#BLM OTD 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt's White House affirmed its stance of racial segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces, stating the government's "policy is not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations".
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1775: The Continental Army's Council of Officers officially barred enslaved and free Black people from joining the army to fight in the American Revolution, driven largely by southern fears that armed Black individuals would demand their own freedom.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1993 Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature making her the 1st Black woman to receive it. The Swedish Academy praised her novels as a "visionary force and poetic import" that give "life to an essential aspect of American reality".
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1847 The First National Black Convention: More than 60 delegates from 9 states met in Troy, NY to strategize to end slavery & encourage boycotts of slave-labored goods. It featured Frederick Douglass, Alexander Crummell & Dr. James McCune Smith.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1958 segregationists bombed & destroyed Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennesse. In August 1956 it had become the 1st state-funded public high school in the South to desegregate following a federal court order. 12 Black students attended the school.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1967 Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the 1st Black Supreme Court Justice in U.S. history.

President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Marshall to the nation's highest court, where he was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1948 California Supreme Court voided the state's ban on interracial marriage in Perez v. Sharp. It was the 1st time a 20th-century state court struck down an anti-miscegenation law & set precedent for the 1967 nationwide decision in Loving v. Virginia.
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#BLM OTD 1864 13 Black soldiers were among the first African Americans honored with the U.S. Medal of Honor for leading heroic charges against Confederate fortifications during the Battle of New Market Heights in Virginia.
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#BLM OTD 1962 President JFK mobilized US marshals & federalized the Mississippi Nt'l Guard to enforce integration of the U of Mississippi by Black Air Force vet James Meredith. Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett defied court orders requiring Meredith's admission.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1868 The horrific Opelousas Massacre took place in Opelousas, Louisiana. White supremacist paramilitaries murdered an estimated 150 to 200-plus African Americans and their Republican allies during a wave of Reconstruction-era political violence.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1957 The Little Rock Nine tried to attend classes at Little Rock Central High School under police escort, though were sent home early after angry crowds gathered outside. President Eisenhower then federalized the National Guard to protect the students.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1862 in response to heavy Confederate losses at the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, threatening to free all enslaved people in rebelling states if those states did not return to the Union by January 1, 1863.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1814 Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation in Mobile, Alabama, urging free Black people to join and support the U.S. forces during the War of 1812 - "to rally around the standard of the eagle."
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1850 a controversial law passed as part of the Compromise of 1850, requiring citizens to aid in capturing escaped slaves and denying accused individuals the right to a jury trial or the ability to testify in their own defense.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1925 legendary blues guitarist and singer B.B. King (Riley B. King) was born on a cotton plantation in Itta Bena, Mississippi. He went on to become one of the most influential blues musicians of all time with hits like "The Thrill Is Gone."
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1963 4 Black girls were killed when a bomb, planted by the KKK, exploded during Sunday school at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL. The church was the largest Black church in Birmingham & was a meeting place for civil rights activities.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Selective Service Act, allowing Black Americans to enter all branches of the U.S. military for the first time.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1963 Twenty African American students, including six-year-old Sonnie Hereford IV, entered previously segregated public schools in Alabama after a tense standoff between federal authorities and Governor George C. Wallace.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1968 Arthur Ashe won the U.S. Open singles tennis championship and made history as the first Black man to win a Grand Slam title. He defeated Dutch player Tom Okker in a thrilling five-set final 14–12, 5–7, 6–3, 3–6, and 6–3.
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory

#BLM OTD 1957 Althea Gibson becomes the 1st African American to win the US Open. VP Nixon presented her with the trophy. "Now I have been doubly honored," Gibson says. "I won Wimbledon before Queen Elizabeth II & now I have won here before our vice president."
#BlackAmericanHistoryIsAmericanHistory