Right on!

February is Black History Month and there are many related historical events which occurred on this very date. Langston Hughes, the African–American poet, novelist, playwright and newspaper columnist, is born today in 1902 and dies on the same date — his 65th birthday, in 1967. In 1865 on this day J.S. Rock, the first black lawyer to practice in the Supreme Court, is admitted to the bar. Today in 1871 Jefferson Long of Georgia becomes the first black person to make an official speech in the House of Representatives. P.H. Young is the first black pilot to fly an American scheduled passenger airline, on this date in 1957. Today in 1960 four black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina are denied service at a white-only Woolworth's lunch counter and refuse to leave, thus staging the first civil-rights sit-in. On this date in 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. and 700 other civil-rights demonstrators are arrested in Selma, Alabama and today in 1978 Harriet Tubman is the first black woman to be honored on a US postage stamp. South African president F.W. de Klerk announces plans to repeal all apartheid laws on this date in 1991.

Celebrate with pride by wearing this Black is beautiful Long Sleeve Dark T-Shirt — more products sporting this motif here — from the Special Issues department of the prolific CafePress.com Star Shop America.

[To purchase items click on the photograph or colored text links.]