Events in history help complete the understanding of African American history. This month-by-month outline of historic dates relevant to South Carolina African American history offers readers a perspective that compliments the biographical data on African American leaders. This timeline view helps complete the picture of the African American impact on South Carolina history.
| January | February |
| March | April |
| May | June |
| July | August |
| September | October |
| November | December |
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October |
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1 | Colin Powell was appointed first African-American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1989. |
17 | Capital Savings Bank opened in Washington, D.C., in 1888. |
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2 | Thurgood Marshall was sworn in, becoming the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, in 1967. |
18 | Terry McMillan was born in 1951. |
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3 |
Nat King Cole was the first black performer to host his own tv show in 1956. |
19 | The U.S. Navy was opened to African-American women in 1944. |
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4 | National Black convention met in Syracuse, New York, in 1864. |
20 |
John Merrick organized North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1898. |
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5 | Congresswoman Yvonne Burke was born in 1932. |
21 |
"Dizzy" Gillespie was born in Cheraw, SC, in 1917. |
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6 |
Fisk Jubilee Singers began national tour in 1871. |
22 |
Clarence S. Green became the first African- American certified in neurological surgery. |
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7 | Toni Morrison became first African-American to win Nobel Prize in literature. |
23 | The NAACP petitioned the United Nations about racial injustics in 1947. |
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8 |
Jesse Jackson born in 1941. |
24 | Jackie Robinson died in 1972. |
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9 |
O.B. Clare patented the rail trestle in 1888. |
25 |
Benjamin O. Davis becomes the first African-American general in U.S. Army in 1940. |
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10 |
Singer Ben Vereen was born in 1946. |
26 | Bessie Coleman, first African-American woman aviator, born, 1893. Angela Davis, activist, born, 1944. |
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11 |
A. Miles patented the elevator in 1887. |
27 | D. B. Downing, inventor, patented his street letter box in 1891. |
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12 | Richard ("Dick") Gregory was born in 1932. |
28 | Founder of The Underground Railroad, Levi Coffin, was born in 1798. |
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13 | Arna W. Bontemps, noted poet, was born in 1902. |
29 | The Supreme Court ordered end to segregation in se3dec1chools "at once" in 1969. |
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14 | Martin Luther King, Jr. awarded Nobel Peach Prize in 1964. |
30 | Richard Arrington was elected the first Black mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, in 1979. |
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15 | Clarence Thomas confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1992. |
31 | Halloween Ethel Waters, actor and singer, was born in 1900. |
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16 |
John Brown led attack on Harper's Ferry in 1859. |
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