1783

James Derham, born a slave in Philadelphia in 1762, becomes the first black physician in the United States.

1826

The first black college graduate, John Russwurm, receives his degree from Bowdoin College in Maine in 1826.

1834

First black to obtain a patent from the U.S. Patent Office is Henry Blair of Greenosa, Md. Blair invents a corn planter. He later invents a cotton seed planter.

1845

First black lawyer to be formally admitted to the bar is Macon B. Allen after he passes the state bar examination in Worcester, Mass.

1853

First novel written by a black American and published is a work by W.W. Brown, titled Clotel: A Tale of the Southern States.

1860

First African-American baseball team to tour various parts of the country is called the Brooklyn Excelsiors.

1862

Mary Patterson becomes the first black woman in the United States to earn an M.A. degree, awarded her by Oberlin College.

1865

Martin R. Delany becomes the first black to reach the rank of major in the U.S. Army.

1865

John Rock is the first black lawyer to be admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1872

The first black woman lawyer, Charlotte E. Roy, receives her degree from Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C.

1873

The first black municipal judge, M.W. Gibbs, is elected in Little Rock, Ark.

1873

Susan McKinney, believed to be the first black woman to enter the medical profession formally, is certified as a physician.

1875

Oscar Lewis is the first black jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. He rode Aristides.

1884

The first black professional baseball team, the Cuban Giants, is formed in New York City by Frank Thompson from a group of black waiters at a Long Island hotel.

1890

The first medical journal written for and by blacks is published in Jackson, Miss. The editor of the publication is Bandaburst Lynk, M.D. The journal lasted 18 months.

1903

Lena Walker becomes the first black woman bank president. Miss Walker was the founder and chief executive of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond, Va.

1910

First black to be awarded a coveted Rhodes Scholarship is Alain Leroy Locke of Philadelphia. Locke received his B.A. degree from Howard University in 1908.

1926

First black woman lawyer to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court is Viloette M. Anderson of Chicago.

1939

First black woman to become a judge, Jane Matilda Bolin, is appointed to the bench of Court of Domestic Relations by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia of New York City.

1940

Benjamin O. Davis Sr. is promoted to the rank of brigadier general in 1940, thus becoming the first black to hold this post in the U.S. Army.

1942

Bernard W. Robinson, a medical student at Harvard, becomes the first black to be commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy.

1943

Dr. W.E.B. DuBois becomes the first black admitted to the National Institute of Arts and Letters. At the time of his admittance, Dr. DuBois headed the Department of Sociology at Atlanta University.

1945

First black nurse to be commissioned in the Navy Reserve Corps is Phyllis Mae Dolly.

1947

John Lee of Indianapolis, Ind., becomes the first black commissioned officer in the Regular Navy.

1949

First black pilot in the U.S. Naval Reserve is Jesse Leroy Brown from Hattiesburg, Va. On Dec. 4, 1950, at Changjin Reservoir in Korea, Jesse Brown became the first black naval pilot to be killed in action.

1950

Gwendolyn Brooks wins the Pulitzer Prize for her volume of poetry. She was the first black woman to win the award and also the first black woman elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters.

1958

Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first black flight attendant.

1959

John McLendon becomes the first black to coach an integrated professional basketball team, the Cleveland Pipers of the National Industrial Basketball League.

1962

The first black warship commander, Lt. Cmdr. Samuel L. Gravely, assumes command of the USS Falgout, a destroyer escort.

1966

1967

Emmett Ashford becomes the first black Major League Baseball umpire.
Bill Russell, star center of the world-champion Boston Celtics, becomes the first black to direct a major league sports team when he is named to succeed Red Auerbach as coach of the Boston basketball franchise.

1968

Martin Briscoe becomes the first black quarterback in pro football.

1969

Federal Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. is elected a trustee of Yale University, the first black to be so honored.

1971

Dr. James Allen Colston becomes the first black to head a college in New York State (and possibly the first to head a "predominantly white" college in the United States) when he is appointed president of the two-year Bronx Community College in New York City.

1975

The U.S. Navy commissions Dr. Donna P. Davis as a lieutenant in the Navy's medical corps, making Lt. Davis the first black woman physician in the corp's history.

1979

Audrey Neal becomes the first black woman or woman of any ethnic group to become a longshoreman on the Eastern Seaboard.

1980

Dr. Levi Watkins Jr. performs the first surgical implantation of the automatic implantable defibrillator in the human heart. The device corrects an ailment known as ventricular fibrillation, or arrhythmia, which prevents the heart from pumping blood.

1988

Eugene Antonio Marino becomes the first black Roman Catholic archbishop in the United States as he is named archbishop of the Atlanta archdiocese.

1989

Former St. Louis Cardinal first baseman Bill White assumes office as president of the National League, becoming the first black to head a professional sports league.

1989

Episcopal Rev. Barbara Harris, a black, becomes the first female bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

2008

Barack Obama becomes the first African American elected President of the United States.

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