(Photo By Flickr User Scott Beale)

WVEL Black History Weekend Today for February 13th & February 14:

February 13th:

1635- America’s first public school, the Boston Latin School, opened in Boston, MA. Black students were excluded from attending.

1818- Absalom Jones, the first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the U.S., died on this day.

1892- The first African-American performers, the World’s Fair Colored Opera Company, appear at Carnegie Hall in New York City, NY.

1907- Wendell P. Dabney establishes The Union. The Cincinnati, OH paper’s motto is “For no people can become great without being united, for in union there is strength.”

1923- The first Black professional basketball team “The New York Renaissance” was organized.

1957- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organized at New Orleans meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr. as President.

1970- The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) admits its first Black member, Joseph Searles on this day.

1973- Gertrude E. Downing and William Desjardin Corner Cleaner Attachment (Patent No. 3,715,772), on February 13, 1973.

February 14th:

1760- Richard Allen born in slavery in Philadelphia.

1817- Possible birthday of Frederick Douglass, abolitionist and orator. Born into slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Douglass purchased his freedom in 1845 and went on to become the greatest abolitionist of his time.

1867- Morehouse College organized in Augusta, GA. The institution was later moved to Atlanta. New registration law in Tennessee abolished racial distinctions in voting.

1936- National Negro Congress (NNC) organized in Chicago, IL; the meeting attended by 817 delegates representing more than 500 organizations. Asa Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was elected president of the new organization.

1946- Entertainer and dancer Gregory Hines was born on this day.

(Information courtesy of blackfacts.com)