May 21: “What’s Going On,” Marvin Gaye’s most socially conscious album, which sold over 2 million copies, was released in 1971
Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On,’ was Released on May 21- Watch Live Performance
May 20: C.O.R.E. organized Freedom Rides resumed in Birmingham after tremendous violence, 1961
May 19: Human Rights leader and outstanding orator Malcolm X aka El-Hajj Malik El- Shabazz was born in Omaha, NE, 1925
May 18: An untitled Jean-Michel Basquiat work was sold for $110.5m, becoming the most expensive American painting ever, 2017
May 17: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruled that public education can not be segregated on the basis of race, 1954
May 16: Dr. William Barnes became the first African American Board Certified specialist, 1927
May 15: Sigma Pi Phi, the first African American Greek-lettered organization, was formed in Philadelphia, PA, 1904
May 14: Africans in Brazil rejoiced on this day as their country became the last in the western hemisphere to end enslavement, 1888
May 13: Stevland Morris aka Stevie Wonder was born on this day in Saginaw, MI, 1950
May 12: Robert Smalls, while enslaved, stole a Confederate ship and freed a number of enslaved, 1862
May 11: George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic received the Grammy Salute To Music Legends award, 2019
May 10: Mathematician and current MIT student John Urschel was drafted in the NFL draft, 2014
May 9: An enslaved African named Caesar was released in exchange for his cure for poison and rattlesnake bites in S. Carolina, 1750
May 8: Inventor Matthew A. Cherry received a patent for the tricycle, 1888