On this day in 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, Richard Pryor, America’s greatest comedian was born. He became a great all-round entertainer, including acting in some great movies.
On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus in Montgomery Alabama. Black people decided that day to boycott public transportation. They car-pooled and walked to work, for a whole year. Thus began the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.
Arthur Spingarn died on this day in 1971 in New York City. Spingarn was a founder of the NAACP in 1909 and was deeply involved in all the organization’s activities until he retired in 1966. He was a titan in the African Americans struggle for equal rights, equal citizenship, and dignity. His large collection of art, books, writings, newspapers and other pieces on the African American life and history formed the basis for the one of the largest collections on Black life, the Moorland Spingarn Research Center at Howard University.
Black America’s great man of letters, James Arthur Baldwin, died on this day in 1987 in France. In books such as Go Tell it on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, The Fire Next Time, and Nobody Knows my Name, James Baldwin demonstrated his accomplishments as a novelist, essayist, playwright, and activist.
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