Facts for Black History Month

(1) E.B. DuBois was the first African American to receive a PhD from Harvard University and Carter G. Woodson was the second to get a PhD from Harvard. DuBois got his in 1895 and
Woodson got his in 1912. Woodson is also known as the father of Black History Month.

2) That in 1951 Althea Gibson was the first African American female to play at Wimbledon and in 1957 she won the Wimbledon singles & doubles championship, also in 1957 she won the US Open and the French Open in 1958 thus becoming the first African American
female to win all three.

3) That by the age of ten, Katherine Johnson was in high school. In 1961 she calculated the trajectory of NASA”s first trip into space. She was so consistently accurate that when NASA began to use computers, they had her to check the calculations to make sure they were correct.  Taraji P. Henson  played her in the movie Hidden Figures.

4) Cuba Gooding, Jr. made history as the youngest African American male actor to win an Oscar at age 29 for the movie Jerry Maguire.

5) Jim Carrey said: “Brilliant Black minds gave me a shot in Hollywood when none of the white guys thought I could connect or be a leading man”. I got my first starring role because of “In Living Color” and Ivory & Damon Wayans.

6) That James Wormley Jones was appointed as the first African American FBI special agent in November of 1919. Strange but true. He served as a special agent for the FBI from 1919 to 1923. He also served as a Washington DC Metropolitan Policeman from 1905 to 1917 when he joined the Army and fought in WWI with the rank of captain. He fought under the French flag due to racial segregation in America. Before the FBI became the FBI it was called the Bureau of Investigation and was under the leadership of its director A. Bruce Bielaski.  J. Edgar Hoover was Mr. Jones supervisor and when J. Edgar became director of the FBI in 1923, Mr. Jones left. I wonder why Mr. Jones left.

7) That since 1989 when Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders made Art Shell the head coach, Shell became the first African American head coach in modern NFL history.  And since then, out of 197 hirings only 24 have been African Americans and 3 were Hispanic. In (2022) there are only three African American head coaches in the NFL. In contrast, in basketball as of today there are 30 teams in the NBA and a little over half of the head coaches are African American in the NBA (National Basketball Asso.). Ron Rivera is the lone Latino NFL coach in2022. Tom Floreswas the first Latino head football coach in the NFL. Like Shell he coached the Raiders

8) That Tom Flores was the first Latino quarterback in the NFL, (he was in the AFL) and played for the Raiders. He issued also one of only two men in professional football to play in a Superbowl, be an assistant coach in a Superbowl, and be the head coach in a Superbowl. And he was the first Latino NFL coach to win a Superbowl.

9) That Jim Plunkett was the first Latino to win a Superbowl as a quarterback and the first and only Latino to be named MVP of a Superbowl. He was also the first minority to play quarterback in a Superbowl and win along with being Latino.

10) Doug Williams was the first African American quarterback to start in a
Superbowl and win when he took the Washington Redskins to victory in Superbowl XXII and was named MVP also.

11) Former D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt was the first African American woman to serve as mayor of a major American city.