NOVEMBER

November 1, 1991 - Judge Clarence Thomas is formally seated at the 106th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

November 2, 1954 - Charles C. Diggs elected Michigan's first African American congressman.

November 3, 1981 - Thirman L. Milner elected mayor of Hartford,
Connecticut, becoming first Black mayor in New England.

November 4, 1879 - Thomas Elkins patents refrigeration apparatus.

November 5, 1968 - Shirley Chisolm of Brooklyn, N.Y., becomes the first African American woman elected to Congress.

November 6, 1901 - James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson compose "Lift Every Voice and Sing", widely regarded as the Black national anthem.

November 7, 1989 - L. Douglas Wilder is elected governor of Virginia,, becoming the nation's first Black governor since the Reconstruction.

November 8, 1938 - Crystal Bird Faucet is elected state representative in Pennsylvania, becoming the first Black woman to serve in a state legislature.

November 9, 1731 - Mathematician, urban planner and inventor Benjamin Banneker born.

November 10, 1983 - Wilson Goode elected, becoming Philadelphia's first African American mayor.

November 11, 1989 - Civil Rights Memorial is dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama.

November 12, 1941 - Madame Lillian Evanto founds the National Negro Opera Company.

November 13, 1894 - Albert C. Richardson patents casket-lowering device.

November 14, 1915 - Booker T. Washington, educator and writer, died.

November 15, 1881 - Payton Johnson patents swinging chair.

November 16, 1981 - Pam Johnson named publisher of the Ithaca (NY) Journal, becoming the first African American woman to head a daily newspaper.

November 17, 1980 - WHHM, the first African American-operated radio station, goes on the air at Howard University.

November 18, 1787 - Abolitionist and women's right activist Sojourner Truth born.

November 19, 1953 - Roy Campanella named Most Valuable Player in National League Baseball for the second time.

November 20, 1865 - Howard Seminary (later Howard University) founded in Washington, D.C.

November 21, 1893 - Granville T. Woods patents electric railway conduit.

November 22, 1930 - Elijah Muhammed establishes the Nation of Islam.

November 23, 1897 - A.J. Beard patents the "Jenny Coupler", still in use today to connect railroad cars. John L. Love patents pencil sharpener.

November 24, 1868 - Pianist Scott Joplin, the "Father of Ragtime", born.

November 25, 1975 - Suriname gains independence from the Netherlands.

November 26, 1970 - Charles Gordone becomes the first Black playwright to receive the Pulitzer Prize (for No Place to Be Somebody).

November 27, 1990 - Charles Johnson awarded National Book Award for fiction for Middle Passage.

November 28, 1960 - Novelist Richard Wright dies.

November 29, 1908 - Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall born.

November 30, 1897 - J.A. Sweeting patents cigarette-rolling device.