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Special Features: This Week in Black History
Friday, May 13, 2005; Page 10
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10
The Washington Informer is launching “This Week in Black History” to serve as a daily remembrance of how far we have come as well as how far we have to go. In the spirit of understanding and progress, we remember.
May 12
Sam "Toothpick" Jones becomes the first African American to pitch a no-hitter in Major League Baseball, 1955. As a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, he no-hit the Pittsburgh Pirates 4–0, striking out the last three batters in the 9th after walking the bases loaded. This was the first no-hitter in Wrigley Field since a double no-hitter in 1917.
May 13
Stevie Wonder, singer and composer, born, 1950. Born Steveland Morris, he began playing the harmonica at the age of five. His first album, 'Little Stevie Wonder the 12 Year Old Genius’, garnered him his first #1 single, “Fingertips”. His 1976 double album, ‘Songs in the Key of Life’ is often hailed as his greatest work. Wonder has enjoyed a very long and successful career, and continues to make great music today.
May 14
Slavery abolished in Brazil, 1888.
May 15
U.S. Congress declares foreign slave trade an act of piracy punishable by death, 1820.
May 16
Asa Philip Randolph, activist and labor leader, dies, 1979. A prominent leader of the Black Labor Movement in the early 1900s, founder of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and influential in two executive orders by the President to end discrimination of federal employment opportunities and segregation of the military. He also acted as vice president of the American Federation of Labor- Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) after their merger in 1955. Randolph and Bayard Rustin organized the historical March on Washington in 1963.
May 17
Brown vs. Board of Education, declaring public school segregation illegal, handed down by the Supreme Court, 1954. The separate but equal clause of Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896) supported a racial separation of education, which was anything but equal, yet it was the norm across the United States in the 1950s. It was believed by many Black organizations, such as the NAACP that segregation of Black and white schools gave Black children an inferiority complex, thus negatively affecting motivation to succeed. The 1954 decision ordered the desegregation of schools, but not other public facilities.
May 18
Mary McLeod Bethune, educator, dies, 1955. A native of South Carolina and one of 17 children of Samuel and Patsy McCleod, Bethune founded and led many organizations in her lifetime such as the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls (later Bethune-Cookman College) in 1904, the Black women's club movement, and the National Association of Colored Women. She also served as a delegate and advisor to national conferences on education, child welfare, and home ownership, consultant to the U.S. Secretary of War for selection of the first female officer candidates, and vice-president of the NAACP.
Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10
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