African American History - February 1

I will launch a daily African American history trivia series. If you have any more trivia that belongs on this list for a certain day, please list your ideas and I will revise the post. Enjoy!

• 1810 - Charles Lenox Remond is born in Salem, Massachusetts to free black parents. He will become one of the most prominent African American abolitionists in the crusade against slavery in the United States.
• 1810 - The American Insurance Company of Philadelphia is the first insurance company established and managed by African Americans. Its president was Joseph Randolph; treasurer, Carey Porter; and secretary, William Coleman.
• 1833 - Henry McNeal Turner is born. He will become one of the first black bishops in the African Methodist Episcopalian church and also serve as an army champlain, political organizer, magazine editor, and college chancellor.
• 1865 - John S. Rock becomes the first African American attorney to practice before the United States Supreme Court. He was also an abolitionist and physician.
  
• 1870 - Jonathan Jasper Wright, a lawyer and politician, becomes the first African American to be elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court.
• 1871 - Jefferson Franklin Long, ex-slave and trained tailor, becomes the first African American from Georgia to be elected to the United States House of Representatives. He makes his first congressional speech on the floor of Congress opposing leniency to former Confederates.
• 1902 - Langston Hughes is born. He will become one o the most prolific American poets of the 20th century and a leading voice in the Harlem Renaissance.
• 1957 - James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. (also known as Rick James) is born. He will become a singer, songwriter, and producer and is best known for his recording of "Super Freak."
• 1960 - Four African American college students from North Carolina A&T College begin a sit-in protest when they were denied service at a "whites-only" lunch counter.
• 1965 - More than 1000 demonstrators, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., during the civil rights struggle against racial discrimination are arrested in Selma, Alabama.
• 1965 - Ruby Dee becomes the first African American thespian to play a role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut.
• 1978 - The first stamp of the United States Postal Service's Black Heritage USA series honors Harriet Tubman, ex-slave abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad.
• 1997 - BET and Encore Media Corp launch BET Movie/Starz, the first 24-hour African American movie channel.
• 2003 - Lt. Colonel Michael P. Anderson, NASA astronaut, dies when the Space Shuttle Columbia explodes during re-entry.