Black History Month Facts

1948-Truman sends Congress Anti-Lynching Message: President Truman sent Congress a special message urging adoption of a civil rights program, including a fair employment practices commission and anti-lynching and anti-poll tax measures.

1962 - Eleven People Arrested After Sit-In: Seven whites and four Blacks arrested after all-night sit-in at Englewood, N.J., city hall. Four Black mothers arrested after sit-in at Chicago elementary school. Mothers later received suspended $50 fines. Protests, picketing and demonstrations continued for several weeks against de facto segregation, double shifts and mobile classrooms.

Samuel R. Lowery became the first black lawyer to actually argue a case before the Supreme Court on this date in 1866. One year and one day earlier, John S. Rock was the first black admitted to practice before the Court.

Bishop Alexander Walters, the AME Zion Church's first black president, died on this date in 1917.

In Mobile, AL, Ku Klux Klansman, Henry Hays, was sentenced to death for the 1981 strangulation/murder of 19-year-old black youth, Michael Donald, on this date in 1984.

James Weldon Johnson, diplomat, the first Field Secretary of the NAACP, and co-composer of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" (Black National Anthem), was commemorated on a U.S. postage stamp on this date in 1988.