Topics Related to African American History
On March 9, 1891, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University was founded as a land grant institution for African Americans. The school, originally named the Agricultural and Mechanical College, was established as a result of the Second Morrill Act, enacted by Congress in 1890, which mandated separate colleges for the “colored race.”
On March 4, 1861, successful African American dressmaker Elizabeth Keckley met soon-to-be First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln for the first time at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C.It was the day of Abraham Lincoln’s inauguration, and Mary was too busy with plans for the festivities to talk with Keckley, who was recommended by a friend. After a brief meeting at the White House the next day, Mary hired Keckley.
(Image: Principal Peter W. Moore and students at what’s now Elizabeth City State University in 1899.)On March 3, 1891, legislation passed creating a Normal and Industrial School in Elizabeth City. The school was founded with the express purpose of “teaching and training teachers of the colored race to teach in the common schools of North Carolina.”
On February 27, 1964, black feminist activist, scholar and educator Anna Julia Haywood Cooper died at the age of 105.Born enslaved in 1858 in Raleigh, Cooper graduated from St. Augustine’s Normal School and then earned a B.A. and an M.A. in mathematics from Oberlin College in Ohio. She taught for a few years in Raleigh before moving to Washington, D.C., to teach there.
On February 25, 1870, Hiram Revels was seated in the United States Senate.A story, perhaps apocryphal, has it that when Jefferson Davis left the U.S. Congress, fellow Senator Simon Cameron told him, “I believe, in the name of God that a Negro some day will come and occupy your seat.”Cameron’s prediction came true, and in 1870, North Carolina native Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first Black member of Congress, taking Davis’s seat representing Mississippi.
On February 21, 1933, Nina Simone, often called the “high priestess of soul,” was born in the small town of Tryon in Polk County.Determined to become one of the first highly-successful African-American concert pianists, Simone spent a summer at the famed Julliard School after graduating high school in Asheville in 1950. Denied admission to music school in Philadelphia, Simone took menial jobs there.
On February 20, 1885, 22 years after Emancipation, freedmen in Edgecombe County incorporated Princeville, the state’s first town founded by African Americans.Its claim to first in the nation is rivaled only by Eatonville, Florida. Along with James City in Craven County and Roanoke Island in Dare County, the community was among the state’s three resettlement colonies for former slaves.
On February 17, 1963, American basketball superstar Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born in Brooklyn, New York. Before his first birthday, Jordan’s parents moved to Wilmington, where he played three sports at Laney High School and was named to the McDonald’s All-American team.
On February 13, 1969, African American student activists at Duke University occupied the school’s main administrative building. The takeover of the Allen Building was sparked by the slowness of racial reform at the university.Black undergraduates were not admitted to Duke until 1963. In the mid-60s, the Afro-American Association formed on campus, influenced by the Black Power movement. By early 1969, the Association and its supporters had become impatient with the progress of promised reform.