01/06/2026
January 5
1804: The Ohio legislature passed the first of the "Black Laws," which restricted the rights and movement of free Black people in the North.
1911: Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. was founded at Indiana University by ten young men led by Elder Watson Diggs.
1943: Renowned agricultural scientist George Washington Carver passed away at Tuskegee Institute. He is celebrated for his revolutionary work with peanuts, sweet potatoes, and soil conservation.
January 6
1961: The "Jail-in" movement began in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Students from Friendship Junior College (the "Friendship Nine") opted for "jail, no bail" after being arrested for a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter.
1993: Jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie, a pioneer of bebop and Afro-Cuban jazz, passed away.
January 7
1891: Renowned author and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston was born. She became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best known for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.
1955: Marian Anderson became the first African American to perform at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City.
January 8
1811: Charles Deslondes led the German Coast Uprising in Louisiana, one of the largest slave revolts in U.S. history.
1866: Fisk University was founded in Nashville, Tennessee, by the American Missionary Association to provide higher education for formerly enslaved people.
1912: The African National Congress (ANC) was founded (originally as the South African Native National Congress) to fight for the rights of Black South Africans.
January 9
1914: Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. was founded at Howard University by A. Langston Taylor, Leonard F. Morse, and Charles I. Brown.
January 10
1957: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was founded in New Orleans. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was elected its first president, and the organization became a powerhouse of the Civil Rights Movement.
January 11
1985: Reuben V. Anderson was appointed as the first African American justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court.
