African-Americans in the Twentieth Century

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AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

*1980*
	The United States Census Bureau gave its Population Census in 1980. Of 227,255,000 people, the African-American population was 26,500,000 or twelve percent of the total population in the United States. Eighty-five percent of the statistical population of African-Americans lived in urban central cities.
	Willie Lewis Brown Jr. (1934- ) of California became the first African-American Speaker of the House in a state government. On January 9, 1996, he took office as Mayor of San Francisco, California.
	Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. (1944- ) was the first doctor to place an automatic defibrillator in the human heart to help the blood flow properly in the heart.
	Charles Frank Bolden, Jr. (1946-), naval aviator, was selected by NASA in May 1980 as a U.S. astronaut.
	Samuel R. Pierce Jr. (1922-2000) was the only African-American named to a cabinet position in President Reagan's administration. He became the Secretary of (HUD) Housing and Urban Development.
	On July 10, 1980, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found in its study of allegations of police brutality that it "was still a serious problem and the major cause of urban disorders."
	The Ku Klux Klan stepped up its movements in the South with more marches and cross burnings. In Cullman, Alabama they set up a training camp for new recruits. Not since the 1960's had the Klan been this active.
	Robert L. Johnson (1946- ) began his operation of Cable Television's Black Entertainment Television (BET) out of Washington, D.C. By 1991, BET had become the first completely African-American-owned company to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
	Two new members were elected to the United States House of Representatives: Mervyn M. Dymally (1926- ) from California and Gus Savage (1925- ) from Chicago.
	Jeff Gadley and Willie Davenport became the first blacks to take part in the Winter Olympic Games. Their event was the bobsled.

*1981*
	Pamela McAllister Johnson (1945-) became the first African-American woman to publish a widely circulated newspaper, the Ithaca Journal.
	Atlanta, Georgia was plagued by a clandestine killer of black youth for almost two years. After twenty-eight lives were lost, an arrest was made on June 21, 1981. Wayne B. Williams, an African-American man, was found to be guilty and is now serving two consecutive life terms.
	The Martin Luther King Jr. Library and Archives opened on October 19, 1981 in Atlanta, Georgia. Mrs. Coretta Scott King, Dr. King's widow, spearheaded and established this facility as a legacy to house Dr. King's many written speeches and accounts of his life as a minister and civil rights proponent.
	Elected to office in 1981: Andrew Young (1932- ) became mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. He had previously served as ambassador to the United Nations in 1977 and as Representative in Congress from Georgia in 1972. Robert Owens was elected to the House of Representatives from New York's Twelfth Congressional District in 1981.
	The musical hit, Dreamgirls, opened on Broadway with Jennifer Holliday on December 20, 1981. She won a Tony Award as its major star.
	Lena Horne (1917- ) opened on Broadway with her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music and won a Special Tony Award for her performance in 1981.
	Labor Unions and Civil Rights Organizations marched on Washington, DC to protest President Ronald Reagan's policy toward organized labor and especially cuts in social programs and changes in job security. This was called "Solidarity Day," and over 260,000 marchers participated in this rally.

*1982*
	Bryant Gumbel (1948- ) made history by becoming the first African-American to anchor a national news program at NBC Television.
	Clarence Thomas (1948- ) was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Thomas was chosen because of his conservative views on Affirmative Action.
	Simon Lamont Estes (1938- ), after making appearances in the major opera houses of La Scala as well as the Vienna State, Bavarian State, Zurich, and San Francisco Opera Houses, made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York in Tannhauser.
	Alice Walker's The Color Purple hit the book market in 1982. The reviews were mixed due to her treatment of the black men as controlling and abusive. The book won the American Book Award and Pulitzer Prize the following year, 1983. Steven Spielberg directed the popular film taken from the novel, The Color Purple, in 1985.
	Henry "Hank" Aaron (1934-) the home run king of the National League was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982.
	Charles Fuller (1939- ) won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his play, A Soldiers Play, which was done with the Negro Ensemble Company. Fuller later wrote the screenplay for the movie, A Soldier's Story, based upon his play and starring Howard E. Rollins, Jr.
	Elected to Congress were Katie Beatrice Hall (1938- ) from Indiana, Edolphus Towns (1941-) from New York's 11th Congressional District, and Alan Wheat (1951- ) from Missouri's 5th Congressional District.
	President Ronald Reagan extended the Voting Rights Act of 1965 when he signed the bill into law on June 30, 1982.

*1983*
	African-Americans became mayors in many of the largest cities in the United States in 1983. They were represented in Chicago; Philadelphia; Charlotte, NC; Flint, MI; Los Angles; Detroit; New Orleans; Atlanta; Hartford, CT; Birmingham, AL; and Washington, DC.
	The popular Harold Washington (1922-1987) was elected as the first mayor of the city of Chicago. He gave up the U.S. House seat he had held from 1981-1983 in order to run for mayor.
	Colonel Guion S. Bluford Jr. (1942-), Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering, was chosen on August 10, 1983 to participate in the Space Shuttle mission at NASA. He became the first African American to fly in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger in 1985.
	Vanessa Williams became the first African-American woman to win the coveted crown of Miss America 1984 on September 18, 1983 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In July 1984, she had to relinquish her crown due to previous nude pictures of her that were published in Penthouse magazine.
	On November 3, 1983, President Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill making, the third Monday in January a holiday honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
	Michael Jackson (1958-2009), songwriter and singer, did the unbelievable: his Thriller recording became the biggest selling record in U.S. history. It won eight Grammy Awards and sold over thirty million copies around the world.

*1984*
	Robert N.C. Nix, Jr. (1928- ), the first African-American to serve on a State Supreme Court (the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court in 1968), became the Chief Justice of the same court in 1984.
	Jesse Jackson was able to get the release of U.S. Navy Pilot Robert Goodman from the Lebanese government. Goodman had been held captive after his plane was shot down in that country.
	Thirty-one African American mayors were elected or reelected in 1984. Thirty-one African-Americans were in mayoral positions in the United States in 1984.

*1985*
	Sherian Grace Cadoria (1940- ) was promoted to Brigadier General in the United States Army, becoming the highest-ranking woman of color in the armed forces.
	Television brought the case of the black radical group, the MOVE, on view. They were bombed out by the state police which killed eleven members and destroyed two city blocks in Philadelphia, PA. In 1996, a federal jury found the city and two former top officials liable for the deadly incident.
	U.S. Representative William H. Gray III (1941- ) became the Chair of the House Budget Committee. Gray left Congress in 1991 when he became head of the United Negro College Fund.
	The famed Apollo Theater in New York City reopened after a ten million dollar renovation on May 5, 1985.
	All across the country, the song, "We Are the World," could be heard. Quincy Jones and a host of celebrities blended voices to make this hit, and proceeds went for African famine relief.

*1986*
	L. (Lawrence) Douglas Wilder (1931- ) was elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. Four years later, on Jan 13, 1990, he was sworn in as the first African-American elected as a state Governor in Virginia.
	Astronaut Ronald E. McNair (1950-1986), a NASA scientist, along with six other crew members, were killed when the space shuttle, Challenger, exploded on its lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on January 28, 1986,
	Mike Tyson (1966- ) was in the news. "Iron" Mike had a fierce attack on his opponents. In 1986, he won the World Boxing Counsel's Heavyweight Championship, becoming the youngest boxer to ever hold this title.
	January 20, 1986, the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was celebrated for the first time as a federal holiday.
	In elections: Mike Espy (1953-) became the second African-American elected representative from the state of Mississippi in 1986. The first was John Roy Lynch (1847-1939) way back in 1875. Rev. Floyd Flake of the Allen African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jamaica, Queens took office as a representative of the Sixth Congressional District of New York. Kweisi Mfume was elected to Congress as Representative from Maryland's Seventh Congressional District.

*1987*
	Dr. Mae Carol Jamison, MD (1956-) became the first African-American woman astronaut chosen to train at NASA in the U.S. Space Program.
	Brigadier General Fred A. Gorden (1940- ) was appointed Commandant of the Cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on October 28, 1987.
	Earvin "Magic" Johnson (1959- ) won the National Basketball Association's Most Valuable Player Award in 1987. At six feet, nine inches, he helped the L.A. Lakers win five championships.
	General Bernard P. Randolph (1933-) was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General in the U.S. Air Force on August 1, 1987.
	On September 7, 1987, Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, neurosurgeon in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, led a team in the separation of Siamese twins connected at the head.
	Clifton R. Wharton was appointed Chairman and CEO of TIAA-CREF, the 19th largest U.S. Fortune 500 company (assets of $290 billion), thereby becoming the first Black chairman and CEO of a major U.S. corporation. He served until 1993, when he became Deputy Secretary of State under President Clinton. He was also the first African-American to be elected as chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1982.

*1988*
	Florence "Flo Jo" Griffith Joyner (1959-1998) won three gold and one silver medal at the 1988 Olympics. She died in 1998 of an apparent heart seizure at the age of 38.
	Jesse Jackson (1941- ) made a bid for the Presidency of the United States. He lost the Democratic nomination to Michael Dukakis, the Governor of Massachusetts, but he helped to win 1,200 delegates to the Democratic camp.
	William "Bill" Cosby donated twenty million dollars to Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. This was the largest gift ever presented to a college by an African-American.
	Doug Williams (1956- ), quarterback for the Washington Redskins football team, was named the Most Valuable Player in Super Bowl XXII on Jan. 31, 1988 in San Diego, California.
	Rap came to cable television on August 6, 1988. MTV, twenty-four hours daily, featured and introduced a host of Rap artists from the African-American community. Many of these Rap artists are stars of 2000.
	Debi Thomas won a bronze medal for figure skating in the Winter Olympic Games held at Calgary, Canada on February 27, 1988. She was the first African-American to win a medal in the Winter Olympic Games.
	At movie theaters: Spike Lee's School Daze and Eddie Murphy in Coming to America were at the box office in 1988.

*1989*
	William Gray III (1941- ) was selected as the House Majority Whip.
	David N. Dinkins (1927- ) became the first mayor of African descent to be elected in New York City. In that race, he defeated District Attorney Rudolph Giuliani.
	Kenneth I. Chenault was elected to the position of president of the Consumer Card and Financial Services Division of American Express in 1989.
	Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania became the first university in the United States to offer a Doctoral Degree in African-American Studies.
	Ronald H. Brown (1941-1996) was elected Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, one of the most powerful political positions on the Democratic Party. His appointment was on February 7, 1989.
	General Colin L. Powell (1937- ), at age fifty-two, became the youngest person and first African-American military person to be named Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest office in the nation's military.
	The only African-American in President George Bush's cabinet was Dr. Louis W. Sullivan (1933- ), president of Morehouse College of Medicine. He was selected to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

*African-Americans in the Twentieth Century*
*1900s*	*1910s*	*1920s*	*1930s*	*1940s*
*1950s*	*1960s*	*1970s*	*1980s*	*1990s*

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