Black - African American History Facts

George Boyer Vashon, the first black person to receive a Bachelor's Degree from Oberlin College, was born in Carlisle, PA, on this date in 1824.

Garrett A. Morgan, inventor of the gas mask, rescued two people and retrieved four bodies from a gas-filled tunnel in Lake Erie near Cleveland, OH, on this date in 1916.

Frank L. Gillespie founded the Liberty Life Insurance Company on this date in 1921. It later merged with two other companies to become the Supreme Life Insurance Company, one of the largest black-owned companies in the nation.

The USS Harmon, the first warship named for a black person (1st Class Leonard Roy Harmon), was commissioned on this date in 1943.

U.S. government officials finally admitted, on this date in 1972, that blacks were used as guinea pigs in syphilis experiments. This egregious act is widely known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment.

General Colin L. Powell dedicated the Buffalo Soldier Memorial at Fort Leavenworth, KS, on this date in 1992.