Our Kuchitahidi Archive  --  May
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1st      1867 - Howard University is established in Washington, D.C.
           1901 - Famed poet, Sterling Brown, is born(d.1989).
           1950 - Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the 1st African-American to win
                      the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
2nd     1844 - Elijah McCoy, "The Real McCoy", master inventor with more than
                      50 patents to his credit, is born, in Ontario, Canada.
           1994 - Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa.
3rd     1855 - Macon B. Allen, admitted to the Bar in Boston, MA, the 1st
                      African-American in the U.S. to practice law.
           1933 - The "Godfather of Soul", James Brown is born in South Carolina.
4th      1961 - Attempting to test a 1960 Supreme Court ruling that expanded
                      anti-discrimination laws covering interstate travel to include 
                      facilities used by travelers, 13 members of the Congress of Racial
                      Equality(CORE) set out on a bus ride from Washington, D.C. to 
                      New Orleans.  They were dubbed The Freedom Riders. 
5th     1905 - Robert S. Abbott, with a capital outlay of only twenty-five cents,  
                      begins the African-American newspaper, The Chicago Defender. 
          1918 - William S. Braithwaite is awarded the NAACP Spingarn Award for 
                      his contributions in Poetry.   
 
6th     1787 - Prince Hall carries the 1st Charter from England to Boston and 
                     opens the 1st Masonic Lodge in the United States in Boston as  
                     African Lodge #459. 
          1795 - The beginning of the Haitian Revolution.  
 
7th     1700 - Abolitionist, William Penn, initiated monthly meetings for African- 
                     Americans, advocating emancipation. 
          1878 - J.R. Winters receives a patent for the fire-escape ladder. 
        
8th     1915 - Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Henry McNeal  
                     Tanner, the 1st African-American Chaplin in the U.S. Army, dies in  
                     Canada. 
 
9th     1800 - Abolitionist and Martyr, whose Harper's Ferry attack and  
                     subsequent surrender foretold of what was to come, the Civil War,  
                      is born. 
                      
10th   1837 - Pinckney S. Pinchback, Lt. Governor of Louisiana, is born. 
          1919 - Race riots begin in Charleston, South Caorlina and spread 
                     throughout several major U.S. cities, in what has become known 
                     as the "Red Summer". 
          1944 - The results of U.S. court case of Smith vs Alwright, state that 
                     excluding African-American from primary voting is illegal. 
 
11th   1807 - Ira Aldridge, the 1st great African-American actor, is born. 
12th   1871 - Streetcars de-segregated in Louisville, KY.
          1967 - H. Rap Brown replaces Stokely Carmichael as chairman of SNCC.
13th   1888 - Slavery is abolished in Brazil.
          1862 - Slave Robert Smalls comandeers, pilots and delivers to the Union
                     Army the battleship, The Planter.  Later becoming a captain in the 
                     Union Navy.
14th   1961 - The 1st Freedom Rider bus is bombed outside of Anniston,
                     Alabama.
15th   1918 - In recognition for their actions in France in WWI, Pfc. Henry 
                     Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the croix de guerre,
                     France's highest military reward.
         1963 - Nineteen year old Arthur Ashe becomes the 1st African-American 
                     to join the Davis Cup tennis team.

Sterling Brown
"Godfather of Soul", James Brown
African Lodge #459
African Lodge #459
16th  1792 - Denmark abolishes the Slave Trade.
         1884 - Issac Burns Murphy won the Kentucky Derby this day, becoming 
                     the 1st jockey to win the Derby three times.
         1929 - John Conyers,Jr., the founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, 
                     is born.
         1979 - Labor and Civil Rights leader, Asa Phillips Randolph, dies.
17th  1954 - The Unites States Supreme Court rules that the notion of 
                    "Separate but equal" policy of school education was constitutionally
                    illegal, in 'Brown vs Board of Education'.
18th  1896 - The United States Supreme Court hands down its decision in the 
                    case of Plessy vs Fergeson, upholding Separate but Equal
                    doctrines and starting full blood jim crow laws.
         1918 - Pianist and vocalist 'Big' Joe Turner is born(d.1985)
19th  1925 - Black Nationalist, civil rights leader and Black Muslim leader, 
                    Malcolm X (little), is born.
20th   1962 - John Hope Franklin is appointed the Wm. Pitt Professor of
                      American History and Institutions of Cambridge University,
                      England, for a term of one year.
21th   1745 - Jean Baptiste Pointe duSable, the founder of the trading post that 
                     came to be known as Chicago(d.1808).
          1833 - African-American students enroll in classes at Oberlin College.
          1904 - Pianist, composer, singer and enterainer, Fats Waller(Ain't 
                     Misbehavin) is born(d.1943)
22th   1948 - Claude McKay, Jamaican poet, dies.
          1959 - Benjamin O. Davis is promoted to the rank of Major General in the
                      U.S. Air Force.
          1962 - Patrice Lamumba is assassinated in the then Belgium Congo.
          1967 - Noted poet, writer and historian, Langston Hughes, dies in 
                      Harlem, N.Y.
23rd  1832 - Jamaican national hero figure, Samuel sharpe is hanged.
         1900 - Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the 1st 
                      African-American to receive the Medal of Honor, 37 years
                      after the battle of Fort Wagner.
24th  1844 - Solomon B. Brown, scientific technician, aids Samuel Morse in
                     transmitting the 1st formal message between two cities by wire.
          1974 - "Duke" Ellington dies of Cancer in Harlem, N.Y.
25th   1878 - Dancer, singer, and actor, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is born in
                     Richmond, VA.
          1926 - Jazz Trumpeter, innovator and composer Miles Dewey Davis is 
                      born(d.1991).
26th   1799 - Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, dies.
          1899 - Renowned Harlem Artist, Aaron Douglas, is born.
27th   1885 - Lulu Fleming, born into slavery, graduates as valedictorian from
                     Shaw University.
          1942 - Navy messman, Dorie Miller, is awarded the Navy Cross for
                     heroism at Pearl Harbor.
28th   1831 - Eliza Ann Gardner, Underground Railroad Conducter, is born.
          1949 - Wisconson legislature passes law forbidding discrimination in the
                     National Guard.
          1981 - Jazz pianist Mary Lou Wllliams dies in Durham, N.C.
          
29th   1965 - Vivian Malone becomes the 1st African-American to graduate 
                      from the University of Alabama.
          1973 - Tom Bradley becomes the 1st African-American mayor of Los
                     Angeles, CA.
30th   1822 - Denmark vessey's slave rebellion is crushed.
          1909 - The NAACP is founded.
          1962 - Edward Franklin Frazier, historian and educator, dies.
31st   1921 - The Tulsa Oklahoma Riots begin; ending with 250 African-
                     Americans killed, untold injured, 1000 homes burned and 4000 
                     African-Americans confined to prison camps.

Ira Aldridge
H. Rap Brown
Arthur Ashe