Experiencing History: May in Black History

Each month we'll list daily black history notes for the month. Here's what happened in May in Black History.

On May 31 in Black History...

In 1979, Zimbabwe was proclaimed independent.

In 1961, Judge Irving Kaufman ordered Board of Education of New Rochelle, N.Y., to integrate schools.

In 1955 - Supreme Court ordered school integration "with all Supreme Court ordered school integration "with all deliberate speed."

In 1924 - Patricia Harris, the first Black woman to hold a presidential cabinet position, is born in Mattoon Illinois.

In 1921, A Black Holocaust In America - The Tulsa Riot of 1921, the worst riot in American history. 15,000 Blacks were left homeless, between 300 and 3000 were killed, wounded and/or missing, 1500 homes were burned to the ground and over 600 Black owned businesses in a 35 square block area were bombed in the all Black Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

In 1909, Three hundred Blacks and whites met at the United Charities Building in New York City at the first NAACP conference, May 31 and June 1.

In 1881, Booker T. Washington was recommended by General Armstrong for the principalship of the newly planned Tuskegee Institute.

In 1870, Congress passed the first Enforcement Act which provided stiff penalties for public officials and private citizens who deprived citizens of the suffrage and civil rights. The measure authorized the use of the U.S. Army to protect the rights of Blacks.

On May 30 in Black History...

In 1971 - Willie Mays scored his 1,950th run. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays

In 1965 - First Black student, Vivian Malone, graduated from the University of Alabama. In 1956 - Bus boycott began in Tallahassee, Florida.

In 1943 - Gale Sayers, became the youngest player ever to be elected to the Football Hall of Fame.

In 1903 - Countee Cullen was born in New York City. His poems were published in The Crisis, under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois.

In 1854 - Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed Missouri Compromise and opened Northern territory to slavery.

In 1822 House slave betrayed Denmark Vesey conspiracy. Vesey conspiracy, one of the most elaborate slave plots on record, involved thousands of Blacks in Charleston, S.C., and vicinity. Thirty-seven Blacks were hanged.

On May 29 in Black History...

In 1980, Vernon E. Jordan Jr., President of the National Urban League, critically injured in attempted assassination in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

In 1973 - Thomas Bradley elected mayor of Los Angeles. In 1914, Henry Ransom Cecil McBay, chemist, was born in Mexia, Texas. He received a Bachelor of Science from Wiley College in 1934 and a Master of Science from Atlanta University in 1936. Henry McBay earned a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1945.

In 1865, President Andrew Johnson announced his program of Reconstruction. It required ratification of the 13th amendmant, but did not guarantee black suffrage.

In 1851, Sojourner Truth delivers her infamous "Ain't I A Woman?" speech to the Ohio Women's Rights Convention.

On May 17 in Black History...

In 1997 - Laurent Kabilia becomes new President of Zaire and renames it the Democratic Republic of the Congo.The country was previously under the 37 year rule of Dictator Mobutu SeSE sEKO. In Dr. Patricia E. Bath of Los Angeles, a renowned ophthalmologist and Black woman, patented (1988) an apparatus that efficiently removes cataracts by using laser technology.

In 1980 - Major race riot, Miami, Florida. Sixteen persons were killed and more than three hundred were injured.

In 1969 - Rev. Thomas Kilgore, a Los Angeles pastor, was elected president of the predominantly white American Baptist Convention.

In 1957 - Prayer Pilgrimage, biggest civil rights demonstration to date, held in Washington.

In 1956 - Boxer Sugar Ray Leonard was born in Wilmington, SC.Equipped with speed, ability and charisma, Sugar Ray Leonard, filled the boxing void left when Muhammad Ali retired in 1981. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Ray_Leonard#Early_life

In 1915 - National Baptist Convention was chartered.

In 1909 - White firemen on Georgia Railroad struck to protest employment of Blacks.

In 1875 - The first Kentucky Derby is won by African American jockey Oliver Lewis riding the horse Aristides. 14 of the 15 jockeys in the race are African Americans.

In 1864 - John William "Blind" Boone was born. Rachel Boone was a slave of the decendents of the Daniel Boone family who escaped to an army camp near Miami, MO. She gave birth to a son & moved to Warrensburg, MO.

On May 16 in Black History…

In 1966 - Stokely Carmichael named chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. National Welfare Rights Organization organized.

In 1966 - Janet Jackson, singer was born in Gary, Indiana May 16, 1966.

In 1930, Betty Carter, jazz singer was born.

In 1990 - Sammy Davis Jr., actor, dancer, singer and world class entertainer died in Beverly Hills, California at age 64. Davis, born in Harlem, was a member of the popular and notorious Hollywood Rat Pack. He also held starring roles in a host of Broadway musicals and motion pictures.

In 1979 - Asa Philip Randolph died. Randolph was a labor leader and civil rights pioneer, in New York.

In 1929, John Conyers, Jr., founder of the Congressional Black Caucus was born.

In 1868, Senate failed by a margin of 34 to 16 to cast the two-thirds vote necessary to oust President Johnson.

In 1826, John Russwurm becomes The 1st black college graduate by receiving his degree from Bowdoin College in Maine.*This claim is disputed by some sources which claim that Edward a .Jones graduated from Amherst a few days earlier. However Russwurm is recorded first.

On May 11 in Black History...

In 1967, Nine Caravans of poor people arrived in Washington for first phase of Poor People's Campaign. Caravans started from different sections of country on May 2 and picked up demonstrators along the way. In Washington, demonstrators erected camp called Resurrection City on sixteen-acre site near Lincoln Monument.In 1981 - Literary Critic and Editor, of Hoyt J. Fuller died. Hoyt was the editor of First World magazine and former editor of Black World, in Atlanta.

In 1965, Blacks held mass meeting in Norfolk (Va.) and demanded equal rights and ballots.

In 1933, Louis Farrakhan was born as Louis Eugene Walcott.

On May 10 in Black History...

In 1994, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa.

In 1963, Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth announced agreement on limited integration plan which ended the Birmingham demonstrations.

In 1962 - Southern School News reported that 246,988 or 7.6 per cent of the Black pupils in public schools in seventeen Southern and Border States and the District of Columbia attended integrated classes in 1962.

In 1951, Z. Alexander Looby elected to Nashville City Council.

In 1950, Jackie Robinson appears on the cover of Life magazine; first time an African American is featured on the cover in the magazine's 13 year history

In, 1919, Race riot in Charleston, South Carolina. Two Blacks were killed.

In 1837, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (P.B.S. Pinchback) was born on this day.

In 1775, Black patriots participated in the first aggressive action of American forces, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and "the Green Mountain Boy."

In 1652, John Johnson, a free black, granted 550 acres in Northampton County, VA., for importing eleven persons.