DECEMBER

December 1, 1935 – singer Louis Allen Rawls was born in Chicago, Illinois.

December 1, 1940 – comedian and actor Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was born in Peoria, Illinois

December 1, 1955 – Rosa Parks, a long-time civil rights activist, was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus. Her arrest marked the beginning of the Montgomery bus boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days until a federal court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional in December 1956.

December 2, 1879 – golfer John Matthew Shippen Jr. was born in Washington D.C. He is believed to the first Black American professional golfer.

December 2, 1891 – historian, educator, minister, and author Charles Harris Wesley was born in Louisville, Kentucky.

December 2, 1922 – politician Charles Coles Diggs Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was the first Black American elected to Congress from Michigan.

December 3, 1911 – historian, scholar, and civic leader Helen Grey Edmonds was born in Lawrenceville, Virginia. 

December 3, 1922 – researcher, chemist, and educator Ralph Gardner-Chavis was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He was apart of the Manhattan Project, where his research on plutonium would be used to develop the Fat Man atomic bomb.

December 4, 1895 – labor leader Willard Saxby Townsend was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the first Black American to serve as vice president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

December 4, 1906 – Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. was founded on the campus of Cornell University

December 4, 1955 – singer, songwriter, and producer Cassandra Wilson was born in Jackson, Mississippi. 

December 4, 1969 – rapper, businessman, and record executive Shawn Corey Carter better known as Jay-Z was born in Brooklyn, New York

December 4, 1969 – The assassination of Fred Hampton. At 4 a.m., the heavily armed police team arrived at Hampton's apartment, divided into two teams, eight for the front of the building and six for the rear. At 4:45 a.m., they stormed the apartment. Mark Clark (aged 22), sitting in the front room of the apartment with a shotgun in his lap, was on security duty. The police shot him in the chest, killing him instantly. Clark's gun discharged once into the ceiling. This single round was fired when he suffered a reflexive death-convulsion after being shot. This was the only shot fired by the Panthers.

Fred Hampton, who had been drugged by barbiturates, was sleeping on a mattress in the bedroom with Deborah Johnson (aged 18) who was eight and a half months pregnant with their child. Police officers removed her from the room while Hampton lay unconscious in bed. Then the raiding team fired at the head of the south bedroom. Hampton was wounded in the shoulder by the shooting. 

Black Panther Harold Bell said that he heard the following exchange from the police:

"That's Fred Hampton."

"Is he dead?... Bring him out."

"He's barely alive."

"He'll make it."

He then heard two shots.

"He's good and dead now.

December 4, 1973 – model, television personality, producer, writer, and actress Tyra Lynne Banks was born in Inglewood, California.

December 5, 1870 – cowboy, rodeo performer, and actor Willie M. "Bill" Pickett was born in Jenks Branch, Texas. He was the first Black American man inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame.

December 5, 1895 – mathematician Elbert Frank Cox was born in Evansville, Indiana. He was the first Black American to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics

December 5, 1918 – United States Army officer Charity Adams Earley was born in Kittrell, North Carolina. She was the first Black American woman to become an officer in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps.

December 5, 1931 – singer, musician, and composer James Edward Cleveland was born in Chicago, Illinois. 

December 5, 1932 – singer, pianist, and songwriter Richard Wayne Penniman better known as Little Richard was born in Macon, Georgia. 

December 6, 1892 – dermatologist, medical researcher, and philanthropist Theodore Kenneth "T.K." Lawless was born in Thibodeaux, Louisiana.

December 6, 1897 – entrepreneur, civil rights activist, professor, accountant, and businessman Jesse B. Blayton Sr. was born in Fallis, Oklahoma.

December 7, 1874 – Vicksburg Massacre begins and lasts until January 5, 1875. In November 1873, Peter Crosby, a Black man was elected as sheriff of Warren County, Mississippi; and he was to assume the office the following January 1, 1874.

On December 2, 1874, members of a White citizens organization known as the Taxpayers’ League, met in the sheriff's office and demanded Crosby's signed resignation. Crosby refused and the group returned with six hundred armed White men, and at gunpoint Crosby was forced to sign his own resignation paperwork.

On December 7, 1874, Black citizens from Vicksburg marched to the Warren County Courthouse with the goal of reinstating Crosby to office. At the courthouse they were met with an armed White mob, that told them to go home. Some of the Black citizens were leaving, when a second group of White men allegedly opened fire on the mostly unarmed Black group. One White man was killed, and twenty five Black men were killed during the December 7, 1874 event.

Following this attack, President Ulysses S. Grant sent federal troops to Vicksburg. The killing continued south of the city including the burning of gin houses, and some historians estimate that anywhere between 150 and 300 Black citizens were killed by January 5, 1875, when United States Army forces under Gen. Phil Sheridan arrived to secure the city. Shortly after the arrival of the troops, they reinstated Crosby as sheriff.

Upon reinstatement, Crosby hired a new deputy, a White man named J.P. Gilmer. Gilmer attempted to assassinate Crosby and shot him in the head on June 7, 1875, after not wanting to follow orders from the Black sheriff. Gilmer was arrested but never went to trial. Crosby did not die and he never fully recovered from his wounds.

December 7, 1941 – Dorie Miller's courageous actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

The Empire of Japan attacked the United States Pacific Fleet at its naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii. 

Miller woke up at 6 a.m. on December 7, 1941, aboard West Virginia. He served breakfast mess and was collecting laundry at 7:57 a.m. when planes from the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi fired the first of seven torpedoes that hit West Virginia. The "battle stations" alarm went off; Miller headed for his battle station, an anti-aircraft battery magazine amidships, only to discover that a torpedo had destroyed it.

Lieutenant Frederic H. White had ordered Miller to help him and Ensign Victor Delano load the unmanned number 1 and number 2 Browning .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine guns aft of the conning tower. Miller was not familiar with the weapon, but White and Delano instructed him on how to operate it. Delano expected Miller to feed ammunition to one gun, but his attention was diverted and, when he looked again, Miller was firing one of the guns. White then loaded ammunition into both guns and assigned Miller the starboard gun.

Miller fired the gun until he ran out of ammunition, whereupon he was ordered by Lieutenant Claude V. Ricketts to help carry the captain up to the navigation bridge out of the thick oily smoke generated by the many fires on and around the ship; Miller was officially credited with downing at least two hostile planes.

December 7, 1942 – businessman Reginald Francis Lewis was born Baltimore, Maryland. He was the first Black American to build a billion-dollar company: TLC Beatrice International Holdings Inc.

December 8, 1868 – minister and author Henry Hugh Proctor was born near Fayetteville, Tennessee.

December 8, 1903 – opera singer and philanthropist Zelma Watson George was born in Hearne, Texas.

December 8, 1933 – comedian and actor Clerow "Flip" Wilson Jr. was born in Jersey City, New Jersey

December 9, 1839 – Civil War veteran William P. Stewart was born in Sangamon County, Illinois.

December 9, 1865 – preacher and hymnist Charles Price Jones Sr. was born in Floyd County, Georgia. He was the founder of the Church of Christ (Holiness) U.S.A.

December 9, 1919 – artist Roy Rudolph DeCarava was born in Harlem, New York.

December 9, 1922 – comedian and actor John Elroy Sanford better known as Redd Foxx was born in St. Louis, Missouri

December 9, 1938 – NFL legend David "Deacon" Jones was born in Eatonville, Florida. He coined the term "sack" to describe tackling the quarterback before he could pass the ball.

December 11, 1926 – singer and songwriter Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton was born in Ariton, Alabama.

December 12, 1892 – artist Minnie Eva Evans was born in Long Creek, North Carolina.

December 12, 1929 – artist Vincent DaCosta Smith was born in Brooklyn, New York

December 12, 1941 – singer and actress Marie Dionne Warwick was born in East Orange, New Jersey

December 13, 1903 – civil rights and human rights activist Ella Josephine Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

December 13, 1923 – baseball legend Lawrence Eugene "Larry" Doby was born in Camden, South Carolina

December 13, 1945 – businessman Herman Cain was born in Memphis, Tennessee

December 14, 1829 – abolitionist, attorney, educator, activist, diplomat, and politician John Mercer Langston was born in Louisa, Virginia

December 14, 1920 – trumpeter and composer Clark Virgil Terry Jr. was born in St. Louis, Missouri

December 14, 1939 – legendary college football player Ernest R. "Ernie" Davis was born in New Salem, Pennsylvania. He was the first Black player to be award the Heisman Trophy.

December 14, 1945 – poet, playwright, and novelist Stanley Lawrence Crouch was born in Los Angeles, California

December 15, 1883 – bacteriologist, pathologist and educator William Augustus Hinton was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was the first Black professor in the history of Harvard University.

December 15, 1929 – politician Emery Oakland Barnes was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. 

December 15, 1936 – writer Donald Goines was born in Detroit, Michigan.

December 16, 1933 – historian and author Charles Leroy Blockson was born in Norristown, Pennsylvania

December 17, 1802 – minister Henry Adams may have been born in Franklin County, Georgia. His exact birthdate is unknown.

December 18, 1917 – actor, director, writer, and activist Ossie Davis was born in Cogdell, Georgia.

December 18, 1970 – rapper and actor Earl Simmons better known as DMX was born in Mount Vernon, New York.

December 19, 1875 – historian, author, and journalist Carter Godwin Woodson was born in New Canton, Virginia. Woodson has been called the "father of black history." 

December 19, 1924 – actress Cicely Tyson was born in New York City, New York

December 19, 1961 – NFL legend Reginald Howard "Reggie" White was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

December 21, 1911 – baseball legend Joshua “Josh” Gibson was born in Buena Vista, Georgia.

December 21, 1948 – actor Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C. With his films having collectively grossed more than $27 billion worldwide, he is the highest grossing actor of all time.

December 21, 1959 – legendary track and field athlete Florence Delorez Griffith Joyner was born in Los Angeles, California

December 22, 1883 – civil rights activist and politician Arthur Wergs Mitchell, Sr. was born in Lafayette, Alabama

December 22, 1905 – historian, artist and teacher James Amos Porter was born Baltimore, Maryland. 

December 22, 1960 – artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in New York City, New York

December 22, 1893 – sociologist, historian, and writer Chancellor Williams was born in Bennettsville, South Carolina.

December 23, 1815 – abolitionist, minister, educator, orator, and diplomat was born in New Market, Maryland. 

December 23, 1867 – entrepreneur, philanthropist, and political and social activist Sarah Breedlove better known as Madam C.J. Walker was born in Delta, Louisiana. She was the first female self-made millionaire in the United States

December 24, 1853 – author and biographer Octavia Rogers Albert was born in Oglethorpe, Georgia

December 25, 1807 – minister and abolitionist Charles Bennett Ray was born in Falmouth, Massachusetts

December 25, 1835 – Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He founded The Christian Recorder, an influential African American Methodist newspaper.

December 25, 1840 – newspaper publisher John Henry Murphy Sr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland

December 25, 1870 – medical doctor Henry McKee Minton was born in Columbia, South Carolina

December 25, 1907 – singer and bandleader Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was born in Rochester, New York

December 25, 1958 – baseball legend Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson was born in Chicago, Illinois. He holds MLB records for career stolen bases, runs, unintentional walks, and leadoff home runs.

December 26, 1927 – actor, playwright and screenwriter Lonne Elder III was born in Americus, Georgia

December 26, 1954 –  baseball legend Osborne Earl "Ozzie" Smith was born in Mobile, Alabama

December 27, 1931 – Ruth Carol Taylor was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the first Black American flight attendant in the United States.

December 27, 1939 – actor John Allen Amos Jr. was born in Newark, New Jersey

December 28, 1926 – pastor and civil rights leader Samuel Berry McKinney was born in Flint, Michigan.

December 28, 1954 – legendary actor, producer, and director Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. was born in Mount Vernon, New York.

December 28, 1978 – singer, songwriter, and pianist John Roger Stephens better known as John Legend was born in Springfield, Ohio, U.S.

December 29, 1907 – economist, academic, and political administrator Robert Clifton Weaver was born in Washington D.C. He was the first African American to be appointed to a United States Cabinet-level position when he was appointed to the newly established Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department by President Lyndon B. Johnson

December 30, 1842 – farmer, lawyer and politician Josiah Thomas Walls was born in Winchester, Virginia. He was the first Black person to be elected to Congress from Florida.

December 30, 1928 – guitarist and singer Ellas Otha Bates better known as Bo Diddley was born in McComb, Mississippi

December 30, 1975 – legendary professional golfer Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods was born in Cypress, California

December 30, 1977 – ballet dancer and teacher Aesha Ash was born in Rochester, New York

December 31, 1900 – sculptor Selma Hortense Burke was born in Mooresville, North Carolina. Burke is best known for a bas relief portrait of President Franklin D. Roosevelt which is the model for his image on the obverse of the dime.