October Black History Calendar

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.