December 1, 1987 – Carrie Saxon Perry begins her term as the mayor of Hartford, CT, becoming first African American woman mayor of a major U.S. city.
December 2, 1884 – Granville T. Woods patents telephone transmitter.
December 3, 1847 – Frederick Douglass publishes first issue of North Star.
December 4, 1909 – The New York Amsterdam News is founded by James A. Anderson.
December 5, 1955 – Martin Luther King, Jr., organizes Birmingham bus boycott, marking the beginning of the modern Civil Rights Movement.
December 6, 1932 – Richard B. Spikes patents automatic gearshift. 1936 – Richard Francis Jones becomes first African American certified in urology.
December 7, 1941 – Dorie Miller, U.S. Navy, shoots down four Japanese planes during attach on Pearl
