Erskine Henderson African American jockey wins the Kentucky Derby on a horse trained by African American trainer Alex Perry.

22 year old Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to make the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.

A historically black college located in on a 125-acre campus near downtown Jackson, the capital city of the state of Mississippi, Jackson State University (JSU) has been the designated urban university of the state’s higher education system since 1979.  The school was founded in 1877 by the American Baptist Home Mission Society as Natchez Seminary “for the moral, religious, and intellectual improvement of Christian leaders of the colored people of Mississippi and the neighboring states.”  

The institution was originally located in Natchez, Mississippi, but was moved to Jackson in 1882.  In 1899 the curriculum was expanded and the school’s name was changed to Jackson College.  The American Baptist Home Mission Society withdrew its support for the College in the 1930s, prompting the administration to seek state support to continue its operation.  The State of Mississippi assumed support of the college in 1940, and mandated that the school’s primary purpose should be the training of teachers.  In 1942 the Board of Trustees instituted a four year teacher education program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Education degree.  Between 1953 and 1956 the curriculum was again expanded to include a graduate program and bachelor’s programs in the arts and sciences.  In 1956 the institution became known as Jackson State College.  Jackson State achieved university status in 1974.

Jackson State earned national notoriety on May 14, 1970, when two students, Philip Gibbs, a JSU junior, and James Green, a senior at Jim Hill High School, were killed by Jackson police when they opened fire on the campus during a student protest.  These killings came ten days after four white Kent State Students were killed by National Guardsmen on that campus in Ohio.

Today, Jackson State University (JSU) is the fourth largest state supported institution in Mississippi.  As of Fall term 2009, JSU served 8,783 students, 76% of whom were full time.  About 93% of the student body was African American, and the ratio of women to men on campus was

Hastings Kamuzu Banda , (born c. 1898, near Kasungu, British Central Africa Protectorate [now Malawi]—died Nov. 25, 1997, Johannesburg, S.Af.), first president of Malawi (formerly Nyasaland) and the principal leader of the Malawi nationalist movement. He governed Malawi from 1963 to 1994, combining totalitarian political controls with conservative economic policies.

Banda’s birthday was officially given as May 14, 1906, but he was believed to have been born before the turn of the century. He was the son of subsistence farmers and received his earliest education in a mission school. After working in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, in 1925 he went to the United States, where he received a B.A. (1931) and a medical degree (1937) at the University of Chicago and Meharry Medical College in Tennessee, respectively. In order to achieve the qualifications needed to practice in the British Empire, Banda then continued his studies at the University of Edinburgh (1941) and subsequently practiced in northern England and London from 1945 to 1953.

Banda first became involved in his homeland’s politics in the late 1940s, when white settlers in the region demanded the federation of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland. Banda and others in Nyasaland strongly objected to this extension of white dominance, but the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was nevertheless established in 1953. In 1953–58 Banda practiced medicine in Ghana, but from 1956 he was under increasing pressure from Nyasa nationalists to return; he finally did so, to a tumultuous welcome, in 1958. As president of the Nyasaland African Congress, he toured the country making antifederation speeches, and the colonial government held him partly responsible for increasing African resentment and disturbances. In March 1959 a state of emergency was declared, and he was imprisoned by the British colonial authorities. He was released in April 1960, and a few months later he accepted British constitutional proposals granting Africans in Nyasaland a majority in

Mary Jane Grant Seacole was an early nurse in the British Empire during the 19th Century. Born in Kingston, Jamaica as Mary Grant, she was the daughter of a Scottish officer and a black mother. Mary’s mother ran a hospital/boarding house in Kingston and she, after a brief period as a servant, returned to her family home and worked alongside her mother. It was during this period that Marys skills as a nurse were first recognised and she spent a good deal of time travelling throughout the Caribbean providing care.  Mary Jane Grant married Edwin Seacole in 1836 but he died eight years later.

In 1850, Mary Seacole resided briefly in Panama with her half brother, Edward, where they ran a hotel for travelers bound for Gold Rush California. Seacoles reputation as a nurse grew as she provided care for these mostly American travelers during several outbreaks of cholera.

In 1853, when Great Britain declared war on Russia, initiating the Crimean War, Seacole traveled to England to offer her services. The British government and the Crimean Fund initially rejected her offer of assistance. An old friend and distant relative, Thomas Day, however, provided Seacole with the necessary funds to travel to the Crimea and set up a hospital and boarding house for convalescing officers.  In the 1850s Crimea was part of the Russian Empire.  After the break up of the Soviet Union, it became part of Ukraine and only in 2014 was it annexed to Russia again.

On arrival in Turkey, Seacole sought out Florence Nightingale and offered her services. Nightingale refused but Seacole continued on to the Crimea despite having no official support.  When she arrived in the Crimea she constructed her hotel near the British lines surrounding Sevastopol out of driftwood and packing crates and opened its doors in March 1855. The “British Hotel” as it was called, soon thrived.

Nightingale continued her unfriendliness to Seacoles efforts.  She later described the hotel as no better than a brothel because Seacole, without outside funds, sold alcohol

Riot, Mobile, Ala., after a Black mass meeting. One Black and one white were killed. Knights of White Camelia, a paramilitary white supremacist organization, founded in Louisiana.

Birthday of jazz artist, coronet player, band leader and composer, Joseph King Oliver of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Homer Harris was born on March 4, 1916 in Seattle, Washington.  In 1933, Harris became the first black captain of the football team at Garfield High School in Seattle.  At the University of Iowa, Homer was elected by his teammates to be team captain, most inspirational, and Most Valuable Player.  He was the first African American team captain in Big Ten history and had hopes of becoming a player in the National Football League.  

In 1933, the National Football League banned African Americans from playing, so upon graduation Harris instead accepted a coaching job at A & T College in Greensboro, North Carolina.  His mother’s influence caused him to enter medical school at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.  Harris joined the Army, and after World War II had an internship in dermatology at the University of Illinois.  

Harris returned to Seattle in 1955 and opened his own dermatology practice.  After initial difficulty renting office space in the Medical Dental Building, Harris built up his practice which was reputed to be the largest west of the Rockies.  Harris received an award in 1989 from the Black Heritage Society for being a black pioneer in dermatology.  He retired from practicing medicine after 43 years.  

Washington State declared November 13,  2002 to be Dr. Homer Harris Day, and the Seattle Parks Foundation announced that an anonymous donor contributed $1.3 million to build a park in Seattle’s Central Area in Harris’ honor.  The University of Iowa inducted Harris into their Hall of Fame in August 2002, and the Pacific Northwest chapter of the African American Sports Hall of Fame followed suit in 2003.  Homer Harris Park opened on May 14, 2005.

Homer Harris died in Seattle on March 17, 2007, at age 90 from Alzheimers disease. 

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A slave known only as York, accompanies Lewis & Clarke in their famous expedition of the northwestern regions.

Sidney Bechet dies ; soprano saxophonist played with Duke Ellington

Philadelphia police, with the apparent blessing of Black Mayor Wilson Goode, drops an incendiary or explosive device on the home and headquarters of Black MOVE organization. Eleven people, including five children, were killed and 61 homes were engulfed in the fire.

African American engineer, architect, and mathematician Archie Alphonso Alexander was born on May 14, 1888 in Ottumwa, Iowa, the oldest of Price Alexander’s and Mary Hamilton Alexander’s nine children.

Rosa Jinsey Young was born on this date in 1890. The daughter of a Methodist circuit rider, she became a teacher and opened a private school in 1912 in Rosebud, Alabama, for the Methodist church. When the school ran into financial problems, the Lutheran church offered help. Young joined the Lutheran church and founded the Alabama Lutheran Academy, which evolved into Concordia College, Selma. She wrote an autobiography, Light in the Dark Belt, and died in 1971.

On May 14, 2013, the National Council of Justice ruled that notary publics in Brazil could no longer refuse to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. Many saw the ruling as an opening for gay couples to get married in Latin Americans largest country.

Legal scholars said that with the ruling the National Council of Justice, a 15-member panel led by Chief Justice Joaquim Barbosa, legalized gay marriage in Brazil. The ruling follows recent decisions by lawmakers in Argentina and Uruguay to legal same-sex marriage. The National Council of Justice voted 14 to 1 in favor of requiring notary publics to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. Notary publics would also be required to convert same-sex civil unions into marriages. In 2011, Brazils high court ruled in favor of allowing same-sex unions.

Bus with first group of Freedom Riders bombed and burned by segregationists outside Anniston, Alabama. Group was attacked in Anniston and Birmingham.

Two students killed by officers in major racial disturbance at Jackson State University (Miss.).

Having a sharecropper and a slave as his ancestors, the eighth child of Munn and Lilly Barrow, Joseph Louis Barrow, was born on May 14, 1914, in a cotton-field country near Alabama. Belonging to a financially weak family, Joe Louis received little education as a child and worked odd jobs in order to support his family as a teenager instead of going to school.

Moving to Detroit, Louis briefly attended school at the Bronson Vocational School in order to train in cabinet making and took piano lessons in his free time. However, a friend recommended a completely different path for him and Louis soon turned towards boxing.

Louis debuted as a lightweight and faced knockdown three times in his first fight but showed great potential and by 1934 held the national Amateur Athletic Union light-heavyweight title. He finished his amateur career with a surprising 43 knockout victories in 54 matches.  The following year, the young fighter lived up to his success and fought 14 bouts, earning almost $370,000 as prize money.

Living up to his nickname of The Brown Bomber, Louis defeated the defending champion, Jim Braddock, at 1937 heavyweight championship and rose as a sports icon for blacks and whites across America. Even though he had huge fan following, only 3 of Louis’ 25 title defenses went the full fifteen rounds.

Enlisting with the army in 1942 and donating money towards the military relief funds, Louis officially retired from professional boxing in 1949. Although he made a short comeback, the former boxer was unable to live up to his previous reputation and in 1951, put a complete end to his career as a boxer after he faced defeat at the Madison Square Garden.

Retiring from boxing led Louis back to the financial issues that he initially started off with. Desperate for a stable lifestyle, he tried working in a number of fields including wrestling and setting up interracial food shops. However, he was unable to achieve success in any of the fields and ended up in a psychiatric hospital due to his cocaine addiction and

John B. McLendon becomes the first African American coach in the ABA when he signs a two year contract with the Denver Nuggets.

Clara Stanton Jones born ; first African American director of the Detroit Public Library and first African American president of the American Library Association