Harry Belafonte Born
1841 – Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first Black to serve a full term in the United States Senate was born a slave in Prince Edward County, Virginia. In February 1874, Bruce was elected to the U. S. Senate, the second African American to serve in the upper house of Congress.
1914 – Writer Ralph Waldo Ellison, author of ‘The Invisible Man’, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The New York Times honored him as “among the gods of America’s literary Parnassus.”
1927 – Singer/Actor Harry Belafonte is born in Harlem, New York. Over the course of his career Belafonte has won three Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award and received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1989 and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994.
1960 – Pope John elevated Bishop Laurian Rugambwa of Tanganyika to College of Cardinals, the first Black cardinal in the modern era.
