The Center for the Church and the Black Experience celebrates Black History Month 2013

1958 – 1ST U.S. BLACK FOREIGN MINISTER TO EUROPE

During a distinguished career that spanned nearly four decades, Clifton R. Wharton, Sr. (1899-1990) was the first black Foreign Service Officer in the U.S. Department of State. While he was not the nation’s first black ambassador, Wharton was the first black diplomat to become ambassador by rising through the ranks of the Foreign Service rather than by political appointment and the first black diplomat to lead a U.S. delegation to a European country.

After a series of postings that included Liberia, the Canary Islands, Spain and Madagascar, Wharton became consul general in Portugal in 1949. In 1953 he became consul general in Marseilles, France.

1972 – FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN ELECTED TO THE BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME

Bob Douglas becomes the first African American elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1994 – MEDGAR EVERS MURDERER CONVICTED

Ku Klux Klan member Byron De La Beckwith is convicted of the 1963 murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.

The 1996 film Ghosts of Mississippi tells the story of the murder and 1994 trial. James Woods portrayed Beckwith in an Academy Award-nominated performance.

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Throughout the month of February, Garrett-Evangelical's Center for the Church and the Black Experience will be providing Daily Knowledge Nuggets in honor of Black History Month. Content provided by: blackhistorydaily.com, aetnaafricanamericancalendar.com/2013, and theblackmarket.com/February.