Celebrating Black History Month

February 1

• In 1997, Black Entertainment Television (BET) and Encore Media Corporation launched BET Movie/Starz, the first 24-hour black movie channel.
• In 1978, the United States Postal Service presents their “Black Heritage” series of postage stamps honoring Black Americans. Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist and “conductor” of the Underground Railroad is the first person honored in the series.
• The United States Postal Service issues a stamp in 1990 honoring Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a black reformer who wrote about lynchings and other injustices against blacks. Wells, who was born in Holly Springs, Miss., also helped to organize the NAACP in 1909.
• A demonstration in Selma, Alabama in 1965 results in the arrests of more than 700 demonstrators including Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Singer Rick James was born in 1952.
• Actor Garrett Morris was born in 1937.
• In 1962, Carter G. Woodson initiated Negro History Week. In 1976, it became a month-long celebration and was renamed Black History Month.
• One of the most famous American poets, Langston Hughes, was born on this day in 1902. Hughes came from the Harlem Renaissance, the early stages of the Black Arts Movement and he was well known on the streets of Harlem for his artistic nature.
• In 1870, Jonathan Jasper Wright was elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court. He is the first black to hold a major judicial position.
• In 1887, inventor J. Robinson patents the food carrier and later patents the Dinner Pail.
• In 1871, Jefferson Long of Georgia becomes the first black to make an official speech in the House of Representatives. He opposed leniency to former Confederates.

February 2

• Singer Herbert Mills of the Mills Brothers Quartet is born on this day in 1912. The highly successful quartet was widely known for their smooth harmony.
• Inventor A.L. Cralle creates and patents the Ice Cream Mold in 1897 and later the Ice Cream Scooper.
• Inventor Edmond Berger creates and patents the spark plug in 1839.

February 3

• In 1989, tennis player Lori McNeil defends tennis great Chris Everet in the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, Japan.
• Autherine J. Lucy becomes the first black student to attend the University of Alabama in 1956. She was expelled three days later “for her own safety” in response to threats made by a mob. In 1992, she graduated from the university with a Master’s Degree in Education. The same day, her daughter, Grazia Foster, graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Corporate Finance.

February 4

• Sojourner Truth is honored with a stamp in the Black Heritage Series with the United States Postal Service.
• Civil Rights Activist Rosa Louise McCauley Parks is born in Tuskagee, Alabama in 1913.

February 5

• In 1990, Columbia University graduate and Harvard University law student, Barack Obama, becomes the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.
• Legendary baseball player Hank Aaron was born in 1934.

February 6

• Tennis great, Arthur Ashe, dies on this date in 1993. Ashe was the first black tennis player to win at Wimbeldon.
• Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley was born in 1945.
• In 1820, the first organized emigration back to Africa begins when 86 free blacks leave New York Harbor aboard the Mayflower of Liberia. They are bound for the British colony of Sierra Leone, which welcomes all free blacks as well as fugitive slaves.

– Facts taken from BlackFacts.com. List compiled by Monica Land