This Day In Black History:February 1 Ruby Dee In Shakespeare Festival

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Here’s some key events that happened on this day brought to you by Black Facts

1.	1997 – First 24-Hour Black Movie Channel BET Holdings and Encore Media Corp. launch BET Movie/Starz the first 24 hour Black Movie channel.
2.	1997 – Black Facts Online Goes Live! Black Facts Online, the premiere spot for Black history goes online.
3.	1990 – Original Sit-In Revisited In Greensboro, North Carolina, Joseph McNeil, Jibreel Khazan (Ezell Blair), Franklin McCain and David Richond repeated the original sit-in of 30 years prior, by having breakfast at the Greensboro Woolworth store.
4.	1990 – Ida Wells Postage Stamp Issued Ida Wells, a black reformer who compiled records on lynching, is the subject of a United States Postal Service stamp.
5.	1978 – The first stamp of the U.S. Postal Service’s The first stamp of the U.S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage USA series honors Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad
6.	1974 – Good Times premieres “Good Times” premieres on CBS.
7.	1967 – Poet Langston Hughes dies Poet Langston Hughes dies.
8.	1965 – Selma Demonstration Ends in 700 Arrests More than seven hundred demonstrators, including Martin Luther King Jr., arrested in Selma.
9.	1965 – Actress Ruby Dee in Shakespeare Festival Love Majic 107.5 / 97.5 Atlanta? Get more! Join the Majic 107.5 / 97.5 Atlanta Newsletter This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. We care about your data. See our privacy policy. Ruby Dee was the first African American actress to play a major role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford Conn.
10.	1960 – Sit-in Movement in Greensboro, North Carolina Four students form North Carolina A&T College started Sit-in movement at Greensboro, N.C., five-and-dime store. By February 10 movement had spread to fifteen Southern cities in five states.

11.	1952 – Singer Rick James born Rock/Funk singer Rick James is born
12.	1937 – Actor/Comedian Garrett Morris born Actor/Comedian Garrett Morris, formerly of Saturday Night Live, born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
13.	1926 – Negro History Week Begins What is now known as Black History Month, was first celebrated on this date as Negro History Week by Carter G. Woodson. It became a month long celebration in 1976.
14.	1902 – Langston Hughes One of the most famous poets, Langston Hughes was born in the year 1902. Hughes came from the Harlem Renaissance, the early stages of the Black Arts Movement. Hughes was well known in the streets of Harlem, making him one of the greatest poets of all time. Before his death in 1967, he wrote fifteen collections of…
15.	1887 – J. Robinson patents food carrier Robinson, J. Dinner Pail Feb. 01, 1887 Patent No. 356,852
16.	1871 – 1st Black to Speak in US House of Representatives Jefferson Long of Georgia became the first Black to make an official speech in the House of Representatives. He opposed leniency to former Confederates.
17.	1870 – Jonathan Jasper Wright Jonathan Jasper Wright is elected to the South Carolina Supreme Court. He is the first African American to hold a major judicial position.
18.	1865 – First African American Before US Supreme Court John Sweat Rock (1825-1866), a noted Boston lawyer, became in 1865 the first African-American to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and the first Black person to speak before the U.S. House of Representatives.
19.	1865 – Ratification of the 13th Amendment The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, was adopted by the 38th Congress. Ratification was completed December 6, 1865.
20.	1834 – Henry McNeal Turner Born Henry McNeal Turner was born on what is now Hannah Circuit, near Newberry, which was then in Abbeville County, South Carolina. Young Turner was “bound out” to the hardest king of labor in the cotton fields and the blacksmith’s trade in Abbeville until his “manhood” at age 12. He possessed an insatiable craving for…