WILMA RUDOLPH
November 8
1898—The Wilmington Massacre occurs. A mob of Whites launched a terror campaign against Blacks in Wilmington, N.C. They destroyed a Black newspaper plant, seized control of city government and officially left nine to 11 Blacks dead. However, the unofficial death toll was said to be closer to 100.
1932—Franklin Delano Roosevelt is elected president. During his 16 years in office Roosevelt instituted a series of New Deal programs designed to pull the nation out of the Great Depression. It was during his years in office that Blacks overwhelmingly switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party even though Roosevelt adopted some policies that angered Blacks.
1933—Actress Esther Rolle is born in Pompano Beach, Fla. She is best remembered for her role in the 1970s television series “Good Times.”
1966—Edward W. Brooke is elected the first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction. He was a Republican from Massachusetts.
November 9
1731—Multi-talented scientist and inventor Benjamin Banneker is born in Ellicott Mills, Md. He is generally considered America’s first Black scientist. Banneker constructed the first clock made in America; completed the design and layout of Washington, D.C., after Pierre L’Enfant returned to France; published a farmer’s almanac for 10 years, while also studying astronomy; and predicted solar eclipses.
1868—The governor of Arkansas, Powell Clayton, calls out the state militia and declares martial law in 10 counties in a bid to put down a Ku Klux Klan-led insurrection.
1868—The Howard University Medical School—the first designed to train Black medical personnel—opens in Washington, D.C. There were eight students in the first class.
1901—Fiery pioneer Black journalist William Monroe Trotter starts the Guardian newspaper in Boston, Mass. Trotter made headlines throughout the nation when in November 1914, he confronted President Woodrow Wilson in the White…
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