Toni Morrison wins the Pulitzer Prize for Beloved.

Jack Johnson, first African-American heavyweight boxing champion is born in Galveston, Texas.

Trailblazing fashion model Naomi Sims is born in Oxford, Mississippi.

The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified, guaranteeing voting rights to African Americans.

Basketball guard Walt Frazier is born in Atlanta. The future Hall of Famer will lead the New York Knicks to NBA championships in 1970 and 1973.

Singer and actor Pearl Bailey is born in Newport News, Virginia.

W.J. Ballow patents combined hat rack and table.

By The Editors
We know we must act to improve the environment and save the planet. While many of us recycle, use more energy-efficient light bulbs and other things, there is one more vital step we can take to make a global statement in support of Planet Earth.

By John Payton
John Hope Franklin’s service to scholarship, to the black freedom struggle and the expansion of opportunity in the United States, and to America as a whole is profound, perhaps even incalculable.

Jonathan S. Wright becomes the first African-American state supreme court justice in South Carolina.