On this day in 1688, a community of Quakers living in Germantown, Pennsylvania filed the Germantown Quaker Petition against Slavery. Francis Daniel Pastorius, who had founded Germantown in 1683 as […]
In 1942 on this day, Huey Newton was born in Louisiana. The youngest child of a sharecropper and Baptist minister, he moved to California with his family when he was […]
“The Golden Thirteen,” a name given to the first group of African American U.S. Naval commissioned and warrant officers, began training on this day in 1944. From the formation of […]
In 1820 on this day, Susan B. Anthony was born. Her parents were focused on her education and by age 19 she was a teacher herself. By 1846 she was […]
Blanche Kelso Bruce was born in 1841 to a house slave name Polly Bruce and a Virginia plantation owner named Pettis Perkinson, who educated him alongside his legitimate half brother. […]
In 1920 on February 13 and 14, the Negro National League came into being during talks in Kansas City, Missouri. African-Americans had been playing baseball in organized teams going back […]
On this day in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was formally founded. Its origins go back to 1905, when a group of 32 prominent […]
In 1990, after 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela was released. Mandela had been arrested in 1962 with the help of the CIA. At the time, he was the leader […]
On this date in 1964, the United States House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by a vote of 290-130. The bill was originally introduced in a […]
On this day in 1963, Arthur Ashe became the first African-American selected to play on the United States Davis Cup team. The Davis Cup is the premier men’s international team […]