On Feb. 1, 1960, four college students -- Jibreel Khazan, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain and David Richmond -- took seats at a whites only lunch counter at an F.W. Woolworth store in Greensboro, N.C. Because they were black, they were not served and were asked to leave. Instead, they remained seated and studied until closing.
After repeated sit-ins, Woolworth's finally opened its lunch counters to all customers on July 25, 1960.
The men came to be known as the Greensboro Four. The lunch counter itself
was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1994.
It was 131 years ago today, on February 3, 1870, that the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It prevented states from prohibiting access to the ballot box because of race.
Section 1 states: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any other state on
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Today is Rosa Parks' 88th birthday. Her refusal to give up her seat on a city bus to a white man sparked the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.
On Dec. 1, 1955, while riding home from work in Montgomery, Ala., Parks refused to obey the driver's order to move to the back of the bus. She was arrested, tried, found guilty and fined $10 plus court costs. Her arrest led to the start of the successful Montgomery bus boycott, which ended more than a year later on Dec. 20, 1956.
Parks moved to Detroit in 1957, where she continues to live and has a street
named after her. She has received many honorary degrees and awards in
recognition of her efforts to end segregation.
Baseball great Henry (Hank) Louis Aaron (nicknamed The Hammer) was born Feb. 5, 1934, in Mobile, Ala. He started his career with the Negro Baseball League. He played for the Milwaukee Braves, now the Atlanta Braves, and the Milwaukee Brewers.
During his career, he set many records, including hitting 755 regular season home runs. On April 8, 1974, while with Atlanta, Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record of 714 home runs when he hit No. 715 off Dodger pitcher Al Downing. He retired as a player in 1976 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982
Did You Know?
Author and poet Alice Walker was born on this day in Eatonton, Ga., in 1944. She was the youngest of eight children. At the age of 8, an accident left her blind in one eye, but her sight was later partially corrected. She grew up isolated, and read extensively and wrote poetry.
Walker has been active in the civil rights movement since her college days at Spelman College in Atlanta and Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
Like her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "The Color Purple," many of
her works center on the struggle and liberation of black women. Her books
include "Meridian" and "The Temple of My Familiar."
Some firsts:
Gwendolyn Brooks was the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. She won in 1950 and was later the first black woman elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
Thurgood Marshall became the first black appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967. That same year, Walter Washington became mayor of Washington, D.C. He was the first black mayor of a major American city.
Coleman Young was Detroit's first black mayor. He was elected in 1973.