Today in Black History — December 13

1981 - Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham, comedian, popular for his "here comes de judge" routine on television's Laugh-In, dies

1960 - METCO

METCO (Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity), is America's longest running voluntary school desegregation program. METCO is a state-funded program to eliminate racial imbalance through the busing of children of color from Boston and Springfield to public school systems in surrounding suburban comunities....

1944 - Women's Auxiliary Volunteers for Emerge

The first African American women complete officer training for the WAVES (Women's Auxiliary Volunteers for Emergency Service). They had been admitted to the corps two months earlier.

1944 - Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services

Black women were sworn in for the first time to the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES), a women's naval reserves.

1926 - Carl Erskine

Carl Erskine is born. He will become a baseball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

1924 - Larry Doby

Larry Doby is born. He will become the first African American in baseball's American League, playing for the Cleveland Indians. He will be the 1954 RBI leader.

1913 - Archibald Lee Wright

Archibald Lee Wright is born in Benoit, Mississippi. Better known as Archie Moore, he will become a boxer and win the light heavyweight crown in 1952. He will reign as champion until 1960.

1913 - Death of Menelik II of Ethiopia

Menelik II of Ethiopia died on December 13, 1913 after a reign that lasted from 1889 to 1913.

1903 - Ella Baker

Ella Baker is born in Norfolk, Virginia. A civil rights worker who will direct the New York branch of the NAACP, Baker will become executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1960's during student integration of lunch counters in the southern states. She also will play a key rol...

1777 - 1777

On December 31, 1777; George Washington reverses previous policy and allows the recruitment of black soldiers. some 5,000 participate in the Revolutionary War.