BlackFacts.com: Learn/Teach/Create Black History

BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 16.

Kenneth A. Gibson became the first African American mayor of Newark.

He entered politics in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement, by joining the National Urban League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

Gibson ran for mayor in 1966. He joined the mayoral race only six weeks before the election. Mayor Hugh J. Addonizio was reelected, but Gibson got more votes than expected. Gibson would spend the next four years preparing for the 1970 mayoral campaign.

In July of 1967, African Americans in Newark rebelled when a black taxi driver was arrested and beaten by white police officers. Over five days, 26 people died, but the violence sent a message that Newark’s African Americans were no longer willing to be treated as second-class citizens.

In 1970, Gibson ran for office again and won. He became the first African American mayor of a Northeastern city. 

He inspired other African Americans to enter politics. Following his term in office, other Northeastern cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York have elected black mayors.

Since leaving city government, Gibson has headed Gibson Associates, a consulting firm that advises building developers and investment bankers on public financing and other construction management issues. 

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 14.

William H. Gray was elected Democratic Whip of the House of Representatives.

He graduated from Simon Gratz High School in 1959 and enrolled in Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, majoring in sociology.

In 1972, Gray succeeded his father as the senior minister at Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia, succeeding not only his father but also his grandfather, who had founded the 4,000-member church. 

He was elected as a Democrat to represent Philadelphia in the United States House of Representatives in 1978. 

Throughout his tenure, he was dedicated to promoting civil rights and economic advancement in Philadelphia, the United States, and the world. 

With his ascent to Majority Whip, the third-ranking leadership position in the House, Gray became the highest-ranking African American in congressional history.

Outside politics he was also a businessman who has been a director at Dell, J.P. Morgan, Chase & Co., Prudential Financial Inc., Rockwell International Corporation, Visteon Corporation and Pfizer.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 15.

Henry Ossian Flipper became the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point.

He was born into slavery in Thomasville, Georgia, the eldest of five brothers. His mother, Isabelle Flipper, and his father, Festus Flipper, a shoemaker, and carriage-trimmer were owned by Ephraim G. Ponder, a wealthy slave dealer.

Flipper attended Atlanta University during Reconstruction. There, as a freshman, Representative James C. Freeman appointed him to attend West Point, where four other black cadets were already attending. The small group had a difficult time at the academy, where they were rejected by white students.

Nevertheless, Flipper persevered, and in 1877, became the first of the group to graduate, earning a commission as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army cavalry.

He was assigned to the 10th Cavalry Regiment, one of the four all-black "buffalo soldier" regiments in the Army, and became the first black officer to command regular troops in the U.S. Army.

In 1881, while serving at Fort Davis, Flipper's commanding officer accused him of embezzling $3,791.77 from commissary funds.. A court-martial found him not guilty of embezzlement but convicted him of conduct unbecoming an officer and ordered him dismissed from the Army.

In 1976, the Army granted him an honorable discharge, and in 1999, President Bill Clinton issued him a full pardon.

After his discharge was changed, a bust of Flipper was unveiled at West Point. Since then, an annual Henry O. Flipper Award has been granted to graduating cadets at the academy who exhibit "leadership, self-discipline, and perseverance in the face of unusual difficulties.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 13.

Thurgood Marshall named the first African-American Court's justice.

After being rejected by the University of Maryland Law School because he was not white, Marshall attended Howard University Law School; he received his degree in 1933, ranking first in his class.

He established a private legal practice in Baltimore before founding the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he served as executive director.

As an attorney, he successfully argued before the Court the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), which declared unconstitutional racial segregation in American public schools.

In September 1961 Marshall was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit by President John F. Kennedy, but opposition from Southern senators delayed his confirmation for several months.

Marshall’s nomination was confirmed (69–11) by the U.S. Senate on August 30, 1967.

He served on the Court for the next 24 years, compiling a liberal record that included strong support for Constitutional protection of individual rights. 

Thurgood Marshall's Bible was used by Vice President Kamala Harris at her inauguration in Washington on January 20, 2021, when she was sworn into office.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 12.

Michael Jordan leads Chicago to 1st NBA Title.

The Chicago Bulls defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 108-101 at the Great Western Forum to capture the NBA Finals in five games. It was the Bulls’ first-ever NBA title in their 25th anniversary season in the league.

Jordan scored 30 points and teammate Scottie Pippen hit for 32. 

This was no easy task for the Bulls going up against the Lakers Big Three in Magic Johnson, Vlade Divac and James Worthy.

This was just the beginning for Jordan and the Bulls dynasty. The Bulls would eventually win again in 1992 and 1993, marking the first such “three-peat” since the Celtics won eight straight from 1959-66.

After Jordan retired in 1993 to join the White Sox, he came back in 1995. And beginning in the 1995-96 season another three-peat was cemented into the history books, with Jordan leading the Bulls to three consecutive championships from 1996-98.

His biography on the official NBA website states: "By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time."

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 11.

Kennedy's Report to the American People on Civil Rights.

It was a speech on civil rights, delivered on radio and television by President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office in which he proposed legislation that would later become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Kennedy was initially cautious in his support of civil rights and desegregation in the United States. As his term continued, African Americans became increasingly impatient with their lack of social progress and racial tensions escalated.

His administration had sent National Guard troops to accompany the first black students admitted to the University of Mississippi and the University of Alabama. 

In the speech, Kennedy announced that he would be sending civil rights legislation to Congress; that legislation was passed after his death and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Kennedy called Americans to recognize civil rights as a moral cause to which all people need to contribute and was "as clear as the American Constitution."

Martin Luther King, Jr., called the speech “one of the most eloquent, profound, and unequivocal pleas for Justice and Freedom of all men ever made by any President.”

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 10.

Howlin' Wolf was born.

Born as Chester Arthur Burnett, he was an American blues singer and composer who was one of the principal exponents of the urban blues style of Chicago.

He was brought up on a cotton plantation, and the music he heard was the traditional tunes of the region. He started singing professionally when quite young and in the 1920s and ’30s performed throughout Mississippi, playing in small clubs.

He accompanied himself on guitar and harmonica, but his main instrument was his guttural and emotionally suggestive voice, which gave his songs power and authenticity. 

After his first record, “Moanin’ at Midnight” (1951), became a hit, he moved to Chicago, where he, along with Muddy Waters, made the city a center for the transformation of the (acoustic) Mississippi Delta blues style into an electrically amplified style for urban audiences. 

Wolf traveled to Europe as part of the Chess blues revival series. His intense, energetic performances of brought him a new generation of blues-influenced rock ‘n’ roll fans.

His work was known only to blues audiences until the Rolling Stones and other British and American rock stars of the 1960s and ’70s acknowledged his influence.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 9.

Oliver W. Hill became the 1st Black person elected to the city council in Richmond, Virginia.

He was a prominent civil rights attorney. His work against racial discrimination helped end the doctrine of "separate but equal."

Hill first practiced law in Roanoke, Virginia, before settling in Richmond in 1939.  

He joined the legal team of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Hill’s first civil rights victory was in 1940 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African American teachers had to be paid the same as white teachers.

He served as an officer or on the board of many national, state, and local organizations, including the NAACP and the National Bar Association.

In 1947, he first ran for the City Council of Richmond but came in 10th in a race for 9 seats.  

Hill ran again in 1949 and became the first African American on the City Council of Richmond since Reconstruction.

He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 8.

James Earl Ray, the suspect in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, was captured.

On April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr, was fatally wounded by a sniper’s bullet while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room at the Motel Lorraine.  

During the next several weeks, the rifle, eyewitness reports, and fingerprints on the weapon all implicated a single suspect: escaped convict James Earl Ray.

In May 1968, a massive manhunt for Ray began. The FBI eventually determined that he had obtained a Canadian passport under a false identity, which at the time was relatively easy.

On June 8, Scotland Yard investigators arrested Ray at a London airport. He was trying to fly to Belgium, with the eventual goal, he later admitted, of reaching Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).  

Extradited to the United States, Ray stood before a Memphis judge in March 1969 and pleaded guilty to King’s murder in order to avoid the electric chair. He was sentenced to 99 years in prison.

During the 1990s, the widow and children of Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke publicly in support of Ray and his claims, calling him innocent and speculating about an assassination conspiracy involving the U.S. government and military.

According to his family and friends, he was an outspoken racist who told them of his intent to kill King. Ray died in 1998.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for June 7.

Nikki Giovanni was born.

She is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator.

Giovanni grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Knoxville, Tennessee, and in 1960 she entered Nashville’s Fisk University. By 1967, when she received a B.A., she was firmly committed to the civil rights movement and the concept of black power.  

Her experiences as a single mother then began to influence her poetry. Loneliness, thwarted hopes, and the theme of family affection became increasingly important in her writings during the 1970s.  

She returned to political concerns in "Those Who Ride the Night Winds" (1983), with dedications to black American heroes and heroines.

For children, she wrote "Jimmy Grasshopper Versus the Ants" (2007) and "Rosa" (2005), a picture book about legendary civil rights figure Rosa Parks.

She taught at various universities, including Virginia Tech. In 2007 the school was the site of a mass shooting. The gunman was a former student of Giovanni’s, and she had earlier alerted school authorities about his troubling behaviour.

At a memorial service she gave a powerful reading of a poem she had written following the tragedy.

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