February Events to Remember
01 Langston Hughes, Author--Born, 1906
02 Congress banned foreign slave trade--1807
02 Autherine Lucy enrolled as the first African American student at the
University of Alabama--1956
04 Free American Blacks Settled Liberia, West Africa--1822
04 Mark Dean led an IBM research team to the discovery of the first 1000
megahertz computer chip.
04 Rosa Parks, Mother of the Civil Rights Revolution--Born, 1913
05 Henry "Hank" Aaron, Baseball's Home Run King--Born, 1934
05 National Day of Prayer for African American Family--Father James
Goode, Convenor
06 Arthur Ashe, Tennis Star--Died, 1993
06 Robert Tanner Jackson became the first African American to receive a
degree in dentistry--1867
07 Hubie Blake, Ragtime pianist and composer born--1883
07 Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Founded National Negro History Week--1926
07 National Negro History Week was expanded to to a month and was
renamed Black History Month Month, 1976
08 Three South Carolina State students killed during segregation protest
in Orangeburg, S.C.--1968
09 Arthur Ashe, First African American of U.S. Davis Cup Team--1964
10 Alex Haley, Author of "Roots" and Motivator of U.S. widespread
interest in Genealogy--Died 1992
10 Ronald H. Brown, Elected to and became the first African American
chair the Democrat National Committee--1989
11 Nelson Mandela released after 27 years as a South African political
prisoner--1990
12 Abraham Lincoln's Birthday--Born, 1809
12 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People--Founded,
1909
13 Negro Baseball League--Founded, 1920
13 Joseph L. Searles became the first African American member of the New
York Stock Exchange--1970
14 St. Valentine's Day
14 Fredrick Douglass, Born, Tuckahoe, Maryland--1817
14 B. K. Bruce of Mississippi became the first African American to
preside over the U.S. Senate--1879
16 Fredrick Douglass, Elected president of the Freedman's Bank &
Trust--1874
17 Marion Anderson, Opera singer, Born 1902
17 Bessie Smith made first recording for Columbia Records--1923
18 Toni Morrison, Winner of 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction--Born,
1931
19 Pan-African Congress, Organized by W. E. B. Dubois--1919
20 Virgil Thompson and Gertude Stein, Opened first African American
performed opera, Four Saints in Three Acts, on Broadway--1934
21 El Haji Malik El (Malcolm X) Assassinated in New York City--1965
22 George Washington's Birthday--Born 1732
22 Col. Fredrick Gregory, Became the first African American to command a
space shuttle mission--1989
23 W. E. B. DuBois, Scholar/Writer--Born 1868
24 Rev. Daniel A. Payne first African American to become a college
president--1811
24 The home of Fredrick Douglass made a national shrine--1922
25 Hiram Revels, First African American U.S. Senator--1870
25 First African American Y.M.C.A., Organized in Washington D.C.--1853
26 Jimmie Lee Jackson, Civil Rights Activist died after being shot by
state police in Marion, Alabama.
27 Debbie Thomas, Became the first African American to win an Olympic
medal in figure skating.1988
28 Michael Jackson, Won eight Grammy Awards, 1984