On Today, November 2,

1983,

President Ronald Reagan signs law designating the third Monday in January Martin Luther King Jr Day

in 1954,

Charles C. Diggs Jr. of Detroit elected Michigan's first Black congressman.

in 1893,

Daniel Alexander Payne died. The sixth bishop of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, Payne was the first African American ordained by the Lutheran Church in 1837. In 1856, he founded Wilberforce University, where he became the first Black president of a college in America. Payne was born February 24, 1811, in Charleston, South Carolina.

in 1976,

Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia, elected president with strong support from Black voters.