August 29 – Jazz icon Charlie “Bird” Parker is born in Kansas City, Kan., 1920.
August 29 – Singer Dinah Washington is born Ruth Lee Jones in Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1924.
August 29 – Pop music icon Michael Jackson is born in Gary, Ind., 1958
August 30 – The first African American magazine, Mirror of Freedom, begins publication in New York City, 1838.
September 3 – Jonathan A. Rodgers becomes the highest ranking African American in network television when he is named president of CBS’s television stations division, 1990.
September 4 – George Washington Carver of Tuskegee Institute received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest award, for distinguished research in agricultural chemistry, 1923.
September 4 – With the Aida production, Katherine Dunham becomes the first black choreographer for the Metropolitan Opera, 1963.
September 5 – Our Nig by Harriet Wilson becomes the first novel published in the U.S. by an African American woman, 1859.
September 7 – Jazz legend Sonny Rollins is born in New York City, 1930.