the British in 1665, they freed many of their slaves and called them Maroons or “wild.” The Maroons set up villages, were frequently joined by other escaped slaves and eventually began to wage a highly successful guerrilla war against the British. Under the terms of the peace treaty, the Maroons were designated a free people and given 1,500 acres of land.
1780—Pennsylvania becomes perhaps the first state to abolish slavery. There is some confusion about the effective dates of the laws passed during this period, which called for the gradual elimination of slavery. The honor of being the first state to ban slavery may actually go to Vermont.
1875—Congress enacts the first Civil Rights Bill. It granted Blacks the right to equal treatment in inns, on public transportation, in theaters and places of amusement. However, with the end of the progressive Reconstruction period, Jim Crow laws were passed throughout the South which largely ignored the Civil Rights Bill. African-Americans did not regain most of the rights granted in 1875 until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
1927—Entertainer and political activist Harry Belafonte is born Harold George Belafonte on this day in Harlem, N.Y., to Jamaican immigrant parents. Belafonte developed an early flair for entertainment and in the post-World War II period, he came one of the most popular vocalists in America and made Calypso popular throughout the nation. In 1959, he became the first African-American to win an Emmy. However, from the 1960s forward he mixed his entertainment career with active participation in the Civil Rights Movement and other social causes. He has been a frequent critic of Republican conservatism and conservative Blacks. In 2002, he was accused of labeling Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice “house niggers” for their support of President Bush’s right wing domestic and foreign policies.
1967—On this day in Black history, the U.S. House of Representatives expelled flamboyant and outspoken Black New York Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. from Congress for allegedly misappropriating funds. However, in June 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the expulsion unconstitutional and Powell returned to Congress, but without his seniority. He lost his seat to current Representative Charles Rangel in 1970 and Powell died on April 4, 1972. During his most powerful years in Congress, Powell headed the House Labor and Education Committee and used his powers to help pass a wide range of civil rights and progressive social legislation.
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