bfCallback1743840788872({"Request":{"VirtualSiteSlug":"blackfacts","IsToday":true,"SearchType":"today","SearchResultType":"event"},"Results":[{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Booker T. Washington was a renowned nineteenth century African American author and most importantly advisor to presidents of the United States. Besides being a remarkable orator, he was also an educator. Washington came a long way from slavery to eventually become a prominent leader and championed African American\u2019s rights.\nBooker Taliaferro Washington was born on April 5, 1856 to a slave family in Hale\u2019s Ford, Virginia. Upon the 1865 Emancipation Proclamation, they gained their freedom and settled in West Virginia and young Washington worked his way through Hampton Institute. He received his higher education from Virginia Union University. A historically black college, the Tuskegee Institute recognized him as their first leader after Hampton Institute president, Samuel C. Armstrong recommended him. Moreover, he played a key role in the establishment of West Virginia State University in 1891.\nAs he witnessed peak in black people\u2019s lynching in Southern States, he raised his voice against it in his Atlanta Address of 1895. The memorable speech brought him in the limelight and garnered him prominence at the national level. He represented the last generation of black leaders born into slavery. To further his cause, he made contact with other notable professionals from black communities to come together and pull themselves out of white American\u2019s tyrannical rule. At first he fought for the educational rights of freedmen during the Jim Crow\u2019s discriminatory, post-Reconstruction era in South.\nSoon after, Washington became a dominant figure in black politics. He not only won hearts of all other African American communities in the South but also influenced wealthy liberal whites from North to join him. White politicians and other renowned figures at higher ranks in the society respected him and sought his consultation on racial issues and also raised large sums for his cause. In fact, he was conferred upon several honorary degrees from various universities.\nBesides, there were several such organizations that criticized","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/www.famousafricanamericans.org/images/booker-t-washington.jpg","ImageHeight":326,"ImageWidth":580,"ImageOrientation":"landscape","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"73e45e4e-5e7c-4595-9ff3-d9df1f177307","SourceName":"Black History Resources","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.internet4classrooms.com/black_history.htm","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1856-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1856,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","LastUpdatedBy":"ExtractionBotHub","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":7478,"FactUId":"4ad2cde1-f5c2-4bec-94fa-38baf14b23eb","Slug":"booker-t-washington-3","FactType":"Event","Title":"Booker T. Washington","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/booker-t-washington-3","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Booker Taliaferro Washington grew up the child of a slave in the South during the Civil War. Following emancipation, he moved with his mother and stepfather to West Virginia, where he worked in salt furnaces and a coal mine but also learned to read. At age 16, he made his way to Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, where he excelled as a student and later took on an administrative role. His belief in the power of education, strong personal\u00A0morals, and economic self-reliance earned him to a position of influence among both black and white Americans of the time.\n He launched Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now Tuskegee University, in a one-room shanty in 1881, serving as the schools principal until his death in 1915.\nDates:\u00A0April 5, 1856 (undocumented) - November 14, 1915\nBooker Taliaferro was born to Jane, a slave who cooked on a Franklin County, Virginia plantation owned by James Burroughs, and an unknown white man. The surname Washington came from his stepfather, Washington Ferguson. Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, the blended family, which included step-siblings, moved to West Virginia, where Booker worked in salt furnaces and a coal mine. He later secured a job as a houseboy for the mine owners wife, an experience he credited with his respect for cleanliness, thrift, and hard work.\nHis illiterate mother encouraged his interest in learning, and Washington managed to attend an elementary school for black children.\n Around the age of 14, after traveling on foot 500 miles to get there, he enrolled in Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute.\nWashington attended Hampton Institute from 1872 to 1875. He distinguished himself as a student, but he did not have a clear ambition upon graduation.\n He taught both children and adults back in his West Virgina hometown, and he briefly attended the Wayland Seminary in Washington, D.C.\nHe went back to Hampton as an administrator and teacher, and while there, received the recommendation that led him to the principalship of a new Negro Normal","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/fthmb.tqn.com/iaubpanbbsf8gz8_tuqt4uht-c0-/5000x3700/filters-fill-auto-1-/about/145062766-569fc0a35f9b58eba4acfe79.jpg","ImageHeight":1110,"ImageWidth":1500,"ImageOrientation":"landscape","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"6982ddb9-33e1-469e-8344-2e6290cc3f69","SourceName":"ThoughtCo","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.thoughtco.com/african-american-history-4133344","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1856-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1856,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","LastUpdatedBy":"ExtractionBotHub","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":8593,"FactUId":"facacdbf-88a3-4dfc-a1ca-600c319e84f7","Slug":"booker-t-washington-african-american-educator","FactType":"Event","Title":"Booker T. Washington, African-American Educator","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/booker-t-washington-african-american-educator","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Pharrell Williams ,  (born April 5, 1973, Virginia Beach, Virginia, U.S.), American musician who was involved in a number of pop hits as part of the producing team Neptunes, as a songwriter, and as a solo performer.\nWilliams was a percussionist in his school band when he was a child, and he found a kindred spirit in saxophonist Chad Hugo. Williams and Hugo devoted themselves to music and beat production and in high school began calling themselves the Neptunes. A scout for music producer Teddy Riley, who had recently opened a recording studio near the high school that Williams attended, heard the Neptunes perform at a school talent show and brought them to Riley\u2019s attention. In 1992 Williams wrote a verse for hip-hop group Wreckx-n-Effect\u2019s most-popular single, \u0026ldquo;Rump Shaker,\u0026rdquo; and the Neptunes produced the track \u0026ldquo;Tonight\u2019s the Night\u0026rdquo; on the eponymous debut album (1994) of Riley\u2019s vocal group Blackstreet.\nThe Neptunes were soon in demand as hip-hop producers and writers, with a signature style that mixed influences from soul, rock, and other musical genres. Neptunes-produced hits include Noreaga\u2019s \u0026ldquo;Superthug\u0026rdquo; (1998), Mary J. Blige\u2019s \u0026ldquo;Steal Away\u0026rdquo; (2001), Britney Spears\u2019s \u0026ldquo;I\u2019m a Slave 4 U\u0026rdquo; (2001), Nelly\u2019s \u0026ldquo;Hot in Herre\u0026rdquo; (2002),  Justin Timberlake\u2019s \u0026ldquo;Rock Your Body\u0026rdquo; (2003), Kelis\u2019s \u0026ldquo;Milkshake\u0026rdquo; (2003), and Snoop Dogg\u2019s \u0026ldquo;Drop It like It\u2019s Hot\u0026rdquo; (2004). Williams, often assisted by Hugo, penned the lyrics for many of those songs as well. In 2004 Timberlake\u2019s Neptunes-produced album Justified won the Grammy Award for best pop vocal album, and the Neptunes were named producer of the year (nonclassical). The Neptunes were also among the producers contributing to  Mariah Carey\u2019s 2005 album The Emancipation of MiMi, which won a Grammy for best contemporary R\u0026amp;B album.\nIn 2001 Williams and Hugo joined with rap artist Shay to form the band N.E.R.D. The collaboration resulted in four eclectic albums of rhythm and blues, rap, pop, and rock music: In Search of\u2026 (2002), Fly or Die (2004), Seeing Sounds (2008), and Nothing (2010).","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/media1.britannica.com/eb-media/31/181031-004-cd027156.jpg","ImageHeight":800,"ImageWidth":532,"ImageOrientation":"portrait","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"80689a34-9b7c-4d3a-91f8-56cabb44f365","SourceName":"Brittanica","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.britannica.com/search?query=black%20history","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1973-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1973,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","LastUpdatedBy":"ExtractionBotHub","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":10555,"FactUId":"ab3bd837-3ae1-4722-850a-f8b2020d5be4","Slug":"pharrell-williams","FactType":"Event","Title":"Pharrell Williams","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/pharrell-williams","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Robert Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 5, 1839 and worked as a house slave until the age of 12.","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/www.blackpast.org/files/blackpast_images/smalls_robert.jpg","ImageHeight":470,"ImageWidth":350,"ImageOrientation":"portrait","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"de2ecbf0-5aa4-45ce-bbf9-9a6ac45f6ac8","SourceName":"Black Past","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.blackpast.org/","SponsorId":"c774164e-1b1a-4b35-8157-9ce64ec2e2c6","IsSponsored":true,"SponsorName":"Prospanica Boston Professional Chapter","SmallSponsorLogoUrl":"24x24/prospanica-logo.png","SponsorUrl":"https://www.prospanica.org/members/group.aspx?code=Boston","HasSmallSponsorLogo":true,"EffectiveDate":"1839-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1839,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":18150,"FactUId":"fdcf776c-d0ca-44a2-9472-b906786880bd","Slug":"smalls-robert-1839-1915--birthday","FactType":"Event","Title":"Smalls, Robert (1839-1915) - Birthday","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/smalls-robert-1839-1915--birthday","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Colin Luther Powell was born on April 5, 1937 in Halem, New York City.","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/www.famousafricanamericans.org/images/colin-powell.jpg","ImageHeight":316,"ImageWidth":580,"ImageOrientation":"landscape","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"73e45e4e-5e7c-4595-9ff3-d9df1f177307","SourceName":"Black History Resources","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.internet4classrooms.com/black_history.htm","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1937-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1937,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":18194,"FactUId":"58955a7c-e30e-480e-84c3-83686222591d","Slug":"colin-powell--birthday","FactType":"Event","Title":"Colin Powell - Birthday","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/colin-powell--birthday","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Washington , in full Booker Taliaferro Washington  (born April 5, 1856, Franklin county, Virginia, U.","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/media1.britannica.com/eb-media/96/4996-004-9e6968e3.jpg","ImageHeight":300,"ImageWidth":170,"ImageOrientation":"portrait","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"80689a34-9b7c-4d3a-91f8-56cabb44f365","SourceName":"Brittanica","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.britannica.com/search?query=black%20history","SponsorId":"aa57795e-8800-46a7-89eb-a946cfbd4ad8","IsSponsored":true,"SponsorName":"APEX Museum","SmallSponsorLogoUrl":"24x24/apex-logo.jpg","SponsorUrl":"https://www.apexmuseum.org ","HasSmallSponsorLogo":true,"EffectiveDate":"1856-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1856,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":18545,"FactUId":"3cc8e303-d961-4755-969b-72b486d0907c","Slug":"booker-t-washington--birthday","FactType":"Event","Title":"Booker T. Washington - Birthday","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/booker-t-washington--birthday","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817-1864), was one of the most prominent of the anti-slavery speakers in the nation by the 1850s. Born into slavery in Maryland, he escaped with his mother to New Jersey. In 1834 when he was 17 Ward was attacked by a pro-slavery mob in New York and was temporarily jailed. From that point he dedicated himself to the anti-slavery cause. By the 1840s, Ward helped found the Liberty and Free Soil Parties. Ward work variously as a school teacher, newspaper editor and minister. He led two predominately white congregations, a Presbyterian Church in South Butler, New York and a Congregationalist church in Cortland, New York. However after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 he moved to Canada. Ward remained outside the United States for the rest of his life, lecturing in Canada and Europe against slavery. In 1855 he wrote The Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro. Ward retired to Jamaica and died there in 1864. In the speech that appears below, Ward, speaking in Faneuil Hall in Boston, criticizes the then ongoing debate in Congress over the Fugitive Slave Bill.\nI am here tonight simply as a guest. You have met here to speak of the sentiments of a Senator of your State whose remarks you have the honor to repudiate. In the course of the remarks the gentleman who preceded me, he has done us the favor to make honorable mention of a Senator of my own State\u2014Wm. H. Seward.\nI thank you for this manifestation of approbation of a man who has always stood head and shoulders above his party, and who has never receded from his position on the question of slavery. It was my happiness to receive a letter from him a few days since, in which he said he never would swerve from his position as the friend of freedom.\nTo be sure, I agree not with Senator Seward in politics, but when an individual stands up for the rights of men against slaveholders, I care not for party distinctions. He is my brother.\nWe have here much of common cause and interest in this matter. That infamous bill of Mr. Mason, of Virginia, proves","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/www.blackpast.org/files/blackpast_images/samuel_ringgold_ward.jpg","ImageHeight":300,"ImageWidth":242,"ImageOrientation":"portrait","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"de2ecbf0-5aa4-45ce-bbf9-9a6ac45f6ac8","SourceName":"Black Past","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.blackpast.org/","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1850-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1850,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","LastUpdatedBy":"ExtractionBotHub","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":7729,"FactUId":"7aad6062-2de8-4c82-850d-ca47ea6fcc82","Slug":"1850-samuel-ringgold-ward-speech-on-the-fugitive-slave-bill","FactType":"Event","Title":"(1850) Samuel Ringgold Ward, \u201CSpeech on the Fugitive Slave Bill\u201D","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/1850-samuel-ringgold-ward-speech-on-the-fugitive-slave-bill","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Marlon Riggs was a black gay writer, filmmaker, and social activist. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas to a military family on February 3, 1957, and spent his childhood at various military posts, including time spent living in Georgia and Germany. Riggs graduated with honors from Harvard University in 1978, returned to Texas for a few years to work in television, then attended the University of California, Berkeley for a master\u2019s degree in journalism in 1981. He then worked for several years in film under various directors until he began directing and producing his own documentaries, all incisive social commentaries on black identity and the role of African Americans in the United States.\u00A0 His first documentary, Ethnic Notions (1987), focused on the stereotypes of African Americans that haunt American society.\nHis second full length documentary Tongues Untied (1989) was dedicated to breaking the silence of the black gay male community.\u00A0 Color Adjustment (1991) was an indictment of the treatment of African Americans in popular American television. Riggs did not live to see the completion of his final film, Black Is\u2026 Black Ain\u2019t. He died on April 5, 1994 of an AIDS related illness before filming was finished. He was survived by his partner of 15 years, Jack Vincent.\nAll of Riggs\u2019s work confronted controversial and divisive issues facing the African American community including especially portrayals of black masculinity. As an artist and an activist, Riggs intended his films to create conversations about black identity and to open a variety of acceptable ways to be black including embracing lives that aren\u2019t comfortably middle class. In Tongues Untied, Riggs examines issues of identity as a black and gay man and the intersection of those two identities. Deeply personal and emotional, the film was never shown on television but was successful at film festivals; it won several awards including Best Documentary Film at the Berlin International Film Festival.\nThe final film of Riggs\u2019s career, Black is\u2026 Black Ain\u2019t,","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/www.blackpast.org/files/blackpast_images/marlon_riggs.jpg","ImageHeight":194,"ImageWidth":350,"ImageOrientation":"landscape","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"de2ecbf0-5aa4-45ce-bbf9-9a6ac45f6ac8","SourceName":"Black Past","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.blackpast.org/","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1994-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1994,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","LastUpdatedBy":"ExtractionBotHub","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":7897,"FactUId":"002be485-9c24-43fa-8154-5ab62082abda","Slug":"riggs-marlon-1957-1994","FactType":"Event","Title":"Riggs, Marlon (1957-1994)","LocalFactUrl":"/fact/riggs-marlon-1957-1994","ResultCount":-1,"SearchType":"Today"},{"FadeSummary":false,"SummaryText":"Booker T. Washington is best known as a prominent black educator and racial leader of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He founded Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1881 and oversaw its growth into a well-respected black university.\nBorn into slavery, Washington rose to a position of power and influence among both blacks and whites. Although he earned the respect of many for his role in promoting education for blacks, Washington has also been criticized for being too accommodating to whites and too complacent on the issue of equal rights.\nDates: April 5, 18561 \u2013 November 14, 1915\nAlso Known As: Booker Taliaferro Washington; The Great Accommodator\nFamous Quote: No race can prosper till [sic] it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.\nEarly Childhood\nBooker T. Washington was born in April 1856 on a small farm in Hales Ford, Virginia. He was given the middle name Taliaferro, but no last name. His mother, Jane, was a slave and worked as the plantation cook. \u00A0Based upon Bookers medium complexion and light gray eyes, historians have assumed that his father \u2014 whom he never knew \u2014 was a white man, possibly from a neighboring plantation. Booker had an older brother, John, also fathered by a white man.\nJane and her sons occupied a tiny one-room cabin with a dirt floor. Their dreary home lacked proper windows and had no beds for its occupants. Bookers family rarely had enough to eat and sometimes resorted to theft to supplement their meager provisions.\nWhen Booker was about four years old, he was given small chores to do on the plantation. As he grew taller and stronger, his workload increased accordingly.\nAround 1860, Jane married Washington Ferguson, a slave from a nearby plantation. Booker later took the first name of his stepfather as his last name.\nDuring the Civil War, the slaves on Bookers plantation, like many slaves in the South, continued to work for the owner even after the issuance of Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. By the end of the war,","MaxDetailCharacters":0,"ImageUrl":"https://cdn.blackfacts.com/uploads/blackfacts/facts/fthmb.tqn.com/gxtau865tbt5twgtchb8imfaruc-/1911x1896/filters-fill-auto-1-/about/bookertwashington2-56a48cd63df78cf77282ef48.jpg","ImageHeight":1488,"ImageWidth":1500,"ImageOrientation":"landscape","HasImage":true,"CssClass":"","Layout":"","Rowspan":1,"Colspan":1,"Likes":0,"Shares":0,"ContentSourceId":"6982ddb9-33e1-469e-8344-2e6290cc3f69","SourceName":"ThoughtCo","ContentSourceRootUrl":"https://www.thoughtco.com/african-american-history-4133344","IsSponsored":false,"HasSmallSponsorLogo":false,"EffectiveDate":"1856-04-05T00:00:00","HasEffectiveDate":true,"Year":1856,"Month":4,"Day":5,"LastUpdatedDate":"2023-11-25T05:14:39.027","LastUpdatedBy":"ExtractionBotHub","IsEditable":false,"InsertAd":false,"Id":8573,"FactUId":"79a1e918-8cc6-4b02-9a16-c552597723b9","Slug":"booker-t-washington-biography","FactType":"Event","Title":"Booker T. 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