April 17, 1983 – Alice Walker won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Color Purple.
April 18, 1864 – More than 200 black Union troops massacred by Confederate forces at Ft. Pillow, TN.
April 19, 1972 – Stationed in Germany, Major Gen. Frederic E. Davidson became the first black to lead a U.S. Army division.
April 20, 1894 – Dr. Lloyd A. Hall, pioneering food chemist, was born.
April 21, 1966 – Pct. Milton L. Olive, III, awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for valor in Vietnam.
April 22, 1922 – Jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus was born.
April 23, 1895 – Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus patented the photographic print wash.
