Barbara Jordan was born February 21, 1936, in Houston, Texas. Jordan was elected to the Texas Senate in 1966, becoming the first female African-American to do so. In 1972, she was elected president pro-tempore of the Texas Senate – the first African-American elected to preside over a legislative body anywhere in the country. When Jordan was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1972 she became the first African-American woman to represent a previously Confederate state in Congress. Jordan died of pneumonia on January 17, 1996 at the Austin Diagnostic Medical Center.
(Photo By Shelly Katz/Getty Images)
On January 18 1958, Willie O’Ree of the Boston Bruins became the first African-American to play in the National Hockey League.
(AP Photo)
On January 18, 1975 The Jeffersons premiered on television, one of the first sitcoms about an African-American family. Formerly neighbors of the Bunkers on “All in the Family,” the Jeffersons moved to Manhattan’s East Side.
(Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
At the end of a joint sting operation by FBI agents and District of Columbia police, Mayor Marion Barry is arrested and charged on January 19, 1990 with drug possession and the use of crack, a crystalline form of cocaine.
(AP Photo)
On January 20 2009, Barack Obama was sworn in as the nation’s first black president. He took the oath at noon at the capital, before a huge crowd that filled most of the National Mall in Washington D.C. The event was witnessed by people around the world, both in person and on TV.
(AP Photo)
On January 20, 1986, Ronald McNair (1950-86) was the first black astronaut killed during a space mission, when the space shuttle “Challenger” met with disaster. McNair, a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was assigned to the shuttle “Challenger” which blew up shortly after take-off.
(Photo by NASA/Space Frontiers/Getty Images)
On January 20 1986, the first national Martin Luther King Jr holiday was formally celebrated.
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Maya Angelou delivers “On the Pulse of Morning” poem at the presidential inauguration ceremony on January 20, 1993.
(Photo by Consolidated News Pictures/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
On January 21 1984, legendary soul singer Jackie Wilson died of a heart attack. He was 49 and had spent the previous nine years in a coma, after suffering a stroke on stage during a performance in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. His funeral was held in Detroit. Wilson had six number-one songs on the R&B singles charts, including “Lonely Teardrops.” It stayed at number one for seven weeks back in 1958.
(Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
On January 21 1773, poet Phillis Wheatley, born a slave in 1754, was freed and her first book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was published. The book of poetry is said to have been widely acclaimed in the United States and England.
(Photo by Stock Montage/Stock Montage/Getty Images)
Barack Obama was inaugurated, The Jeffersons debuted and soul legend Jackie Wilson died; this is an incredibly historic week by any standard. The slideshow below takes a look a back on some of the pivotal cultural moments that have occurred this week in African-American history.
