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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 27.

Ernest Green Graduates from Little Rock.

He was the first African-American to graduate from Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1958.

As a child, Green participated in church activities and was a member of the Boy Scouts of America, eventually earning the rank of Eagle Scout.

He attended segregated Dunbar Junior High School and graduated after ninth grade, at which time he was assigned to Horace Mann High School, a new high school for African-Americans.

At the end of his junior year at Horace Mann, Green volunteered to attend the all-white Little Rock Central High School in the fall of 1957 and help desegregate one of the nation's largest schools.

Green became the only senior among the nine African Americans who decided to integrate Central High that fall.

In 1999, he and the other members of the Little Rock Nine were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President Bill Clinton.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 26.

Miles Davis was born.

He was an American jazz musician, a trumpeter who as a bandleader and composer was one of the major influences on art from the late 1940s.

Davis grew up in East St. Louis, Illinois, where his father was a prosperous dental surgeon, and began studying trumpet in his early teens.

He played with jazz bands in the St. Louis area before moving to New York City in 1944 to study at the Institute of Musical Art, although he skipped many classes and instead was schooled through jam sessions with masters such as Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. 

Davis's stint from 1947 to 1948 in a quintet led by bebop genius Charlie Parker brought him early fame. A fine bebop trumpeter, Davis soon felt a need to rid his music of bebop's style and to restore jazz's more melodic elements.

In 1955 Davis formed his most celebrated group, a remarkably talented quintet that featured tenor saxophonist John Coltrane (1926–1967), pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones.

In his much-praised and revealing autobiography, "Miles", he wrote frankly of his hedonistic past and of the racism he saw in the music industry. 

Along with Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker, Davis is regarded as one of the four most important and influential musicians in jazz history, as well as the music’s most eclectic practitioner.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 25.

30 million people worldwide joined "Race against time" to raise money for starving in Africa.

The event was organized by chairman and founder Chris Long, Bob Geldof (Band Aid and Live Aid) and John Anderson (Head of Global Special Events, UNICEF).

A central event was the lighting of a symbolic torch at the United Nations by Omar Khalifa, a champion Sudanese 1500m runner, to signal the start of the 10K races around the world.

Khalifa then ran through 12 European capitals, and was greeted by leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and Pope John Paul II.

274 cities held official events, allowing over 19.8 million participants to follow designated courses, with television coverage worldwide.

The New York Times reported, "With 200,000 Londoners setting the pace, more than 20 million runners in 76 countries ran today in Sport Aid, a global benefit to raise money for the starving in Africa."

$100 million was raised for famine relief in Africa. 

$45 million was brought in from the global broadcast of a two-hour television special that reached 750 million people.

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Patti LaBelle was born.

She is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman.

LaBelle began her career in the early 1960s as lead singer and front woman of the vocal group, Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. Following the group's name change to Labelle in the 1970s, they released the iconic disco song "Lady Marmalade".

The band later became the first African-American vocal group to land the cover of Rolling Stone magazine and they became the first pop group to play at the Metropolitan Opera House. LaBelle is referred to as the "Godmother of Soul".

In a career that has spanned over seven different decades, she has sold more than 50 million records worldwide. LaBelle has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the Apollo Theater Hall of Fame.

Her success has extended as an actress with a notable role in the Oscar nominated film, A Soldier's Story, and in TV shows such as A Different World and American Horror Story: Freak Show.

He sang her iconic version of "Over The Rainbow" for President Barack Obama live at the White House in March 2014.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 23.

Shuffle Along, the 1st black hit musical, opened at the 63rd St. Music Hall in New York City.

The show was developed by black comedians Flournoy Miller and Aubrey Lyles and featured music by Eubie Blake and lyrics by Noble Sissle.

Based loosely on Miller and Lyles’ vaudeville act “The Mayor of Dixie,” the show told the story of a heated mayoral election in Jimtown, Dixieland.

Lively dancing and memorable songs—including “I’m Just Wild About Harry” and “Love Will Find a Way”—contributed to the musical’s great popularity with audiences. 

The show ran a total of 504 performances and helped widen opportunities on Broadway for black musicians and performers.

During its long run, the show introduced three entertainers whose later careers would be notable: Paul Robeson, Florence Mills, and Josephine Baker.

It was the first Broadway musical to feature a sophisticated African-American love story, rather than a frivolous comic one.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 22.

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. became the first black Brigadier general in the United States Air Force.

Davis studied at the University of Chicago before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1932.

Upon his graduation, he was swiftly promoted to lieutenant colonel, and he organized the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the first entirely African American air unit, which flew tactical support missions in the Mediterranean theatre.

In 1959 Davis became the first African American officer to reach the rank of major general in the air force and was promoted to lieutenant general in 1965.

On December 9, 1998, Davis was awarded his fourth general’s star (making him a general of the highest order within the U.S. military). He was the first African American to be so honored in retirement. His 1991 autobiography, "Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., American", recounts his career.

Davis followed in his father's footsteps in breaking racial barriers, as Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was the first black brigadier general in the United States Army.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 21.

Lowell Perry was confirmed as chairman of the Equal Opportunity Commission.

He was an American football player and coach, government official, businessman, and broadcaster. 

Perry was the first African-American assistant coach in the National Football League (NFL), the first African American to broadcast an NFL game to a national audience, and Chrysler's first African-American plant manager.

Perry attended the University of Michigan where he studied history. He played at the end position for the Michigan Wolverines football team from 1950 to 1952.

In 1963, Perry began a 17-year career with Chrysler. He started as a personnel specialist.

In April 1966, Perry was hired as a color analyst for CBS Television to broadcast Steelers games alongside play-by-play man Joe Tucker. He was             the first African-American to broadcast an NFL game to a national audience.

He returned to Chrysler where he became a personnel manager in 1970. In 1973, he was appointed the plant manager of Chrysler's Eldon Avenue Axle Plant in Detroit. He was the first African American to hold the plant manager position at a U.S. automobile company.

In 1975, Perry was appointed by President Gerald Ford to be commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 20.

Emancipation in the State of Florida was proclaimed.

On May 20, 1865, Union Brigadier Gen. Edward McCook formally announced President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation from the steps of the Knott House in Tallahassee.

President Abraham Lincoln signed this proclamation on January 1, 1863, but it was not enforced in the South. 

On June 19th, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas, and informed the slaves that the Civil War had ended and slavery had been abolished. 

The NAACP's Tallahassee branch has called on the Florida Legislature to officially recognize May 20 as Emancipation Day.

Emancipation Day has been celebrated in Florida annually on May 20th since 1865. It is a paid holiday for Tallahassee and Leon County employees.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 19.

Malcolm X was born.

He was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement, and best known for his time spent as a vocal spokesman for the Nation of Islam.

Malcolm's father, Earl Little, was a leader in an African-American group. This caused the family to be harassed by white supremacists. When Malcolm was six, his father was found dead on the tracks of the local streetcar. While the police said the death was an accident,  many thought his dad was murdered.

As a young black man in the 1940s, Malcolm felt he had no real opportunities. He worked odd jobs, but felt he would never succeed despite how hard he worked. In order to make ends meet, he eventually turned to crime. In 1945, he was caught with stolen goods and was sent to prison.

After getting out of prison, he became a minister for the Nation of Islam. He worked at several temples around the country and became the leader of Temple Number 7 in Harlem.

After his epiphany at Mecca, Malcolm X returned to the United States less angry and more optimistic about the prospects for a peaceful resolution to America's race problems. 

Just as Malcolm X appeared to be embarking on an ideological transformation with the potential to dramatically alter the course of the civil rights movement, he was assassinated.

In 2021, Family members of Malcolm X have revealed a letter written by a New York police officer that they say shows the NYPD and the FBI were behind the 1965 assassination of the famed Black leader.

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BlackFacts.com presents the black fact of the day for May 18.

Anna Julia Cooper delivered an address at the World’s Congress of Representative Women.

She was an American educator and writer whose book "A Voice From the South by a Black Woman of the South" (1892) became a classic African American feminist text.

Born into slavery in 1858, Cooper went on to receive a world-class education and claim power and prestige in academic and social circles. She was also a prominent member of Washington, D.C.'s African-American community and a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

The World's Congress of Representative Women was a week-long convention for the voicing of women's concerns. There, she was one of few African-American women to speak about the racism of which she did not hesitate to criticize.

"I speak for the colored women of the South because it is there that the millions of blacks in this country have watered the soil with blood and tears, and it is there too that the colored woman of America has made her characteristic history, and there her destiny evolving"

In 1925, at age 67, she received a doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris, having written her dissertation on slavery. 

Pages 26 and 27 of the 2016 U. S. passport contain the following quotation: "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class – it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.", by Anna Julia Cooper.

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