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This Month In Black History: Important Things That Happened In December That You Never Learned

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December 2, 2022

We’ve still got a month left of historical milestones!

 

While December allows us to shift our focus to the holidays and preparing for the new year, there are a lot more things to commemorate during the final month of the Gregorian calendar year. From celebrity birthdays and transitions to historical firsts, there are a lot of things that happened this month over the last four centuries. In our latest recap, here are some important things that happened in December that you never learned, courtesy of BlackFacts.com:

December 17, 1663 – Anna Nzinga, Queen of the Ndongo (Angola), queen of Matamba, passes away

 

December 5, 1784 – Phyllis Wheatley, the first Black author to be published in book form, passes away

 

December 4, 1807 – Prince Hall, abolitionist and creator of the Prince Hall Freemasonry, dies

 

December 3, 1847 – Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney launch The North Star, an anti-slavery newspaper 

 

December 6, 1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland

 

December 8, 1850 – Lucy Ann Stanton makes history as the first woman to graduate from college

 


 

December 16, 1859 – The last slave ship, the Clothilde, lands, bringing a shipment of enslaved people to Mobile Bay, Alabama

 

December 23, 1867 – Beauty entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker is born in Delta, Louisiana

 

December 5, 1870  Cowboy Bill Pickett born is born in Travis County, Texas

 

December 11, 1872 – P.B.S. Pinchback makes history as the first African American governor of an American state, Louisiana

 

December 19, 1875 – Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History, is born

 

December 15, 1883 – William Hinton, developer of Hinton Test for diagnosing syphilis, is born

 

December 21, 1886 – Lucy Parsons’ “I Am An Anarchist” speech appears in the Kansas City Journal

 

December 2, 1891 – Historian Charles H. Wesley is born 

 

December 7, 1895 – Sir Milton Margai, the first Prime Minister of Sierra Leone is born

 

December 12, 1899 – Dr. George F. Grant, a dentist, inventor, and avid golfer receives the patent for a wooden golf tee

 

December 13, 1903 – Civil rights activist Ella Baker is born in Norfolk, Virginia

 


 

December 8, 1903 – Opera singer and philanthropist Zelma Watson George is born in Texas

 

December 25, 1907 – Jazz singer Cab Calloway is born

 

December 26, 1908 – Jack Johnson makes history as the first Black world heavyweight champion

 

December 12, 1911 – Negro Baseball League player Josh Gibson is born

 

December 4, 1915 – The Great Migration of 2 million Blacks from Southern states to the North begins

 

December 18, 1917 – Actor Ossie Davis is born

 

December 29, 1917 – Tom Bradley, the former five-term Mayor of Los Angeles, is born

 

December 12, 1918 – Jazz singer Joe Williams is born

 

December 25, 1918 – Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, former President of Egypt, is born

 

December 9, 1919 – Roy DeCarava, first Black photographer to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, is born

 

December 23, 1919 – Inventor Alice H. Parker receives patent for gas heating furnace

 

December 14, 1920 – Popular Bebop trumpeter Clark Terry is born

 

December 9, 1922 – Comedian John Elroy Sanford, also known as Redd Foxx, is born

 

December 13, 1923 – Larry Doby, first African American in baseball’s American League, is born

 

December 19, 1924 – Actress Cicely Tyson is born 

 

December 26, 1924 – Harmonica player DeFord Bailey Sr. makes history as the first Black person to perform on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee

 

December 8, 1925 – Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. is born

 

December 11, 1926 – Blues singer Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton is born

 


 

December 11, 1928 – Inventor Lewis Howard Latimer, passes away

 

December 30, 1928 – Guitarist Bo Diddley is born

 

December 15, 1929 – Emery Barnes, Former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, is born

 

December 5, 1931 – Rev. James Cleveland, aka “The King of Gospel,” is born

 

December 5, 1932 – Singer Little Richard is born

 

December 1, 1933 – 3x Grammy Award winning singer Louis Allen Rawls is born 

 

December 8, 1933 – Actor and Comedian Clerow “Flip” Wilson is born

 

December 3, 1935 – Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune receives Spingarn Medal for her work in building and founding Bethune Cookman College

 

December 5, 1935  Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune founds National Council of Negro Women

 

December 8, 1936 – NAACP files first suit to equalize salaries of Black and white teachers

 

December 8, 1936 – The Michigan Chronicle is founded by Louis E. Martin

 

December 15, 1936 – Writer Donald Goines is born in Detroit, Michigan

 

December 9, 1938 – NFL Player David “Deacon” Jones is born in Eatonville, Florida

 

December 14, 1939 – Ernie Davis, first Black player to win the Heisman Trophy, is born

 

December 27, 1939 – Actor John Amos is born

 

December 1, 1940 – Comedian Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III is born in Peoria, Illinois

 

December 12, 1940 – 3x Grammy award winning singer Dionne Warwick is born

 


 

December 7, 1941 – Novelist Richard Wright is awarded the Spingarn Medal

 

December 7, 1941 – Lester Granger is appointed as executive director of the National Urban League

 

December 7, 1942 – Reginald F. Lewis, the first Black American to build a billion-dollar business, is born

 

December 22, 1943 – W.E.B. Du Bois makes history as the first Black person elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters

 

December 13, 1944 – First group of Black women complete officer training for the WAVES (Women’s Auxiliary Volunteers for Emergency Service)

 

December 14, 1945 – American journalist and cultural critic Stanley Crouch is born

 

December 5, 1946 – Spingarn Medal awarded to Thurgood Marshall, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund

 

December 18, 1946 – South African apartheid activist Steve Biko is born

 

December 21, 1948 – Actor Samuel L. Jackson is born

 

December 31, 1948 – Singer Donna Summer, the Queen of Disco, is born

 

December 1, 1949 – Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke is born

 

December 6, 1949 – Blues legend Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, passes away

 

December 25, 1951 – Mabel K. Staupers receives Spingarn for her leadership in the field of nursing

 


 

December 28, 1954 – Actor Denzel Washington is born

 

December 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus

 

December 5, 1955 – Montgomery Bus Boycott begins

 

December 5, 1955 – Spingarn Medal awarded to Carl Murphy, publisher of the Baltimore Afro-American

 

December 27, 1956  Jackie Robinson receives Spingarn Medal

 

December 5, 1957 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is awarded the Spingarn Medal for his leadership of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

 

December 21, 1959 – Track legend Florence Griffith Joyner is born

 


 

December 21, 1959 – Spingarn Medal presented to Duke Ellington for his pioneering contributions to the arts

 

December 24, 1959 – Film producer and director Lee Daniels is born

 

December 22, 1960 – Iconic artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is born

 

December 30, 1960 – Langston Hughes awarded Spingarn Medal and named poet laureate of the Negro race

 

December 6, 1961 – Psychiatrist and philosopher Dr. Frantz O. Fanon passes away

 

December 9, 1961 – Tanzania gains its independence

 

December 11, 1961 – Langston Hughes musical Black Nativity, opens on Broadway

 

December 17, 1961 – American sculptor Marion Perkins passes away

 

December 12. 1963 – Medgar Wiley Evers is posthumously awarded the Spingarn Medal for his civil rights leadership

 

December 12, 1963 – Kenya gains its independence

 

December 14, 1963 – Singer Dinah Washington passes away in Detroit at the age of 39

 

December 18, 1963 – Professional tennis player Lori McNeil is born




 

December 3, 1964 – Spingarn Medal presented to NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins

 

December 10, 1964 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. makes history as the second African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize

 

December 26, 1966 – First Day of Kwanzaa

 

December 6, 1967 – Lillian Evans Evanti, one of the first internationally recognized African American opera performers, passes away

 

December 8, 1967 – Major Robert H. Lawrence Jr., the first Black astronaut, passes away

 

December 10, 1967 – Singer and songwriter Otis Redding passes away

 

December 11, 1967 – Comedian Mo’Nique is born 

 

December 14, 1968 – Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. awarded NAACP’s Spingarn Medal

 

December 2, 1969 – Marie V. Brittan Brown granted patent for first-of-its-kind home security system

 

December 4, 1969 – Ebony magazine photographer Moneta Sleet Jr. makes history as the first Black man to win a Pulitzer Prize and the first Black person to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism

 

December 4, 1969 – Hip Hop mogul Shawn Corey “Jay Z” Carter is born

 

December 4, 1969 – Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark are assassinated in Chicago

 

December 6, 1970 – Former Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is born

 

December 18, 1970 – Rapper Earl “DMX” Simmons is born

 

December 9, 1971 – Bill Pickett becomes the first black person elected to the National Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame

 

December 9, 1971 – Nobel Peace Prize winner and former undersecretary of the United Nations, Ralph Bunche, passes away

 

December 21, 1972  Gordon B. Parks is awarded the NAACP Spingarn Medal for his work as a photographer

 

December 4, 1973 – Supermodel Tyra Lynne Banks is born

 


 

December 16, 1973 – O.J. Simpson sets NFL Record for 2003 rushing yards in one season

 

December 11, 1972 – Rapper Yasiin Bey is born

 

December 2, 1975 – Ohio State football player Archie Griffin makes history as the only athlete ever to win the Heisman Trophy twice

 

December 12, 1975 – The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) is founded

 

December 30, 1975 – Golf icon Tiger Woods is born

 

December 9, 1976 – Legendary NFL Player Tony Dorsett is awarded the Heisman Trophy

 

December 16, 1976 – President Jimmy Carter appoints Andrew Young as Ambassador and Chief US Delegate to the United Nations

 

December 21, 1976 – Alvin Ailey awarded Spingarn Medal in recognition of his work in the field of dance

 

December 28, 1978 – Singer John Legend is born

 

December 20, 1981 – “Dreamgirls” Broadway Musical premiers at the Imperial Theater

 

December 20, 1983 – NBA player Julius “Dr. J” Erving scores his 25,000th career point

 

December 31, 1984 – First nationally broadcast telethon for United Negro College Fund is held, raising 14.1 million

 

December 10, 1985 – Actress Raven-Symoné is born

 


 

December 13, 1986 – Civil rights activist Ella Baker passes away

 

December 1, 1987 – World renowned writer James Baldwin passes away in Saint-Paul, France

 

December 8, 1987 – Kurt Schmoke makes history as the first Black mayor of Baltimore, MD

 

December 16, 1988 – Singer and songwriter Sylvester passes away in San Francisco

 

December 20, 1988 – Max Robinson, first Black news anchor for a major news network, passes away

 

December 1, 1989 – Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey passes away

 

December 17, 1991 – Michael Jordan named 1991 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year

 

December 24, 1992 – Alphonso Michael Epsy named first Black Secretary of Agriculture

 

December 7, 1994 – Hair care pioneer Marjorie Joyner passes away at the age of 98

 

December 9, 1995 – Kweisi Mfume is unanimously elected as President and CEO of the NAACP

 

December 12, 1995 – Willie Brown makes history as first African American mayor of San Francisco

 

December 6, 1997 – Lee P. Brown makes history as the first African American mayor of Houston

 

December 3, 2000 – Poet Gwendolyn Brooks passes away

 


 

December 12, 2007 – Musician Ike Turner passes away

 

December 31, 2015 – Singer Natalie Cole passes away

 

December 30, 2019 – 80-year-old Donzella Washington fulfills lifelong dream of earning bachelor’s degree, graduates from Alabama A&M University

 

December 4, 2021  Deion Sanders leads Jackson State to SWAC Championship win

 

December 5, 2021 – Motown Founder Berry Gordy receives Kennedy Center Honors

 

Black history is every month! 

This month in Black history: Important things that happened in December that you never learned. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. Photo Courtesy of Doyle M. Pace/Blues News

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