Black History Day 25

  1. In 1961, Ralph Abernathy succeeded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
  2. Miriam Benjamin invented the ‘gong’ signal system which was patented in 1888.
  3. The SIX countries that make up North Africa are Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Western Sahara.
  4. In 1808, President Thomas Jefferson signed a bill into law that made it illegal to import slaves into the US. Of course most southern states refused to enforce the law.
  5. In 1976, Patricia Roberts Harris was appointed as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development by President Jimmy Carter, making her the FIRST black female Cabinet member.
  6. In 1904, Mary McLeod Bethune opened a small Florida school for black children. In 1923, the school merged with The Cookman Institute and became Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, Florida.
  7. Oil is a “very” important resource in North Africa. The Middle East and North Africa supply 37% of the world’s oil.
  8. The Civil Rights Act of 1965, more commonly known as the Voting Rights Act, outlawed the use of literacy tests and poll taxes that prevented blacks from voting.
  9. The first Dial Award went to Herschel Walker as the high school scholar/athlete of the year in 1979. The Dial award is presented to outstanding high school athletes.
  10. In 1960, Marion Barry was the first National Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] and in 1979 he was elected Mayor of Washington, D.C.

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