James Mercer Langston Hughes, Black America’s poet laureate, playwright, novelist, columnist, activist, and the chronicler of the Harlem Renaissance, passed away on this day 1967.

After the Emancipation Proclamation early in the year, on this day in 1863 the War Department issued General Order No. 143 that created the Bureau of Colored Troops. It had become clear that the Union effort needed Black people to turn the tide in the Civil War.
On this day in 1789, John Berry Meachum, pastor, businessperson, and educator, was born into slavery in Goochland County, Virginia. He, later on, purchased his freedom, moving to Missouri. He established a church, but his landmark achievement was to set up the “Floating Freedom School” to get around segregation laws.
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