Little Known Black History Facts
Dr. Patricia Bath achieved a series of firsts in her long medical career, the most notable being the first African-American woman doctor to receive a medical patent. Although Dr. Bath faced racism and sexism during her tenure in higher academics, she managed to break through the barriers placed before her. Bath was born in Harlem, […]
Actress Gail Fisher and her onscreen accomplishments have been largely forgotten, but she blazed a trail as the first Black actress to win an Emmy Award for her role as Peggy Fair in the CBS detective drama, Mannix. During the height of her career, she also won a pair of Golden Globe Awards. Fisher was born August […]
Alice Coachman, the first African-American woman to win Olympic gold, has died. She was 90. The Albany, Ga. native made her historic mark at the 1948 London Olympics in the high jump category. Coachman was the only American woman to win a gold medal at the London games. Coachman was born November 9, 1923, the […]
Philippa Schuyler was a New York City child prodigy who achieved fame in the 1930s and 40s because of her musical talents but also her mixed-raced parentage. Acknowledged as the “Shirley Temple of American Negroes,” Schuyler found fame as a pianist, but tragedy struck when she realized she was nothing more than a social experiment […]
Gerald “Jerry” Lawson, a Black man from Queens, New York, was an engineer and inventor responsible for bringing change to home console games. Lawson designed the Fairchild Channel F, the first home video game system featuring interchangeable cartridge-based games. Without his innovation, the disc-based gaming systems of today would not exist. Lawson was born December […]
The 1980 race riots in Miami’s Liberty City and Overtown neighborhoods was sparked after the acquittal of four White Miami-Dade police officers who beat a Black motorcyclist to death then attempted to hide the crime. On May 17, 1980, the mostly-Black neighborhood erupted in violence after an all-white, all-male Tampa jury didn’t find sufficient evidence […]
Unita Blackwell, a former sharecropper who later became a civil rights activist in the south, is the first Black woman to be elected mayor in the state of Mississippi. Despite a an eight-grade education and while facing extreme racism, Ms. Blackwell fought valiantly for the voting and civil rights of Black people in her state. […]
Dr. Robert Fulton Boyd, a Nashville dentist and physician, faced daunting odds yet still became a pioneer in the field of medicine. Not only was Dr. Boyd the first African-American dentist and doctor to open a practice in the Tennessee town, he was also a co-founder and first president of the National Medical Association, the […]
Southern California’s record of police brutality has been well documented, with the Rodney King case and the ensuing 1992 riots in Los Angeles serving as a grim reminder. A little over a decade later, white officers in Inglewood were accused of assaulting Black special needs student Donovan Jackson while he was handcuffed on July 6, […]
Frederick Douglass and his stance against the practice of slavery has been documented and discussed at length over the years. A prolific orator and activist, the former slave and anti-slavery movement leader was sought after to speak at a variety of events during his career. One such speech, “The Meaning Of The Fourth Of July […]
Hazel Scott may not now be a household name, but her success in the world of entertainment was amazing nevertheless. On this day in 1950, Scott became the first woman of color to host a televised network series. The Hazel Scott Show made its debut on the now-defunct DuMont Network, a daring move for the […]
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on this day, the first in a trio of laws that passed which ushered in a new wave of racial equality. Despite the tragic circumstances leading up to the passing of the bill, the moment was instrumental in changing the future of […]
