NOVEMBER

November 1, 1991 - Judge Clarence Thomas is formally seated at the 106th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

November 2, 1954 - Charles C. Diggs elected Michigan's first African  American congressman.

November 3, 1981 - Thirman L. Milner elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, becoming first Black mayor in New England.

November 4, 1879 - Thomas Elkins patents refrigeration apparatus.

November 4, 2008 – U. S. Senator Barack H. Obama, II became the first African American to be elected President of the United States of America.  President Barack Obama will be the 44th President.

November 5, 1968 - Shirley Chisolm of Brooklyn, N.Y., becomes the  first African American woman elected to Congress.

November 6, 1901 - James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson  compose "Lift Every Voice and Sing", widely regarded as the Black  national anthem.

November 7, 1989 - L. Douglas Wilder is elected governor of Virginia, becoming the nation's first Black governor since the  Reconstruction.

November 8, 1938 - Crystal Bird Faucet is elected state  representative in Pennsylvania, becoming the first Black woman to  serve in a state legislature.

November 9, 1731 - Mathematician, urban planner and inventor Benjamin Banneker born.

November 10, 1983 - Wilson Goode elected, becoming Philadelphia's first African American mayor.

November 11, 1989 - Civil Rights Memorial is dedicated in Montgomery, Alabama.

November 12, 1941 - Madame Lillian Evanto founds the National Negro  Opera Company.

November 13, 1894 - Albert C. Richardson patents casket-lowering device.

November 14, 1915 - Booker T. Washington, educator and writer, died.

November 15, 1881 - Payton Johnson patents swinging chair.

November 16, 1981 - Pam Johnson named publisher of the Ithaca (NY)  Journal, becoming the first African American woman to head a daily  newspaper.

November 17, 1980 - WHHM, the first African American-operated radio  station, goes on the air at Howard University.

November 18, 1787 - Abolitionist and women's right activist Sojourner  Truth born.

November 19, 1953 - Roy Campanella named Most Valuable Player in  National League Baseball for the second time.

November 20, 1865 - Howard Seminary (later Howard University) founded  in Washington, D.C.

November 21, 1893 - Granville T. Woods patents electric railway conduit.

November 22, 1930 - Elijah Muhammed establishes the Nation of Islam.

November 23, 1897 - A.J. Beard patents the "Jenny Coupler", still in  use today to connect railroad cars. John L. Love patents pencil sharpener.

November 24, 1868 - Pianist Scott Joplin, the "Father of Ragtime", born.

November 25, 1975 - Suriname gains independence from the Netherlands.

November 26, 1970 - Charles Gordone becomes the first Black  playwright to receive the Pulitzer Prize (for No Place to Be Somebody).

November 27, 1990 - Charles Johnson awarded National Book Award for  fiction for Middle Passage.

November 28, 1960 - Novelist Richard Wright dies.

November 29, 1908 - Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall born.

November 30, 1897 - J.A. Sweeting patents cigarette-rolling device.