Celebrating Black History Month at E.E. Ward: Oldest Minority Owned Company

Every day this February, the E.E. Ward team has outsourced a piece of information that has proven crucial in the shaping of our United States of America up through 2016. This year, we wanted to emphasize the importance of Black History Month not only as a time to celebrate the varied impacts African American citizens have made on our country’s significance but to think of this as a time to better educate the public on a difficult subject matter so intricately woven into our nation’s past. Between the “Black History Month Daily Fact” and the “Celebrating Black History Month at E.E. Ward” blog series, our dependable staff’s objective this month was to appropriately represent our company’s demographic: the oldest minority owned company in the nation.

Below we have attached the various facts we have posted this month, and we encourage our viewers not only to take a closer look but to share with those you know!

-The E.E. Ward Team

25 Black History Month Facts

• Monday, February 1st:   “Martin Luther King, Jr. Day” commemorates Dr. King’s birthday: January 15th, 1929 in Atlanta, GA.
• Tuesday, February 2nd:     Black History month was created to honor the contributions African Americans have made to US History.
• Wednesday, February 3rd:     Sarah Breedlove, known as Madam CJ Walker, was the first woman to become a self-made millionaire in America.
• Thursday, February 4th:     E.E. Ward Moving and Storage is the oldest minority owned business in the country. (since 1881)
• Friday, February 5th:     Created in 1926, Black History Month began as “Negro History Week”, becoming a month long celebration in 1976.
• Monday, February 8th:     The month of February was chosen for Black History Month because it coincided with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.
• Tuesday, February 9th:    NAACP, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is an African American civil rights organization rooted in the USA.
• Wednesday, February 10th:    In 1908, Jack Johnson was the first African American man to hold the World Heavyweight Champion boxing title. He held it until 1915.
• Thursday, February 11th:    Thurgood Marshall was the first ever African American to be elected into the US Supreme Court, elected in by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967.
• Friday, February 12th:   In 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels, representing Mississippi, was the first ever African American to be elected into the US Senate.
• Monday, February 15th:     In 1940, Hattie McDaniel was the first African American performer to win an Academy Award for the portrayal of a loyal slave governess in Gone with the Wind.
• Tuesday, February 16th:   In 1992, Dr. Mae Jemison was the first African American woman to go into space.
• Wednesday, February 17th:     Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in the major leagues of baseball.
• Thursday, February 18th:     In 1976, Negro History Week became Black History Month when President Gerald Ford urged the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
• Friday, February 19th:     Every year Black History Month has a different theme. This year’s theme is “A Century of Black Life, History, and Culture”
• Saturday, February 20^th:      Before Rosa Parks started the Montgomery Bus Boycott, several women demanded to keep their seat including Claudette Colvin.
• Sunday, February 21^st:       The earliest recorded protest against slavery was in 1688 by the Quakers.
• Monday, February 22th:     In addition to the US, Canada and the UK have black history months as well. Canada’s is in February, while the UK’s is in October.
• Tuesday, February 23rd:       The black population in the United States is 45 million. There are almost 319 million people in the US total.
• Wednesday, February 24th:     New York City has the highest number of black residents of any city in the US with 3.7 million.
• Thursday, February 25th:     While New York City has the highest number of black residents, Washington DC has the highest proportion of black residents with 51%.
• Friday, February 26th:      The Renaissance was the name of the first black professional basketball team, at one point winning 88 consecutive games.
• Saturday, February 27^th:      Of the 12.5 million slaves that were shipped across the world during the Transatlantic Slave Trade, only 388,000 made it into the United States.
• Sunday, February 28^th:     Despite what movies and the media portray, one in four cowboys were black.
• Monday, February 29th:     The first black astronaut was Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr. who died before he could make it into space.