Half-Month, Inclusive History

September/Part I

Stepping into September

Do you know that September Black History includes:

• David Walker released his militant antislavery pamphlet, An Appeal to the Colored People of the World, one of the earliest of its kind (1829); Robert T Freeman becomes the first Black person to graduate from Harvard Dental School (1867); Mother Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament established Xavier University in New Orleans, the first Black coeducational secondary school in the US (1915); Ralph J. Bunche was appointed as the acting United Nations mediator in Palestine by the UN Security Council (1948);

• 1^st – Halle T.D. Johnson became the first woman of any race to practice medicine in the state of Alabama (1891); Daniel “Chappie” James became the first Black four-star general in the US Air Force (1975); Ethel Waters succumbed (1977); Jasper Cureton was sworn in as the first Black member of a newly formed S.C. Appeals Court (1983);

• 2^nd – Anna DeCosta Banks was born (1869); John Parker received U.S. Patent #304,552 for the “Parker Pulverizer” (1872); Frederick M. Jones received a patent for a control device for an internal combustion engine (1958); Frank Robinson was named MVP of the American League (1966); Frances Tiafoe became the first Black man to reach the US Open semifinals since Arthur Ashe (2022);

• 3^rd - Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery (1838); Charles Hamilton Houston was born (1895); Alabama made racial segregation mandatory (1901); five Black soldiers were hanged without due process for their alleged participation in the erroneously called Camp Logan Riot (1918); Geraldine W. Travis was born (1931); eleven Black students desegregated the Charleston County South Carolina public schools (1963); Robert Maynard became the first Black American to head a daily newspaper, the Oakland Tribune (1979); Jonathan A. Rodgers became the highest ranking Black in network television when named president of CBS Television Stations Divisions(1990);

• 4^th – Lewis Latimer was born (1848); a race riot occurred in Clinton, MS (1875); New Orleans integrated its Catholic schools (1962); Beyoncé Knowles was born (1981); Katherine Dunham became the first Black choreographer for the Metropolitan Opera (2001);

• 5^th - John W Cromwell was born (1846); Harriet Wilson self-published “Our Nig”, the first US novel by a Black woman (1859); Leopold Sedar Senghor was elected president of Senegal (1960);

• 6^th - Frederick Douglass elected president of the National Black Political Convention (1848); Leander Jay Shaw, Jr., was born (1930); Idris Elba was born (1972); Lee Roy Young Jr. was sworn in as the first Black Texas Ranger in modern history (1988);

• 7^th – John Merrick, co-founder of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, was born (1859); Washington, DC and Baltimore, MD integrated public schools (1954); Jacob Lawrence was born (1917); Ghana becomes the first African country to break from White colonial rule and became an independent nation (1957); Tupac Shakur succumbed (1996);

• 8^th – Roy Wilkins succumbed (1901); Buck Leonard was born (1907); Ruby Bridges was born (1954); Althea Gibson became the first Black athlete to win the U.S. Open (1957); Dorothy Dandridge succumbed (1965); Joseph A. De Laine, Levi Pearson, and Harry and Eliza Briggs were posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal (2004);

• 9^th - The Stono Rebellion occurred at Stono Bridge, SC (1739); Paul Cuffee succumbed (1817); Alexander Lucius Twilight received his B.A. degree from Middlebury College and became the Black American college graduate (1817); Arthur Ashe Jr. became the first Black man to win the U.S. Open Men’s Singles Tennis Championship (1968); James Earl Jones succumbed (2024);

• 10^th - John Roy Lynch was born (1847); John Mercer Langston became the first Black to hold elective office in the US when elected township clerk of Brownhelm, OH (1855); Father Divine succumbed (1965); the U.S. Postal Service honored Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first Black American artist elected to the National Academy of Design, with a commemorative stamp (1973); Mordecai W. Johnson succumbed (1976);

• 11^th - Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington awarded the Springarm Medal (1959); Henrie Monteith, James L. Solomon Jr., and Robert Anderson enrolled at the University of South Carolina, becoming the first Black students to attend since Reconstruction (1963); Ludacris was born (1977); Quincy Jones won an Emmy for musical composition for the miniseries, Roots (1977);

• 12^th – Jessie Owens was born (1913); Jackie Robinson was named the National League Rookie of the Year (1947); Steve Biko was murdered (1977); Dr. Mae C. Jemison became the first Black woman to travel in space (1992);

• 13^th - The first documented slave rebellion involving Black slaves and white indentured servants was set to take place but was intercepted by a White House Servant (1663); Alain Locke (1886) was born; Nell Carter was born (1948);

• 14^th - Constance Baker Motley was born (1921); Nasir Jones -aka- Nas, was born (1973); or

• 15^th – The First National Negro Convention was held in Philadelphia, PA (1830); Jan E. Matzeliger was born (1852 ); Carter G Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, now the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (1915); Julian Edwin “Cannonball” Adderley was born (1928); Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley were killed when the 16^th Street Baptist Church was bombed by white supremacist and the KKK (1963); Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns became the first Black man to win boxing titles in five different weight classes (1987)?