Black History For Every Month!

January  February  March

April  May  June

July  August  September

October  November  December

October 1, 1940 - Charles Drew named supervisor of the "Plasma for 
Great Britain" project.
October 2, 1986 - President Ronald Reagan appoints Edward J. Perkins 
ambassador to South
Africa.
October 3, 1956 - Nat King Cole becomes first Black performer to host 
his own TV show.
October 4, 1864 - First Black daily newspaper, The New Orleans 
Tribune, founded.
October 5, 1872 - Booker T. Washington enters Hampton Institute, 
Virginia.
October 6, 1917 - Political activist Fannie Lou Hamer born.
October 7, 1934 - Playwright-poet Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), author 
of Blues People: Negro Music in White America and The Motion of 
History, born.
October 8, 1941 - Rev. Jesse Jackson born in Greenville, South
Carolina.
October 9, 1888 - O.B. Clare patents Trestle.
October 10, 1899 - Isaac R. Johnson patents bicycle frame.
October 11, 1887 - Granville T. Woods patents telephone system and 
apparatus.
October 12, 1904 - Physician, author, educator W. Montague Cobb born.
October 13, 1579 - Martin de Porres, the first Black saint in the 
Roman Catholic Church, born.
October 14, 1964 - At age 35, Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes 
youngest man ever to win Nobel Peace Prize.
October 15, 1991 - Clarence Thomas confirmed as an associate justice 
of the U.S. Supreme Court, the second African American to serve on 
the court.
October 16, 1995 - Million Man March held in Washington, D.C.
October 17, 1888 - Capital Savings Bank of Washington, D.C., first 
bank for blacks, organized.
October 18, 1948 - Playwright Ntozake Shange, author of For Colored 
Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, is born.
October 19, 1943 - Paul Robeson opens in Othello at the Shubert 
Theater in New York City. The show runs for 296 consecutive 
performances.
October 20, 1898 - The first African American-owned insurance 
company, North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, founded.
October 21, 1917 - Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, pioneer of "bebop" 
jazz, born.
October 22, 1953 - Clarence S. Green becomes first African American 
certified in neurological surgery.
October 23, 1947 - The NAACP petitions the United States on racial 
conditions in the U.S.
October 24, 1980 - U.S. District Judge Patrick Higginbotham rules 
that Republic National is guilty of discrimination against African 
Americans and women.
October 25, 1992 - Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston becomes 
first African American to manage a team to the World Series.
October 26, 1911 - Mahalia Jackson gospel singer, born.
October 27, 1954 - Benjamin O. Davis Jr. becomes first African 
American general in U.S. Air Force.
October 28, 1981 - Edward M. McIntyre elected first African American 
mayor of Augusta, Georgia.
October 29, 1949 - Alonzo G. Moron becomes first African American 
president of Hampton Institute, Virginia..
October 30, 1979 - Richard Arrington elected first African American 
mayor of Birmingham, Alabama.
October 31, 1896 - Actress, singer Ethel Waters born.