Rita Dove is awarded the1991"> Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her collection entitled Thomas and Beaulah. She is only the second African American poet to win the award after Gwendolyn Brooks in 1950. She will later go on to become the United States' youngest poet laureate.

Eleo Pomare Day is proclaimed on this date by Manhattan's borough president. Choreographer and dancer Eleo Pomare, is a co-founder of the Association of Black Choreographers.

The largest civil rights march in two decades draws twenty thousand demonstrators to the site of a violent white supremacist counter-demonstration only a week before in Forsyth County, Georgia. Speakers at the rally, including Coretta Scott King and1991"> Benjamin Hooks, call for a renewed commitment to snuff out racism.

Justice Robert D. Glass was nominated as Associate Justice of the1991"> Connecticut Supreme Court on this date. He was the first Black judge in Connecticut's Supreme Court.

Dr. Mae Jemison became the first Black female astronaut when she completed her training at1991"> NASA as a mission specialist on this date. Jemison became the first Black female in space in September of 1992 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor.

The Honorable Robert D. Glass took the oath of office for Associate Justice of the1991"> Connecticut Supreme Court on this date. He was the first Black to hold such a position in the state of Connecticut.

Bayard Rustin died on this date in New York. Rustin organized the March on Washington in 1963 and was a co-founder of the1991"> Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

Only seven months after his election to a second term in office, Chicago Mayor1991"> Harold Washington dies of a heart attack.

Celebrated novelist, James Baldwin, dies at his home in Saint-Paul, France. He is the author of such works as1991"> Go Tell It On The Mountain, The Fire Next Time, and Just Above My Head. Born in Harlem, New York in 1924, Baldwin wrote over twenty novels and essays concerning American race relations.