April 27 – W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk is published. The book crystallized opposition to Booker T. Washington’s program of social and political subordination, 1903.
April 27 – Maggie L. Walker is named president of Richmond’s St. Luke Bank and Trust Company. She becomes the first Black woman to head a bank, 1903.
April 27 – Coretta Scott is born in Marion, Ala. She will marry Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1953 and be an integral part of his civil rights activities. After his assassination in 1968, she will continue her civil rights activities, founding the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change in Atlanta, Ga., 1927.
April 28 – World Boxing Association and New York State Athletic Commission withdrew recognition of Muhammad Ali as world heavyweight boxing champion because of his refusal to serve in the U.S. armed forces, 1967.
April 28 – Supreme Court rules in railroad Jim Crow case brought by Congressman Arthur Mitchell that separate facilities must be substantially equal, 1941.
April 28 – Samuel L. Gravely, Jr. becomes the first African American Admiral in the United States Navy, 1971.
April 29 – World famous musician Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, is born in Washington, D.C., 1899.
April 29 – First day of L.A riots, sparked by acquittal of four white cops in the beating of Rodney King, which resulted in at least 50 deaths, thousands injured and estimates of up to $1 billion in property damage, 1992.
April 30 – Robert C. Maynard becomes the first African American to gain a controlling interest in a major metropolitan newspaper when he buys the Oakland Tribune from Gannett, 1983.
May 1 – Poet Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize, 1950.
May 1 – Howard University opens in Washington, D.C., 1867.