Drexel Honors Black History Month
Check back each day for a new fact about Black History Month.
 
February 28: A.W. Martin is the African American inventor that created the door lock.
February 27: A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Charles Henry Turner received a B.S. (1891) and M.S. (1892) from the University of Cincinnati and a Ph.D. (1907) from the University of Chicago. A noted authority on the behavior of insects, he was the first researcher to prove that insects can hear.
February 26: Sophia Tucker Packard and Harriet Giles, the founders of Spelman College, used just $100 to found this Historically Black College.
February 25: Alfred L. Cralle invented the ice cream scooper. His invention was patented on February 2, 1897.
February 24: In 1954, with Barbara Jordan as the leader, the all-Black Texas Southern University debate team stunned and beat the Harvard debate team.
February 23: Autherine Lucy becomes the first Black student at the University of Alabama in February 1956.
February 22: Jefferson Franklin Long becomes first Black person to speak in the House of Representatives as a Congressman in 1871.
February 21: Alice Parker, in 1918, created a heating furnace that could be used to heat an entire living space.
February 20: Ruth Ella Moore received a Ph.D. in Bacteriology from Ohio State University in 1933 becoming the first black female to do so. Dr. Moore served as the Head of the Department of Bacteriology at Howard University Medical College from 1947 to 1958.
February 19: Sojourner Truth’s real name was Isabella Baumfree.
February 18: Elbert Frank Cox became the first Black to hold a doctorate degree in mathematics which he received from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY in 1925.
February 17: Alexander Lucius Twilight was the first African American to receive a college degree. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in 1823.
February 16: The largest woman’s organization happens to be the National Council of Negro Women.
February 15: Cathay Williams (1842 – ) was the first and only known female Buffalo Soldier. She was born into slavery and worked for the Union army during the Civil War. She posed as a man and enlisted as Williams Cathay in the 38th infantry in 1866. She was given a medical discharge in 1868.
February 14: Maurice Ashley ( 1966 - ) is the first and only African-American to be crowned International Grand Master of chess in 1999. He opened the Harlem Chess Center in 1999, where he coaches young chess players.
February 13: The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American pilots in the U.S. armed forces. Beginning in 1941, select groups of extensively tested and rigorously trained African-Americans were trained at The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama The Tuskegee Airmen are depicted in the G.I. Joe. Act.
February 12: Richard Theodore Greener (1844 - 1922), was the first African-American graduate from Harvard in 1870. He started out at Oberlin college, the first American college to admit African-Americans and went on to become a lawyer.
February 11: Alain Locke (1886 - 1954), a writer, philosopher and intellectual, was the first African-American Rhodes Scholar. A strong supporter of African-American arts, he wrote about the Harlem Renaissance in The New Negro (1925.
February 10: Ben Carson (1951 - ) a skilled neurosurgeon, led the first successful operation to separate a pair of Siamese twin infants who were joined at the back of the head in 1987.
February 9: The African Free School in New York City was the first free school for African-Americans. It was started by the abolitionist group the New York Manumission Society in 1787.
February 8: Walker Smith Jr. (1921 – 1989) became known as Sugar Ray Robinson he borrowed his friend Ray Robinson’s Amateur Athletic Union card and became the Golden Glove Lightweight champion in 1940 under the borrowed name. Smith’s boxing style was described as “sweet as sugar” and the name Sugar Ray Robinson stuck. Considered the greatest boxer of all time, Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951 and was middleweight champion five times between 1951 and 1960 –the first boxer in history to win a divisional world championship five times.
February 7: In the mid 1800s Philadelphia was known as “The Black Capital of Anti–Slavery,” because of the strong abolitionist presence there and such groups as The Philadelphia Female Anti–Slavery Society, The Philadelphia Young Men’s Anti–Slavery Society and The Philadelphia Anti–Slavery Society.
February 6: The “306 Group” was a guild–like club that provided support and apprenticeship for African–American artists during the 1940s. It was founded by the artist Charles Alston at 306 West 141st street in Harlem and served as a studio and meeting place for some of the 20th century’s most prominent African–American artists such as the poet Langston Hughes, the sculptor Augusta Savage, the painter Jacob Lawrence, and the collage artist Romare Beardenention.
February 5: Jesse Ernest Wilkins Jr. (1923 – ), a physicist, mathematician and an engineer, earned a PhD. in mathematics at age 19 from the University of Chicago in 1942.
February 4: Mark Dean (1957 - ) along with his co-inventor Dennis Moelle created a microcomputer system with bus control means for peripheral processing devices. This invention allows the use of computer plug-ins like disk drives, speakers, scanners, etc...
February 3: Otis Boykin (1920 -1982) invented electronic control devices for guided missiles, IBM computers, and the control unit for a pacemaker.
February 2: Elijah McCoy (1843 - 1929) invented an automatic lubricator for oiling steam engines in 1872. The term "the real McCoy" is believed to be a reference about the reliability of Elijah McCoy's invention.
February 1: Black History Month originated in 1926 by Carter Godwin Woodson as Negro History Week. The month of February was chosen in honor of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, who were both born in that month.
|
