APRIL

April 1, 1846 – politician Jeremiah Haralson was born near Columbus, Georgia

April 1, 1868 – Hampton Institute was established as a school for blacks. In August 1984 it became known as Hampton University

April 1, 1905 – Clara McBride Hale was born in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Mother Hale founded the Hale House Center, a home for disadvantaged children and children who were born addicted to drugs.

April 3, 1865 – Black soldiers from the 5th Massachusetts Colored Calvary and the 25th Corps enter Richmond, Virginia. The 2nd Division of the 25th Corps help chase General Robert E. Lee's army from Petersburg, Virginia to Appomattox Court House. 

April 3, 1964 – Malcolm X gives his "the Ballot or the Bullet" speech in Cleveland, Ohio. An excerpt from the speech:

A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.

April 3, 1968 – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech. An excerpt from the speech:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! So I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything! I'm not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!

This was King's last speech before his assassination.

April 4, 1913 – singer and songwriter McKinley Morganfield better known as Muddy Waters was born Issaquena County, Mississippi

April 4, 1928 – poet Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, Missouri

April 4, 1967 – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his first major public address on the War in Vietnam "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence" in New York City, New York. 

April 4, 1968 – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a sniper in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel. King's death at the hands of James Earl Ray (according to the FBI) precipitated a nationwide crisis resulting in riots in more than 100 cities. 46 people were killed in major rebellions in Washington, Chicago, Detroit, and other cities.

April 4, 2015 – The shooting of Walter Scott occurred in North Charleston, South Carolina, following a daytime traffic stop for a non-functioning brake light. Scott, an unarmed black man, was fatally shot by Michael Slager, a white North Charleston police officer. The race difference led many to believe that the shooting was racially motivated, generating a widespread controversy. Slager was charged with murder after a video surfaced which showed him shooting Scott from behind while Scott was fleeing, and which contradicted his police report.

April 5, 1839 – Civil War Hero and politician Robert Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina

April 5, 1856 – educator, author, and orator Booker Taliaferro Washington was born in Hale's Ford, Virginia

April 5, 1937 – General Colin Powell was born in Harlem, New York

April 6, 1909 – explorer Matthew Henson reached the North Pole and planted the U.S. Flag.

April 7, 1915 – singer Eleanora Fagan better known as Billie Holiday was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

April 7, 1712 – A slave rebellion in New York results in the death of nine whites. Planned by 27 slaves, the rebellion was begun by setting fire to an outhouse; as whites came to put the fire out, there were shot. The state militia was called out to capture the rebels and the city of New York responded to the event by strengthening its slave codes. 21 Blacks were executed as participants, and 6 alleged committed suicide.

April 8, 1974 – Hank Aaron hits his 715th homerun breaking Babe Ruth's all-time record

April 9, 1933 – Marian Anderson performs for 65,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after she is refused admission to the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitutional Hall

April 9, 1865 – Nine Black regiments of General John Hawkins's division helped smash Confederate defenses at Fort Blakely, Alabama. Capture of the fort led to fall of Mobile. 

April 9, 1865 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia effectively ending the Civil War

April 9, 1898 – actor, singer, former professional football player, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey

April 10, 1822 – abolitionist James Monroe Whitfield was born in New Hampshire

April 11, 1899 – chemist Percy Julian was born in Montgomery, Alabama

April 11, 1997 – the Charles H. Wright museum was opened in Detroit, Michigan.  The new Museum of African American History is the largest of its kind in the world.

April 12, 1825 – minister, abolitionist, and politician Richard Harvey Cain was born in Greenbrier County, Virginia

April 12, 1861 – Confederate soldiers attacked Union Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. This action began the American Civil War.

April 12, 1864 – some 3,000 rebels under the command of Nathan Bedford Forrest overran Fort Pillow, a former Confederate stronghold situated on a bluff on the Tennessee bank of the Mississippi, some 40 miles north of Memphis. The garrison consisted of about 600 Union soldiers, roughly evenly divided between runaway slaves-turned-artillerists from nearby Tennessee communities and white Southern Unionist cavalry mostly from East Tennessee. Under a flag of truce which his men violated by creeping up on the fort, Forrest demanded the garrison’s surrender, threatening that if it refused he would not be responsible for the actions of his men. Believing Forrest was bluffing, Bradford refused, whereupon the Confederates swarmed over the parapet.

The overwhelmed garrison fled down the bluff to the river, where they were caught in a deadly crossfire. Forrest’s men continued to shoot well after the Federals had thrown down their weapons, and many men were killed in hospital tents or as they begged for mercy. By the next morning only about 65 blacks had survived a massacre that had continued intermittently through the night. More than seventy percent of the white survivors would perish in rebel prisons.

April 12, 1940 – jazz musician and bandleader Herbie Hancock was born in Chicago, Illinois

April 13, 1873 – After the contested 1872 election for governor of Louisiana and local offices, a group of White men (former Confederate soldiers and members of the Ku Klux Klan) armed with rifles and a small cannon overpowered Black freedmen and state militia occupying the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax. Most of the freedmen were killed after surrendering, and nearly another 50 were killed later that night after being held as prisoners for several hours. Estimates of the number of dead have varied over the years, ranging from 62 to 153; three Whites died but the number of Black victims was difficult to determine because many bodies were thrown into the Red River or removed for burial, possibly at mass graves.

April 13, 1946 – Albert Leornes "Al" Green was born in Forest City, Arkansas

April 14, 1865 – President Abraham Lincoln was fatally wounded at Ford's Theater in Washington D.C. by pro-slavery, Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Boothe

April 14, 1873 – U.S. Supreme Court decision in Slaughterhouse cases began process of diluting the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court said the Fourteenth Amendment protected federal civil rights, not "Civil rights heretofore belonging exclusively to the states."

April 14, 1875 – abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper delivered an address in Philadelphia at the Centennial Anniversary of the nation’s oldest abolitionist society - the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery - outlining the work yet to be done in the cause of African American freedom. She argued African Americans must organize to complete the work of Reconstruction rather than relying on political parties or organizations. To that end black women must play an important role in these crucial efforts.

April 15, 1861 – President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to put down the south's rebellion. Lincoln administration, however rejected black volunteers.

April 15, 1865 – President Lincoln succumbed to his wounds and died in Washington D.C.

April 15, 1889 – civil rights activist Asa Philip Randolph was born in Crescent City, Florida

April 19, 1841 – minister, educator, and politician Pierre Caliste Landry was born in Ascension Parish, Louisiana

April 20, 1882 – journalist, entertainment professional, and diplomat Lester Aglar Walton was born in St. Louis, Missouri

April 20, 1920 – Tuskegee Airman Howard Adolphus Wooten was born in Lovelady, Texas

April 22, 1934 – engineer, inventor, and historian Henry Thomas Sampson Jr. was born in Jackson, Mississippi

April 23, 1856 – inventor Granville Tailer Woods was born in Columbus, Ohio.

April 25, 1917 – singer, songwriter and composer Ella Jane Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia

April 26, 1886 – the Mother of the Blues, Gertrude Bridget better known as Ma Rainey was born in Columbus, Georgia 

April 27, 1927 – civil rights activist Coretta Scott King was born in Marion, Alabama

April 27, 1945 – playwright Frederick August Kittel better known as August Wilson was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

April 29, 1899 – musician Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was born in Washington D.C.

April 29, 1992 – Four white cops are acquitted in the beating of Rodney King sparking the L.A. riots