This Week In Black History December 27, 2023 – Jan 2, 2024

Denzel Washington attends special screening of “FENCES” in Pittsburgh. (Photo by Duane Prokop/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

• DECEMBER 27

1873—William A. Harper, one of the most gifted Black artists of the 20th century, is born in Cayuga, Canada. He was a student at the Henry O. Tan­ner Art Institute in Chicago. Unfortu­nately, his brilliance was cut short by tuberculosis. He died in Mexico at the age of 36 in 1910.

1956—Segregation is outlawed on public buses in Tallahassee, Fla. The decision followed a six-month long boycott by the city’s African-Ameri­can population. The boycott was pat­terned after the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott sparked by Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to a White man.

• DECEMBER 28

1816—The American Colonization Society is organized by Robert Fin­ley with the aim of returning Blacks to Africa. Ironically, it received support from two groups with opposing inter­ests. Some abolitionists and philan­thropists who wanted to end slavery supported the ACS with the hope of giving slaves a chance to start new, free lives in Africa. Meanwhile, some slave owners supported the ACS be­cause they saw it as a way of ridding the country of free Blacks who they saw as stirring up trouble among Blacks who were still enslaved. It is estimated that at this time, there were 2 million enslaved Blacks and 200,000 free Blacks in America. In 10 years, the ACS returned nearly 3,000 Blacks to Africa. They helped to form what are today the West African na­tions of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Indeed, the first president of Liberia was an American Black who had re­turned to Africa.

1905—Legendary Jazz great and pi­anist Earl “Fatha” Hines is born on this day in Duquesne, Pa., near Pitts­burgh. He was in a class by himself and a major influence not only in Jazz but also upon the Swing and Bebop eras of American popular music. He collaborated with such greats as Lou­is Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughn and Dizzy Gillespie. He died in 1983. Among his best known hits were “Stormy Monday Blues” and “Second Balcony Jump.”

1954—Movie star Denzel Washing­ton is born on this day in Mt. Vernon, N.Y.

• DECEMBER 29

1939—One of the most outstand­ing educators of the 20th century, Kelly Miller, dies in Washington, D.C. He was a champion of education for Blacks and was among that group of more radical Blacks who opposed the accommodating policies of Booker T. Washington. In 1887, Miller became the first African American admitted to Johns Hopkins University. He be­came a long-time professor and dean at Howard University, while also be­ing a prolific writer, essayist and newspaper columnist.

• DECEMBER 30

1928—R&B music legend Bo Did­dley is born Ellas Bates on this day in McComb, Miss. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and re­ceived Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Rhythm and Blues Founda­tion and a Grammy Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He was known in par­ticular for his technical innovations, including his trademark rectangular guitar.

1929—Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is officially incorporated. The inter­national Black sorority was actually organized Nov. 22, 1922, by seven teachers in Indianapolis, Ind. It is cur­rently headquartered in Cary, N.C., with the theme: “Sisterhood, Scholar­ship and Service.”

1929—A Black boycott of unfair store hiring practices begins during the Great Depression. The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign began in Chicago with the picketing of a chain of stores. It soon spread to New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland and several other major cities.

• DECEMBER 31

1862—This day has become known as “Watch Night”—the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation going into effect and nominally freeing slaves in the Confederacy. Thousands of free Blacks gathered in various locations throughout the nation to “watch” for midnight when the Emancipation of slaves became the law of the land. A focal point for celebration was the home of abolitionist Frederick Doug­las in Rochester, N.Y.

• JANUARY 1

1804—Jean Jacques Dessalines proclaims the independence of Haiti from France. The island nation, af­ter the United States, becomes the second independent republic in the Western Hemisphere. The chief slo­gan of his independence speech was “Live free or die.” The Haitian war of independence had actually begun in August of 1791. The leader and greatest hero of that war was a for­mer slave who worked as a carriage driver—Toussaint L’Ouverture. As a general, L’Ouverture was comparable to, and in some respects superior to, America’s George Washington and France’s Napoleon Bonaparte. How­ever, under the ruse of discussing peace, L’Ouverture was tricked into traveling to France where he died in prison in April of 1803. The Hai­tians nevertheless prevailed over the French under the leadership of Des­salines and he was able to declare in­dependence on this day in 1804.

1854—Lincoln University becomes one of the first institutions of higher learning for Blacks in America when it is incorporated as Ashmun Institute in Oxford, Pa., on this day in 1854.

1863—The Emancipation Proc­lamation becomes law. Like many of the pro-Black measures taken by President Abraham Lincoln, the Emancipation, while welcomed by Blacks, reflected many contradic­tions. First of all, it only freed slaves in the South—an area of the country over which Lincoln at the time had no effective control. Further, it did not free slaves in the Border States. And even in the South, it exempted from nominal freedom slaves in 13 parish­es in Louisiana, including New Orle­ans; 48 counties in West Virginia; and seven counties in Virginia, including Norfolk.

1997—Kofi Annan of Ghana be­comes the first Black Secretary Gen­eral of the United Nations.

1997—The notorious Robbens Is­land off the coast of South Africa, the prison that held legendary Black free­dom fighter Nelson Mandela for 27 years, was converted into a museum.

• JANUARY 2

1831—William Lloyd Garrison (1805- 1879), one of the great White heroes of Black history, begins publishing the anti-slavery newspaper, The Lib­erator, in Boston. Garrison was a fiery and strong-willed abolitionist who believed in the “immediate and complete” end of slavery. Thus, he ran afoul of not only the pro-slavery crowd but also those anti-slavery ac­tivists who favored a gradualist ap­proach to the problem. He was so militant that he was imprisoned for libel because of his criticism of a mer­chant involved in the slave trade and at one point the state of Georgia of­fered a $5,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. According to Garri­son, when it came to fighting slavery he was opposed to “timidity, injustice and absurdity.” His oft-repeated slo­gan as editor of The Liberator was, “I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard.”

1837—The first National Negro Catholic Congress is held in Wash­ington, D.C.

1898—Brilliant scholar Sadie Tan­ner Mossell Alexander is born. She was the first Black woman to receive a doctorate in economics in America. She accomplished that feat in 1921 at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 23. Later she earned a law degree and in 1927 became the first Black woman admitted to the Penn­sylvania bar. She came from a distin­guished family of educated and ac­complished Blacks. She died in 1989.

1915—One of America’s most prom­inent historians, John Hope Franklin, is born. Perhaps his best known work on Black history is “From Slavery to Freedom.”

MEDIA MOGUL OPRAH WINFREY stands beside a newly commissioned portrait of herself that unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery on Dec. 13, along with Chicago-based artist Shawn Michael Warren, who painted the portrait. (Credit: Ja’Mon Jackson/The Washington Informer)

1954—Oprah Winfrey, talk show queen and Black America’s first rec­ognized billionaire, is born in Kos­ciusko, Miss. (There is some debate. Winfrey may have been the second Black billionaire after Black Entertain­ment Television founder Bob John­son.) Winfrey retired from the “Oprah Winfrey Show” in 2011 and started her own network named OWN.