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December 1, 1987 - Carrie Saxon Perry begins her term as the mayor of Hartford, Conn., becoming first Black woman mayor of a major U.S. city.
December 2, 1884 - Granville T. Woods patents telephone transmitter.
December 3, 1847 - Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of North Star.
December 4, 1909 - The New York Amsterdam News is founded by James A. Anderson.
December 5, 1955 - Martin Luther King, Jr. organizes Birmingham bus boycott, marking the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement.
December 6, 1932 Richard B. Spikes patents automatic gearshift. 1936 – Richard Francis Jones becomes first African American certified in urology.
December 7, 1941 - Dorie Miller, U.S. Navy, shoots down four Japanese planes during attach on Pearl Harbor.
December 8, 1925 - Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. born.
December 9, 1872 - P.B.S. Pinchback of Louisiana becomes first African American governor in U.S.
December 10, 1950 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche becomes first Black awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
December 11, 1938 - Jazz pianist McCoy Tyner born.
December 12, 1899 George F. Grant patents golf tree. 1950- Jesse Leroy Brown becomes first African American naval officer to die in combat. 1992 – President Bill Clinton’s Cabinet and White House appointments include five Black men and one Black woman.
December 13, 1944 - First African American servicewomen sworn into the WAVES.
December 14, 1829 - John Mercer Langston, congressman and founder of Howard University Law Department, born.
December 15, 1883 - William A. Hinton, first African American on Harvard Medical School faculty and developer of the Hinton test to detect syphilis, born. 1994 – Ruth J. Simmons named president of Smith College.
December 16, 1976 - Andrew Young nominated by President Jimmy Carter to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
December 17, 1802 - Teacher and minister Henry Adams born.
December 18, 1971 - Rev. Jesse Jackson founds Operation PUSH.
December 19, 1875 - Educator Carter G. Woodson, “father of Black history”, born.
December 20, 1860 - South Carolina secedes from the Union.
December 21, 1911 - Baseball legend Josh Gibson born.
December 22, 1943 - W.E. B. DuBois becomes the first African American elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
December 23, 1869 - Madam C.J. Walker, businesswoman and first African American woman millionaire, born.
December 24, 1832 - Charter granted to the Georgia Infirmary, the fist Black hospital.
December 25, 1760 - Jupiter Hammon becomes first published Black poet with his poem, “An Evening Thought”.
December 26, 1894 - Jean Toomer, author of Cane, born.
December 27, 1862 - African Methodist Episcopal Zion church founded in New Bern, North Carolina.
December 28, 1905 - Earl “Fatha” Hines, “Father of Modern Jazz Piano”, born.
December 29, 1924 - Author, sportswriter A.S. “Doc” Young born.
December 30, 1842 - Congressman Josiah Walls born.
December 31, 1930 - Odetta, blues and folk singer, born.
