| 1920 |
Elected as a representative from St. Louis, Walthall Moore became the first African American to serve in the Missouri legislature. |
Walthall M. Moore, 1920
|
| 1920 |
Born in Kansas City, Kansas, Charlie "Bird" Parker grew up in Kansas City, Missouri. His interest in nearby jazz clubs led Parker to become a musician and he
later created his famous bebop style (August 29). |
| 1921 |
The Missouri legislature authorized a Negro Inspector of Schools, as well as provisions to establish black high schools in counties with a population of over
100,000. |
| 1922 |
Comedian Red Foxx (John E. Sanford) was born in St. Louis (December 9). |
| 1924 |
The Kansas City Monarchs baseball team won the first Negro World Series. |
| 1924 |
The Bartlett Agricultural and Industrial School was renamed the Dalton Vocational School. |
| 1928 |
Nathaniel Sweets founded the St. Louis American. |
| 1930 |
Ivory Perry, St. Louis civil rights activist, was born in Arkansas (May 5). |
| 1934 |
The Kansas City Urban League's training school for janitors graduated its first class. |
| 1934 |
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Dr. William J. Thompkins, Kansas City physician and politician, as Washington D.C.'s Recorder of Deeds. |
| 1935 |
President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed native St. Louisian Lester A. Walton as minister to Liberia. |
| 1937 |
The Homer G. Phillips Hospital was completed and named for Phillips, a champion of civil rights for St. Louis' African American citizens (February 22). |
| 1938 |
The United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in the Lloyd Gaines case. The court struck a blow to Missouri's "separate but equal"
laws, stating that in the absence of an equal law school for African American students, Gaines should be admitted to the University of Missouri law school (December 12). |
| 1939 |
Black and white sharecroppers and tenant farmers in Missouri's bootheel region went on a strike that drew national attention. |
Lincoln University Law School,
courtesy Lincoln University, Page Library
|
| 1940 |
The Gaines decision led to the establishment of the Lincoln University Law School as a way to maintain segregated educational facilities in higher education. |
| 1941 |
Lincoln University School of Journalism was established, following a challenge to segregated education in State ex rel Bluford v. Canada (July). |
| 1942 |
The lynching of Cleo Wright in Sikeston initiated a federal investigation by the United States Department of Justice. Although no indictments were made, the investigation
set a precedent for federal intervention in civil rights cases (January 12). |
| 1943 |
The National Park Service dedicated the farm on which George Washington Carver was born as a national monument (July 14). |
| 1945 |
J.D. and Ethel Shelley challenged restrictive covenants, preventing the sale or lease of property to African Americans. When the Missouri Supreme Court upheld
the practice, the United States Supreme Court overruled it in 1948. The practice was outlawed nationwide in 1953. |
| 1945 |
Oscar S. Ficklin of St. Louis became the first African American in Missouri named as foreman of a court jury. |
| 1948 |
President Harry S. Truman abolished segregation in the armed forces with Executive Order 9981 (July 26). |
Civil War