1827 – Edmund Dédé Is Born
Edmund Dédé, born on November 20, 1827 to free Creole parents in New Orleans, and became a violin prodigy trained by leading composers and conductors of the city. After worsening race relations pushed him to Mexico in 1848, he returned to New Orleans to publish “Mon Pauvre Coeur,” the oldest known sheet music by a free Creole of color.
Dédé later moved to Europe, studied at the Paris Conservatory, and built a celebrated career in Bordeaux, composing hundreds of works. He returned to the U.S. briefly in the 1890s before spending his final years in France, where he died in 1903.
1910 – Pauli Murray Is Born
Pauli Murray, born on November 20, 1910 in Baltimore, lost both parents young but pushed forward academically, graduating from Hunter College in 1933. Rejected by the University of North Carolina Law School for her race and by Harvard for her gender, she earned her law degree from Howard, a master’s from Berkeley, and in 1965 became the first African American to receive a J.S.D. from Yale.
Murray challenged racial and gender hierarchies, coined “Jane Crow,” co-founded NOW, and later became the first Black female Episcopal priest. She died in 1985.
1998 – Meredith Gourdine Passes Away
Meredith C. Gourdine (1929–1998) was an engineer, inventor, and Olympic silver medalist known for pioneering electrogasdynamics. A Brooklyn-raised Cornell graduate, he earned a Ph.D. from Caltech and worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before leading major research roles in private industry.
Gourdine later founded Gourdine Laboratories and Energy Innovation, creating technologies like Incineraid and the Focus Flow Heat Sink, ultimately holding 30 patents. Elected to the National Academy of Engineering, he continued inventing until his death on November 20, 1998.
