Alice H. Parker - was a Black inventor in the early 20th-century, best known for patenting a central heating system that uses natural gas. Her invention played a key role in the development of the heating systems we have in our homes today. Her patent was granted on December 23, 1919. Parker’s idea for a heating system came from being cold during New Jersey winters when fireplaces did not effectively heat an entire home. Most homeowners a hundred years ago were stocking up on wood or coal to heat their homes. Parker’s design was unique in that it used natural gas, which saved time from chopping wood, and increased safety measures without a fire burning all night.
Parker’s patent was not the first for a gas furnace design, but it uniquely involved a multiple yet individually controlled burner system. Although her exact design was never implemented due to concerns with the regulation of heat flow, her system was an important precursor to the modern heating zone system and thermostats as well.
Little is known about Parker’s life or upbringing, most likely because women, especially women of color at the time, were not documented sufficiently. She was born in 1895 in Morristown, New Jersey, and later attended classes at Howard University in Washington, D.C. To receive a higher education as a Black woman at the time was an achievement in itself.

Jasmine Felicia Crockett - was elected to the United States House of Representatives on November 8, 2022. Rep Crockett is known for her powerful statements as she addresses her counterparts across the aisle on the House floor.

Crockett attended Rhodes College, a private liberal arts school in Memphis, Tennessee. While there, she and several other Black Rhodes students were victims of a hate crime which led her to pursue a career in social justice. She graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Business and continued her education at the University of Houston Law Center, where she earned a Juris Doctor degree, allowing her to practice law. After graduation, Crockett initially worked as a civil rights attorney in Texas. She later worked as a public defender in Bowie County, Texas before establishing Crockett Law Firm, PLLC. The firm took on several pro bono cases of Black Lives Matter advocates.

In 2020 Crockett turned her attention to politics and announced she would challenge the incumbent Democrat representing the 100th District in the Texas Legislature. She narrowly won the primary election but easily defeated her Republican challenger in the 2020 general election. Crockett served one term in the Texas Legislature, where she was one of 56 Democratic lawmakers who left the state in an effort to block the passage of restrictive voting legislation.

Roger Owensby Jr - was a twenty-nine-year-old African-American who died at the hands of Cincinnati Police officers. On November 7, 2000, after leaving the Sunoco Mini-Mart in the Bond Hill neighborhood of Cincinnati, Owensby was approach by two Cincinnati police officers, Robert Blaine Jorg and Patrick Caton. They stopped and searched him for a few minutes. Then, for reasons that are not clear, Owensby began to run from the officers. They pursued him and tackled him to the ground where they handcuffed him. He was put in their police car and died there. The Cincinnati Police initially investigated the incident but the Hamilton County Coroner’s office concluded that Owens either died as the result of a chokehold or by officers piling their weight on his chest as he lay on the ground.
The Hamilton County District Attorney filed charges of manslaughter and misdemeanor assault against Jorg and Caton on January 3, 2001. In the subsequent trials, Robert Blaine Jorg was found not guilty and Patrick Caton was freed because of a mistrial. Prosecutors did not attempt to try him again.

On November 6, 2001, the Owensby family filed a lawsuit which claimed that Officers Jorg and Caton had violated Roger Owensby’s civil rights. On March 17, 2006, U. S. District Court Judge S. Arthur Spiegal ordered the city of Cincinnati to pay $6.5 million dollars to the Owensby family after concluding that Officers Jorg and Caton had violated Owensby’s civil rights.

Derrick Bell - born on November 6, 1930, became the first black law professor at Harvard Law School to achieve tenure and one of the first African American deans in a non-historically black law school. Bell was also a founder of an academic model called critical race theory.
In 1969 Bell left the NAACP to become a professor at Harvard Law School. After achieving tenure in 1971, he remained there until 1980. Bell then moved to the University of Oregon to become the first African American dean of the law school there. He urged the law school to hire more people of color, and when it rejected an Asian American female applicant whom he felt was qualified, Bell resigned his deanship in protest. Bell returned to Harvard in 1986, but took a leave of absence in another protest when Harvard Law School declined to grant tenure to two professors of color. His departure from Harvard became permanent in 1992 when he ran out of leave time. Meanwhile Bell accepted a position as visiting professor at the New York University (NYU) Law School, where he continued to teach until his death in 2011.

Rekia Boyd - twenty-two-year-old African-American woman by Dante Servin, a white off-duty Chicago, Illinois police detective. Boyd was born on November 5, 1989, in Chicago, Illinois. She moved with her family from Chicago’s Southside to Dolton, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. On March 21, 2012, Boyd was hanging out with friends at Douglas Park on Chicago’s West Side at a party listening to music while having a few drinks. Around 1:00 am, Boyd and some of her friends walked to a nearby liquor store. Around the same time, Servin was just finishing his shift on his second job. He was off duty, heading to a fast food restaurant for a hamburger, but Servin drove to Douglas Park after a citizen called police about a noise complaint. Servin saw Boyd and her friends and later claimed they were arguing in an alley. Whether Servin calmly approached Boyd and her friends or was rude and aggressive is still debated. One of Boyd’s friends, Antonio Cross, claimed that Servin attempted to buy drugs from the group. When Cross told Servin to “get his crackhead ass out of here,” Servin pulled a gun, stuck it out of the window of his car and fired into the group, hitting Boyd in the head. She was instantly killed and Cross was shot in the hand.After the shooting, the Chicago Police Department defended Servin’s actions and arrested Cross. The police department claimed that Servin had discharged his weapon after Cross had approached him with a gun. Upon investigation, it was discovered that Cross was holding a cell phone.

In November 2013, Servin was charged with involuntary manslaughter. On April 20, 2015, he was cleared of all charges following a bench trial by Judge Dennis J. Porter. On November 24, 2015, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy called for Dante Servin to be fired by the Chicago Police Board. On May 17, 2016, Servin resigned from the police force. The city of Chicago also paid $4.5 million to the Boyd family. Boyd’s death at the hands of Chicago Police Officer Dante Servin would help inspire the Black Lives Matter movement.

Patricia Era Bath - a prominent ophthalmologist and innovative research and laser scientist, was the first African American woman physician to receive a patent for a medical invention. Bath was born on November 4, 1942 in Harlem, New York. In 1959, while in high school at Charles Evans Hughes, she received a grant from the National Science Foundation to attend the Summer Institute in Biomedical Science at Yeshiva University. There, she studied the relationship between stress, nutrition, and cancer. In 1964, Bath graduated from Hunter College in New York City with a B.S. in chemistry. Four years later, she received her medical degree from Howard University Medical School in Washington, D.C.

The start of Bath’s medical career has been one that broke many racial and gender grounds. From 1970 to 1973, she completed her training at New York University School of Medicine as the first African American resident in ophthalmology. While a young intern at Harlem Hospital and Columbia University, Bath noticed the contrast between the eye clinic of Harlem where half of the patients were visually impaired or blind and Columbia, where only a few patients suffered from blindness. Because of this, Bath conducted a study and found that blindness among blacks was double that among whites due to the lack of access of proper eye care in black communities. In an attempt to remedy this alarming problem, she proposed a new worldwide system known as community ophthalmology in which trained eye care volunteers visit senior centers and day care programs to test the vision and screen for cataracts, glaucoma, and other serious eye conditions. Through this community outreach program, under-served populations whose eye conditions would have gone untreated have a better chance to prevent blindness.

In 1974, she completed a fellowship in corneal and keratoprosthesis surgery (a procedure that replaces the human cornea with an artificial one). In that same year, she moved to Los Angeles where she became the first African American woman surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center, and she was also appointed assistant professor at Charles R. Drew University. In 1975, she became the first woman faculty member of the UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute. Despite her many accomplishments and brilliance in ophthalmology research, the department offered her an office in the basement next to the lab animals. She refused to take the spot but continued to do her work despite numerous incidences of gender and racial discrimination. In 1977, she and three colleagues founded the American Institute for the Prevention of Blindness.

In 1981, Bath traveled to Berlin University to learn more about laser technology and to continue her research that had been continuously stymied by the racial and gender politics of UCLA. The Laser Medical Center of Berlin West Germany, the Rothschild Eye Institute of Paris, France, and the Loughborough Institute of Technology in England accepted the merits of her research. Over the next five years, she began developing a model for a laser instrument that tested the removal of cataracts. In the meantime in 1983, she chaired the ophthalmology residency training program at Drew and UCLA, becoming the first woman to hold that position in the nation.
On May 17, 1988, Bath received a patent for her invention, the Laserphaco Probe, and the new technique used for cataract surgery. The device restored the sight of thousands of patients worldwide and was the only one available for the removal of cataracts. Bath’s contributions changed the field of ophthalmology.

Henry Brown - was an inventor who saw a need for a convenient and secure way to store money, valuables and important papers. He patented his receptacle for storing and preserving papers on November 2, 1886 and it developed into what is now known as a strongbox.
At that time, people commonly kept those type of items in wooden or cardboard boxes in their homes or entrusted them to local banks. Both of these options presented dilemmas. While banks generally provided safety against theft, they did not prevent bank employees from reading through personal papers. At the same time, keeping the items at home could help to keep prying eyes away, but there was little to prevent burglars from quickly and easily grabbing valuables and making off with them.

Ebony Magazine - published its first issue on November 1, 1945. The first issue of Ebony magazine featuring profiles of writer Richard Wright and jazz singer Hazel Scott, and stories about African Americans in publishing, the color line in Brazil and a sale of African art in Philadelphia.
Ebony became an immediate success. Founded only two months after the end of World War II, the magazine reflected African Americans' postwar determination to claim their rights as equal citizens. John H. Johnson, the founder of the magazine, wrote in 1975 that "Ebony was founded to provide positive images for blacks in a world of negative images and non-images.

The monthly magazine chronicles Black life in America, including the fight for civil rights, and provides a forum for African Americans to reflect on and celebrate their own communities.

National Basketball Association - The first African American players in the National Basketball Association in the twentieth century all came into the league in 1950. They were Earl Francis Lloyd (Washington Capitols), Charles Henry Cooper (Boston Celtics), and Nathaniel Clifton (New York Knicks). They all began their college careers at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). On October 31, 1950, 21-year-old Llyod was drafted in the ninth round where he became the first Black athlete to play in the NBA with the Washington Capitols.
Lloyd, 6′ 6″, was born on April 3, 1928, in Alexandria, Virginia and graduated from Parker-Gray High School in 1946. He enrolled in West Virginia State University in 1946, where he was an All–American player and received his Bachelor of Science in health and physical education in 1950.
Lloyd also played for nine seasons with the Syracuse Nationals (who later became the Philadelphia 76ers). In 1970, Lloyd became the first full-time African American head coach in the NBA when he coached the Detroit Pistons for a year.

Myron Rolle - is a neurosurgery resident who at one time played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Tennessee Titans. Rolle was born on October 30, 1986 to Beverly Rolle and Whitney Rolle (his father) in Houston, Texas. The Rolle family were immigrants from the Bahamas. Myron Rolle is the youngest of five children. He has three cousins who played in the NFL: Antrel Rolle, for the Arizona Cardinals, New York Giants, and Chicago Bears; Brian Rolle for the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers; and Samari Rolle for the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens. The Rolle family moved from Houston to Galloway Township, New Jersey when Myron was a child. He attended Peddie School located in Hightstown, New Jersey. While there he played for the football, basketball, and track teams. He also played saxophone in the school band and performed in school plays. Rolle earned his bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science from FSU in 2008. He also won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University for one year which he accepted before entering in the 2010 NFL Draft. Rolle was selected 207th overall by the Tennessee Titans.
Despite his selection by the Titans, Rolle never played a regular season game with the team because of his low position on the depth chart. He remained with the Titans through the 2011 NFL season and then joined the Pittsburgh Steelers prior to the 2012 NFL season but would later be released.
In 2013, Rolle left the NFL to attend medical school at Florida State University College of Medicine. He graduated with a medical degree in neurosurgery in 2017. Rolle then took a neurosurgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In July 2020, Rolle became one of the first former NFL players who said the League should either delay or cancel the 2020 NFL season due to COVID-19.

Dorothy Hollingsworth - a prominent educator and politician, achieved a number of “firsts” during her years in Seattle. The most important was becoming the first Black woman in Washington State’s history to serve on a school board. Born in Bishopville, South Carolina on October 29, 1920, Hollingsworth moved at an early age to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She later attended Paine College, graduating in 1941. After teaching in South Carolina and then in North Carolina during World War II, she moved to Seattle in 1946 with her husband, Raft Hollingsworth.
Soon after her arrival Hollingsworth became active in the Madison Branch of the Seattle YWCA, First A.M.E. Church, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, Inc. Denied a position as a teacher in Seattle Public Schools in 1949, Hollingsworth became an investigator for the state Department of Welfare. She received a master’s degree in social work in 1959 from the University of Washington. Soon after, she became a social worker in Seattle Public schools.
In the early 1960s, Hollingsworth became involved with the local civil rights movement, protesting restrictive covenants and championing open housing initiatives throughout the city. In 1965, she became the first African American woman to manage a major city agency when she was selected by the Seattle School District as the director of the Head Start Program. That program, part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society national anti-poverty initiative, was the first Head Start program in the state of Washington. Hollingsworth established, organized, and implemented the program according to the federal guidelines from 1965 to 1969. Her high visibility in this post led the National Director of Head Start to appoint her in 1966 to the national advisory board of Sesame Street, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) children’s TV program.
From 1969 to 1971, Hollingsworth served as Deputy Director for Planning for the Model Cities Program, another Great Society initiative designed to fight urban poverty. She became Associate Director of Project Planning a year later, and according to the Seattle Times, became with that appointment the highest paid female employee in city government. Hollingsworth oversaw 46 separate projects in education, arts and culture, economic development, job training, health, welfare, and legal services. When the program ended in 1975, she became director of Early Childhood Education where she set up daycare programs and facilities for children throughout the city. In the same year, Hollingsworth launched a successful campaign to become the first Black woman elected to the Seattle School Board in its 93-year history. She joined the first female majority on the School Board and served there until 1981. Hollingsworth’s tenure was controversial. Her election allowed the Black community to have a voice in their children’s educational futures but Hollingsworth favored a contentious program of school busing to promote racial integration and thus drew intense criticism from a number of Black, white, and Asian activist groups opposed to busing.
In the early 1980s, Hollingsworth worked as Deputy Director for the Department of Human Resources for the City of Seattle. She then was elected to the State Board of Education as the representative from the 7th District, serving from 1984 until her retirement in 1993.

'The Kissing Case' - On October 28, 1958, a mob of white men in Monroe, North Carolina, stormed the home of a nine-year-old Black boy named James “Hanover” Thompson, threatening to lynch him after a white girl told her parents that she kissed him on the cheek when they were playing together earlier that day. James and another Black boy named David “Fuzzy” Simpson, eight years old, who the girl had also kissed on the cheek, were arrested by police, held in jail without contact with their families for days, denied an attorney, and sentenced to indefinite terms, ultimately serving over three months.
Earlier in the day, a group of children including James and David were playing together outside when they started a “kissing game,” during which a white girl their age named Sissy kissed James on the cheek. After the girl mentioned the kiss to her parents, her father grabbed a shotgun and arranged a mob to go to the Thompsons’ home, where they threatened to lynch James, David, and their mothers. The boys were not home when the mob arrived but the police found them shortly thereafter and “jumped out with their guns drawn” before taking them into custody, where they were beaten by the police.
James and David, unaware of why they were in custody, remained in jail for six days without being allowed to speak to their parents or any attorneys. On October 31, a group of police officers broke into the boys’ cell wearing white sheets to intimidate them, while white residents of Monroe burned a cross on the Thompsons’ lawn and fired shots into their home throughout the boys’ detention. Both Evelyn Thompson and Jennie Simpson, the mothers of the two boys, were fired from their jobs. After a brief hearing on November 4 in which they were denied the right to an attorney, James and David were charged with molestation and sentenced to “indefinite terms” at the state reformatory in Hoffman, North Carolina, because they were kissed on the cheek by a white girl.
Robert Williams, the president of the Monroe NAACP, began a campaign urging officials to send the boys back to their families and wrote a letter on November 13 to President Eisenhower, who ultimately did not intervene. Finally, on February 13, 1959, over three months after James and David were sentenced to the reformatory, North Carolina’s Governor pardoned the boys and released them to go home.

Dr. Clifford R. Wharton Jr - is an American university president, corporate executive and former United States Deputy Secretary of State. In his multiple careers, he has been an African-American pioneer. On October 26, 1977, Dr. Wharton was named chancellor of the State University of New York. Again he was identified as the first African-American to head the largest university system in the nation. During his nine-year tenure, he achieved greater management flexibility for the university, strengthened the university's research capability, and dramatically improved the quality image of the university. SUNY Chairman Donald M. Blinken stated that Wharton's most enduring achievement was the Independent Commission and the flexibility legislation.
Wharton is, as of 2016, a member and former co-chairman of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, and is a trustee of the Clark Foundation, Bassett Hospital, and the American Assembly. He served as chairman of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, 1981–82, and received the President's Award on World Hunger in 1983. In 1994 he received the American Council on Education Distinguished Service Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 2005 the John Hope Franklin Award. In 2015 his name was placed on the frieze of Boston Latin School's Assembly Hall.

Beebe Steven Lynk - was one of the earliest black women chemists in the United States. She was born Beebe Steven, the daughter of Henderson and Judiam (Boyd) Steven, in Mason, Tennessee, on October 24, 1872.
Lynk attended Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, and graduated with a degree in 1892 at the age of twenty. It is unclear if this was a two-year degree or if she began college at the age of sixteen. Nearly a year later on April 12,1893, she married Dr. Miles Vandahurst Lynk who was the founder, editor, and publisher of Medical and Surgical Observer, the first medical journal edited by an African American. Miles Lynk was also the first African American to establish a medical practice in Jackson.

In 1900, Beebe Steven and her husband founded the University of West Tennessee in Jackson. One year later, she took up the study of pharmaceutical chemistry at the university and in 1903 she earned a PhC (Pharmaceutical Chemist) degree. In the early 1900s, when Lynk earned the PhC, the degree required two years of study. Although she earned this degree after her bachelor’s degree, it was considered a pre-bachelor’s degree that was required if one wished to become a pharmaceutical chemist (pharmacist) or if one wanted to teach chemistry and pharmacy as Lynk did. Almost immediately after being awarded the degree, Lynk became the professor of medical Latin botany and materia medica at the university’s new medical school. She joined another woman to become the only two female faculty members at the medical school. There were eight men on the faculty at the University of West Tennessee.
The University of West Tennessee closed its doors in 1924 because of financial difficulties, but between its founding in 1900 and its closure twenty-four years later, it issued 216 medical degrees. Many of its graduates in medicine, dentistry, and nursing became known leaders in their recognized fields and practiced in numerous states and foreign countries.

June Bacon-Bercey - is best known for being the first on-air African American female meteorologist. Bacon-Bercey was also instrumental in making the atmospheric sciences more accessible to minorities and women. Born June Ester Griffin on October 23, 1928, Bacon-Bercey was raised in Wichita, Kansas by her aunt and uncle. Her advanced education began with an emphasis in math at Friends University in Wichita; but soon, her lifelong passion for science led her to transfer to the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1954, she became UCLA’s first African American woman to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology.

In 1954, Bacon-Bercey accepted a position as a weather forecaster and analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS). In 1959, Bacon-Bercey responded to a growing interest in the effect of atom bombs on earth’s atmosphere and left the NOAA to work as a senior advisor at the Atomic Energy Commission. By the early 1960s, she returned to the NWS as a radar meteorologist in New York. In 1971, she joined a Buffalo, New York NBC affiliate news channel as a science reporter.

Throughout her career, Bacon-Bercey continually used her outspoken drive to push the field towards accessibility for minorities and women. In 1975, Bacon-Bercey co-founded the American Meteorological Society’s Board on Women and Minorities. Through the board, she started a science fair program in 1976 to encourage students of color and girls in elementary and high school to pursue careers in science. Then in 1977, Bacon-Bercey used a portion of the $68,000 prize she won on the gameshow The $128,000 Question to create a scholarship with the American Geophysical Union to support women studying atmospheric sciences. She additionally aided Jackson State University, a historically Black university, in establishing their meteorology lab. Continuing her passion for encouraging young students, Bacon-Bercey, after leaving government work in 1987 to earn a teaching credential, dedicated the remainder of her career to teaching elementary and high school math and science classes.

Milton L. Olive III - Milton L. Olive III, a United States Army soldier was the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War. The Medal of Honor, America's highest military decoration was posthumously awarded to Olive for sacrificing his life for his fellow soldiers on October 22, 1965 at age 18. art of the Congressional Medal of Honor Citation reads: "Pfc. Olive and four other soldiers were moving through the jungle together when a grenade was thrown into their midst. Pfc. Olive saw the grenade, and then saved the lives of his fellow soldiers at the sacrifice of his own by grabbing the grenade in his hand and falling on it to absorb the blast with his body."

Private First Class Olive was born on November 7, 1946 in Chicago, Illinois. Olive joined the military at age 17 and was serving in Vietnam as a part of Company B of the 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade. He died in the jungle area in Phu Cuong. His act of heroism, sacrifice, bravery and love for his fellow soldiers is beyond most of societies comprehension. Olive is buried in Lexington, Holmes County, Mississippi, the area where he lived as a young boy through high school

Alvin Leonard Bragg, Jr - made history in 2023 with the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump for crimes committed in relation to his 2016 Presidential campaign.

Born in the Manhattan borough of New York on October 21, 1973, Bragg grew up in Harlem’s historic landmark section of Strivers’ Row. His parents are Dr. Sadie Chavis Bragg and Alvin Leonard Bragg, Sr., from South Hill, Virginia. He is a civil rights activist and served as assistant superintendent for welfare in New York City’s Human Resources Administration. Bragg’s education began in 1977 at Trinity School in the Upper West Side. There, he was a three-sport athlete and a student government member. Bragg also wore the costume of the school’s Tiger mascot.
After high school graduation he enrolled at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in government. He then entered Harvard Law School in 1995, earning his J.D. in 1999. While at Harvard Law he was an editor of the Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review. He also served as President of the Black Students Association. After receiving his law degree Bragg clerked for former U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson, Jr. in the Southern District of New York and later was hired as an associate attorney for the Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Jason & Anello law firm.
Bragg was New York state’s chief deputy attorney general from 2017 to 2018, where he headed the Criminal Justice and Social Justice divisions. After that, he became co-director of the Racial Justice Project and served as Visiting Professor at the New York Law School.

In the November, 2021 election, Democrat Bragg won the race for Manhattan District Attorney, becoming the first African American to do so after defeating his Republican challenger, Thomas Kenniff. He was sworn in as the 37th District Attorney in Manhattan in 2022, replacing Cy Vance, Jr.
In 2023, Bragg obtained a grand jury indictment against Donald Trump over a 2016 hush money payment, carving himself a place in history as the man behind the first vote to criminally indict a former president.

Johnny Bright Incident - was a violent on-field assault against African-American player Johnny Bright by a white opposing player during an American college football game held on October 20, 1951, in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The game was significant in itself as it marked the first time that an African-American athlete with a national profile and of critical importance to the success of his team, the Drake Bulldogs, had played against Oklahoma A&M College (now Oklahoma State University) at Oklahoma A&M's Lewis Field. Bright's injury also highlighted the racial tensions of the times and assumed notoriety when it was captured in what was later to become both a widely disseminated and eventually Pulitzer Prize–winning photo sequence.
Bright's participation as a halfback and quarterback in the game between the Drake Bulldogs and Oklahoma A&M Cowboys on October 20, 1951, at Lewis Field was controversial even before it began. Bright had been the first African-American football player to play at Lewis Field two years prior without incident. In 1951, Bright was a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate and led the nation in total offense. Bright had never played for a losing team in his college career. Coming into the contest, Drake carried a five-game winning streak, owing much to Bright's rushing and passing abilities. It was an open secret that Oklahoma A&M players were targeting Bright. Both Oklahoma A&M's student newspaper, The Daily O'Collegian, and the local newspaper, The News Press, reported that Bright was a marked man, and several A&M students were openly claiming that Bright "would not be around at the end of the game". Although Oklahoma A&M had integrated in 1949, the Jim Crow spirit was still very much alive on campus. During the first seven minutes of the game, Bright was knocked unconscious three times by blows from Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle Wilbanks Smith. While Smith's final elbow blow broke Bright's jaw, he was still able to complete a 61-yard (56 m) touchdown pass to Drake halfback Jim Pilkington a few plays later. Soon afterward, the injury forced him to leave the game. Bright finished the game with less than 100 yards (91 m), the first time in his three-year collegiate career. Oklahoma A&M eventually won 27–14.

United States Navy - Harriet Ida Pikens and Frances Wills on October 19, 1944 as the first African American women in the United States Navy. Both women graduated two months later becoming the first two African American female officers in the Navy. On December 21, 1944, the United States Navy commissioned Pikens as a Lieutenant and Wills as an Ensign. Women were not allowed in the Navy until the WAVES program was initiated as an effort to support the men who were going overseas in masses during World War II. Pikens and Wills were the first of 72 female African American Navel Officers that would serve through the end of World War II. Pickens died in 1969 and Wills in 1998.

Deborah Danner - was fatally shot in her Bronx apartment by Sergeant Hugh Barry of the New York Police Department on October 18, 2016. The shooting occurred after police arrived to investigate a neighbor’s reports of “erratic” behavior. Due to a history of mental illness, it was not uncommon for police to arrive at Danner’s doorstep. In 2012, Danner wrote that she had experienced more than ten hospitalizations during her life. Deborah Danner’s death spurred citywide protests and prompted Mayor Bill de Blasio to condemn Barry’s breach of proper protocol, calling the event “tragic and unacceptable.”
According to the police, Danner had scissors, and Barry talked her into putting them down. Then she picked up a baseball bat and swung at him. Barry shot Danner twice, fatally wounding her. He was the only officer in the bedroom, although others were on the scene.

According to court testimony by Brittney Mullings, an emergency medical technician, Mullings had arrived before Barry. Danner had put down the scissors and Mullings was talking to her. Danner was not holding anything in her hands. Mullings was trying to explain to Danner why they had arrived. Barry then arrived, and did not talk to Mullings or Danner. The police interrupted their conversation, and Danner retreated into her bedroom. Six police officers followed Danner into her bedroom, and a minute later, Mullings heard two shots.

Disciplinary action was immediately taken by the New York Police Department (NYPD). Within six hours, Sgt. Barry had been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on modified duty, then was eventually suspended without pay. In May 2017, he was charged with second-degree murder, first- and second-degree manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide, but was acquitted on all counts by the State Supreme Court the following February. New York City also agreed to pay a $2 million settlement to Danner’s family after her sister and guardian, Jennifer, sued the city.

Before her death, Ms. Danner was an IT/ MIS professional who took pride in her intelligence and involved herself with her church. In 2014, she graduated with a BS in Computer Science from the New York Institute of Technology in Manhattan. Her 2012 essay Living with Schizophrenia describes her experiences with mental illness, her strained relationship with her family, discrimination from employers, and the general stigma that she regularly encountered due to her condition. Ironically, she also discussed the danger that police encounters present to people living with mental illness.

The Wyoming Black Fourteen - On October 17, 1969, fourteen Black student athletes at the University of Wyoming approached their football coach with a difficult subject. They wanted to meet and discuss the possibility of non-violent protest, like wearing black armbands, during an upcoming game against Brigham Young University. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’s ban on black men holding the priesthood in the church, and other racial restrictions. The priesthood ban applied exclusively to men of African descent.
Their coach, Lloyd Eaton, fired them on the spot. Coach Eaton ordered the players to the bleachers where he reprimanded them and then released them from the team, revoking their athletic scholarships. The university announced that the Board of Trustees supported Coach Eaton’s decision and said “the players will not play in today’s game or any [other] during the balance of the season.” Having dismissed all the black players, the Cowboys became an all-white team. They went on to beat BYU, 40-7; they won two more games but lost four of the remaining games in the season.
The fourteen players, Jerry Berry, Tony Gibson, John Griffin, Lionel Grimes, Mel Hamilton, Ron Hill, Willie Hysaw, Jim Isaac, Earl Lee, Don Meadows, Tony McGee, Ivie Moore, Joe Williams, and Ted Williams, were part of a successful Wyoming football team. Under Head Coach Lloyd Eaton, the Wyoming Cowboys had won three consecutive Western Athletic Conference (WAC) championships, and in 1969 it was considered the best football team to ever play for the university.

The dismissal of the fourteen players brought swift, unwanted local and national attention to the University. First, the UW Student Senate passed a resolution which said in part, “The actions of coach Eaton and the Board of Trustees were not only uncompromising, but unjust and totally wrong.” By the end of October, the UW College of Arts and Sciences, the largest college on campus, voted to support the student athletes. The major networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC all covered the story, as did Sports Illustrated.

In response to the Black Fourteen being expelled from the team, a number of athletes of all races wore black armbands in support including the entire San Jose (California) State Team that lost to the Cowboys in their last season game. The protest of the Fourteen eventually sparked nationwide focus on LDS church practices and other protests by student athletes. Students at the campuses of almost every BYU opponent protested at the games, regardless of the sport, and called on their institutions to ban contests with BYU athletic teams. Stanford University president Kenneth Pitzer announced that his institution would no longer participate in athletic contests against Brigham Young University, and the University of Washington Faculty Senate voted to sever all ties with BYU athletics.

Black Olympic Medalists - John Carlos and Tommie Smith created political controversy at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games on October 16, 1968. While receiving their medals on the Olympic podium, Carlos and Smith raised the "Black Power Salute" while wearing no shoes to symbolize poverty in Black America. Australian Peter Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights pin, and stood in solidarity with their protest. Smith and Carlos were suspended from the team by the U.S. Olympic Committee two days later.
The following day, the U.S. Olympic Committee threatened other athletes with stern disciplinary action if they engaged in demonstrations. Acting USOC Director Everett Barnes issued a formal statement to the Olympic International Committee, condemning Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos and claiming that the sprinters “made our country look like the devil.”
The USOC suspended Mr. Smith and Mr. Carlos from the U.S. Olympic team following a midnight meeting. In the early hours of the morning on October 18, the Committee ordered both men to vacate the Olympic village in Mexico within 48 hours.

Despite their medal-winning performances, the two athletes faced intense criticism in the media and received death threats upon returning home. At the time, their protest was wrongly perceived as a show of disrespect directed toward the American flag and national anthem.

Kentucky State University - one of the largest predominantly black institution of higher learning in the state, began as a state normal (teacher training) school. On October 15, 1885, Kentucky’s political leaders held a conference in Louisville to discuss the ways to improve the welfare of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The conference made a number of recommendations including the establishment of a normal school to train African American teachers needed for the instruction of black children in elementary schools across the state. On May 18, 1886, the Kentucky state legislature authorized and chartered “the State Normal School for Colored Persons” which would be located in the state capital, Frankfort.
In 1902, the institution’s name was changed to Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute for Colored Persons. In 1926, the name changed again to Kentucky State Industrial College for Colored Persons. Three years later, in 1929, Institute President Rufus Atwood closed down the high school declaring it was no longer needed since most incoming students had acquired a high school education before arriving on campus. In 1938, the institution’s name was changed a third time to Kentucky State College for Negroes and in 1952 it became Kentucky State College. The first white students were enrolled in 1960 and twelve years later the college became Kentucky State University. By 1973, the first graduate students were enrolled in the school of public affairs.

George Floyd -legacy became a household name in May of 2020 when he was murdered by MPLS PD in front of the world via cell phone footage.

Floyd was born on October 14, 1973, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. His mother moved to Houston, Texas where he and four siblings grew up in a public-housing project. Floyd played on the basketball and football team at Yates High School. After graduating in 1993, he attended South Florida Community College before transferring to Texas A&M University-Kingsville in 1995. Young

Floyd would make mistakes in his lie that would result in his incarceration for a number of years.
After he was paroled in 2013, he served as a mentor in his religious community and posted anti-violence videos to social media. In 2014, he moved to the Minneapolis area, residing in the nearby suburb of St. Louis Park, and worked as a truck driver and bouncer. In 2020, he lost his job as a truck driver, and then his security job during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An influential member of his community, Floyd was respected for his ability to relate with others in his environment based on a shared experience of hardships and setbacks, having served time in prison and living in a poverty-stricken project in Houston. In a video addressing the youth in his neighborhood, Floyd reminds his audience that he has his own "shortcomings" and "flaws" and that he is not better than anyone else, but also expresses his disdain for the violence that was taking place in the community, and advises his neighbors to put down their weapons and remember that they are loved by him and God.

Beatrice Coleman - was a pioneering civil rights activist in Fairbanks, Alaska. The events that led Coleman to become a civil rights activist began on October 13, 1946, when she and Robert were on a date. The couple entered Hill’s Cocktail Lounge at the corner of Second Avenue and Lacey Street in downtown Fairbanks. The bartender and proprietor, Rudy Hill, ignored the couple while they waited at a table for several minutes. Hill then walked over to the Colemans and ordered them to leave his establishment. “I have a license that gives me the right to refuse service to anyone I see fit not to serve,” he said, according to a statement Coleman later gave to the district attorney. “And my reason for not serving you is because you are colored.”

With the assistance of Franklin Williams, then assistant special counsel in the NAACP’s New York office, Coleman researched Alaska’s statutes and found that an anti-discrimination law had been enacted by the territorial legislature one year earlier. The act prohibited denying anyone equal access to public facilities on the basis of race.
Coleman convinced the U.S. Attorney in Fairbanks to file charges against Hill. It would be the first case prosecuted under the anti-discrimination law. In the trial held in November 1946, Hill pleaded not guilty and claimed he had ejected the Colemans from his bar not for their race but because he feared they were already intoxicated and posed a threat to public safety. The judge was not persuaded by Hill’s claims, and the bartender was convicted and fined $50. His conviction was overturned on appeal, however, due to a technicality in the language of the law. (The law was amended in 1949 to correct the defect, but it was still rarely enforced in the ensuing years.)
In November 1952, Coleman was instrumental in establishing the Fairbanks branch of the NAACP, the organization’s third Alaska chapter after Anchorage and Kodiak (both founded in 1951). In 1958 she helped organize a boycott of a local supermarket when its manager reneged on a promise to hire black cashiers.

Jonny Gammage - On the morning of October 12, 1995, was detained during a traffic stop while driving. Jonny Gammage was the cousin and business partner of Pittsburgh Steelers football player Ray Seals. At the time of the stop Mr. Gammage was driving Mr. Seals’s Jaguar in the working-class suburb of Brentwood. According to witness testimony, Lt. Milton Mullholland pulled Mr. Gammage over for tapping his brakes and called Officer John Votjas for backup. The officers later claimed that Mr. Gammage pointed an object at the officers which turned out to be a cell phone and struggled. Mr. Mullholland and Mr. Votjas, along with Officer Michael Albert, Sergeant Keith Henderson, and Officer Sean Patterson, ultimately pinned Mr. Gammage face-down on the pavement. After several minutes, the officers' use of force suffocated Mr. Gammage and he died.

On November 27, 1995, Mr. Mulholland and Mr. Votjas were charged with third-degree murder, and Mr. Albert was charged with involuntary manslaughter. The charges against Mr. Mullholland and Mr. Votjas were later reduced to involuntary manslaughter. Mr. Henderson and Mr. Patterson were not charged in the incident.
Officer Votjas was acquitted by an all-white jury and, a year later, promoted to sergeant; Judge Joseph McCloskey dismissed charges against Mr. Mulholland and Mr. Albert after two trials resulted in mistrials. In January 1996, Brentwood police chief Wayne Babish, who had called for a complete investigation into Mr. Gammage’s death, was fired by the Brentwood City Council for failing to support the charged officers.

Multiple public protests were held in Pittsburgh and elsewhere, calling for “Justice for Jonny” and federal intervention. However, in 1999 the Department of Justice declined to file civil rights charges, stating that there was not enough evidence that unreasonable force had been used.

George W. Gibbs Jr - was the first person of African descent to set foot on Antarctica (the South Pole). He was also a civil rights leader and World War II Navy gunner. On October 11, 2009, George Gibbs Elementary School opened in Rochester, Minnesota, named in his honor.

Gibbs served on Admiral Richard Byrd’s third expedition to the South Pole in 1939-1941, becoming the first African American to reach Antarctica. From more than 2,000 Navy applicants, Gibbs was among the 40 chosen to accompany Byrd in this history making expedition, sailing on the USS Bear. The USS Bear was a floating museum before the old wooden vessel was specially outfitted for the South Pole expedition. Gibbs was a member of the crew that supported the ice party. He was the first person off the ship to set foot on Antarctica on January 14, 1941.
In 1966 George Gibbs helped organize the Rochester Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and worked for civil rights both locally and nationally. He also served as president of the Rochester Kiwanis and the Rochester chapter of the Minnesota Alumni Association. Gibbs was presented with the George Gibbs Humanitarianism Award by the Rochester, Minnesota branch of the NAACP, just one of many honors he received in his life.
In 1974 Gibbs applied for membership to the Rochester Elks Club. He made national news when the Club initially denied him entry. He was the first African American to apply to the local club and helped break the color barrier at service clubs in Rochester.