* Local History Facts are Highlighted in red

1901 - McKinley was assassinated. Theodore Roosevelt became President.

1902 - Harry (Bucky) Lew of Lowell made history by being the first African American to break the color line in professional basketball.

1902 - Reverend William H. H. Rousseau founded an African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Lowell.

1902 - Reports stated that there were 200 to 300 African Americans living in the Lowell area.

1903 - W.E.B. DuBois, the most influential spokesman for African American civil rights from the late nineteenth century, wrote The Souls of Black Folk, a part autobiographical account of the African American experience in the United States. DuBois was later editor of The Crisis, a periodical published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

1905 - Reverend Charles Randolph Uncles, the first African American Catholic priest in the U.S., visited Lowell.

1909 - Matthew Henson was the first man to walk on the North Pole. Robert E. Peary could hardly walk because of frostbite and illness. Henson returned to carry him to the North Pole. When Matthew Henson planted the flag of the United States at the North Pole, he was following in the path of many African American explorers and adventurers before him, most of whom have remained anonymous to history because their stories were never written.

1912 - Theresa Lew graduated from Lowell High as Salutatorian and Carney Medal winner and went on to teach geography and English at the Bartlett School for 25 years.

1914 - Fred Faulcon organized the integrated Boy Scout Troop 7 with himself as Scoutmaster.

1915 - Carter G. Woodson created a framework for studying African American history. He founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to train black historians to collect, preserve, and publish documents on African Americans.

1918 - African American troops fought in segregated units during World War I. The famous 369th Regiment served in active combat as a unit longer than any other American unit in battle. The Germans called them the (Hell Fighters.)

The first major migration of African Americans from the South to the North began.

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1918 - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) formed a local chapter led by Harold M. Wingood.

1920 - The Ku Klux Klan was revived in the 1920s after a long period of inactivity. The Klan, which had more than two million adherents at the height of its popularity in the 1920s, often adopted vigilante tactics to underscore its anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-black message.

The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote.

1920 - The United States Census found just over 100 African Americans living in Lowell.

1925 - A. Phillip Randolph organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

John Scopes went on trial for teaching evolution.

1927 - Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. Henry Ford introduced the Model A car.

1928 - Fred Faulcon was ordained minister of the African Methodist Episcopalian Church of Nashua, New Hampshire.

1930 - The United States Census finds just fewer than 100 African Americans living in Lowell.

1937 - Joe Lewis won the world heavyweight boxing title.

Mary Mcleod Bethune was the only woman and African American in the unofficial (shadow cabinet) set up by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1938 - Charles Hamilton Houston's court victories proved “discrimination in education is symbolic of all the more drastic discriminations which Negroes suffer in American life.” His three Supreme Court cases provided the ammunition to topple Plessy v. Ferguson and its prescription for “separate but equal” accommodations.

1938 - African Methodist Episcopal Church opened on Kinsman Street in the Flats neighborhood of Lowell.

1941-1945 - World War II began with the attack on Pearl Harbor. The U.S. Army Air Force opened a segregated training center for African American pilots at Tuskegee, Alabama. Nicknamed the - Lonely Eagles, - the Tuskegee Airmen overcame the “separate but equal” conditions sanctioned by the United States Army to become one of the most highly respected and honored fighter groups.

Atomic bombs dropped on Japan. World War II ended.

1942 - Racial fighting occurred at the Commodore Ballroom between white servicemen and black members of Count Basie's Orchestra.

1942 - Reverend J.S. Mitchell, African American pastor from the Third Baptist Church in Lawrence, was invited to speak at the First United Baptist Church in Lowell.

1946 - Samuel Crayton restarted the NAACP with several of Lowell/s long-time black families including the Lamberts, the Whites, the Taliaferros, the Finnegans, and the Wingoods.

1947 - Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play in major league baseball. He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He also played in the Black Baseball League until 1945 when he was assigned to the Montreal Royals so that he could be groomed for the major league.

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