February 13, 1970 – Joseph L. Searles became the first black member of the New York Stock Exchange.
February 14, 1879 – B.K. Bruce of Mississippi became the first African American to preside over U.S. Senate.
February 15, 1961 – U.N. sessions were disrupted by U.S. and African nationalists over assassination of Congo Premier Patrice Lumumba.
February 16, 1874 – Frederick Douglass elected president of Freedman’s Bank and Trust.
February 17, 1902 – Marion Anderson, internationally acclaimed opera star, was born.
February 18, 1931 – Toni Morrison, winner of 1988 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, was born.
February 19, 1923 – In Moore vs. Dempsey decision, U.S. Supreme Court guaranteed due process of law to blacks in state courts.
