NOVEMBER

November 1, 1942 – the first issue of the Negro Digest was published

November 1, 1945 – the first issue of Ebony Magazine was published

November 1, 1951 – the first issue of Jet Magazine was published

November 2, 1974 – rapper and actor Cornell Iral Haynes Jr. better known as Nelly was born in Austin, Texas.

November 3, 1882 – track and field athlete John Baxter Taylor Jr. was born in Washington D.C. He was the first Black American athlete to win an Olympic gold medal.

November 3, 1883 – Danville Coup. White supremacists resented the biracial Readjuster Party which controlled the city council seats in the majority African American city of Danville, Virginia. An attack by white supremacists left four Black and one white man dead.

In the aftermath, armed white men patrolled the streets of the town, preventing most African Americans from voting and allowing the Democratic Party to regain political power in the town.

November 4, 1850 – minister and civil rights activist Francis James Grimké was born near Charleston, South Carolina 

November 4, 1924 – professor of law and ambassador Clarence Clyde Ferguson Jr. was born in Wilmington, North Carolina.

November 4, 1942 – ophthalmologist and humanitarian Patricia Era Bath was born in New York City, New York. She was the first Black American woman doctor to receive a medical patent. Bath hold five patents, three of them are for the inventions and the process of using lasers to remove cataracts. 

November 4, 1949 – actress Berlinda Tolbert was born in Charlotte, North Carolina

November 5, 1918 – lawyer, diplomat, ambassador, and the first Black person and the first woman to serve as an Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Mae Watson was born in New York City, New York.

November 5, 1926 – civil rights activist Victoria Jackson Gray Adams was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She was one of the founding members of the influential Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

November 6, 1746 – abolitionist and clergyman Absalom Jones was born in Sussex County, Delaware. He founded the Free African Society with Bishop Richard Allen in 1787

November 6, 1880 – track and field athlete George Coleman Poage was born in Hannibal, Missouri. He was the first Black American to win a medal at the Olympics.

November 7, 1841 – The Creole mutiny. A slave revolt on the Creole, a slave ship which was en route to New Orleans, Louisiana from Hampton, Virginia. The enslaved people overpowered the crew and sailed the ship to the Bahamas, where they were granted asylum and freedom.

November 7, 1916 – United State Navy sailor George Washington Gibbs Jr. was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He was the first Black American to step foot on the continent of Antarctica

November 8, 1920 – actress Esther Elizabeth Rolle was born in Pompano Beach, Florida

November 8, 1952 – actress Alfre Woodard was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma

November 9, 1731 – naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and author Benjamin Banneker was born in Baltimore County, Province of Maryland, British America. He was instrumental in surveying the land that would become the nation's capital, Washington D.C.

November 9, 1922 – actress and singer Dorothy Jean Dandridge was born in Cleveland, Ohio

November 9, 1935 – baseball legend Robert "Bob" Gibson was born in Omaha, Nebraska. 

November 10, 1898 – Wilmington Massacre of 1898. On this date, two days after a contested election, a mob of armed white men marched to the office of The Daily Record, the local African American newspaper, and set it on fire.

After burning The Daily Record offices, a violent mob then took to the streets, and on the Northside of town, attacked African Americans. An unknown number of African Americans died. Other people, white and Black, were "banished" from the city. On the same day, local elected officials were forced to resign, and were replaced by white supremacist leaders.

November 10, 1956 – comedian and actor David Adkins better known as Sinbad was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan

November 11, 1831 – Nat Turner was hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia. After his execution, Turner's body was dissected and flayed, with his skin being used to make souvenir purses.

November 11, 1956 – pastor Fred J. Luter Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the first Black American president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

November 13, 1837 – lawyer and politician James Thomas Rapier was born in Florence, Alabama.

November 13, 1955 – actor, comedian, author, and television personality Caryn Elaine Johnson better known as Whoopi Goldberg was born New York City, New York

November 14, 1954 – diplomat and political scientist Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama. She was the first Black American woman to serve as the US Secretary of State

November 14, 1960 – six-year-old Ruby Bridges became the first African American student to integrate William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was escorted by U.S. marshals and her mother as she faced angry mobs of protesters outside the school.

November 16, 1873 – composer and musician William Christopher "W.C." Handy was born in Florence, Alabama. 

November 16, 1899 – educator and historian Lorenzo Johnston Greene was born in Ansonia, Connecticut

November 16, 1964 – baseball great Dwight Eugene "Doc" Gooden was born in Tampa, Florida. 

November 16, 1967 – actress Lisa Michelle Bonet was born in San Francisco, California

November 17, 1904 – lawyer, judge, educator, public official, and civil rights advocate William Henry Hastie Jr. was born in Knoxville, Tennessee

November 18, 1899 – author, philosopher, theologian, educator, and civil rights leader Howard Washington Thurman was born in Daytona Beach, Florida

November 18, 1956 – NFL legend Harold Warren Moon was born in Los Angeles, California

November 18, 1957 – politician, clergyman, and former football player Julius Caesar "J.C." Watts Jr.

November 20, 1827 – musician and composer Edmond Dédé was born in New Orleans, Louisiana

November 20, 1910 – civil rights activist, advocate, legal scholar, priest, and author Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland.

November 20, 1976 – Olympic gymnast Dominique Margaux Dawes was born in Silver Spring, Maryland.

November 22, 1893 – historian Alrutheus Ambush Taylor was born in Washington, D.C.

November 22, 1942 – aerospace engineer, retired United States Air Force (USAF) officer, fighter pilot, and astronaut Guion Stewart Bluford Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the first Black American to go to space.

November 23, 1946 – politician, activist, and pastor Bobby Lee Rush was born in Albany, Georgia. He co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party.

November 23, 1960 – television broadcaster Robin Roberts was born in Tuskegee, Alabama.

November 24, 1938 – basketball legend Oscar Palmer Robertson was born in Charlotte, Tennessee

November 25, 1903 – track and field athlete William DeHart Hubbard was born in Cincinnati, Ohio

November 25, 1965 – NFL legend Graduel Christopher Darwin "Cris" Carter was born in Troy, Ohio

November 26, 1939 – singer, songwriter, actress, and author Anna Mae Bullock better known as Tina Turner was born in Brownsville, Tennessee

November 27, 1927 – civil rights activist and minister John Hurst Adams was born in Columbia, South Carolina

November 27, 1942 – guitarist, songwriter and singer James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington

November 28, 1929 – record executive, record producer, songwriter, film producer and television producer Berry Gordy Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is the founder of Motown Records.

November 29, 1908 – pastor and politician Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the first Black American to be elected to Congress from New York

November 30, 1912 – photographer, composer, author, poet, and filmmaker Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas.

November 30, 1924 – politician Shirley Anita Chisholm was born in Brooklyn, New York. She the first Black American woman to be elected to the United States Congress.  In 1972, Chisholm became the first black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the United States and the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.