On this day in May...

 *mmddyyyy Birthdays

*-------- -----------------------------------------------------------

B05061812 Marin R. Delany, pioneer black nationalist, born free in Ch

B0506     arles Town, Virginia.

B05191925 Malcolm X born in Omaha, Nebraska.

*mmddyyyy Events

*-------- -----------------------------------------------------------

S05011863 Confederate congress passed resolution which branded black

S0501     troops and their officers criminals.  Resolution, in effect

S0501     , doomed captured black soldiers to death or slavery.

S05011866 Through the 3 White Democrats and police attacked freedmen

S0501     and their white allies in Memphis, Tennessee.  Forty-six bl

S0501     acks and two white liberals were killed.  More than seventy

S0501     were wounded.  Ninety homes, twelve schools and four church

S0501     es were burned.

S05011867 Reconstruction of the South began with the registering of bl

S0501     ack and white voters in the South.  Gen. Philip H. Sheridan

S0501     ordered registration to begin in Louisiana on May 1 and to

S0501     continue until June 30.  Registration began in Arkansas in

S0501     May. Other states

S0501     followed in June and July.  By the end of October, 1,363,000

S0501     citizens had registered in the South, including 700,000 blac

S0501     ks.Black voters constituted a majority in five states:  Ala

S0501     bama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

S05011941 Asa Philip Randolph issued a call for 100,000 blacks to mar

S0501     ch on Washington, D.C., to protest discrimination in the arm

S0501     ed forces and war industries.

S05011946 Mrs. Emma Clarissa Clement named "American Mother of the Year"

S0501     by the Golden Rule Foundation.

S05011948 Glenn H.Taylor, U.S. Senator from Idaho and Vice-presidential

S0501     candidate of Progressive party, arrested in Birmingham for t

S0501     rying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes."

S05011981 Death of Dr. Clarence A. Bacote (75), historian and political

S0501     scientist, in Atlanta.

S05031845 Macon B. Allen, first black lawyer admitted to the bar, pass

S0503     ed examination at Worcester, Massachusetts.

S05031948 Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that federal and st

S0503     ate courts could not enforce restrictive convenants which barr

S0503     ed persons from owning or occupying property because of their

S0503     race.

S05031967 Black students seized finance building at Northwestern Univ

S0503     ersity and demanded black-oriented curriculum and campus re

S0503     forms.

S05041864 Ulysses S. Grant crossed the Rapidan and began his duel with

S0504     Robert E. Lee. At the same time Ben Butler's Army of the Ja

S0504     mes moved on Lee's forces. Black division in Grant's army d

S0504     id not play a prominent role in Wilderness Campaign, but Ben

S0504     Butler gave his black infantrymen and his eighteen hundred bl

S0504     ack cavalrymen important assignments.

S0504     Black troops of the Army of the James were the first Union

S0504     Soldiers to take possession of James River (at Wilson's Whar

S0504     f Landing, Fort Powhatan and City Point).

S05041961 Thirteen Freedom riders began bus trip through South.

S05051905 First issue of Chicago Defender published.

S05051971 Riot, Brownsville section of New York City.

S05061960 President Eisenhower signed Civil Rights Act of 1960.

S05061787 African Lodge No. 459 organized in Boston with Prince Hall

S0506     as Master.

S05061967 Four hundred students seized administration building at Che

S0506     yney State College.

S05071867 Black demonstrators staged ridein to protest segregation on

S0507     New Orleans streetcars.  Similar demonstrations occurred in

S0507     Mobile, Ala., and other cities.

S05071885 Dr. John E. W. Thompson, graduate of the Yale University Med

S0507     ical School, named minister to Haiti.

S05071946 William H. Hastie inaugurated as the first black governor of

S0507     the Virgin Islands.

S05081858 John Brown held antislavery convention, which was attended

S0508     by twelve whites and thirty-four blacks, at Chatham, Canada.

S0508     The Escape, first play by an American Black, Published by

S0508     William Wells Brown.

S05081915 Death of Henry McNeal Turner (82), first black chaplain in

S0508     the U.S. Army and AME bishop.

S05081945 Germany surrendered on V-E Day.

S05081958 President Eisenhower ordered federalized National Guard re

S0508     moved from Central High School, Little Rock.

S05091974 House Judiciary Committee opened hearings to decide whether

S0509     to recommend the impeachment of President Nixon in the Water

S0509     gate controversy. Two blacks Rep. John Conyers of Michigan

S0509     and Rep.Barbara Jordan of Texas were members of the committ

S0509     ee.

S05091977 Mabel Murphy Smythe confirmed as ambassador to the republic

S0509     of Cameroon.

S05091952 Death of actor Canada Lee (45), New York City.

S05101652 John Johnson, a free black granted 550 acres in Northampton

S0510     County, Va., for importing eleven persons.

S05101775 Black patriots participated in the first aggressive action

S0510     of American forces, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Eth

S0510     an Allen and "the Green Mountain Boy."

S05101919 Race riot in Charleston, South Carolina.  Two blacks were

S0510     killed.

S05101951 Z. Alexander Looby elected to Nashville City Council.

S05101962 Southern School News  reported that 246,988 or 7.6 per cent

S0510     of the black pupils in public schools in seventeen Southern

S0510     and Border States and the District of Columbia attended inte

S0510     grated classes in 1962.

S05101963 Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth announced agreement on limited in

S0510     tegration plan which ended the Birmingham demonstrations.

S05111965 Blacks held mass meeting in Norfolk (Va.) and demanded equal

S0511     rights and ballots.  Other equal rights meetings and conven

S0511     tions were held in Petersburg, Va., June 6; Vicksburg, Miss.,

S0511     June 19; Alexandria, Va., August 3; Nashville, Tenn., August

S0511     7-11; Raleigh, N.C., September 29-October 3; Richmond, Septem

S0511     ber 18; Jackson, Miss., October 7.

S05111967 Nine Caravans of poor people arrived in Washington for first

S0511     phase of Poor People's Campaign.  Caravans started from diff

S0511     erent sections of country on May 2 and picked up demonstrat

S0511     ors along the way. In washington, demonstrators erected camp

S0511     called Resurrection City on sixteen-acre site near Lincoln M

S0511     onument.

S05111981 Death of Hoyt J. Fuller (57), literary critic and editor of

S0511     First World magazine and former editor of Black World, in At

S0511     lanta.

S05121898 Louisiana adopted new constitution with "grandfather clause"

S0512     designed to eliminate black voters.

S05121910 Second NAACP  conference, held in New York City, created a

S0512     permanent national structure.

S05121951 Death of former congressman Oscar DePriest (80), Chicago.

S05121967 H. Rap Brown replaced Stokely Carmichael as chairman of

S0512     Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

S05121970 Race riot, Augusta, Georgia.  Six blacks were killed. Author

S0512     ities said five of the victims were shot by police.

S05121958 Summit Meeting of National Negro Leaders called for stepped

S0512     up campaign against discrimination and desegregation. Presid

S0512     ent Eisenhower was sharply criticized for a speech which, in

S0512     effect, urged the leaders to "be patient"  in seeking full

S0512     citizenship rights.

S05131965 Two white regiments and a black regiment, the Sixty-second

S0513     U.S.C.T., fought last action of war at White's Ranch, Texas.

S05141867 Riot, Mobile, Ala., after a black mass meeting.  One black

S0514     and one white were killed. Knights of White Camelia, a para

S0514     military white supremacist organization, founded in Louisi

S0514     ana.

S05141961 Bus with first group of Freedom Riders bombed and burned by

S0514     segregationists outside Anniston, Alabama. Group was attack

S0514     ed in Anniston and Birmingham.

S05141970 Two students killed by officers in major racial disturbance

S0514     at Jackson State University (Miss.).

S05151911 Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, founded at Indiana University,

S0515     Incorporated.

S05161868 Senate failed by a margin of 34 to 16 to cast the two-thirds

S0516     vote necessary to oust President Johnson.

S05161966 Stokely Carmichael named chairman of the Student Nonviolent

S0516     Coordinating Committee.

S0516     National Welfare Rights Organization organized.

S05161979 Death of Asa Philip Randolph (90), labor leader and civil ri

S0516     ghts pioneer, in New York.

S05171881 Frederick Douglass appointed recorder of deeds for District

S0517     of Columbia.

S05171909 White firemen on Georgia Railroad struck to protest employ

S0517     ment of blacks.

S05171915 National Baptist Convention chartered.

S05171954 U.S. Supreme Court in landmark Brown v. Board of Education

S0517     decision declared segregation in public schools unconstitut

S0517     ional. The unanimous decision was read by Chief Justice Earl

S0517     B. Warren.

S05171957 Prayer Pilgrimage, biggest civil rights demonstration to dat

S0517     e, held in Washington.

S05171969 Rev. Thomas Kilgore, a Los Angeles pastor, was elected presid

S0517     ent of the predominantly white American  Baptist Convention.

S05171980 Major race riot, Miami, Florida. Sixteen persons were killed

S0517     and more than three hundred were injured.

S05181848 Death of William A. Leidesdorf (38), in San Francisco.

S05181896 U.S. Supreme Court decision (Plessy v. Ferguson) upheld doct

S0518     rine of "separate but equal"  and began age of Jim Crow.

S05181955 Death of Mary McLeod Bethune (79), educator and civil rights

S0518     leader, Daytona Beach, Florida.

S05181971 President Nixon rejected the sixty demands of the Congressio

S0518     nal Black Caucus, saying his administration would continue to

S0518     support "jobs, income and tangible benefits, the pledges that

S0518     this society has made to the disadvantaged in the past deca

S0518     de."  The caucus expressed deep disappointment with the reply

S0518     and said the Nixon administration " lacked a sense of underst

S0518     anding, urgency and commitment in dealing with the critical

S0518     problems facing black Americans."

S05191878 Blanche Kelso Bruce appointed register of treasury by Presid

S0519     ent Garfield.

S05191965 Patricia R. Harris named ambassador to Luxembourg.  She was

S0519     the first black woman ambassador.

S05201868 Republican National Convention, meeting in Chicago, nominat

S0520     ed U.S. Grant for the presidency.  Convention marked the nat

S0520     ional debut of black politicians.  P.B.S. Pinchback of Louis

S0520     iana and James J. Harris were delegates to the convention.

S0520     Harris was named to the committee which informed Grant of his

S0520     nomination.  Blacks also served for the first time as presid

S0520     ential electors.  Robert Meacham was a presidential elector

S0520     in Florida. The South Carolina electoral ticked included thr

S0520     ee black Republican leaders, B.F. Randolph, Stephen A. Swail

S0520     s, and Alonzo J. Ransier.

S0520     Robert N. C. Nix elected to Congress.

S05201961 Mob attacked Freedom Riders in Montgomery.

S0520     Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy dispatched four hundred

S0520     U.S. marshalls to Montgomery to keep order in Freedom Rider

S0520     controversy.

S05201971 Pentagon report said blacks constituted 11 per cent of U.S.

S0520     soldiers in Southeast Asia. The report said 12.5 per cent of

S0520     all soldiers killed in Vietnam since 1961 were black.

S05211961 Governor Patterson declared martial law in Montgomery and

S0521     called out National Guard.

S05211969 Police and National Guardsmen fired on demonstrators at Nor

S0521     th Carolina A&T College. One student was killed and five

S0521     policemen were injured.

S05211970 National Guard mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State

S0521     University.  Black and white students were demanding an end

S0521     to ROTC programs and the admission of additional black stud

S0521     ents.

S05211971 National Guard mobilized to quell riot in Chattanooga, Tenne

S0521     ssee. One person was killed and four hundred were arrested.

S05211975 Lowell W. Perry Confirmed as chairman of the Equal Opportun

S0521     ity Commission (EEOC).

S05221863 War Department established Bureau of Colored Troops and lau

S0522     nched aggressive campaign for recruitment of black soldiers.

S05221948 Death of poet Claude McKay (58), Chicago.

S05221959 Brig. Gen. B.O. Davis Jr. promoted to major general.

S05221961 Attorney general ordered two hundred additional U.S.

S0522     Marshals to Montgomery.

S05231878 Atty. John Henry Smyth named minister to Liberia.

S05231921 Shuffle Along, first of a succession of popular musicals fea

S0523     turing black talent, opened at the 63rd Street Music Hall,

S0523     New York City.

S05231920 Methodist Episcopal Church conference, meeting in Des Moines

S0523     , Iowa, elected two black bishops Matthew W. Clair of Washing

S0523     ton, D.C., and Robert E. Jones of New Orleans.

S05241951 Racial segregation in Washington, D.C., restaurants ruled il

S0524     legal by Municipal Court of Appeals.

S05241854 Anthony Burns, celebrated fugitive slave, arrested by United

S0524     States Deputy marshals in Boston.  Two thousand United States

S0524     troops escorted him through the streets of Boston when he was

S0524     returned to the South on June 3.

S05241861 Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler declared slaves "contraband of

S0524     war."

S05241864 Two regiments, First and Tenth U.S.C.T., repulsed attack by

S0524     rebel General Fitzhugh Lee. Also participating in battle at

S0524     Wilsin's Wharf Landing, on bank of  James River, were a small

S0524     detachment of white Union troops and a battery of Light arti

S0524     llery.

S05241954 Dr. Peter Murray Marshall installed as president of New York

S0524     County Medical Society and became the first black to head an

S0524     American Medical Association unit.

S05241961 Twenty-seven Freedom Riders arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.

S0524     On June 12, Hinds County Board of Supervisor announced that

S0524     more than one hundred "Freedom Riders" had been arrested.

S05251919 Death of Madame C.J. Walker (52), wealthy cosmetics manufact

S0525     urer, at  Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York.

S05251943 Riot at Mobile, Ala., shipyard over the upgrading of twelve

S0525     black workers.

S05251971 Young black woman, Jo Etha Collier, killed in Drew, Miss., by

S0525     bullet fired from passing car.  Three whites were arrested on

S0525     May 26 and charged with the unprovoked attack.

S05261943 President Edwin Barclay of Liberia, first African president

S0526     to pay an official visit to an American president, arrived

s0526     at White House.

S05261961 Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee established in Atlanta.

S05261969 National Black Economic Development Conference adopted mani

S0526     festo in Detroit meeting calling for $500 Million in reparat

S0526     ions from white churches.

S05271863 In ill-conceived assault on Port Hudson, La., two Louisiana

S0527     regiments (First and Third Native Guards) made six gallant

S0527     but unsuccessful charges on rebel fortification.  A black ca

S0527     ptain, Andre Cailloux, was hero of the day.

S05271917 Race riot, East St. Louis, Illinois.  One black killed.

S05271958 Ernest Green graduated from Little Rock's Central High School

S0527     with six hundred white classmates.

S05271975 Death of Ezzard Charles (53,), former heavyweight boxing ch

S0527     ampion, in Chicago.

S05281962 Suit alleging de facto school segregation filed in Rochester

S0528     , N.Y., by NAACP.

S05281981 Death of musician Mary Lou Williams (71), in Durham, North

S0528     Carolina.

S05291973 Thomas Bradley elected mayor of Los Angeles.

S05291980 Vernon E. Jordan Jr., President of the National Urban League,

S0529     critically injured in attempted assassination in Fort Wayne,

S0529     Indiana.

S05301822 House slave betrayed Denmark Vesey conspiracy. Vesey conspir

S0530     acy, one of the most elaborate slave plots on record, invol

S0530     ved thousands of blacks in Charleston, S.C., and vicinity.

S0530     Thirty-seven blacks were hanged.

S05301854 Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed Missouri Compromise and opened

S0530     Northern territory to slavery.

S05301956 Bus boycott began in Tallahassee, Florida.

S05301965 First black student, Vivian Malone, graduated from the Univ

S0530     ersity of Alabama.

S05311870 Congress passed the first Enforcement Act which provided st

S0531     iff penalties for public officials and private citizens who

S0531     deprived citizens of the suffrage and civil rights. The mea

S0531     sure authorized the use of the U.S. Army to protect the rig

S0531     hts of blacks.

S05311909 Some three hundred blacks and whites met at the United Char

S0531     ities Building in New York City at the first NAACP conference,

S0531     May 31 and June 1.

S05311955 Supreme Court ordered school integration "with all deliberate

S0531     speed."

S05311961 Judge Irving Kaufman ordered Board of Education of New Roche

S05311    lle, N.Y., to integrate schools.

S05311979 Zimbabwe proclaimed independent.