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The Ethel Waters Show, a variety special, appears on NBC in 1939. It is the first time an African American appears on television. Ethel Waters was the first black Superstar who opened all the theatrical doors hitherto closed to black performers of her day, to attain the towering position she reached as a headliner. She fought hard and long to achieve solo star status in the white world of vaudeville, night clubs, Broadway theater, radio, films and television. More than any other black performer of the century, Ethel Waters was a woman of the theater, and the celebrity she attained in maturity as an actress tended at times to overshadow-at least in memory-the importance of her accomplishments and influence as a singer.

It was Waters’ struggles that opened the doors for many of today’s superstars such as Beyonce, Mary J. Blige and Tyra Banks, to name a few.

Also on this date: 

1864 Congress votes that Black soldiers should receive equal pay.    

1921 Georgianna R. Simpson became the first Black woman to receive a PhD from the University of Chicago.

1970 Cheryl Adrienne Brown wins the Miss Iowa pageant and becomes the first African American to compete in the Miss America beauty pageant.