Baltimore Orioles Manager Frank Robinson names Assistant General Manager on this date.  Robinson was the third African American to become an Assistant General Manager.

On this day in 1989, Four African Americans win Tony Awards for Black and Blue

On June 4, 1973, Arna Bontemps, a key literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance, passed away at age 71. A poet, novelist, historian, and children’s author, Bontemps was known for his rich contributions to Black literature and his chronicling of African American history. His works, such as Black Thunder and God Sends Sunday, explored themes of resistance, cultural identity, and Black life in both the South and North. He collaborated with other luminaries like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston and helped preserve African American history through his work as a librarian and archivist at Fisk University. His death marked the end of an era, but his influence lived on in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 70s. Bontemps\’s legacy remains foundational to Black literary studies and African American cultural preservation.

On June 4, 1972, Black activist, scholar, and former UCLA professor Angela Davis was acquitted of all charges related to a 1970 courtroom shootout in Marin County, California. Davis had been charged with aiding and abetting kidnapping and murder after guns registered in her name were used in an attempted courtroom escape. Her trial was highly politicized, garnering international attention and sparking the global “Free Angela” movement. The jury found that Davis had no direct involvement in planning the incident. Her acquittal became a landmark moment in the struggle for civil rights and prison justice. Angela Davis would go on to become a leading figure in academic, feminist, and abolitionist circles, authoring several books on race, class, and the carceral state. Her case remains a powerful symbol of resistance, criminal justice reform, and state surveillance of Black radical activism in America.

On this day in 1946, Mississippi Valley State University was founded in Itta Bena, Mississippi.

On this day in 1922, Samuel L. Gravely was born. Samuel Gravely was appointed captain of the Navy Destroyer Escort, U.S.S. Falgout, the first African American to command a United States warship. He later received the title of Rear Admiral, a first for an African American navy-man.

On this day in 1832, the Third National Black convention met in Philadelphia with twenty-nine delegates from eight states. Henry Sipkins of New York was elected president.

On June 4, 1967, Black students at the University of Mississippi organized a large protest demanding racial justice, full integration, and equal treatment on campus. This protest occurred five years after James Meredith had integrated the university in 1962, but many barriers to equity still remained. Black students called for more Black faculty, the establishment of an African American studies program, and an end to daily racism on campus. The protest marked a broader trend of student-led activism throughout the 1960s, particularly among historically white institutions in the South. It was a pivotal moment in Mississippi\’s slow transition away from Jim Crow-era policies and an example of youth organizing pushing academic institutions toward inclusivity. Though slow-moving, the demonstration helped pave the way for incremental changes in hiring, curriculum, and campus climate across many southern universities.

On June 4, 1965, Edward Brooke made history by winning the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. He would later become the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote (in 1966). A moderate Republican and former Attorney General of Massachusetts, Brooke’s nomination was a significant milestone in American political history, especially at a time when civil rights legislation was still being debated in Congress. Brooke appealed to a broad coalition of voters, advocating for civil rights, affordable housing, and public education. His political success challenged assumptions about race and electability in national politics and marked a new phase in African American political power in the North. Brooke would go on to serve two terms in the Senate and play a key role in pushing for housing reform, voting rights enforcement, and other bipartisan legislation aimed at improving equality.

Although the Red Summer is more broadly associated with events later in 1919, June 4 marked early racial tensions in Chicago, where rumors and labor unrest began to turn into public confrontations. African American veterans returning from World War I sought jobs and equality but were met with hostility from white workers fearing job competition. On June 4, small confrontations in Chicago\’s South Side neighborhoods foreshadowed the deadly July race riots. This early violence was a spark in a season of over 25 race riots across the country, most notably in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Elaine, Arkansas. These eruptions revealed the fragile social fabric of a postwar America and emphasized the struggle for civil rights, economic opportunity, and safety in northern cities—where many African Americans had migrated during the Great Migration.