A Month Long Celebration
February is African-American History Month. Many significant events in African-American history occurred in the month of February. Each week of this month we are sharing historical information for each date. The source for this information is here.
On February 16:
Feb. 16, 1857 – Frederick Douglass elected President of Freeman Bank and Trust.
Feb. 16, 1923 – Bessie Smith makes her first recording, “Down Hearted Blues,” which sells 800,000 copies for Columbia Records.
Feb. 16, 1951 – New York City Council passes a bill prohibiting racial discrimination in city-assisted housing developments.
On February 17:
Feb. 17, 1870 – Congress passed resolution readmitting Mississippi on condition that it would never change its constitution to disenfranchise blacks.
Feb. 17, 1963 – Michael Jeffrey Jordan, famed basketball player and former minor league baseball player, born in New York, N.Y.
Feb. 17, 1997 – Virginia House of Delegates votes unanimously to retire the state song, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginia,” a tune that glorifies slavery.
On February 18:
Feb. 18, 1688 – First formal protest against slavery by organized white body in English America made by Germantown Quakers at monthly meeting.
Feb. 18, 1865 – Rebels abandoned Charleston. First Union troops to enter the city included twenty-first U.S.C.T., followed by two companies of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers.
Feb. 18, 1931 – Toni Morrison (born Chloe Anthony Wofford), who will win the Pulitzer Prize for her novel Beloved, was born on this day in Lorain, Ohio.
On February 19:
Feb. 19, 1919 – Pan-African Congress, organized by W.E.B. DuBois, met at the Grand Hotel, Paris. There were 57 delegates–16 from the United States and 14 from Africa as well as others from 16 countries and colonies.
On February 20:
Feb. 20, 1895 – Death of Frederick Douglass. Douglass was the leading black spokesman for almost 50 years. He was a major abolitionist, lecturer, and editor.
On February 21:
Feb. 21, 1895 – North Carolina Legislature, dominated by black Republicans and white Populists, adjourned for the day to mark the death of Frederick Douglass.
On February 22:
Feb 22, 1979 – Frank E. Peterson Jr. named the first black general in the Marine Corps.