Black History Knowledge — September 20

What happened on this day. These are the September 20 moments in Black history worth knowing, remembering, and passing on.

1830 — The first National Negro Convention gathers in Philadelphia

On September 20, 1830, Bishop Richard Allen convened the first National Negro Convention at Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia. Delegates from seven states organized against colonization schemes and for civil rights, launching the convention movement that became the training ground of Black political leadership.

1958 — Martin Luther King Jr. survives an assassination attempt in Harlem

On September 20, 1958, Izola Ware Curry stabbed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a letter opener as he signed books in a Harlem department store, driving the blade against his aorta. Surgeons said a single sneeze could have killed him, a fact King recalled a decade later in his final "Mountaintop" speech.

1984 — The Cosby Show premieres

On September 20, 1984, The Cosby Show premiered on NBC, centering the affluent Huxtable family and becoming the number-one program in America for five straight seasons. The show transformed portrayals of Black family life on television and drove a surge in applications to historically Black colleges.

2007 — Tens of thousands march for the Jena Six

On September 20, 2007, an estimated twenty thousand or more demonstrators marched in the small town of Jena, Louisiana, to protest the excessive prosecution of six Black teenagers after racial violence sparked by nooses hung from a schoolyard tree. Organized largely through Black radio and the early internet, it was one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in years.

2016 — Keith Lamont Scott is killed in Charlotte

On September 20, 2016, Charlotte police shot and killed Keith Lamont Scott, a forty-three-year-old Black father, in an apartment complex parking lot. Days of protest filled the city’s streets, adding Charlotte to the national reckoning over police killings of Black Americans.

Wear the history: Martin Luther King Jr. — from the Black Knowledge Wear collection.