June 21, in 1832, Joseph Hayne Rainey was born a slave in the rice-growing region of Georgetown, South Carolina. 1832 was a tumultuous time for race relations in America. The Nat Turner Rebellion of August 1831, in which a slave preacher led a band of enslaved men on a killing spree in Virginia, still caused […]
Archive | June, 2013
Juneteenth Celebrations – June 19th in African American History
June 19, 1865, or Juneteenth, was the day the African American slaves in Texas received notice by Union Major-General Gordon Granger that they were forever free. President Abraham Lincoln, assassinated earlier in April of that year, had signed the Emancipation Proclamation that went into effect on January 1, 1863, freeing all the slaves in the […]
Wesley A Brown – June 3rd in African American History
June 3rd, in 1949, Wesley A Brown graduated from the US Naval Academy, becoming the first African American to do so. The Annapolis Naval Academy had never, before this date, witnessed an African American succeed beyond the first academic year. Brown received his commission as a naval officer on this momentous occasion, joining one of […]