This Day in Our History

Everyday this month, a little-known fact about history made on this date will be featured.

February 13

1970 – The New York Stock Exchange admits its first Black member, Joseph Searles III.

1957 – On this day the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is founded in New Orleans, LA.

1923 – The first Black professional basketball team “The Renaissance” organized.

1892 – The first African American performers (the World’s Fair Colored Opera Company) appear at Carnegie Hall, featuring soprano Matilda Sissieretta Jones.

February 14

1946 – Entertainer and tap dancer Gregory Hines is born.

1867 – Morehouse College, the only all male HBCU, was organized in Augusta, Georgia. The institution was later moved to Atlanta.

1760 – Richard Allen, who will found the AME Church in 1816, is born into enslavement in Philadelphia.

February 15

1964 – “Hello Dolly” became a number one record. It was Louis Armstrong’s first and only number one record.

1968 – Henry Lewis becomes the first African American to lead a symphony orchestra in the United States.

1961 – U.S. and African nationalist protesting the slaying of Congo Premire Patrice Lumumba distrupts U.N. sessions.

1848 – Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, filed the first school integration suit on her behalf (Roberts vs. City of Boston).

1804 – The New Jersey Legislature approved a law calling for “gradual” emancipation of African Americans. In so doing, New Jersey became the last Northern state to outlaw slavery.

Stay tuned for more factoids.