(Photo By Flickr User Karen)

Black History Today for February 23rd:

1868- On this day Dr. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) DuBois, educator and civil rights advocate, is born in Great Barrington, MA.

1895- William H. Heard, AME minister and educator, named minister to Liberia.

1915- The death of Robert Smalls (75), Reconstruction congressman, in Beaufort, SC.

1925- Louis Stokes, former mayor of Detroit, MI and member of the US House of Representatives, was born in Cleveland, OH on this day. Stokes was the first African-American elected to the House from Ohio.

1929- Baseball catcher Elston Gene Howard was born in St. Louis, MO. In 1965, Howard signed a $70,000 contract with the NY Yankees and became the highest paid player in the history of baseball at the time.

1965- Constance Baker Motley elected Manhattan Borough president, the highest elective office held by a Black woman in a major American city.

1979- Frank E. Peterson Jr., was named the first Black general in the Marine Corps on this day.

1995- Bass Singer Melvin Franklin (born David Melvin English) of The Temptations, died of complications following a brain seizure in Los Angeles, CA. He was 53.

(Information courtesy of blackfacts.com)