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| May 1 1867: First four students enter Howard University. 1998: Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther, author, dies. |
May 2 1844: Inventor Elijah McCoy, "the real McCoy," born. 1920: First Negro National League baseball game. |
May 3 1964: Frederick O'Neal becomes first black president of Actors' Equity Association. |
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| May 4 1961: Freedom Riders begin protesting segregation of interstate bus travel in the South. |
May 5 1950: Gwendolyn Brooks wins Pulitzer Prize in poetry for "Annie Allen." 1988: Eugene Antonio Marino installed as first U.S. African American Roman Catholic archbishop. |
May 6 1812: Physician, author, explorer Martin R. Delaney, first African American officer in Civil War, born. 1991: Smithsonian Institution approves creation of the National African American Museum. |
May 7 1845: Mary Eliza Mahoney, America's first black trained nurse, born. 1878: Joseph R. Winters patents first fire escape ladder. |
May 8
1925: A. Phillip Randolph founds Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. 1983: Lena Horne awarded Spingarn Medal for distinguished career in entertainment. |
May 9 1899: John Albert Burr patents lawn mower. | May 10 1950: Boston Celtics select Chuck Cooper, first black player drafted to play in NBA. |
| May 11 MOTHER'S DAY 1895: Composer William Grant Still, first African American to conduct a major American symphony orchestra, born. |
May 12 1820: The New York African Free School population reaches 500. |
May 13 1872: Matilda Arabella Evans, first African American woman to practice medicine in South Carolina, born. |
May 14 1888: Slavery abolished in Brazil. |
May 15 1820: Congress declares foreign slave trade an act of piracy, punishable by death. |
May 16 1927: Dr. William Harry Barnes becomes first black certified by a surgical board. 1990: Sammy Davis Jr., entertainer, dies. |
May 17 ARMED FORCES DAY 1954: Supreme Court declares segregation in public schools unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education. |
| May 18 1896: In Plessy v. Ferguson, Supreme Court upholds doctrine of "separate but equal" education and public accommodations. |
May 19 1925: Malcolm X born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska. |
May 20 1961: U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy dispatches U.S. marshals to Montgomery, Alabama, to restore order in the Freedom Rider crisis. |
May 21 1833: African Americans enroll for the first time at Oberlin College, Ohio. |
May 22 1921: Shuffle Along, a musical featuring a score by Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, opens on Broadway. |
May 23 1900: Sgt. William H. Carney becomes first African American awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. |
May 24 1854: Lincoln University (Pa.), first black college, founded. 1954: Dr. Peter Murray Marshall installed as president of New York County Medical Society, becoming the first black to head an American Medical Association unit. |
| May 25 1926: Jazz trumpeter Miles Dewey Davis born. |
May 26 MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVED 1961: During Kennedy administration, Marvin Cook was named ambassador to Niger Republic, the first black envoy named to an African nation. |
May 27 1919: Sarah "Madam C.J." Walker, cosmetics manufacturer and first black female millionaire, dies. 1942: Dorie Miller, a ship's steward, awarded Navy Cross for heroism during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. |
May 28 1948: National Party wins whites-only elections in South Africa and begins to institute policy of apartheid. |
May 29 1901: Granville T. Woods patents overhead conducting system for the electric railway. 1973: Thomas Bradley elected mayor of Los Angeles. |
May 30 1965: Vivian Malone becomes first African American to graduate from the University of Alabama. |
May 31 1870: Congress passes the first Enforcement Act, providing stiff penalties for those who deprive others of civil rights. |