Unknown black history fact: Carter G. Woodson, a historian, was the founder of Black History Month, in case you didn’t know. Known as the “Father of Black History,” he was always the second African-American to receive a doctorate degree from Harvard University and is regarded as one of the first experts to study and investigate African-American history.
William Carter was the first African-American to be produced in the thirteen colonies. In 1624, he was born in Jamestown, Virginia. Her parents were indentured labourers and members of the first set of Africans sent to colonial ground by Great Britain, according to BlackPast.org.
Randall Marshall became the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court after years of outstanding legal work. He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Johnson in 1967 and served until 1991.
John Mercer Langston made history when he would become the first African American barrister in Ohio in 1854. He went on to become the dean of Howard University’s law school and vice president. He’s also known for becomes first African American elected to the senate in Virginia, specifically to the United States Congress.
In the early 1770s, white Quaker, abolitionist, american educator Anthony Benezet is credited with founding the very first education for African American students.
Lucy Stanton became the first Black woman in America to acquire a four-year college degree after graduating from Oberlin College with a literary degree in 1850.
Television And Music
Nat King Cole, a well-known vocalist and jazz pianist, was the very first Black American to host a television show, NBC’s The Nat Majesty Cole Show.
Stevie Wonder is not the first Black artist to achieve a Nobel for Album of the Year (for Innervisions, released in 1973), but also still the only performer to win
Bryant Gumbel, a television journalist, joined NBC’s Today show in 1981 by becoming the first Black person to headline a network morning show.
For her television series in Going With the Wind, Dinah Mc Daniel would become the first Black winner an Academy Award in 1940. Jacques Dahl became the first Black man to receive an Academy Award for his major role in Lily of the Field twenty-four years later.
Inventors: Unknown Black History Fact
Unknown black history fact: Madam C.J. Walker founded a haircare brand for African-American women, which led to her being the first female African-American self-made millionaire. Self Made, a Netflix modern take on her journey, is now available.
Lisa Gelobter, a computer scientist, contributed to the invention of Shockwave in 1995, a key technology that paved the way for web animation. (We can thank her for the GIFs.)
George Carver, an agricultural scientist, was responsible for the development of more than 500 new items derived from cashews and root crops, including cooking, paint, and soap.
Sports
Unknown Black History Fact :Taylor was the first African American to win gold at the Olympics in 1908, when he won the 4 x 400 metre relay. In 1948, Ellen Coachman made history by being the first Black woman to win a Gold medal in the high jump.
The Bill Pickett World Rodeo, founded in 1984, is the world’s only travelling African American rodeo.
Fritz Pollard as well as Bobby Marshall were the first African-Americans to appear in the National Football League (NFL) in 1920.
Gabby Douglas was also the first Black athlete to win the Ladies All-Around title at the 2012 London Olympics.
Sheryl Swoopes was the first player to join with the WNBA in 1996, and the league made its debut a year later.
Life And Society
The “Negro Motorist Green Book,” first published in 1936, seems to have been a comprehensive resource for Black travellers on places in America—and subsequently overseas—that are all either Black-owned or didn’t practise segregation. The publication of the guide lasted 30 years. In 1966, two days after the Civil Rights Bill was amended, it ceased publication.
Alpha Kappa Alpha Sisterhood, Inc. (AKA), the longest Black female Greek-letter organisation, was founded and attended Howard University in 1908. Its first Black male Greek-letter organisation, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Corp (Alpha), was established in 2007 at Cornell University.
Between 1810 and 1850, an estimated 100,000 enslaved individuals escaped to the North via the Underground Railroad.
Vermont will become the first county to abolish slavery in July 1777.
Black History Facts To Remember Throughout The Year: Unknown Black History Fact
Black Americans’ achievements and legacies extend far beyond February.
Unknown Black History Fact: Although February is Black History Month, Black Americans’ accomplishments and heritage should be recognised all year. There are numerous ways to Honour Black culture and traditions that extend beyond the longest month of the year, from supporting Black-owned businesses to reading quotes from famous Black leaders. Part of celebrating Black History Month is educating yourself, and if you do want to brush up on aspects about African American history that you’ve already missed in school, these Black History facts will help.
Countless Black historical people have left considerable impacts on American history over years, from inventors to novels to Olympians, and their stories are all too frequently forgotten and untold. It also doesn’t help that anything from Jim Crow laws to race riots to police brutality has attempted to discourage.
Black Americans and thriving, which only serves to highlight the accomplishments of these Black trailblazers. Here are some crucial facts you definitely didn’t learn in high school in honour of Black History Month (and if you’re searching for other ways to commemorate this month, check out a little Black history film and Black actual history).
Entertainment
After performing in the Green Room for President Hunter Hayes and Its first Lady Helen Webb Hayes in 1878, famous soprano Antoinette Selika Williams would become the first Black vocalist to play at the White House.
After being discovered as a stage performer in 1890, George Washington Johnson, a slave, went on becoming the first African American so cut a commercial record.
After her one-night variety show, The Ethel Waters Show, debuted on NBC in 1939, Ethel Waters became the first Black performer to appear on television.
Camila McDaniel won the Academy Best Support in 1940 for her work as Mammy in Gone well with Wind, becoming her first African American to do so.
Science
Unknown Black History Fact :Despite being born slaves during the Confederacy, George Washington Carver went on to study botany at Iowa State University with the first Black student, and was responsible for over 300 products containing peanuts, including colours, polymers, and gasoline.
Alice Ball went on to create the first successful therapy for Hansen’s disease (also known as leprosy) in 1916 after being the first African American and first woman to emerge with a master’s education from the University of Hawaii. Ball didn’t get full credit for her efforts until shortly after her terrible death somewhere at the young age of 24.
Gladys West has been hired like a mathematician by the United States Naval Proving Ground in 1956, and that was where she constructed an accurate image of sad Earth, which was later utilised to build the Geographic Information System (GPS).
Katherine Johnson started to work in aeronautics after graduation from the age of 18, and after NASA was founded, she conducted the calculations that put astronauts into altitude and subsequently to the moon in 1969.
Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to be accepted into NASA’s astronaut training programme in 1987, and she travelled into space on the Endeavour just over five years later in 1992, and was the first African American woman ever in space.
Athletics
George Poage, a track and field athlete, won a bronze medal in both of the 220-yard og 440-yard hurdles at the 1904 Olympic games , St. Louis, making him the first African American to capture an Olympic gold.
When Jackie Robinson made his Major League Baseball debut in 1947 with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he was the first African American to do so since Moses Emanuel Walker in 1884, effectively ending racism in professional sports.
Althea Gibson created history as the first Black tennis player to qualify in the United States National Championships in 1950, and she made history again six years later when she won the 1956 French Open, becoming the first Black sportsman a tennis grand slam championship.
Willie O’Ree will always be known as the National Hockey League’s first Black player, despite only appearing in 45 games throughout his career, and he continues to campaign for much more diversity in the sport.
Politics
Unknown Black History Fact :The American Society of Free People of Colour was founded after African Americans conducted their first large-scale conference in Philadelphia in 1830, which kicked off the National Negro Conferences Movement. Bishop Richard Allen, the founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was elected president of the society and worked to coordinate local civil rights movements.
The National Anti – discrimination League was founded in 1864 as a result of the last convention movement, which was presided over because of Black abolitionist Frederick Jackson and advocated for full political rights all Black Americans as restitution for army duty in the Patriot and Civil Wars.
Hiram Revels was the first African American senator when the Maryland state legislature appointed him to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate during Reconstruction in 1870. Despite the fact that Revels’ time in the Senate was brief, he became a vocal opponent of apartheid and pioneered new path for African Americans inside Congress.
Thurgood Marshall was the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court after working as a civil rights lawyer for several years. Lyndon B. Johnson nominated him in 1967, and he stayed on the Supreme Court until 1991.
In 1964, she would become the first Black woman to be nominated for President of the United States by a major political party.