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FEBRUARY February 1, 1902 - Playwright, poet, author Langston Hughes born February 2, 1807 - Congress bans foreign slave trade. February 3, 1956 - Autherine Lucy enrolls as the first African American student at the University of Alabama. February 4, 1913 - Rosa Parks, civil rights pioneer who sparked Montgomery bus boycott, born. February 5, 1934 - Major league home run champion Hank Aaron born. February 6, 1867 - Robert Tanner Jackson becomes first African American to receive a degree in dentistry. February 7, 1883 - Ragtime pianist and composer Eubie Blake born. February 8, 1968 - Three South Carolina State students killed during segregation protest in Orangeburg, S.C. February 9, 1964 - Arthur Ashe, Jr. becomes first African American on U.S. Davis Cup team. February 10, 1989 - Ronald H. Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee. February 11, 1990 - Nelson Mandela is released from prison after 27 years. February 12, 1909 - NAACP founded in New York City. February 13, 1970 - Joseph L. Searles becomes first Black member of the New York Stock Exchange. February 14, 1879 - B.K. Bruce of Mississippi becomes first African American to preside over U.S. Senate. February 15, 1961 - U.N. sessions are disrupted by U.S. and African nationalists over assassination of Congo Premier Patrice Lumumba. February 16, 1874 - Frederick Douglass elected president of Freedman's Bank and Trust.
February 18, 1931 - Toni Morrison, winner of 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, born. February 19, 1923 - In Moore vs. Dempsey decision, U.S. Supreme Court guarantee due process of law to Blacks in state courts. February 20, 1934 - Four Saints in Three Acts, by Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein, premieres as the first Black-performed opera on Broadway. February 21, 1965 - Malcolm X is assassinated in New York. February 22, 1989 - Col. Frederick Gregory was the first African American to command a space shuttle mission. February 23, 1868 - W.E.B. Dubois, scholar, activist and author of the Souls of Black Folk, born. February 24, 1922 - The home of Frederick Douglass made a national shrine. February 25, 1853 - First Black YMCA organized in Washington, D.C. February 26, 1965 - Civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson died after being shot by state police in Marion, Alabama. February 27, 1988 - Debi Thomas becomes first Black to win an Olympic medal in figure skating. February 28, 1984 - Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy awards. |
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