Kwanzaa, originated by Dr.Maulana Karenga, is started on this date in 1966.
On this date in 1956, Birmingham Blacks began mass defiance of Jim Crow bus laws.
On this date in 1931, Lonnie Elder, author and playwright (Ceremonies in Dark Old Men) and screenwriter (Sounder, A Woman Called Moses) was born
On this date in 1924, DeFord Bailey, Sr., a harmonica player, became the first Black to perform on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.
On this date in 1908, Jackson Johnson defeated Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia, for the heavyweight Championship. Burns will later say of his loss, “Race prejudice was rampant in my mind. The idea of a black man challenging me was beyond enduring. Hatred made me tense.”
On this date in 1908, Eighty-nine Blacks reported lynched.
On this date in 1894, Jean Toomer, grandson of P.B.S. Pinchback, author of Cane was born
On this date in 1849, David Ruggles dies in Northampton, Mass. Often called the first African American bookseller for his bookstore established in 1834, Ruggles was an abolitionist, and a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad
On this date in 1848, William and Ellen Craft escaped from slavery in Georgia. Mrs. Craft impersonated a slave holder and her husband, William, assumed the role of her servant in one of the most dramatic of the slave escapes.
