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• 1 2019-03-12T23:56:45+00:00 May - Archived Posts 9 plain published 2019-09-12T20:25:54+00:00
  Click on date to view post:
  May 1, 1954: Montgomery hires first African-American police officers, reported in Chicago Defender. Guest post by Caitlin Sullivan, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 1, 1954: NAACP criticizes federal housing plans, reported in Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Matthew Lee, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 2, 1957: Court rules Philadelphia’s Girard College must open to black students, reported in the California Eagle. Guest post by Blake Miller, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 3, 1919: WWI passport dispute reported in St. Paul Appeal. Guest post by Andrew Mullinnix, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 3, 1958: New York Amsterdam News reports on socialites canceling wedding. Guest post by Kelly Monfredini, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 4, 1957: Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at rally in New York City, reported in New York Amsterdam News. Guest post by Charles Zazzera, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 4, 1963: Martin Luther King Jr. and protesters sentenced to ten days in Birmingham jail, reported in Baltimore Afro-American. Guest post by Aaron Nostwich, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 5, 1945: Baltimore Afro-American reports on 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion (the “Triple Nickels”). Guest post by Daniel Obren, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 6, 1943: California Eagle on discrimination in war industries. Guest post by Niccolo Peterson, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 6, 1922: Dallas Express calls for more roles for African-American actors. Guest post by Ariel Sumendap, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 7, 1963: Washington Afro-American reports on black family fighting to keep land from developers. Guest post by Bryce Rooney, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 8, 1958: California Eagle reports on police brutality. Guest post by Paige Ross, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 8, 1929: Harlem teenager wins New York City oratory competition, reported in New York Amsterdam News. Guest post by Ellie Siwicki, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 9, 1970: Mother claims squatter’s rights in vacant apartment building owned by Columbia University. Guest post by Paige Champman, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 9, 1964: Black debutantes in the Indianapolis Recorder. Guest post by Lauren Sendlebach, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 10, 1947: Baltimore Afro-American profiles Darwin Turner, who was Phi Beta Kappa at fifteen and became a professor at the University of Iowa. Guest post by Andrew Spargo, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 10, 1919: Broad Ax reviews Eighth Regiment military band. Guest post by Katherine Garnett, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 11, 1912: Chicago Defender reports on dispute in Georgia over black chauffeur using employer’s car. Guest post by Denver Studebaker, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 12, 1926: New York Amsterdam News on prohibition movement. Guest post by Filomena Matoshi, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 12, 1899: Iowa State Bystander on lynching of Sam Hose. Guest post by Nathan Volkert, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 13, 1961: Cleveland Call and Post on deejay Eddie O’Jay and music in the city.

  May 13, 1921: Baltimore Afro-American on racial disparities in teachers’ pay. Guest post by Jordan Washington, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 14, 1904: Booker T. Washington on African-American education in The Appeal (Minneapolis & St. Paul). Guest post by Shelby Worth, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.

  May 15, 1993: New York Amsterdam News celebrates Malcolm X’s birthday. Guest post by Bridget McEvoy, undergraduate student at Manhattan College.

  May 16, 1935: Poet Arna Bontemps speaks at Vernon Library Book Club, noted in Los Angeles Sentinel.

  May 17, 1932: Teacher and Fisk University graduate Chrystal Tulli direct play, “Ballet Beautiful,” featured in Atlanta Daily World.

  May 18, 1954: Atlanta Daily World on the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision.

  May 19, 1962: Advertisement for electric clothes dryers in Philadelphia Tribune.

  May 20, 1948: Los Angeles Sentinel on lawsuit involving former boxing champion Henry Armstrong.

  May 21, 1936: Federal Negro Theater Project production of “Macbeth” at New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem.

  May 22, 1970: Atlanta Daily World reports on Essence, a new monthly magazine for black women.

  May 23, 1953: Pittsburgh Courier reports that city newspapers adopted a code of classified advertising which eliminates reference to race, religious creed, color, national origin, or ancestry.

  May 24, 1961: Chicago Defender reports that the Freedom Riders will continue their campaign against segregated interstate buses in the South.

  May 25, 1933: Philadelphia Tribune reports on murder of evangelist G. Wilson Becton.

  May 26, 1934: Torch singer Ivy Anderson in Norfolk Journal and Guide.

  May 27, 1944: Recruiting black workers to war industries in Cleveland Call and Post.

  May 28, 1955: Rebecca Stiles Dodson calls for release of Claudia Jones in Chicago Defender.

  May 29, 1926: Pittsburgh Courier reports that U.S. Supreme Court dismisses Corrigan v. Buckley and upholds legality of racially restrictive covenants.

  May 30, 1963: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads Freedom Rally in Los Angeles. Guest post by Mark Speltz.

  May 31, 1940: Burt’s Shoes advertisement in Atlanta Daily World.
• 1 2019-03-12T23:57:52+00:00 May 10, 1947 4 plain published 2019-09-11T22:58:42+00:00 Guest post by Andrew Spargo, undergraduate student at Iowa State University.
  
  On May 10, 1947, the Baltimore Afro-American published a story under the headline “U. of Cinn. Senior Makes Phi Beta Kappa at 15.” The story was about a young man named Darwin Turner, who, at the age of thirteen, was the youngest freshman to enroll in the University of Cincinnati. Even more impressive than his early enrollment is the fact that this young man continued on to finish his Bachelor of Arts degree in a mere three years. His mother, who had also matriculated at the University of Cincinnati, had graduated some years earlier with her own degree at the age of eighteen, setting a record of her own before sticking around campus to earn another three degrees after the first. Not only did Turner “beat his mother’s record,” but he was also inducted into Phi Beta Kappa during his studies at the university and planned to stay at the college until he left with his own list of degrees and honors. (Click to view article via Google News.)
  
  From his family’s impressive pedigree, one could almost say that Turner was destined for greatness. His paternal grandfather Charles H. Turner was the first African-American psychologist, his father was a pharmacist, and his mother set her own shining academic example. Turner himself was regarded as a sort of child prodigy who started grade school at two years of age and advanced on to the fourth grade only two years later. By seven, he had finished the sixth grade, and he culminated his pre-college career by graduating from high school at a mere thirteen years of age. The young Turner was an intelligent, motivated, and driven student, and upon receiving his Bachelor of the Arts from the University of Cincinnati, he stayed at the university, earning his master’s degree in English and American Drama in 1949. That year, he married his first wife, Edna Bonner, and began teaching English at Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia. A few years later, the young couple moved to Baltimore, Maryland, after Turner accepted an assistant professor position at Morgan State College. Turner balanced family, work, and his doctoral studies, ultimately earning a PhD from the University of Chicago when he was twenty-five years old. During the intervening years, Turner held various other positions in academia at other schools. He also divorced Ms. Bonner, remarried in 1968, and eventually landed in Iowa City, Iowa, teaching English and acting as the chair for the Afro-American Studies Department in 1972.
  
  Turner died of a heart attack in 1991, at the age of fifty-nine. He left a legacy, however, that will survive him throughout time immemorial. At the University of Iowa, the Darwin Turner Action Theater serves as a vehicle for engaging with the community through the arts. At the University of Cincinnati, the Darwin T. Turner Scholars Program honors the academic sacrifices and rigor of underrepresented minority students with full-ride scholarships and provides access to social and professional programs to allow those students to expand their horizons beyond the classroom. Turner’s legacy also lives on through the work that he did in editing and contributing to African-American literature and his own publications.