(Photo By Flickr User Thomas Hawk)

Black History Today for February 11th:

1644- First Black legal protest in America pressed by eleven Blacks who petitioned for freedom in New Netherlands (New York). Council of New Netherlands freed the eleven petitioners because they had “served the Company seventeen or eighteen years” and had been “long since promised their freedom on the same footing as other free people in New Netherlands.”

1783- First female preacher of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and author Jarena Lee was born in Cape May, NJ on this day.

1898- Owen L. W. Smith of North Carolina, AME Zion minister and educator, named minister to Liberia.

1961-  Robert Weaver sworn in as administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, highest federal post to date by an African-American.

1971-  Executive Director of the National Urban League, Whitney M. Young, Jr. died on this day.

1976- Clifford Alexander, Jr. is confirmed as the first African-American Secretary of the Army. He will hold the position until the end of President Jimmy Carter’s term.

1989- The Right Reverend Barbara Clementine Harris, was consecrated a bishop on this day.

1990- Nelson Mandela is released from prison on this day.

(Information courtesy of blackfacts.com)