1906

The Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, developed into the most prosperous Black business community in the United States by the early 1920s, earning the name "Black Wall Street." With over 300 Black-owned businesses, hotels, law offices, and a hospital, Greenwood represented the apex of self-sufficient Black economic power before its destruction in the 1921 race massacre.

White mobs attacked Black neighborhoods in Atlanta over four days, killing at least 25 Black residents and injuring hundreds, destroying Black businesses and homes. The massacre traumatized the South's leading Black business community and galvanized activists nationwide.

O.W. Gurley and other Black entrepreneurs began establishing the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, purchasing land and opening businesses that would grow into 'Black Wall Street,' one of the most prosperous Black communities in American history.

Paul Laurence Dunbar died at age 33, leaving behind a body of poetry, novels, and short stories that had made him the first African American poet to achieve national and international critical recognition. His dialect poetry — though later debated — gave voice to Black rural Southern life, while his formal verse addressed race and humanity with power. Dunbar's work influenced the Harlem Renaissance poets who followed him.

Following a shooting incident in Brownsville, Texas, President Theodore Roosevelt dishonorably discharged all 167 men of three Black Army companies without trial, stripping them of pensions and veterans' benefits in a major betrayal of Black Republican loyalty.

Alpha Phi Alpha was founded at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, becoming the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for and by African Americans, creating an enduring institution for Black professional leadership and scholarship.

Carver published his influential agricultural bulletin on the peanut, beginning his decades-long campaign to diversify Southern agriculture away from soil-depleting cotton and toward nitrogen-fixing crops that could feed and sustain Black farming communities.

Bert Williams made comedy and song recordings for the Victor Talking Machine Company, among the earliest commercially released recordings by a Black entertainer and an important document of early Black popular performance style.

The Niagara Movement held its second annual meeting at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, the site of John Brown's raid, issuing a powerful declaration of civil rights demands and marching barefoot to John Brown's fort in a symbolic act of racial defiance.

John Hope was appointed the first Black president of Atlanta Baptist College (renamed Morehouse), a committed civil rights advocate and Du Bois ally who transformed the institution into a premier intellectual training ground for Black men.

Paul Laurence Dunbar, America's first Black poet to achieve national celebrity, died of tuberculosis in Dayton, Ohio, at age 33. His death was mourned nationally; his work had inspired a generation of Black writers.

'Abyssinia,' the follow-up to 'In Dahomey,' opened at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway, continuing the Williams and Walker company's groundbreaking run as the premier Black theatrical producers in America.

The Philadelphia Giants, featuring Sol White and other premier Black players, established themselves as the leading team in Black professional baseball, building the competitive infrastructure that would eventually become the Negro Leagues.

Atlanta Baptist College was renamed Morehouse College in honor of Henry Lyman Morehouse of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, beginning its identity as the nation's premier historically Black men's liberal arts college.

Chicago poet Fenton Johnson began writing innovative free verse poetry depicting urban Black life with naturalistic honesty, anticipating the Harlem Renaissance and the Chicago Black Renaissance by two decades.

William Grant Still, who would become the 'Dean of African American Composers,' received musical training in his youth in Little Rock, Arkansas, beginning his path toward becoming the first Black composer to conduct a major American symphony orchestra.