Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. was founded by twenty-two women on the campus of Howard University on this day in 1913. Two months later, on March 1913, they participated in the Women’s Suffrage March in Washington, DC.
Lawrence Douglas Wilder, a lawyer and politician, was sworn in on this day in 1990 as the 66th Governor of the State of Virginia. He was the first African American to occupy that lofty position.
On this day in 1777, Prince Hall and others petitioned the State of Massachusetts for freedom for African people in the state.
Charlotte E. Ray, the first African American woman attorney in the United States, was born on this day in 1850 in New York City. She was educated at the Howard University Law School, graduating in 1872.
Robert C. Weaver had had a career in public service for over thirty years where he had broken racial barriers. On this day in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson nominated Weaver as the Secretary of the newly created US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Jerome Heartwell ‘Brud’ Holland, educator university administrator, and diplomat, died on this day in 1985. He dedicated his life to education and service. He led two HBCUs in their prime: President of Delaware State University from 1953 to 1960; and President of Hampton University from 1960 to 1970. He was appointed US Ambassador to Sweden in 1970.
The United States Postal Service on this day in 1979 honored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a postal stamp in its USPS Black Heritage series.
“Where do we go from here? First, we must massively assert our dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values. We must no longer be ashamed of being black. The job of arousing manhood within a people that have been taught for so many centuries that they are nobody is not easy…
The tendency to ignore the Negro's contribution to American life and to strip him of his personhood, is as old as the earliest history hooks and as contemporary as the morning's newspaper. To upset this cultural homicide, the Negro must rise up with an affirmation of his own Olympian manhood. Any movement for the Negro's freedom that overlooks this necessity is only waiting to be buried. As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. No Lincolnian Emancipation Proclamation or Johnsonian Civil Rights Bill can totally bring this kind of freedom. The Negro will only be free when he reaches down to the inner depths of his own being and signs with the pen and ink of assertive manhood his own Emancipation Proclamation. And, with a spirit straining toward true self esteem, the Negro must boldly throw off the manacles of self-abnegation and say to himself and to the world, "I am somebody. I am a person. I am a man with dignity and honor. I have a rich and noble history. How painful and exploited that history has been. Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that. I'm ashamed of the people who were so sinful to make me a slave." Yes, we must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.”
MLK, Jr, ‘Where Do We Go from Here’, 1967
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