*Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950) was decided on this date in 1950. This U.S. Supreme Court case successfully challenged the “separate but equal” doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. Four years later, the case was influential in the landmark case of Brown v. Board of Education. The case involved a Black man, Heman […]
learn more*David Duke was born on this date in 1950. He is a white-American politician, white supremacist, and antisemitic conspiracy theorist. David Ernest Duke was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to Maxine (née Crick) and David Hedger Duke, the younger of two children. As the son of an engineer for Shell Oil Company, Duke frequently moved with his family […]
learn moreOn this date in 1950, the first US victory in Korea was won by Black troops in the Army’s 24th Infantry Regiment.
The victory happened at Yechon, where Captain Charles M. Bussey, a World War II Tuskegee Airman, was the ground commander. He earned a Silver Star.
During the Korean War, two Black soldiers were awarded Congressional Medals of Honor: Private First Class William Thompson, mortally wounded by a grenade; and Sergeant Cornelius H. Charlton, who died of wounds received during his heroic exploits.
Both men were in the 24th Infantry.
learn more*Alan Keyes was born on this date in 1950. He is an African American politician and diplomat from the state of Maryland.
learn more*On this date in 1950, the 2nd Ranger Infantry Company (Airborne) was formed. This unit was a Ranger light infantry company of the United States Army active during the Korean War. As a small special operations unit, it specialized in irregular warfare. A segregated unit, all its personnel, including its officers, were black. The U.S. Army, which until that […]
learn more*Elijah Cummings was born on this date in 1951. He was a Black politician. Elijah Eugene Cummings was from Baltimore and was the son of Ruth Elma (née Cochran) and Robert Cummings. His parents were sharecroppers; he was the third of seven children. Cummings graduated with honors from the Baltimore City College High School in 1969. He later attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he served in […]
learn more*Eric Holder was born on this date in 1951. He is an African American lawyer and administrator.
Eric Himpton Holder, Jr. was born in The Bronx, New York, to parents who emigrated from Barbados. He grew up in Queens and was educated at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan and attended Columbia University, where he earned a B.A. in 1973 and a J.D. in 1976.
learn more*Chance v. Lambeth was decided on this date in 1951. This suit was brought to the United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit by William C. Chance. He was a 64-year-old black school teacher trying to recover damages from the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company. This was because he was wrongfully ejected because of his […]
learn moreSharon Sayles-Belton was born on this date in 1951. She is an African American administrator, activist, and politician.
She was born in Minneapolis, one of four girls from the family of Bill and Ethel Sayles. She graduated from Central High School and from Macalester College in St. Paul in 1973. She then worked as a civil rights activist in Jackson, MS, returned to Minnesota, began working as a parole officer, and later served as the assistant director of the Minnesota Program for Victims of Sexual Assault. She also co-founded the Harriet Tubman Shelter for Battered Women.
learn moreOn this date in 1951, Private First Class William Henry Thompson became the first Black to earn the Medal of Honor in the Korean conflict.
While manning his machine gun during a surprise attack on his platoon, Thompson of Company M, Twenty-fourth Infantry Regiment, was killed in action. This occurred at a critical juncture in the 8th Army’s attempt to stop the North Korean Army’s southward movement.
Pfc. Thompson’s effort near Hainan, Korea, resulted in his becoming the first Black man to receive the Medal of Honor since 1898.
learn more*Libya gained its independence on this date in 1951. Under the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya. The officially the State of Libya is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad to the south, […]
learn more*Sheila Abdus-Salaam was born on this date in 1952. She was a Black, lawyer and associate judge on the New York Court of Appeals.
Born Sheila Turner in Washington, D.C., she grew up in a working-class family with six siblings; her great-grandfather was a slave in Virginia. She attended the public schools, was a 1974 graduate of Barnard College and a 1977 graduate of Columbia Law School. She and future United States Attorney General Eric Holder were classmates at Columbia.
*On this date in 1952, Gebhart v. Belton was ruled. This case was decided by the Delaware Court of Chancery and affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court in the same year. Argued by Louis Redding, Gebhart was one of the five cases combined into Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 United States Supreme Court, […]
learn more*Miller v. Board of Education was filed on this date in 1952. The plaintiffs were Black, deaf, school-age residents of the District of Columbia. The defendants were the Board of Education, its members, the Superintendent of Schools, the Board of Commissioners of the District and its members, the Federal Security Administrator, the Board of Directors […]
learn more*On this date 1952, a Black woman murdered a White man in Florida. Ruby McCollum murdered Dr. C. Leroy Adams. This shooting was as noted in African America as the O.J. Simpson Murder trial 43 years later.
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