Madeline Swegle, the United States Navy’s first Black female tactical air pilot, stands in front of a T-45C Goshawk jet trainer aircraft at the Naval Air Station in Kingsville, Texas.
Credit: Michelle Tucker, U.S. Navy

This summer, the American jet pilot Madeline Swegle became the United States Navy’s first Black woman tactical air pilot. Tactical air pilots support military units on the ground and at sea, attacking enemy fighters and striking targets. Swegle earned the “wings of gold” insignia as a naval aviator. As a tactical air pilot, Swegle can fly such fighter jets as the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

Madeline Manhertz was born on Jul. 29, 1995, in Monterey, California. Her family later moved to Burke, Virginia, about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Washington, D.C. Manhertz became interested in planes at a young age, after seeing an aircraft presentation by the Navy precision flying team the Blue Angels. Manhertz graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2017.

After graduating from the Naval Academy, Manhertz continued her training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida. She then went on to the Naval Aviation Schools Command in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 2020, Manhertz married Naval aviator Scott Swegle. Months later, she finished her training at the Naval Air Station in Kingsville, Texas.

Bessie Coleman, a pioneering aviator, became the first Black woman to be licensed as a pilot. Coleman, shown wearing an aviator’s cap in this black-and-white photograph, earned her license in 1921.
Credit: © Underwood & Underwood/Corbis

Swegle is the latest in a long line of Black aviation pioneers. Another was Bessie Coleman, who, in 1921, became the first Black woman licensed as a pilot. In her 20′s, Coleman became interested in flying. In the United States, flight schools refused to teach her because she was Black and a woman. Robert S. Abbott, a Black newspaper publisher, encouraged Coleman to go to France for flight instruction. After studying French, she went there and earned her license. In 1922, Coleman began touring with air shows in the United States as a stunt pilot. Her performances and speaking engagements made her a celebrity.

The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of Black pilots, crew, and support staff that served in the Army Air Corps during World War II (1939-1945). This photograph, taken in Ramitelli, Italy, in 1945, shows airmen at a tactical meeting.
Credit: Library of Congress

Two decades later, the Tuskegee Airmen broke new ground for Black aviators. The Tuskegee Airmen were a group of Black Americans who served in the Army Air Corps during World War II (1939-1945). The name Tuskegee Airmen is used most often to refer to combat aviators, but the group also included bombardiers, navigators, maintenance crews, and support staff.

The men were trained at Tuskegee Army Air Base, near Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), a historically Black college in Alabama. Members of the Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black Americans to qualify as military pilots in any branch of the armed forces. Many became decorated war heroes. The success of the Tuskegee aviators helped lead to a decision by the United States government calling for an end to racial discrimination in the military. In 2007, the United States awarded the Tuskegee Airmen the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award given by Congress.

Vincent Namatjira’s 2020 Archibald Prize winning painting shows Namatjira (right) standing next to former Australian rules football legend Adam Goodes.
Credit: Stand strong for who you are (2020), acrylic on linen by Vincent Namatjira (photo by Mim Stirling/Art Gallery of New South Wales)

The Australian artist Vincent Namatjira has been awarded the prestigious Archibald Prize for his painting Stand strong for who you are. Namatjira is the first Aboriginal artist to win the Archibald Prize in its 99-year history.

The Archibald Prize is an Australian art prize awarded each year for portrait painting and is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Jules François (J. F.) Archibald, an Australian newspaper editor who died in 1919, provided the money for the award in his will. The Archibald Prize was first awarded in 1921 and is given for a portrait “preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia”. In establishing the prize, J. F. Archibald’s aim was to foster portraiture as well as support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians.

An Archibald Prize finalist for four consecutive years, Namatjira is the first Aboriginal artist to win the prize. On hearing the news Namatjira said, “I’m so proud to be the winner of the Archibald Prize, and to be the first Aboriginal artist to win is really special. I feel like this is a very important moment in Australian art. It’s an honor to be the first, but I also want to acknowledge all of the Indigenous finalists and Indigenous sitters [portrait subjects] for the Archibald this year and in past years.”

Namatjira’s winning painting, Stand strong for who you are, is a portrait of the former Australian Rules footballer and community leader Adam Goodes. In the portrait, Namatjira has painted himself alongside Goodes, whom he describes as “a proud Aboriginal man who stands strong for his people”.

Namatjira was born in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1983. He now lives in the community of Indulkana in the APY (Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara) Lands in South Australia and works at Iwantja Arts, an Aboriginal Art Center. Namatjira began painting in 2012. Initially he created traditional dot paintings but soon turned to portraits. Namatjira is the great-grandson of the renowned artist Albert Namatjira, considered one of the most important Aboriginal painters in Australian art.

Vincent Namatjira said of his award-winning piece, “The title of my painting is stand strong for who you are. So what I recommend for my children and also for all the children in Australia, Indigenous children, just keep on doing what you do every day – just keep going for your goals and one day you’ll reach your goal.”

The American actor Chadwick Boseman was best known for his portrayal of the superhero Black Panther. Boseman died on Aug. 28, 2020.
Credit: Marvel Studios

The world of motion pictures was stunned on Aug. 28, 2020, with the death at age 43 of the African American actor Chadwick Boseman. Boseman was best known for his portrayal of T’Challa in the motion picture Black Panther (2018).

Chadwick Aaron Boseman was born on Nov. 29, 1976, in Anderson, in northwestern South Carolina. He attended college at Howard University in Washington, D.C., graduating with a bachelor of fine arts degree in 2000. He then pursued a career in the stage, writing and directing several plays.

Boseman also began taking roles as an actor. He played a recurring character on the television series “Lincoln Heights” (2007-2009). His breakthrough motion picture role came playing pioneering American baseball player Jackie Robinson in the film 42 (2013). Boseman went on to play American funk musician James Brown in the film Get on Up (2014).

Boseman’s most famous role was as T’Challa, better known as the superhero Black Panther. Boseman first took on the role in Captain America: Civil War (2016). In 2018, he starred in the character’s feature film, Black Panther. Boseman was praised for his performance in the film, the first major superhero movie to have a Black lead and a majority Black cast. He reprised the role of T’Challa in the films Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Boseman died of colon cancer.

Demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed African American man, in August 2020.
© Kamil Krzaczynski, AFP/Getty Images

Protests erupted in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and elsewhere this week in response to the August 23 shooting of Jacob Blake, an African American man, by a white police officer. The officer shot Blake in the back seven times. Blake was hospitalized but survived.

People in Kenosha and elsewhere have taken to the streets to demonstrate against racism and the police use of force against African Americans. The demonstrations often feature signs reading “Black Lives Matter.” This slogan has become a popular rallying cry in recent years. It is also the name of an activist movement. Black Lives Matter was formed to campaign against racism and what its members consider police brutality against African Americans.

The demonstrations have at time turned violent, with protesters damaging property and police shooting rubber bullets and tear gas. On August 26, two protesters were shot and killed. A third protester was shot, but not fatally. A white 17-year-old from Illinois who claimed to be a member of a militia was arrested in connection with the three shootings.

The shooting of Blake comes in the wake of several other high-profile cases of violence against African Americans by police and others. On Feb. 3, 2020, in Georgia, an African American man named Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed while jogging. (Arbery’s killers were not law enforcement officers, but many people were angered when it took months of pressure for arrests to be made in the case.) On March 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky, an African American woman named Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police officers executing a search warrant, who broke into her home in the middle of the night. George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died in police custody on May 25. Cellphone video captured by witnesses showed a white police officer kneeling on the handcuffed Floyd’s neck for several minutes before his death.

In protest of the Jacob Blake shooting, players for the Milwaukee Bucks voted to boycott their National Basketball Association (NBA) playoff game on August 26. Other teams followed, and the league soon canceled the day’s games. Many other sports teams and players sat out games in solidarity.

American civil rights leader John R. Lewis
Credit: Office of John Robert Lewis

The world lost a major voice for the rights of African Americans on Friday, July 17, with the death of the American politician and civil rights leader John Lewis at the age of 80. A Democrat from Georgia, Lewis was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020. He became nationally known in the early 1960’s for organizing student protests against segregation (the enforced separation of African Americans) and racial discrimination in the South. Throughout his life, Lewis worked to promote the rights and political involvement of African Americans.

John Robert Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 1940. Lewis attended segregated schools, and later graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. As a university student in 1961, Lewis volunteered as a “Freedom Rider,” challenging segregation at bus terminals throughout the South.

In 1960, Lewis became a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which organized student protests, such as sit-ins at lunch counters. In 1963, Lewis was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington, where Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1965, Lewis was a leader in the voting rights protest march from Selma, Alabama. He and other marchers were attacked by state troopers in an event that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Lewis also suffered beatings by angry mobs and was arrested by police dozens of times.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lewis to help lead ACTION, a federal agency that directed volunteer programs. In 1981, Lewis was elected to the City Council of Atlanta, Georgia. He served from 1982 to 1986, when he was elected to his first term in Congress.

Lewis was also the author of several books centered on his involvement in the civil rights movement. In 2011, Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by a U.S. president.

Lewis died on the same day as C. T. Vivian, a civil rights organizer and leader under King. Lewis’s death took on added significance in the wake of protests against police use of force against African Americans sparked by the killing of George Floyd and others.

American mathematician and engineer Mary Jackson
Credit: NASA Langley Research Center

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., will be named after the American mathematician and engineer Mary Jackson (1921-2005). Jackson was the first black female engineer at NASA. She championed the advancement of women and minorities in the fields of mathematics and engineering.

Jackson was born Mary Winston on April 9, 1921, in Hampton, Virginia. She received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physical science from the Hampton Institute in 1942. She then worked as a mathematics teacher and took on a variety of jobs before joining the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) Langley Research Center in 1951. NACA was the agency that preceded NASA.

At Langley, Jackson was a member of the West Area Computing unit. This group of black women mathematicians included Katherine Goble Johnson and was headed by Dorothy Vaughan. At the West Area Computing unit, Jackson initially analyzed data collected from flight experiments. She was promoted to engineer in 1958. That year, she co-authored her first report on the behavior of air around objects in flight at supersonic (faster than sound) speeds. She went on to publish several more research reports on this topic.

Jackson achieved a high rank as a NASA engineer, but she was frustrated by the gender and racial prejudice that still restricted her advancement. In 1979, she ended her engineering career to take a position as Langley’s Federal Women’s Program Manager. In this role, she helped women advance at the Langley Research Center.

Jackson retired from NASA in 1985. She died on Feb. 11, 2005. The book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race (2016), written by the American author Margot Lee Shetterly, chronicles Jackson’s life and career, as well as those of other members of the West Area Computing unit. American actress and musician Janelle Monáe portrayed Jackson in the 2016 film Hidden Figures, based on Shetterly’s book.

American automobile racing driver Bubba Wallace
Credit: © Grindstone Media Group/Shutterstock

Bubba Wallace, an American automobile racing driver, is the most successful African American driver active in NASCAR (the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing). Wallace made headlines in 2020 when he called on NASCAR to ban displays of the Confederate battle flag at its events.

Wallace competes in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup series. He joined the series as a replacement for an injured driver in 2017. Wallace became the first African American to race in NASCAR’s top series since Bill Lester in 2006. In 2018, Wallace joined the series full-time. He finished second at the Daytona 500 race in 2018 and third at the Brickyard 400 in 2019.

Darrell Wallace, Jr., was born Oct. 8, 1993, in Mobile, Alabama. He grew up in Concord, North Carolina. He began racing at the age of 9. Wallace is a graduate of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, designed to help women and nonwhite drivers gain entry to the sport.

Wallace joined the regional K & N Pro East Series in 2010. He was named the series Rookie of the Year, becoming the first African American to win the honor in a NASCAR series. In 2012, he joined NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series, finishing seventh in the series in 2015. He joined NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series in 2013. That year, he won the Kroger 200 race in Martinsville, Virginia. He became the first African American driver to win a national touring series race since Wendell Scott in 1963.

The American automobile racing driver Bubba Wallace poses next to his car, number 43, before a race at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia in 2020. Wallace, who is African American, sported a Black Lives Matter theme on his car in the wake of the George Floyd killing.
Credit: © Jared C. Tilton, Getty Images

In the wake of the George Floyd killing, Wallace asked NASCAR to ban displays of the Confederate battle flag, noting that the flag is seen by many as a racist symbol. (Floyd, an African American man, died in police custody after an officer knelt on his neck for several minutes, sparking widespread protests against police brutality.) NASCAR, which had asked fans not to display the flag since 2015, quickly enacted the ban. Wallace also drove his car, number 43, sporting a Black Lives Matter theme and wore a t-shirt bearing the words “I can’t breathe,” said to be Floyd’s last words.

A woman carries the Pan-African flag, a symbol of black unity, at a Juneteenth parade in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Juneteenth celebrations commemorate the freeing of slaves in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.
Credit: © Tippman98x/Shutterstock

June 19 is Juneteenth, a festival held in many African American and other communities to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. The name of the festival refers to the date, June 19—the day the last slaves were freed in the southern state of Texas in 1865. Juneteenth festivities often include plays and storytelling, parades, prayer services, and family reunions. Some communities hold longer Juneteenth festivals spanning several days as a celebration of civil rights and freedom.

However, this year’s Juneteenth looks different than celebrations past. The holiday is set against the backdrop of a pandemic (global outbreak) of the coronavirus disease COVID-19. Since March, much of the country has been under strict lockdown to help in social distancing. Many businesses and public places are only beginning to reopen. The celebration also takes added significance in the wake of protests against racism and the police use of force against African Americans, sparked by the killing of George Floyd and others.

Several museums and cultural centers are having virtual (online) Juneteenth celebrations. There will also be virtual film and music festivals. Another way to celebrate Juneteenth is to support such black-owned businesses as stores and restaurants—but be sure to follow social distancing guidelines to help keep everyone safe!

Juneteenth originated in Texas at the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865). In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared freedom for the slaves in Confederate states in rebellion against the Union. However, many slave owners in Texas suppressed information about the emancipation even after the war ended in April 1865. On June 19, Gordon Granger, a Union general, entered Galveston, Texas, and ordered all slaves in the state to be freed. About 250,000 people, among the last slaves remaining in the United States, were freed.

Juneteenth celebrations were held only in Texas and a few communities in other southern states in the years following the Civil War. African Americans carried the celebration with them, however, as they migrated to other regions of the country.

Protesters with a sign featuring George Floyd’s plea to the officer who knelt on his neck: “I can’t breathe.”
Credit: © Kerem Yucel, AFP/Getty Images

Protests erupted in cities throughout the United States (and even around the world) this week, with people taking to the streets to demonstrate against racism and the police use of force against African Americans. Many protests have remained peaceful, but some have turned violent, with law enforcement shooting protesters with rubber bullets and tear gas and rioters setting fires and raiding stores.

The latest round of protests began in Minneapolis, where George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, died in police custody on May 25. Cellphone video captured by witnesses showed a white police officer kneeling on the handcuffed Floyd’s neck for several minutes before his death. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was subsequently fired and charged with murder.

George Floyd, shown here, died in police custody on May 25, 2020, sparking protests against police use of force.
Credit: Offices of Ben Crump Law

From Minneapolis, protests spread to practically every major city in the United States, including Atlanta, Georgia; Los Angeles, California; and Chicago, Illinois. Some law enforcement buildings were set on fire. In several cities, protesters raided or destroyed businesses. Protests began in cities outside the United States, too. In Berlin and London, for example, people marched through the streets in solidarity (unity) with American protesters.

Floyd’s death came in the wake of two other high-profile killings of African Americans at the hands of white people. On Feb. 3, 2020, in Georgia, an African American man named Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed while jogging. (Arbery’s killers were not law enforcement officers, but many people were angered when it took months of pressure for arrests to be made in the case.) On March 13, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky, an African American woman named Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police officers executing a search warrant, who broke into her home in the middle of the night.

Demonstrations throughout the world featured signs reading “Black Lives Matter.” This slogan has become a popular rallying cry in recent years. It is also the name of an activist movement. Black Lives Matter was formed to campaign against racism and what its members consider police brutality against African Americans.

The international protests were set against the backdrop of a pandemic (global outbreak) of the coronavirus disease COVID-19. Since March, much of the country has been under strict lockdown to help in social distancing. Protests led people out of their homes to demand justice, but some authorities worried that chaotic public gatherings could contribute to the further spread of the disease.

April 15, 2020

Today, April 15, is an important day on the calendar, and it is known for some momentous events in history. To many people in the United States, April 15 brings to mind taxes, as it is generally the final day income taxes can be filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Two other April 15 events do not brighten the mood: the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln died on that day in 1865; and the ocean liner Titanic sank on April 15, 1912. But a number of other events, including the births of the artists Henry James and Leonardo da Vinci and Jackie Robinson’s breaking the racial barrier in Major League Baseball (MLB), make April 15 a not altogether gloomy day.

The U.S. President Abraham Lincoln died on April 15, 1865, after being shot by an assassin the night before. Credit: Library of Congress

On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attended a performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. At 10:22 p.m., a shot rang through the crowded house. John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer and well-known actor, had shot the president in the head from the rear of the presidential box. Lincoln was carried unconscious to a boarding house across the street. The president died there at 7:22 a.m. on April 15.

The “unsinkable” ocean liner Titanic was believed to be the safest ship afloat. But on April 15, 1912, Titanic sank after striking an iceberg. Credit: © AP/Wide World

Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the British ocean liner RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. The disaster occurred on the ship’s maiden (first) voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City. The ship struck the iceberg at about 11:40 p.m. and sank bout two and a half hours later, on April 15. The huge ocean liner broke in half and sank into the icy water, killing more than 1,500 people.

On Feb. 3, 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorized Congress to levy a federal income tax. The amendment allows Congress to levy an income tax on individuals and businesses without dividing it equally among the states or basing it on the U.S. census. The deadline for paying taxes from the previous year was originally March 1, and then March 15. In 1954, to give people a little more time to deal with the often complicated burden, the tax deadline settled on April 15.

Jackie Robinson beame the first African American to play modern Major League Baseball when he debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Credit: © MLB Photos/Getty Images

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson played his first game for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first African American to play in the major leagues since the 1880’s. Robinson’s impact on segregation in sports went far beyond the Dodgers. After baseball desegregated, other professional sports quickly followed, and a number of previously segregated hotels and restaurants began to admit blacks.

Aside from Leonardo da Vinci (1452) and Henry James (1843), notable April 15 birthdays include the U.S. painter Charles Willson Peale (1741); the U.S. Blues singer Bessie Smith (1894); the first African American mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington (1922); the Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi (1978); the Canadian-American actor Seth Rogan (1982); and the British actress Emma Watson (1990).