Langston Hughes

Find lesson plans, essays, and primary source documents about the Harlem Renaissance or "Black Renaissance" in Lesson 7 of March On Till Victory, Sourcebook 5 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series. Learn more about Charles and John Langston in Lesson 14 of Lift Ev'ry Voice, Sourcebook 3.

Read a short biography of Langston Hughes through Gale Resources.

February 2, 1948 - On February 2, 1948, President Harry Truman asked Congress to implement the recommendations of the President's Commission on Civil Rights. Created by President Truman in 1946, the commission was charged with researching "more adequate means and procedures for the protection of the civil rights of the people of the United States." In October 1947, the commission had issued the report "To Secure These Rights," in which it recommended anti-lynching and anti-poll tax laws, a permanent installment of the federal Fair Employment Practices Commission, and encouraged a stronger civil rights division in the Department of Justice. Later in 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, ordering the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Learn more about President Truman's civil rights initiatives.

Jack Johnson

February 3, 1903 - On February 3, 1903, at Hazard's Pavilion in Los Angeles, boxer Jack Johnson won his first title, as the "Negro heavyweight champion." Johnson, whose public persona was as well known as his boxing prowess, sparked controversy wherever he went. At the height of his career, from 1908 to 1915, he became the first black Heavyweight Champion of the World, having defeated former title-holder and white rival Jim Jeffries. His victory ignited race riots across the country.

Visit the PBS website for Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. A free teaching guide is available on this site.

February 4, 1913 - Rosa Lee McCauley Parks was born on February 4, 1913. On December 1, 1955, she boarded a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL, and after refusing to give up her seat for a white man was arrested for violating segregation laws. A boycott of segregated busses in Montgomery followed. With 75% of bus riders in Montgomery being black, the bus company began to go bankrupt. After 381 days of boycotting, segregation of Montgomery city busses ended. A lifelong civil rights activist, Rosa Parks died in 2005 and became the first woman to lie in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

Read more about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

February 5, 1934 - Henry "Hank" Aaron was born on February 5, 1934. Aaron had an early desire to play baseball and after a short time in the Negro League was recruited to play for the Milwaukee Braves in 1952 (would become the Atlanta Braves in 1966). Aaron faced discrimination throughout his baseball career. In 1970, Aaron became the first player to combine 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. As Aaron neared Babe Ruth's record 714 home runs, he began to receive death threats on himself and his family. On April 8, 1974, Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth's home run record. By the time he retired in 1976, Aaron had hit 755 home runs, a record that still stands today. In 1999, Major League Baseball introduced the Hank Aaron Award, given to the best overall hitter in the National League and American League every season. Aaron was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom July 19, 2002.

Timeline and photographs of Hank Aaron.

Henry Bonds and his family, ca. 1912. Bonds wished to emigrate to Liberia and submitted this photo with his application to the American Colonization Society.

February 6, 1820 - On February 6, 1820, eighty-six African Americans boarded the Mayflower of Liberia ship in New York City. In the first organized effort at black emigration to Africa, the Mayflower arrived in the British colony of Sierra Leone (in West Africa) on March 9, 1820. With support from the American Colonization Society and the U.S. government, the free state of Liberia was established in 1822. By 1867, more than 13,000 African Americans had moved across the ocean to Liberia.

Learn more about Liberia and the American Colonization Society at the Library of Congress.

Find a lesson and primary source materials about black emigration and colonization in Lesson 11 of A Song Full of Hope, Sourcebook 2 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

February 7, 1862 - On February 7, 1862, the New England Freedman's Aid Society was founded in Boston for the purpose of assisting former slaves and free blacks. Three years later, Congress created the federal Freedmen's Bureau, and the New England Society disbanded in 1874.

Find lesson plans, essays, and primary source documents about black perspectives on Reconstruction in Lesson 7 of Our New Day Begun, Sourcebook 4 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

February 8, 1986 - On February 8, 1986, Oprah Winfrey's television show premiered on stations across the country, making her the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show. As a sophomore in college, Winfrey had been the co-anchor of a CBS affiliate news channel, and soon after graduation she moved to Baltimore to co-host Baltimore is Talking. In 1984 she was hired by ABC to host A.M. Chicago. Under her direction, A.M. Chicago developed into the current, more engaging Oprah Winfrey Show. Today, the Oprah Winfrey Show is the most popular show on daytime television, with 22 million viewers daily. Winfrey continues to use her success to promote a number of philanthropic causes.

Learn more about Oprah Winfrey through Gale Resource.

The cover of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

February 9, 1952 - On February 9, 1952, author Ralph Ellison won the National Book Award for his novel, Invisible Man. He was the first African American to receive this prestigious literary award. Ellison began writing the book in 1945 while on sick leave from the Merchant Marines; it took him seven years to complete it. The novel uses racial issues to express universal dilemmas. Ellison viewed the predicaments of blacks in America as a metaphor for the universal human challenge of finding a viable identity in a chaotic and sometimes indifferent world. The accomplishment of Ellison's writing can be seen in the breadth of his continuing influence on other writers, from Toni Morrison to Kurt Vonnegut.

PBS: American Masters Web site

Al Filreis's Literature and Culture of the American 1950s site at the University of Pennsylvania.

February 10, 1874 - On February 10, 1874, inventor Lewis Latimer was awarded his first patent. Born and raised in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Latimer patented a total of ten inventions over his lifetime. He worked with Thomas Edison on the incandescent light bulb and was a central figure in the creation of the electric light industry.

Visit the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments, to read more of Lewis Latimer's story.

February 11, 1990 - Nelson Mandela is freed after 27 years in prison. Mandela was born in South Africa in 1918 and would fight for social justice and equality in the country for most of his life. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and through peaceful resistance fought South African policies of apartheid. When the African National Congress was outlawed in 1960, Mandela proposed a more forceful resistance to apartheid and was eventually accused of plotting to overthrow the South African government through terrorism. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1964. Mandela remained a figure of resistance to apartheid during his time in prison. Protests and resistance throughout the 1980s led newly elected South African President F.W. deKlerk to begin dismantling apartheid in 1989. DeKlerk granted freedom to Mandela on February 11, 1990, and that same year the Parliament began repealing pieces of legislation that formed the apartheid system. White South Africans voted in 1992 to end apartheid. Mandela and deKlerk won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 and the following year Mandela was elected President of South Africa in the first free, democratic elections. He would serve as President until 1999.

Nobel Peace Prize press release, 1993

The Long Walk of Nelson Mandela from PBS

February 12, 1793 - The Second Congress of the United States passed the Fugitive Slave Act on February 12, 1793. This Act authorized the seizure or arrest of any fugitive and established a $500 fine for anyone aiding a fugitive.

In 1850, with the expansion of the Union, the balance of free states and slave states became threatened. As part of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was extended, requiring all citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves. Fugitive slaves would also be denied a trial by jury. As a result, the Underground Railroad became more active and the Abolitionist Movement gained momentum.

Text of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793

Eric Foner, professor of history, on the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

View resources from the Library of Congress regarding the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

Read about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments.

The Homestead Grays baseball team

February 13, 1920 - During a meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, on February 13, 1920, several midwestern baseball team owners joined to form the Negro National League. This league initially included the Chicago American Giants, the Chicago Giants, the Cuban Stars, the Dayton Macros, the Detroit Stars, the Indianapolis ABC's, the Kansas City Monarchs, and the St. Louis Giants. Other African American teams from all over the country formed similar rival leagues. In 1945, Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers and became the first black baseball player to join the formerly all-white major league teams. By 1960, the integration of the major leagues brought an end to the Negro leagues.

Visit the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum online

Research Jackie Robinson and the history of black baseball players at the Library of Congress.

Rosa Parks, whose arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott

February 14, 1957 - On February 14, 1957, the Southern Leadership Conference met in New Orleans, Louisiana, and established its name and an executive board of directors. It also elected officers including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dr. Ralph David Abernathy. The SLC, which grew out of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, was initially called the Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration.

Committed to nonviolent activism and community-based organization, the group changed its name once more at their first convention in August 1957 to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, as it is now known. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as president of the SCLC from its founding until his assassination in 1968.

Visit the official Southern Christian Leadership Conference website

Find essays and curriculum materials about community organizing and the Civil Rights Movement in Lessons 20 and 21 of March On Till Victory, Sourcebook 5 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

"Turned Away From School," Anti-Slavery Almanac, Boston, 1839

February 15, 1848 - On February 15, 1848, Sarah Roberts was barred from attending a white school in Boston. Five-year-old Sarah, who attended the all-black Smith Grammar School across town, walked past five white primary schools on her way to class each morning. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, filed the first school-integration suit on her behalf after attempting four times to enroll her in any of the public schools that were closer to home. Roberts v. The City of Boston was settled in favor of the defense. Although the Massachusetts legislature barred the exclusion of students from public schools on the basis of race in 1855, the original court decision formed the legal basis for the "separate but equal" ruling in the 1897 Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.

Find a lesson plan with primary source materials on Sarah Roberts, the schooling of free black people, and the roots of "separate but equal" in Lesson 7 of Lift Ev'ry Voice, Sourcebook 3 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

Sergeant William H. Carney

February 16, 1863 - On February 16, 1863, the first recruitment rally for the 54th Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army was held in Boston. The 54th Massachusetts was the first all-black Union regiment in the North. Just one-month prior, President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in the Confederate states. With the proclamation, the enlistment of African Americans in the Union Army gained momentum. Robert Gould Shaw, the son of a well-known abolitionist family in Boston and Sergeant William H. Carney, a former slave, led the regiment. Carney later became the first African American to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery during battle.

Find lesson plans with primary source materials on the experience of black soldiers in Our New Day Begun, Sourcebook 4 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

Read about the Massachusetts 54th Regiment on the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments.

February 17, 1963 - On February 17, 1963, Michael Jeffrey Jordan, famed basketball player and former minor league baseball player, was born in Brooklyn, New York. As a junior at the University of North Carolina, the Chicago Bulls drafted him as the third pick overall of the 1984 National Basketball Association (NBA) Draft. During his career in the NBA, Jordan played on six championship Chicago Bulls teams and earned five Most Valuable Player Awards. He was named Defensive Player of the Year in 1987 and holds the record for highest career scoring average (33.4 points per game) in the playoffs. Jordan has also been named one of the "50 Greatest Players in NBA History."

View Michael Jordan's career statistics.

February 18, 1903 - In Dahomey was the first musical comedy written by and performed by African Americans to appear on Broadway. After 53 performances at the New York Theatre, the musical went to London and opened in May 1903 at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The "In Dahomey" cast would play over 250 performances in London before launching a national tour. Based on the book of the same title by Jesse Shipp, the musical was the idea of Egbert Austin Williams and George Walker. Williams and Walker were a successful vaudeville team in New York at the beginning of the 20th century and became famous through the success of In Dahomey. Williams would go on to be the first African American actor to star in a movie, Darktown Jubilee, in 1914.

Read more about In Dahomey from the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

The Library of Congress American Memory Variety Stage: Vaudeville and Popular Entertainment, 1870-1920.

February 19, 1919 - The First Pan-African Congress met in Paris, France, from February 19-21, 1919. Organized by W.E.B. DuBois, the Pan-African Congress brought together 57 delegates which represented 15 countries, including the United States, Great Britain and Liberia. The purpose of the Pan-African Congress was to ensure that the interests of Africans were represented at the Versailles Peace Conference following the end of World War I. The Pan-African Congress met 4 more times throughout the first half of the 20th century with the last meeting in Manchester, England, in 1945.

The Pan-African vision from BBC News, The Story of Africa.

Biography of W.E.B. DuBois

Frederick Douglass

February 20, 1895 - On February 20, 1895, the abolitionist, writer, and intellectual Frederick Douglass died. Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to a slave woman and a white man on Maryland's Eastern Shore in 1818. Encouraged by the white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and his publication, The Liberator, Douglass wrote and published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself, in 1945. He became a central figure in the abolitionist movement and published The North Star newspaper in 1847. Douglass was also a staunch supporter of women's rights and temperance.

Find lesson plans and primary sources about Frederick Douglass's newspaper, The North Star and his work in the abolitionist movement in Lift Ev'ry Voice, Sourcebook 3 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

Learn more about Frederick Douglass on the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments.

Read Frederick Douglass's story at PBS.

See the Frederick Douglass papers at the Library of Congress.

Find a biography of Douglass for students at America's Library (through the Library of Congress).

Angelina Emily Grimke

February 21, 1838 - On February 21, 1838, Angelina Emily Grimke testified before the Massachusetts Legislature. In the first legislative address given by a woman in the country, Angelina brought approximately twenty thousand antislavery petitions signed by Massachusetts women before the congressmen. She and her sister Sarah, originally from South Carolina, were extremely active in the abolitionist movement but as women, they were attacked for their public role. As Quakers, the sisters felt morally obligated to speak out against the sin of slavery.

Find out more about abolitionist Angelina Grimke's testimony on the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments.

Sarah Parker Remond

February 22, 1832 - On February 22, 1832, the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society was founded, the first of its kind to be formed by black women. Salem Anti-Slavery Society members included activists Charlotte Forten and Sarah Parker Remond. Black women organized and campaigned against slavery throughout New England and the country, although their abolitionist work has not received significant scholarly attention until recently.

Learn more about black women activists and the abolition of slavery.

W.E.B. DuBois

February 23, 1868 - On February 23, 1868, the intellectual activist William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois was born in Massachusetts to Alfred and Mary DuBois. DuBois attended Fisk University and Harvard, where he became the first African American to receive a PhD from that institution. He was one of the most influential political thinkers of his time, and became known as the father of Pan-Africanism for his black nationalist beliefs. His best-known book, The Souls of Black Folk, remains widely read today. DuBois was instrumental in the formation of the Niagara Movement, which became the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) within several years of its founding. At the age of 95, he moved to Ghana and died there in 1963.

Learn more about W.E.B. DuBois at Harvard on the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments.

February 24, 1864 - On February 24, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. Her 1883 Book of Medical Discourses was one of the first medical publications written by an African American. Born in 1831 in Delaware, Crumpler moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts, where she worked as a nurse until her admission to the New England Female Medical College in 1860. After her graduation, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, in order to provide medical care for freed slaves. Crumpler also worked with the Freedmen's Bureau.

Learn more about Rebecca Crumpler's achievements.

February 25, 1964 - Cassius Clay beat Sonny Liston to become the World Heavyweight Boxing champion on February 25, 1964. Before his fight with Liston, Clay taunted him by saying he could "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." Two days later, Clay surprised the media with his announcement that he was joining the Nation of Islam. On March 6, 1964, Clay first announced he would change his name to Cassius X Clay. The leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, then gave him the name Muhammad Ali. Ali won a gold medal at the Olympics in Rome early in his career at the age of 18 and was the World Heavyweight Boxing champion 3 times. Having a desire to inspire people to be great, Ali has recently been recognized by the United States House of Representatives for his humanitarian work. In November 2005, the Muhammad Ali Center opened in Louisville, Kentucky, with the mission to "promote respect, hope and understanding and to inspire adults and children everywhere to be as great as they can be."

Muhammad Ali biography

Muhammad Ali Center

Muhammad Ali honored by the House of Representatives

February 26, 1869 - The Senate passed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States on February 26, 1869, with a vote of 39-13. The following day, Congress passed a resolution which sent the 15th Amendment to state legistlatures for ratification. The 15th Amendment stated that "the right of citizens of the United States shall not be denied..on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude." Ratified by Congress on February 3, 1870, the amendment granted African American men the right to vote. Poll taxes and literacy tests, however, would keep many African Americans from registering to vote until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.

The 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

Lithograph showing the celebration of the 15th Amendment in Baltimore, Maryland

Primary documents in American History: the 15th Amendment from the Library of Congress

Malcolm X

February 27, 1946 - On February 27, 1946, twenty-year-old Malcolm Little entered the Charlestown state penitentiary to begin an eight-to-ten year sentence for burglary. While in prison, he was introduced to Islam and the teachings of the Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. He devoted his time to reading everything the prison had to offer, including the entire dictionary. When he was released in 1952, he took the last name "X", which stood in part for the original yet unknown last name of his enslaved ancestors. Malcolm X's radical and controversial approach to civil rights stressed African American political and economic independence from white society, although his hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca caused him to rethink this philosophy. He was assassinated in 1965.

Read more about Malcolm X on the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities online almanac, Mass Moments.

Find a lesson plan analyzing the varied approaches of civil rights leaders including Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Ella J. Baker in Lesson 21 of March On Till Victory, Sourcebook 5 of Primary Source's Making Freedom: African Americans in U.S. History series.

Richard Wright

February 28, 1940 - On February 28, 1940, Richard Wright's first novel, Native Son, was published. Wright, whose grandparents had been slaves in Mississippi, got his start as a writer through the Federal Writers' Project in the 1930s. His first published work was a collection of short stories, Uncle Tom's Children (1938), which explored lynching and white treatment of blacks in the South. Wright was one of the first and most influential black writers to write in the protest tradition, and his first novel followed in this style. Native Son follows protagonist Bigger Thomas, a nineteen-year-old black man who tries to escape Chicago after accidentally murdering the young daughter of a family he works for. Through the controversial character of Bigger, Wright explored the impact of white societyís racism on contemporary black America. Native Son quickly became the first bestselling novel written by an African American.

Read a short biography of Richard Wright.

February 29, 1940 - On February 29, 1940, Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Academy Award. McDaniel received the Best Actress in a Supporting Role Oscar for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind. She was the first African American actress nominated for an Oscar and when she and her escort arrived at the award ceremony, they were shown to a special table at the back of the room. It was 24 years before another black actor was awarded an Oscar for a leading role or supporting role. In 1964, Sidney Poitier won the Best Actor in a Leading Role award for Lilies of the Field.

Watch Hattie McDaniel's acceptance speech

Biography of Hattie McDaniel