Author and abolitionist Frederick Douglass is elected president of Freedman’s Bank and Trust.

Bessie Smith makes her first recording, “Down-hearted Blues,” which sells 800,000 copies for Columbia Records.

The Liberia Herald, first newspaper printed in Africa, is published by C. L. Force of Boston.

Singer Nat King Cole dies in Santa Monica, CA, at age 45.

U.S. activists and African nationalists disrupt UN sessions to protest the slaying of Congo premier Patrice Lumumba.

By Nick Chiles and Denene Millner
Effortlessly, wonderfully, Barack and Michelle have done something that a year ago we might have proclaimed impossible: they have demonstrated with no uncertainty that not only is black love still possible, it is ordinary.

By Damon Hewitt
With so much focus on corporate bailouts, tax cuts and macro-level economic policy, the needs of  vulnerable communities, and the especially vulnerable individuals within those communities, may be lost.

By The Editors
Slate.com, the daily web magazine offering analysis and commentary about politics, news and culture, has posted a list of the top 10 cases that merit a “re-do” by the Department of Justice under the Obama administration.

By The Editors
The historic election of Barack Obama, a congressional majority more supportive of the fight against AIDS, and a black America more engaged than ever before could create real and lasting change in the course of the U.S. AIDS epidemic, says a new report released by the Black AIDS Institute.

By Ben Byerly
Racial injustice at the personal level seeks to distort our identities and harm our relationships. The process of understanding the roles we play in a racialized society and changing our thoughts and behaviors is a lot like the process one undergoes through serious pastoral counseling.