Celebrating the North Carolina African American Experience

TheHeritageCalendar

Celebrating the North Carolina African American Experience

2014

Achievements begin with a dream – a vision that looks beyond today to see a brighter future and unleashes an unquenchable thirst and determined drive to reach it.

In that context, the extraordinary individuals whose stories we are privileged to present in the following pages are dreamers. And North Carolina is richer because of them.

“The Heritage Calendar: Celebrating the NC African American Experience” honors men and women of all races who have contributed significantly to the lives and experiences of African Americans in our state. The individuals featured in the 2014 Edition have excelled in many fields, including education, public service, civil rights, sports, the military and journalism. Some have received international acclaim; others are unsung heroes. Yet all have played an invaluable role in weaving the rich tapestry of North Carolina and we are excited to help share their stories.

We appreciate the continuing involvement and support of our community partners: The News & Observer, Capitol Broadcasting Company/WRAL-TV, The School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, and PNC Bank. The N.C. Department of Public Instruction has again developed unique educational resources which will allow teachers to utilize the printed or online versions of the 2014 Heritage Calendar in their classrooms.

Just as the Calendar reflects efforts to bring people together, AT&T is working hard to connect individuals and communities to opportunities through communications. We continue to invest aggressively in the newest technologies, such as mobile broadband and Internet Protocol (IP) systems, to deliver the products and services customers need today and in the future.

The individuals featured in the 2014 Edition of The Heritage Calendar are role models through their integrity, commitment, and dedication to excellence. We hope you will enjoy and be inspired by their stories, as we have been.

Venessa Harrison President, AT&T North Carolina

Dear Students, Educators,and Friends

Appreciation

Educational PartnersState Board of Education NC Department of Public Instruction

Dr. June Atkinson, State Superintendent of Public InstructionDr. Maria Pitre-Martin, Director of Curriculum and InstructionMr. Sid Baker, Education Program Specialist (Office of the State Superintendent)

Melodie Blackmon, Sampson, Central OfficeHeather Blackwell, Carteret County, Broad Creek MiddleAleczina Briley, Carteret, Broad Creek MiddleNoel Dennis, Bladen, Elizabethtown PrimaryKarrie Detwiler, Hoke County School, J.W.Turlington ElementaryRacheal Froelich, Wake, Forestville Road ElementaryBeth Howard, Onslow, Dixon Elementary SchoolNancy Huskins, Orange, A.L. Stanback ElementaryJune Koster, Guilford County Schools, Northern Middle SchoolBernadette Lane-Barginere, Cumberland County, Warrenwood ElementaryLinda Liles, Wake County, Reedy Creek Middle SchoolDutchess Maye, Education Consultant, RaleighKristy Moore, DPS, Pearsontown

Cathy Napier, Randolph, Southwestern Randolph High SchoolMalinda Pennington, Wilson County Schools, Jones ElementarySulnora Spencer-Oluyemi, Duplin County Schools, Central OfficeCrystal Taylor-Simon, Jones County, Jones Senior High SchoolBarb Thorson, Iredell-Statesville, RetiredCorine Warren, Cumberland County, Howard Health & Life Sciences High SchoolLeonardo Williams, Durham Public Schools, Southern School of Energy & SustainabilityDebra Wilson, Rockingham County, Western Rockingham Middle School

University of North Carolina at Chapel HillSchool of Journalism and Mass Communication

Susan King, DeanWinston C. Cavin, Lecturer

Student Writers:Olivia CoxMary Elizabeth EntwistleCorinne JurneyZach Mayo

The Heritage Calendar: Celebrating the North Carolina African American Experience project is made possible by the commitment and talents of many people. AT&T would like to thank the leadership of the

NC Department of Public Instruction for their vision for how the project could be used in classrooms, the team of educators who wrote the lesson plans and supporting curriculum material available on the website, and the team from the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication who wrote the profiles of the 2014 honorees. For more information about the honorees and additional educational materials, or to nominate a future honoree, please go to www.ncheritagecalendar.com. Scan code to learn more about the NC Heritage Calendar.

For more information about the honorees and additional educational materials, or to nominate a future honoree, please go to www.ncheritagecalendar.com. Scan code to learn more about the NC Heritage Calendar.

Melvin “Skip” Alston was 10 years old in 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Vowing to follow in his hero’s footsteps, Alston charted a course in business, politics and service that would make him one of the most influential citizens in his community.

Educated in the Durham City School System, Alston enrolled at North Carolina Central University to study business. However, before graduation, Alston moved to Greensboro in 1979 and started his own real estate firm, today called The Alston Realty Group, Inc.

Soon after, Alston joined the NAACP, serving on the National Board of Trustees from 1987 to 2006 and as president of the Greensboro branch from 1991-1993.

In 1992, Alston was elected to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, where he served for 20 years. In 2003 he was elected Chairman, the first African American to hold the position. “I cherished the moment, but I looked at the fact that a lot of blacks before me were more qualified than I was,” Alston said. “They were not given that opportunity because of the color of their skin.”

Alston also served as the president of the North Carolina Association for Black County Officials and the North Carolina Real Estate Commission. But he is especially proud of his role in helping launch Sit-In Movement, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to buying the historic Woolworth building in Greensboro where the sit-in movement began in 1960. The building was renovated and opened as the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in 2010.

Alston remains committed to serving his community and furthering Dr. King’s vision of equality for all.

“I could have been a whole lot more successful if I had only concentrated on me,” he said. “But I feel that I have made contributions and opened up doors so other people can have the same opportunities I had.”

Photo courtesy of Mr. Melvin Alston

Melvin “Skip” Alston

January The Heritage CalendarCelebrating the North Carolina African American Experience

Learn more about the people featured in this calendar at www.ncheritagecalendar.com.

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Emancipation Proclamationissued in 1863

NeW year’S Day

MarTiN luTher KiNg, Jr Day

Marian Anderson made her debut in the Metropolitan Opera House in 1955

Fannie M. Jackson, first African American woman college graduate in the US, was born in 1836.

Butterfly McQueen, actress,was born in 1911

Fisk University established in Nashville, TN in 1866

Freedom Rides began in 1961

George Washington Carver was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor who died in 1943

Barack Obama sworn in as the first African American President in 2009

Barbara Jordan, congresswoman, was born in 1936

Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, Activist, and prominent leader in the African American Civil Rights Movement, was born in 1929

Jefferson Franklin Long took an oath of office as first African American Congressman from Georgia in 1871

Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali), is an American former prof. boxer, was born in 1942

Michelle Obama, the first African American First Lady of the U.S., was born in 1964

Lorraine Hansberry, author of the play A Raisin in the Sun, died in New York City in 1965

Nat Turner, leader of the Virginia slave revolt, was born in 1800

Astronaut Ronald McNair died in Challenger explosion in 1986

Oprah Winfrey, American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist, was born in 1954

William Lloyd Garrison began publishing The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, in 1831

Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was elected chairperson of the House Committee on Education and Labor in 1961

Grace Bumbry, opera singer, was born in 1937

The World Slavery Convention opened in London, 1831

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, famed musician, died in 1993

Southern Christian Leadership Conference founded in 1957

Charles W. Anderson becomes first African American member of the Kentucky Legislature in 1936

Don Barksdale became the first African American person to play in an NBA All-Star Game in 1954

Robert C. Weaver became first African American president cabinet member in 1966

Reggie Jackson, baseball player, was born in 1946

William Bron Chapell, pioneer, was born in 1906

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, pioneer in surgery, founded Provident Hospital in Chicago in 1889

Coach Clarence “Big House” Gaines won record 800th college basketball game in 1990

Sojourner Truth addressed the first Black Women’s Rights Convention in 1851

Bessie Coleman, first African American aviator, was born in 1893

Angela Davis, activist, was born in 1944

Leontyne Price, world-renowned opera singer, made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1961

Barber Scotia College was founded in 1867

Dan T. Blue Jr. was elected as the first African American Speaker of the House in North Carolina in 1991

Jackie Robinson, first African American baseball player in the major leagues, was born in 1919

John Oliver Killens, novelist, was born in 1916

2014

Dr. Robert “Bob” Bridges has dedicated his life to closing the achievement gap that leaves many African American children at a disadvantage. As an educator and philanthropist, Bridges’ impact has been felt statewide.

The oldest of five children reared on a farm near Shelby, N.C. Bridges, now 79, embraced his father’s passionate belief that education is the key to opportunity and success. Inspired by his father, Bridges earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from St. Augustine’s College, a master’s from NC State University and a doctorate in education from Duke University.

Beginning his career as a sixth-grade teacher after graduating from St. Augustine’s in 1961, he became principal of the former Crosby-Garfield Elementary School in Raleigh in 1968. When the Raleigh and Wake County school systems merged in 1976, Bridges saw an opportunity for minority students.

“I hoped we could improve the quality of education by bringing both sides together,” Bridges said.

In 1985, an all-white school board named him superintendent of Wake County Public School System, the first African American to hold the position.

Bridges strove to close the achievement gap between affluent and low-income children, chairing a state commission and creating the non-profit “A Helping Hands” program, which is still active in the community placing African American men in the lives of at-risk children.

“The black male is the most uneducated, most underdeveloped child in the public school system,” Bridges said. “My model focused on what the least supported child in the public schools misses the most: a sturdy, male role model.”

After retiring in 1989, Bridges founded a consulting firm to raise cross-cultural awareness and help teachers better reach minority students.

Like his father, Bridges passed on the heart of a teacher. His son served as a superintendent in several districts and his daughter is an administrator with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Robert Bridges

Dr. Robert “Bob” Bridges

February The Heritage CalendarCelebrating the North Carolina African American Experience 2014


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grOuNDhOg Day

Rosa Parks, civil rights activist, was born in 1913

Henry “Hank” Aaron, the home run king of Major League Baseball, was born in 1934

Robert Tanner Jackson becomes first African American to receive a degree in dentistry in 1867

Ernest E. Just, biologist, received the Spingarn Medal for pioneering research on fertilization and cell division, in 1914

Michael Jordan, basketball player, was born in 1963

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, was born in 1809

NAACP was founded in 1909

Joseph L. Searles became the first African American member of the New York Stock Exchange in 1970

New registration law in Tennessee abolished racial distinctions in voting in 1867

Bernard Harris became the first African American astronaut to take a spacewalk in 1995

William “Smokey” Robinson, singer and songwriter, was born in 1940

Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) won World Heavyweight crown in 1964

M&F Bank was chartered in 1907Antoine Dominique, “Fats” Domino, singer, was born in 1928

Four black college students, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond and Ezell Blair, refused to leave after being denied service at a “whites-only” lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., in 1960

Geraldine McCullough won the Widener Gold Medal for Sculpture in 1965

Eubie Blake, pianist, was born in 1883

Oprah Winfrey became the first African American woman to host a nationally syndicated talk show in 1986

Roberta Flack, singer, was born in 1940

Henry Lewis was named director of the New Jersey Symphony in 1968

Joe Frazier became World Heavyweight Boxing Champion by a knockout in 1970

Author Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford) was born in 1931

Frederick Douglas, an American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman. After escapingfrom slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement. He died in 1895

Malcolm X was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist; he was assassinated in 1965

Frank E. Peterson Jr. was named first African American general in the Marine Corps in 1979

Julius Winfield “Dr. J” Erving II, basketball player, was born in 1950

W.E.B. DuBois, American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor, was born in 1868

Rebecca Lee became the first African American woman to receive an M.D. degree in 1864

Marian Anderson, opera singer, was born in 1902

Members of the NC African American Heritage Commission were sworn in at the Dept. of Cultural Resources, Raleigh, NC in 2009

Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar for her role as Mammy in Gone With The Wind in 1940

Clifford Alexander, Jr., became the first African American Secretary of the Army in 1977

ValeNTiNe’S Day

PreSiDeNT’S Day

Charlotte Hawkins Brown – advocate for equality, trailblazer for African Americans, educational pioneer and “First Lady of Social Graces” – personified dedication combined with kindness.

Born in Henderson, NC in 1883, the granddaughter of a slave soon learned education was the best way to advance. Brown attended school in Massachusetts, where she met Alice Freeman Palmer, an educator and leading activist for women’s higher education, who became Brown’s mentor and supporter.

Returning to North Carolina, Brown launched her mission to help southern African Americans pursue educational equality and opened the Palmer Memorial Institute (PMI) in Sedalia, near Greensboro, NC in 1902.

Brown believed in a well-rounded education and developed a holistic program at PMI. It included training in social graces, which she called “one means of turning the wheels of progress with greater velocity on the upward road to equal opportunity for all.”

“Often, the only thing remembered about her is that she founded PMI,” said Kara Deadmon, of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum. “However, she was an educator as well as an advocate for equality, a real proponent for change and for North Carolina.”

Brown helped ignite the African American women’s movement as one of the founders of the Federation of Women’s Clubs of North Carolina, which brought together civic, religious and social groups to fight for racial and gender equality.

When Brown stepped down as president of PMI in 1952, nine years before her death, PMI had graduated more than 1,000 students and was a fully accredited, nationally recognized preparatory school.

PMI closed in 1971, but in 1987 its campus became the first state historic site commemorating the contributions of African Americans to North Carolina’s history.

Every year, tens of thousands of visitors visit the museum and Brown’s home, explore the school, and discover the place that spurred students to be both intellectual and gracious.

Photo courtesy of the State Archives of North Carolina

Charlotte Hawkins Brown

March The Heritage CalendarCelebrating the North Carolina African American Experience


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Poll tax ruled unconstitutional in 1966

William H. Hastie confirmed as Federal District Judge of the Virgin Islands in 1937

Arthur Mitchell, dancer and choreographer, was born in 1934

NBA star Karl “The Mailman” Malone, was born in 1954

Harriett Tubman, an African American abolitionist, humanitarian and Union spy during the American Civil War, died in 1913

Nat King Cole, singer, was born in 1919

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was published in 1852

Selma march began in Selma, Alabama in 1965

Livingstone College founded in Salisbury, NC in 1879

Freedom’s Journal founded in 1827

North Carolina A&T State University was founded in 1891

James B. Parsons became the first Black chief judge of a federal court in 1975

Garrett A. Morgan, scientist and inventor, was born in 1877

Blanche Kelso Bruce of Mississippi elected to full term in U.S. Senate in 1975

Ralph Ellison, American novelist, literary critic, and scholar best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953, was born in 1914

Freedmen’s Bureau established by federal government to aid newly freed slaves in 1865

Elizabeth City State University was founded in NC in 1891

Slavery abolished in New York in 1799

The United Nations formally proclaimed March 8 Int’l Women’s Day in 1975

Phyllis Mae Dailey was the first African American inducted into the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps in 1945

Jackie Robinson made his professional baseball debut with the Montreal Royalsin 1946

Marcus Garvey, Black nationalist, arrived in America from Jamaica in 1916

Clifton Wharton is sworn in as ambassador to Norway in 1961

Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, opened on Broadway in 1959

Fannie Lou Hamer, activist, died in 1977

Quincy Jones, composer and musician, was born in 1933

Los Angeles Sentinel founded by Leon H. Washington in 1933

Dr. Jerome H. Holland elected to the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange in 1972

Carole Gist was crowned first Black Miss USA in 1990

Sarah Lois Vaughan, jazz singer known as “The Divine One”, was born in 1924

Mariah Carey, Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, and actress, was born in 1970

First cadets graduate from flying school at Tuskegee Institute in 1942

Charlie Pride, country singer, was born in 1938

Pearl Mae Bailey, an American actress and singer who won a Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly!, was born in 1918

15th Amendment, upholding a citizen’s right to vote, was enacted in 1870

Jack Johnson, first African American heavyweight champion, was born in 1878

MarDi graS aSh WeDNeSDay

DaylighT SaViNg TiMe BegiNS

ST. PaTriCK’S Day FirST Day OF SPriNg

2014

Walter Horace Carter knew journalism could be a tool for social justice, especially in a small town. Carter’s tenacious opposition to the Ku Klux Klan earned him the 1953 Pulitzer Prize and helped to impede further Klan expansion in North Carolina.

A native of Albemarle, NC, Carter moved to coastal Columbus County in 1946 after service in the U.S. Navy and founded the weekly Tabor City Tribune. On July 22, 1950, the Klan staged a parade through the small rural town to highlight recruiting efforts in the area. Carter immediately responded with an editorial expressing his utter disdain.

In the editorial headlined “No Excuse for KKK,” Carter called the Ku Klux Klan “the personification of Fascism and Nazism” and a disturbance to newly found tranquility in most post-war communities.

It was the first of more than 100 articles and editorials he would write over the next three years as he and Willard Cole, editor of the neighboring Whiteville News Reporter, stood up to the Klan. Despite personal threats from Klan leaders and a general lack of community support, Carter and Cole stayed firm in their beliefs and continued to publish.

The publications sparked the first intervention by the FBI, eventually leading to convictions of more than 100 Klan members.

“Willard and Horace were not merely civil rights advocates; they were advocates for civil society in their own towns,” said Ferrel Guillory, professor and director of the Program on Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill.

In 1953, the Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service was awarded to both newspapers for “their successful campaign against the Ku Klux Klan, waged on their own doorsteps at the risk of economic loss and personal danger, ending the terrorism in their communities.”

Photo courtesy of the family of Mr. Walter Horace Carter

Walter Horace Carter

April The Heritage CalendarCelebrating the North Carolina African American Experience


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Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run in 1974

Civil Rights Bill granting citizenship passed in 1866

Richard Allen was made Bishop of the AME Church in 1916

Robert E. Perry and Matthew Henson reached the North Pole in 1909

Pvt. Milton L. Olive III, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1966

Founding of Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee in 1960

Ralph David Abernathy Sr., a leader of the American Civil Rights Movement and minister, died in 1990

Alex Haley won the Pulitzer Prize for Roots in 1977

Tiger Woods became the youngest person and the first person of color to win the Masters Golf Championship in 1997

Granville T. Woods, inventor of more than 40 products, was born in 1856

“Duke” Ellington, musician and composer, was born in 1899

Wallace Saunders wrote the song “Casey Jones” in 1900

Colin Powell, statesman and retired four-star general in the U.S. Army who was the 65th U.S. Sec. of State, serving under Pres. George W. Bush (2001-05), was born 1937

Billie Holliday, blues singer, was born in 1917

Johnson C. Smith University was founded in Charlotte, NC in 1867

Spelman College was founded in Atlanta, GA in 1881

Free African Society organizedin 1787

The first abolition society in the U.S. was founded in Pennsylvania in 1775

Cheyney State College is the oldest of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities in America; founded in Philadelphia, PA in 1837

Harriet Tubman started working on the Underground Railroad in 1853

Charles Mingus, bassist, composer, pianist and bandleader, was bornin 1922

The United Negro College Fund was established in 1944

Ella Fitzgerald, singer, was born in 1917

William “Count” Basie, jazz pianist and musician, died in 1984

Coretta Scott King, activist and wife of Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in 1927

Samuel L. Gravely became first African American admiral in the U.S. Navy in 1962

Carter G. Woodson, the father of African American history, died in 1950

Maya Angelou, author and poet, was born in 1928

Jackie Robinson made his Major League debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947

Hampton Institute was chartered in 1870 as one of the first colleges for blacks in Hampton, Virginia

John Thompson became the first African American coach to win the NCAA basketball tournament in 1984

aPril FOOlS’ Day

gOOD FriDayPalM SuNDay PaSSOVer BegiNS TaX Day

eaSTer SuNDay PaSSOVer eNDS

earTh Day

2014

Willie Cooper paid a heavy price for breaking a color barrier at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1964.

The first African American basketball player for legendary coach Dean Smith, Cooper, then 18, played on the freshman team for a year before leaving the squad with memories which remain painful decades later.

Cooper came to Chapel Hill from Elm City, NC, where he had been raised by a foster family. He had a love of learning and a competitive drive that drove high test scores in the classroom and success on the basketball court.

One of just 18 black students in his UNC-Chapel Hill class, Cooper was pushed around by teammates, insulted by audiences, and not served in certain restaurants during team road trips. Once, to avoid conflict, he was left behind on a trip to South Carolina.

After being asked to leave the athletic dormitory because his white roommates did not want to live with him, Cooper made the difficult decision to give up basketball. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business in 1968 and, after military service that included a deployment in Vietnam, accepted a job at IBM as an operations manager in Mobile, AL. He later became an Equal Opportunity Manager, helping ensure IBM gave other African Americans the same chances he had been given. He retired, with 20 years of service, in 1993. Cooper paved the way at UNC-Chapel Hill for many student athletes, including his son, Brent, and daughter, Tonya.

Cooper feels that keeping his cool and not reacting negatively to racism were keys to leaving a positive legacy for history. “While not all events were pleasurable, the pleasure was that I was able to overcome and be successful,” Cooper said. “My story represents many people struggling and overcoming.”

Photo courtesy of Mr. Willie Cooper

Willie Cooper

May The Heritage CalendarCelebrating the North Carolina African American Experience


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Civil Rights Act signed by President Eisenhower in 1960

J.R. Winters patented the fire escape in 1878

Henry McNeal Turner, a minister, politician and the first southern bishop of the A.M.E. Church, died in 1915

Freedom Riders were civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated south; the first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., in 1961

Malcolm X, an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist, was born in 1925

In 1804, a slave known only as “York” accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, founded at Indiana University, was incorporated in 1911

North Carolina Mutual Building named a National Historic Landmark in 1975

Sammy Davis Jr. an American entertainer, died in 1990

Martha Graham, dancer, was born in 1894

Lowell W. Perry was confirmed as chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1975

Louis Gossett Jr., actor, was born in 1936

Eliza Ann Gardner, Underground Railroad conductor, was born in 1831

James Brown, Godfather of Soul, was born in 1933

Sugar Ray Robinson, boxing champion, was born in 1920

Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American Pulitzer Prize winner for Annie Allen in 1950

Slave emancipation declaration for Georgia, Florida and South Carolina in 1862

P.B.S. Pinchback, first African American state governor, was born in 1837

Robert Smalls seized Confederate warship in 1862

U.S. Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954

Reggie Jackson, baseball player, was born in 1946

Robert N.C. Nix was elected to U.S. Congress in 1958 Claude McKay, poet, died in 1948

Bob Marley, reggae legend, died in 1981

Hal McRae was named manager of the Kansas City Royals in 1991

Madame. C.J. Walker, entrepreneur, died in 1919

Althea Gibson won the French Open, becoming the first African American tennis player to win a major tennis title in 1956

Howard University in Washington, D.C. opened in 1867

Elijah McCoy, inventor and holder of more than fifty patents, was born in 1844

Joe Louis, boxer, was born in 1914

Thomas Bradley was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 1973

Countee Cullen, poet, was born in 1903

CiNCO De MayO

MOTher’S Day arMeD FOrCeS Day

MeMOrial Day

NAACP held first conference (as the National Negro Committee) in 1909

2014

Clyde “Pop” Ferguson Sr. got his first taste of the blues outside a Caldwell County juke joint. Because his father, a preacher, wouldn’t allow him to go inside, the youngster paid passersby a nickel to play tunes from the jukebox that could be heard outside.

“He would absorb the melody, run half a mile home and work on his guitar until he could play it perfectly,” Clyde Ferguson Jr. recalls.

Ferguson Sr. has been a traveling musician all his life. He served in the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II and now lives in Lenoir, NC.

“He traded his guitar for an explosives truck,” said Ferguson Jr., who was born in 1951 and was estranged from his father most of his life. In 2008, the two reunited and formed the band Pop Ferguson and the Blues Review and the Pop Ferguson Blues Heritage Festival in Lenoir.

The Fergusons’ music mixes entertainment and education, helping to raise the cultural awareness of listeners.

Pop Ferguson and the Blues Review frequently performs for diverse audiences statewide, showcasing historical songs from the 1920s-1950s. The blues festival marked its fifth year in 2013 with the theme “Women of the Blues”.

The younger Ferguson earned degrees from Mitchell College and Gardner Webb University before spending 10 years as a high school band director.

Father and son have each played a major role in preserving and celebrating African American music. In 2008, “Pop” was inducted into the Smithsonian Institute Hall for his work in African American music.

The younger Ferguson has designed an extensive, interdisciplinary teaching program called Roots Music in the Classroom that teaches African American and U.S. history through the music of African Americans.

“I want these kids to learn how subcultures tie together to make a society,” Ferguson Jr. said. “This is my dream.”

Photo courtesy of Mr. Clyde Ferguson Sr. and Mr. Clyde Ferguson Jr.

Clyde “Pop” Ferguson Sr. and Clyde Ferguson Jr.

June The Heritage CalendarCelebrating the North Carolina African American Experience


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Hattie McDaniel, first African American person to win an Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress in Gone With The Wind, 1940), was born in 1898

Hazel Dorothy Scott, classical pianist and singer, was born in 1920

Medger Evers, civil rights activist, was assassinated in 1963

U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in Washington, D.C. restaurants in 1953

Wilma Rudolph, track star, was born in 1909

Nannie Burroughs founded National Training School for Women in 1909

African American Independence Day, lauds the end of slavery in the United States

Dr. Lloyd A. Hall, pioneer in food chemistry, was born in 1894

Errol Garner, singer and musician, was born in 1923

Joe Louis defeated Primo Carnera at Yankee Stadium in 1935

Sojourner Truth began anti-slavery activist career in 1843

Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winning poet, was born in 1917

Meta-Vaux Warick Fuller, sculptor, was born in 1877

Thurgood Marshall appointed to U.S. Supreme Court in 1967

Harold D. West was named president of Meharry Medical College in 1952

Kenneth A. Gibson was elected mayor of Newark, N.J.; first African American mayor of a major eastern U.S. city in 1970

Arthur Ashe, tennis champion, led UCLA to NCAA tennis championship in 1965

Joe Louis became youngest world heavyweight boxing champion in 1937

John R. Lynch became first African American to preside over deliberations of a national party in 1884

James W. Johnson, an American author, politician, diplomat, critic, journalist, poet, anthologist, educator, lawyer, songwriter, and early civil rights activist, died in 1938

Paul Laurence Dunbar, poet and novelist, was born in 1872

Organization for Afro-American Unity founded in 1964

James Van Der Zee, photographer, was born in Lenox, MA in 1886

Lena Horne, actress, vocalist and activist, was born in 1917

NC Central University’s charter was signed in 1909

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded his doctorate from Boston University in 1955

Congress of Racial Equality founded in 1942

Larry Leon Hamlin, founder of the National Black Theatre Festival, died in 2007

Thomas Ezekiel Miller, congressman, was born in 1849

T. Thomas Fortune, journalist, died in 1928

Wesley A. Brown became the first African American graduate of Annapolis Naval Academy in 1949

Arna Bontemps, writer and educator, died in 1973

FaTher’S Day

Flag Day

FirST Day OF SuMMer

2014

Since leaving her family’s farm in Kingstree, S.C., at the age of 16, Shirley Fulton has overcome breast cancer while breaking race and gender barriers in North Carolina.

The second oldest of five children, Fulton came to North Carolina to attend college. After graduating from NC Agricultural and Technical State University, Fulton earned a law degree at Duke University in 1980 while raising a child on her own.

Tapping into connections made in school, Fulton moved to Charlotte in 1982 and became the city’s first black female prosecutor. She was appointed District County Judge in the 26th Judicial District five years later.

Rising quickly, Fulton was elected to Superior Court in 1988, ultimately serving for 14 years. Though she was the first black female on the Superior Court bench in North Carolina, she would have preferred not to have broken the barrier.

“It made me feel shame for society that we had come that far and we were just getting black females in the role,” she said.

In 1993, Fulton began a battle with breast cancer which ultimately forced her to take a leave of absence from the bench in 1996 to undergo treatment at Duke University Medical Center. Returning to the court the following year, she was named the Senior Resident Superior Court Judge. She earned an MBA from Queens University in Charlotte, NC, in 1998 and retired in 2003.

“I guess a lot of things fell into place for me,” she said. “But sometimes I had to push them into place.”

In addition to her distinguished career as a jurist, Fulton has impacted the community and state through her work with the Mecklenburg County Court System and the Charlotte School of Law and as a leader in the revival of Charlotte’s historic Wesley Heights neighborhood.

Photo courtesy of Judge Shirley Fulton

Judge Shirley Fulton

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Venus Williams won Wimbledon in 2000

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful open-heart operation in 1893

Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, was born in 1875

Althea Gibson won Wimbledon in 1957

National Association of Colored Women founded by Mary Church Terrell in Washington in 1896

V. A. Johnson, first African American female to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, was born in 1882

Billie Holliday, singer, died in 1959

Lemuel Hayes, first African American Congregationalist minister, was born in 1753

Continental Congress excluded slavery from Northwest Territory in 1787

Louis Tompkins Wright, physician, was born in 1924

Bennett College was founded in Greensboro, NC in 1873

The first National Convention of Black Women was held in Boston in 1895

Arthur Ashe won the men’s Wimbledon singles championship in 1975

Margaret Walker, writer, was born in 1915

W.E.B. Dubois, civil rights activist, founded the Niagara Movement in 1905

Bill Cosby, entertainer, was born in 1937

George Washington Carver National Monument dedicated in Joplin, MO in 1951

Saint Augustine’s University was founded in Raleigh, NC in 1891

First U.S. victory in Korea was won by African American troops in the 24th Infantry Regiment in 1950

Abraham Lincoln read the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet in 1861

Mary Church Terrell, educator, died in 1954

Garrett A. Morgan, inventor of the gas mask, rescued six people from a gas-filled tunnel in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916

President Truman banned discrimination in the armed services in 1948

A.P. Abourne, inventor, was awarded patent for refining coconut oil in 1880

The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868

Jackie Robinson, the first African American baseball player in the major leagues, was named to Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962

Tuskegee Institute established in 1881

Pompey Lamb, noted spy, aids the American Revolutionary War effort in 1779

Adam Clayton Powell Jr., activist and politician, was elected congressman from Harlem in 1945

Carl Lewis, athlete, was bornin 1961

NC African American Heritage Commission (AAHC) established in 2008

Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed.

Thurgood Marshall, the U.S. American justice, was born in 1908

Whitney Young, an executive director of the National Urban League, was born in 1921

iNDePeNDeNCe Day

2014

Joe Holt Jr. didn’t realize a summer trip to visit country relatives in 1957 was intended to save his life.

Joe Holt Sr. and Elwyna Holt believed strongly in education and self-respect and they wanted their studious son to see himself as a first-class citizen in the wake of court orders mandating desegregation. So, in 1956, the Holts became the first African American family to apply to all-white Josephus Daniels Junior High in Raleigh, NC.

“Brown v. the Board of Education ... was an opportunity to cast off the shackles of exclusion and second-class citizenship so we stepped forward,” Holt Jr. said. “Other families felt inclined, but didn’t act because of the potential for a great deal of backlash, which we in fact actually experienced.”

The application was denied and he subsequently enrolled at Ligon High, the “black” school in Raleigh. The Holts requested a transfer to Broughton High, the nearby “white” school, but were turned down. A subsequent lawsuit against the Raleigh City School Board was unsuccessful, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to hear the case a few months before Holt Jr. graduated in June 1960, second in his class at Ligon, having never attended a “white” school.

Holt Jr. earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from St. Augustine’s College in 1964, before accepting a commission in the U.S. Air Force. A global navigator, he served 26 years before retiring as a lieutenant colonel.

Now living in Durham, NC, he remains keenly interested in civil rights issues. He frequently talks with university and public school groups, sharing lessons gleaned from his experiences, and helping students understand why he and his family needed to take a stand for integration.

“Segregation was more than separation; it was exclusion,” Holt said. “At every turn it excluded you from participating in American life on a first-class basis.”

Photo courtesy of the Joseph Holt Family

The Joseph Holt Family

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Edwin Moses and Evelyn Ashford won gold medals in Olympic track & field in 1984

Voting Rights Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965

Ralph J. Bunche, diplomat and first African American winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born in 1904

The Congress of African Peoples convention was held in Atlanta in 1970

James Meredith, the first African American admitted to the University of Mississippi, graduated in 1963

Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper was founded in 1892

Ernest Everett Just, scientist, was born in 1883

Clarence E. Lightner, the first popularly elected mayor of Raleigh, N.C. and the first African American elected mayor of a metropolitan Southern city, was born in 1921

Clarence C. White, composer and violinist, died in 1880

Cullen Jones becomes the 2nd African American to win Olympic Gold medal in swimming in 2012

Richard Allen chaired the first National Negro Convention in Philadelphia in 1830

William Dawson elected Black Democratic Party vice-presidential candidate in 1943

James Baldwin, writer, was born in 1924

Gabby Douglas, becomes the first black gymnast to win the individual all-around Olympic gold medal in 2012

President Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States and the first African American to hold the office, was born in 1961

Matthew A. Henson, explorer and first to reach the North Pole, was born in 1865

Jesse Owens won four Olympic gold medals in 1936

Thaddeus Stevens, abolitionist, died in 1868

Louis Lomax, author, was born in 1922

Marcus M. Garvey Jr., a Jamaican political leader, publisher, journalist, entrepreneur, and orator, was born in 1887

Benjamin Banneker published his first Almanac in 1791

William “Count” Basie, jazz pianist and musician, was born in 1904

John Lee Hooker, blues singer and guitarist, was born in 1917

National Negro Business League founded in 1900

Edith Sampson was appointed first African American delegate to the United Nations by Harry S. Truman in 1950

Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters organized in 1925

Eldridge Cleaver, writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party, was born in 1935

Benjamin E. Mays, minister, scholar, social activist and the president of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia from 1940 to 1967; was born in 1894

Frederick Douglass’ home in Washington D.C. was declared a national shrine in 1922

W.E.B. DuBois, an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor, died in 1963

Charlie “Bird” Parker, jazz musician, was born in 1920

Lt. Col. Guion S. Bluford, Jr. became the first African American astronaut in space in 1983

The March on Washington attracted an estimated 250,000 people for a peaceful demonstration to promote Civil Rights and economic equality for African Americans in 1963

2014

Faith, focus, finish. These simple words carry Manteo Mitchell through every step, both on and off the track. For the Olympian from Mooresboro, NC, not every step has been easy. At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, midway through the third leg of the 4x400-meter relay, Mitchell’s fibula snapped. Courageously, he finished the next 200 meters with a time that enabled his team to advance and ultimately win a silver medal.

“Faith, focus, finish” became even more important post-London, as Mitchell returned home a hero. The entire world had seen what happened, and wanted to hear his story. He found a new place to excel – the speaker’s podium.

“Motivational speaking wasn’t something that I always wanted to do,” he said, “because I used to be afraid to voice my opinion. But when I got into middle school and high school I became a class clown and from that age on I haven’t been afraid to talk to people.”

Since his return, Mitchell’s speaking engagements have ranged from schools to corporate events to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.

“I think a lot of people understand me because they understand where I come from and where I’m trying to go,” he said. He hopes that his story will inspire others in the classroom, workplace, and life, as well as on the track.

At age 26, relatively young in the sport, Mitchell continues to compete internationally, and considers his alma mater, Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, NC his home base. While he has less time for speaking engagements now that he is back in competition, he says it is still tough to say no, especially when there is an opportunity to share “faith, focus, finish” with students.

“I want to continue to inspire kids and pretty much anyone I can,” he said. Photo courtesy of Mr. Manteo Mitchell

Manteo Mitchell

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Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915

Mordecai Johnson, first African American president of Howard University, died in 1976

“Duke” Ellington won Spingarn Medal for his musical achievements in 1959

Integration in public schools began in Washington, D.C. and Baltimore in 1954

Ralph Bunch awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1950

United States Constitution signed in 1787

Booker T. Washington delivered “Atlanta Compromise” address in 1895

Atlanta University was founded in Georgia in 1865

Constance Baker Motley, U.S. Cabinet member, was born in 1921

Nine African American Arkansas students integrated Little Rock High School in 1957

Johnny Mathis, singer, was born in 1935

The National Black Convention met in Cleveland in 1848

Althea Gibson became the first African American athlete to win a U.S. national tennis championship in 1957

Jackie Robinson, first African American baseball player in the major leagues, was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1947

Alain L. Locke, philosopher and first African American Rhodes Scholar, was born in 1886

Dr. Mae Jemison became first African American female astronaut in space in 1992

First episode of The Cosby Show aired in 1984

F.W. Leslie, inventor, patented the envelope seal in 1891

John Coltrane, innovative and famed jazz musician, was born in 1926

Barbara W. Hancock became the first African American woman named a White House fellow in 1974

Bessie Smith, blues singer, died in 1937

The Memphis Blues by W.C. Handy was published in 1912

Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World published in 1929

Winstoin-Salem State University was founded in NC in 1892

Hugh Mulzac, first African American captain of a U.S. merchant ship, launched with the ‘Booker T. Washington’ in 1942

Benjamin S. “Ben” Carson Sr., an American neurosurgeon, was the first surgeon to successfully separate twins conjoined at the back of the head in 1987

Claude A. Barnett, founder of the Associated Negro Press, was born in 1889

Justice Henry Frye became the first African American to serve on the NC Supreme Court in 1983 and to be appointed Chief Justice in 1999

Charles Houston, NAACP leader, was born in 1895

In 1957, Dorothy Counts became one of the first African American students to attend Harding High School in Charlotte NC, an action that challenged school segregation

Frank Robinson, professional baseball player, named MVP of the American League in 1966

Romare Bearden, an artist and writer, was born in 1911

laBOr Day

graNDPareNT’S Day PaTriOT Day

rOSh haShaNah BegiNS

rOSh haShaNah eNDS

FirST Day OF auTuMN

CONSTiTuTiON Day

2014

Jane Smith Patterson’s community activism began at a Greensboro, NC movie theater in the early 1960s. Outraged when an African American friend was refused a ticket, the 17-year-old University of North Carolina-Greensboro student determined to spend her life working for equality.

Later, after transferring to UNC-Chapel Hill and graduating, Patterson began a career in state politics as assistant secretary and later secretary of administration in Gov. Jim Hunt’s cabinet.

During Hunt’s first term (1977-1981), Patterson spearheaded development of the first coordinated information technology model. This was the beginning of Patterson’s efforts to link government, the economy and technology to better the lives of North Carolinians.

Patterson continued her technology drive during Hunt’s third and fourth terms (1993-2001), and, after he left office, as Director of the e-NC Authority, a public initiative to increase broadband access statewide.

Working with the public and private sectors, the e-NC Authority was able to increase the availability of connectivity to North Carolina households from 36 to 82 percent and bring in millions of dollars of federal funding for broadband infrastructure upgrades.

“Technology,” Patterson said, “is an equalizer.” Internet access has linked students in rural North Carolina to resources they need for classes previously unavailable to them. From research databases to easy personal communication with remote instructors, broadband has worked to bridge the rural-urban gap.

Patterson arduously campaigned to expand women’s rights and participation in government. Since her 20s, she has been involved in the national and state Women’s Political Caucus and crusaded for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Her work has opened up more government positions to women and minorities, in hopes of ensuring fair representation. Smith credits her father for instilling the value she places on equality.

Patterson still strives to ensure that institutions are open to all. The motivation, she says, is simple: “To create a fairer North Carolina.”

Photo courtesy of Ms. Jane Smith Patterson

Jane Smith Patterson

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Toni Morrison became first African American to win Nobel Prize in literature in 1993

Jesse Jackson, an African American civil rights activist and Baptist minister, was born in 1941

O.B. Clare patented the rail trestle in 1888

Yvonne Burke, congresswoman, was born in 1932

John Merrick organized North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company in 1898

Clarence Thomas confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992

John Brown led attack on Harper’s Ferry in 1859

Capital Savings Bank opened in Washington, D.C. in 1888

Barbara Smith Conrad, an American operatic mezzo-soprano of international acclaim was inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame in 2012

Clarence S. Green became the first African American certified in neurological surgery

Levi Coffin, founder of the Underground Railroad, was born in 1798

National Black Convention met in Syracuse, N.Y. in 1864

Fisk Jubilee Singers began national tour in 1871 Singer Ben Vereen was born in 1946

Alexander Miles patented the elevator in 1887

Arna W. Bontemps, noted poet, was born in 1902

Terry McMillan, novelist,was born in 1951

The U.S. Navy was opened to African American women in 1944

“Dizzy” Gillespie, musician, was born in 1917

The NAACP petitioned the United Nations about racial injustice in 1947

Jackie Robinson, the first African American Major League Baseball player of the modern era, died in 1972

Benjamin O. Davis became the first African American general in the U.S. Army in 1940

Tom J. Marshall, inventor, patented the fire extinguisher in 1872

D. B. Downing, inventor, patented his street letter box in 1891

Nat King Cole was the first African American performer to host his own television show in 1956

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. awarded Nobel Peace Prize in 1964

The Supreme Court ordered end to segregation in schools “at once” in 1969

Colin Powell was appointed first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989

Thurgood Marshall was sworn in, becoming the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice in 1967

Richard Arrington was elected the first African American mayor of Birmingham, Ala., in 1979

COluMBuS Day

hallOWeeN

Ethel Waters, actress and singer, was born in 1900

2014

Harold and Lucille Webb have dedicated their lives to serving North Carolina and the United States, in fields as diverse as education, public health, civil rights and the military. A native of Greensboro, NC, Harold Webb enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943, serving as a pilot with WWII’s legendary Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American unit to fly and maintain American combat aircraft. Returning home after the war, Harold enrolled at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1948 and began a career in public education, first as a teacher and later as a principal and deputy superintendent. He led the North Carolina Title I Program, a federal effort to bridge the opportunity gap by serving low-income, minority students. Harold was active in politics and served on the Wake County Board of Commissioners for seven years, including serving as Chairman from 2008-2009. Lucille Webb was born in Richmond, VA., and moved to North Carolina to attend NC A&T, where she met Harold. After earning her bachelor’s degree in applied sociology in 1948, she decided to stay to work mainly in the fields of education and public health. Beginning as an eighth-grade social studies and language arts teacher in Hillsborough, NC, she spent most of her career in the Wake County Public School System, eventually serving as curriculum director and personnel administrator. In 1980, Lucille helped found Strengthening the Black Family, a Raleigh-based non-profit focused on improving the quality of life in uplifting the Wake County minority community. Through the years, Lucille’s influence and energy as a community health advocate have touched a variety of organizations, including Project DIRECT, a diabetes research development project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Webbs were inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2011.

Photo courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Webb

Harold and Lucille Webb

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President Barack Obama, then Senator, was the 1st African American elected as President of the U.S. in 2008. He also received the most votes for a presidential candidate in American history

Walter E. Washington elected Mayor of Washington, D.C. in 1974

Absalom Jones, minister, was born in 1746

President Ronald Reagan signed law designating the third Monday in January Martin Luther King Jr. Dayin 1983

Omega Psi Phi was founded on the campus of Howard University in 1911

In 1775, General George Washington issued an order, later rescinded, which forbade recruiting officers to enlist Blacks

Dwight Gooden won baseball’s Cy Young Award in 1985

Booker T. Washington, an African American educator, author, orator, and advisor to Republican presidents, died in 1915

Benjamin Banneker, surveyor, was born in 1731

Roy Campanella was named the National League MVP for the second time in 1953

Luther “Bill” Robinson, dancer, died in 1949

First issue of Ebony published in 1945

First issue of Crisis published in 1910

Eva Clayton became the first African American woman to represent North Carolina in Congress in 1992

David Dinkins elected first African American Mayor of New York City in 1989

Edward W. Brooke was elected first African American U.S. Senator (R- Mass.) in 85 years in 1966

Andrew Hatcher was named associate press secretary toPresident John F. Kennedy, becoming the first African American press secretary in 1960

Arthur Lewis, Princeton University professor, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1979

W.C. Handy, “Father of the Blues”, was born in Florence, Ala. in 1873

Sojourner Truth, abolitionist and orator, was born in 1787

Garrett A. Morgan patented the traffic signal in 1923

Protests against apartheid and the Reagan administration began nationwide in 1984

Alrutheus A. Taylor, teacher and historian, was born in 1893

J.L. Love put patents on the pencil sharpener in 1897

Scott Joplin, composer, was born in 1868

Nat Turner, leader of a Virginia slave revolt, was hanged in 1831

Sojourner Truth, evangelist, died in 1883

Richard Wright, author, died in 1960

Ernie Davis became the first African American to win the Heisman Trophy in 1961

Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was born in 1908

Fayetteville State University was founded in NC as “Howard School” in 1867

Shirley Chisholm, U.S. Congresswoman, was born in 1924

DaylighT SaViNg TiMe eNDS

VeTeraN’S Day

ThaNKSgiViNg Day

all SaiNTS’ Day

eleCTiON Day

2014

George Williams has coached 33 NCAA national championship teams, 32 Olympians (including three gold medalists) and garnered more than 100 coach-of-the-year awards. A star in the track and field universe, his impact reaches far beyond athletics. The Miami, FL, native graduated from St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, NC, in 1965, returning in 1968 to begin a career that included working in the admissions, student activities, and alumni affairs offices. As head coach for the men’s and women’s track and field and cross country teams since 1976, he continually stresses the priority of academics, especially to prospective students. “I tell them quickly that the first thing is academics, second is athletics, and then a controlled social life – in that order,” he said. “I don’t care how good you are, how fast you can run, or how high you can jump. If you’re not here for an education, then you can go home.” Williams’ scholarship athletes boast a 95 percent graduation rate, reflecting the success of his emphasis on academics and his love for the students. He cherishes every championship for its special meaning to the current team. However, he regrets that many of his athletes will not get the recognition they deserve for their talents because St. Augustine’s is a small, Division II, historically black university. “But if you look at the records, we beat almost all of the Division I schools that we compete against,” he said with evident pride. In 2004, in recognition of his reputation and achievements, he was named head coach for the 2004 United States Men’s Olympic Track and Field Team in Athens, Greece. “I didn’t go there as a black coach from an HBCU,” he said. “I went there as an American representing the United States of America.”

Not surprisingly, his team brought home 19 medals. Photo courtesy of Mr. George Williams

George Williams

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Redd Foxx, entertainer,was born in 1925

Ralph J. Bunche became the first African American person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1950

P.B.S. Pinchback became the first African American governor of an American state, Louisiana, in 1872

Lester Granger was named executive director of the National Urban Leaguein 1941

Harriet Ida Pikens and Frances Wills, were sworn in as the first female African American WAVES officers in 1944

Noble Sissle, lyricist and bandleader, died in 1975

The 13th amendment, outlawing slavery was ratified in 1865

Carter G. Woodson,historian, was born in 1875

John Langston, U.S. Congressman, was born in 1829

Irwin C. Mollison, first African American Judge of the Customs Court, was born in 1898

Bo Diddley, blues composer and singer, was born in 1928

Lewis Franklin Powell was confirmed as U.S. Supreme Court justice in 1971

The NAACP wins the Gibbs v. Board of Education case, against the state of Maryland, ensuring that white and black teachers are paid equally in 1936

Joseph H. Rainey (S.C.) first African American elected to Congress in 1870

Kofi Annan was elected as Secretary-General of the United Nations becoming the first person from an African nation to be elected to the position in 1996

Maggie Lena Walker, banker, died in 1934

Montgomery Bus Boycott, a political and social protest against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama ended in 1956

Berry Gordy, Jr. established Motown Records in 1959

Alice H. Parker patented the gas heating furnace in 1919

Rev. Jesse Jackson organized Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity)in 1971

DeFord Bailey, Sr. became the first African American to perform on the Grand Ole Opry in 1924

Dr. Charles Richard Drew, pioneer of blood plasma research, established a blood bank in New York City in 1941

Earl “Fatha” Hines, famed jazz musician and father of modern jazz piano, was born in 1905

Thomas Bradley, first African American Mayor of Los Angeles, was born in 1917

Andrew Young of Georgia named ambassador and chief delegate to the United Nations in 1976

Odetta Felious Gordon, folk singer and activist, was born in 1930

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus in 1955

Shaw University was founded in Raleigh, NC in 1865

Charles Wesley, historian, was born in 1891

First issue of North Star newspaper published in 1847

American Anti-Slavery Society organized in 1833

Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, founded National Council of Negro Women in 1935

ChriSTMaS Day

NeW year’S eVe

haNNuKKah eNDS

haNNuKKah BegiNS

FirST Day OF WiNTer

Pearl harBOr reMeMBraNCe Day

KWaNZaa BegiNS

2014

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AT&T is pleased to present the 2014 edition of The Heritage Calendar: Celebrating the NC African American Experience and to honor the men and women highlighted in its pages.

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Celebrating the North Carolina African American Experience