Asa Philip Randolph issued a call for 100,000 Blacks to march on Washington, D.C., to protest discrimination in the armed forces and war industries.

In 1886, T. Thomas Fortune, born enslaved in Florida thirty years earlier, was already a newspaper owner and publisher in New York City and author of Black and White: Land, Labor and Politics in the Old South (1884), the first significant work to argue that class conflict rather than racial strife was at the center of the struggles of African Americans in post-Civil War era. That year, against a backdrop of labor strikes across the nation, Fortune he delivered a speech on April 20 before the Brooklyn, New York Literary Union in which he aligned black workers with other workers throughout the world in a coming revolution that would bring about a reallocation of wealth. Less than two weeks later, on May 1, 350,000 workers in 11,562 establishments in the country at large went on strike for an eight hour day in what some labor leaders and capitalists saw as the beginning of that revolution. The speech, first published in Fortune’s newspaper, The New York Freeman, on May Day, 1886, appears below.

I do not exaggerate the gravity of the subject when I say that it is now the very first in importance not only in the United States but in every country in Europe. Indeed the wall of industrial discontent encircles the civilized globe.

The iniquity of privileged class and concentrated wealth has become so glaring and grievous to be borne that a thorough agitation and an early readjustment of the relation which they sustain to labor can no longer be delayed with safety to society.

It does not admit of argument that every man born into the world is justly entitled to so much of the produce of nature as will satisfy his physical necessities; it does; not admit of argument that every man, by reason of his being, is justly entitled to the air he must breathe, the water he must drink, the food he must eat and the covering he must have to shield him from the inclemency of the weather. These are self evident propositions, not disputed by the most orthodox advocate of excessive wealth on the one hand and excessive poverty on the

Gwendolyn Brooks, poet, first Black awarded a Pulitzer Prize (poetry) in 1950.

Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas but grew up in Chicago. She is a witty poet who satirizes blacks and whites and attacks racial discrimination. She uses black language and rituals to proclaim black solidarity.

Shaunita Latrice “Tia” Norfleet is the first and, as of 2016, only African American female to be licensed as a NASCAR driver. Born on May 1, 1986, in Suffolk, Virginia, Tia is the daughter of Bobby Norfleet, a professional racecar driver in the 1990s. Her mother’s name is unknown.  Because of her father’s influence, Tia was introduced to racing and the race culture at a young age. Her father’s own mentors, NASCAR champion Wendell Scott, Hall of Fame driver Alan Kulwicki, and entertainer Gladys Knight encouraged him to help Tia develop her interest in the sport.   

Tia began to love racing around the age of five when her father gave her a little Corvette car which fueled her interest in motorsports. By the age of fourteen, she had decided to pursue a career in racing. She won thirty-seven of fifty-two amateur races and at the age of fourteen became a professional driver. By 2000 she had won two top fifteen finishes driving Bandolero and other late model cars in races.   

Tia is also involved in her local community of Atlanta, Georgia, where in 2006, Team Norfleet put on a celebrity race to expose people of color to the world of motorsports. Norfleet is committed to the National African American Drug policy coalition and the Motorsports Institute, Inc.  In 2007 Tia participated in Black Entertainment Television (BET) Jocks and Gems Celebrity Charity event to raise awareness and school supplies for children. In 2009 she participated in a charity event with Step Up in Georgia, Inc. where at-risk youth were able to receive mentorship. In June of 2011, she was invited to deliver the commencement address for Unidad of Miami Beach, Florida, and the New Generation Leadership and Workforce Institute’s graduation class; it is a community-based organization that addresses social service advocacy, leadership development, and cultural affairs in Miami, Florida.

In recent years, controversy surfaced regarding the authenticity of Tia’s claim to fame as the first black female racer along with her racing background. She has

Jimmy Winkfield wins his second Kentucky Derby in a row. African American jockeys have won 15 of 28 Derby races.

Howard University,in Washington, D.C. named for General Oliver O. Howard, opened.

The influential rhythm & blues harmonica player and singer Little Walter is born Marion Walter Jacobs in Marksville, LA, USA. His most popular records include My Babe and Juke.

Death of Dr. Clarence A. Bacote (75), historian and political scientist, in Atlanta.

Former federal judge William H. Hastie was confirmed as governor of the Virgin Islands. Hastie became the only Afro-American to govern a U.S. state or territory since Reconstruction.

Emma Clarissa Clement, a black woman and mother of Atlanta University President Rufus E. Clement, was named American Mother of the Year by the Golden Rule Foundation. She was the first Afro-American woman to receive the honor.

Sterling Brown , in full Sterling Allen Brown (born May 1, 1901, Washington, D.C., U.S.—died Jan. 13, 1989, Takoma Park, Md.), influential African-American teacher, literary critic, and poet whose poetry was rooted in folklore sources and black dialect.

The son of a professor at Howard University, Washington, D.C., Brown was educated at Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. (A.B., 1922), and Harvard University (A.M., 1923). While teaching at several schools, he began collecting folk songs and stories from blacks. The people he met also served as the subject of the poetry he then began to write. In 1929 Brown began a 40-year teaching career at Howard, and in 1932 his first volume of poetry, Southern Road, was published. Musical forms, especially ballads, work songs, spirituals, and blues, were primary influences on his work. At a time when black dialect had been distorted into a stereotype by white writers, he used authentic dialect and phonetic spelling in his poems.

Though Southern Road was widely praised, Brown found no publisher for his second collection, No Hiding Place; it eventually was incorporated into his Collected Poems (1980). As critic, essayist, and Opportunity magazine columnist, he supported realistic writing and harshly attacked literature that distorted black life. In 1937 he published the pioneering studies Negro Poetry and Drama and The Negro in American Fiction, and in 1941 he was coeditor of The Negro Caravan, an anthology of African-American writing. Most of his major work was written by the mid-1940s; two decades later, students inspired a widespread revival of interest in his work, much of which was subsequently reprinted.

Glenn H. Taylor, U.S. Senator from Idaho and Vice-presidential candidate of Progressive party, arrested in Birmingham for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked for Negroes.

Robinson was born on May 1, 1939 in Richmond, Virginia to Maxie and Doris Robinson.

Through the 3 White Democrats and police attacked freedmen and their white allies in Memphis, Tennessee. Forty-six Blacks and two white liberals were killed. More than seventy were wounded. Ninety homes, twelve schools and four churches were burned.

T.M. Aluko , in full Timothy Mofolorunso Aluko (born June 14, 1918, Ilesha, Nigeria—died May 1, 2010, Lagos), Nigerian writer whose short stories and novels deal with social change and the clash of cultures in modern Africa.

A civil engineer and town planner by profession, Aluko was educated in Ibadan, Lagos, and London and held positions as director of public works for western Nigeria and faculty member at the University of Lagos. He first became known through his short stories, several of which were awarded British prizes and were broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation African service.

Aluko’s One Man, One Wife (1959), a satirical novel about the conflict of Christian and Yoruba ethics, relates the disillusionment of a village community with the tenets of missionary Christianity. A second novel, One Man, One Matchet (1964), humorously presents the clash of an inexperienced district officer with an unscrupulous politician. Kinsman and Foreman (1966) incorporates Aluko’s professional experiences into a penetrating study of an idealistic young engineer’s battle against the corrupt practices of his highly respected public works foreman, who is also his uncle. Chief the Honourable Minister (1970) satirizes the calamity resulting from a schoolmaster’s appointment as minister of works in a newly independent country. His subsequent novels include His Worshipful Majesty (1973), Wrong Ones in the Dock (1982), and A State of Our Own (1986). The economy of style, graceful prose, and gentle irony of Aluko’s novels brought him critical acclaim. He also published My Years of Service (1994) and The Story of My Life (2006), both volumes of autobiography.

Evelyn Boyd Granville, Born May 1, 1924 in Washington, D.C. and attended Dunbar High School, a segregated high school at the time. Her interest in mathematics was encouraged by two mathematics teachers. Granville worked with Einar Hille, a distinguished mathematician in the field of functional analysis, as her Ph.D. faculty advisor at Yale University. She received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale in 1949.

Following her graduation from Yale Evelyn Granville spent a year as a research assistant at the New York University Institute of Mathematics and part-time instructor in the mathematics department of New York University (NYU). Professor Granville was then appointed as Associate Professor of Mathematics at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee from 1950-1952.

Reconstruction of the South began with the registering of Black and white voters in the South. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan ordered registration to begin in Louisiana on May 1 and to continue until June 30. Registration began in Arkansas in May. Other states followed in June and July. By the end of October, 1,363,000 citizens had registered in the South, including 700,000 Blacks. Black voters constituted a majority in five states: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

Confederate congress passed resolution which branded Black troops and their officers criminals. Resolution, in effect, doomed captured Black soldiers to death or slavery.