KRLemmons African American History

October 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – October 13           *

1831 – Jo Anderson, a slave, helps invent the grain harvester
reaper.

1876 – Meharry Medical College, formally opens at Central
Tennessee College.

1901 – Edith Spurlock (later Sampson) is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. She will graduate from the John Marshall
Law School in Chicago in 1925 with a Bachelor of Laws
degree.  In 1927, she will become the first African
American woman to receive a Masters of Laws degree from
Loyola University. She will become a member of the
Illinois bar in 1927, and be admitted to practice before
the Supreme Court in 1934.  She will become the first
African American woman to be named a delegate to the
United Nations. She will serve from 1950 to 1953, first
as an appointee of President Harry S. Truman and later
during a portion of the Eisenhower Administration. She
will join the ancestors on October 8, 1979.

1902 – Arna Bontemps is born in Alexandria, Louisiana.  He will
become a prolific poet, librarian, and author of
historical and juvenile fiction.  Among his best-known
works will be “God Sends Sunday” and “Black Thunder”,
the juvenile books “We Have Tomorrow” and “The Story of
the Negro”, and “American Negro Poetry”, which he edited.
In 1943, after graduating from the University of Chicago
with a masters degree in library science, Bontemps was
appointed librarian at Fisk University in Nashville,
Tennessee. He will hold that position for 22 years and
will develop important collections and archives of
African American literature and culture. Through his
librarianship and bibliographic work, he will become a
leading figure in establishing African American
literature as a legitimate object of study and
preservation. He will join the ancestors on June 4, 1973.

1906 – J. Saunders Redding is born in Wilmington, Delaware.  He
will become a literary and social critic and author of
non-fiction works on the African American experience. He
will earn an advanced degree in English at Brown
University (1932) and will be a professor at various
colleges and universities, including Morehouse, Hampton,
and Cornell. In 1949, his stint as a visiting professor
at Brown will make him the first African American to hold
a faculty position at an Ivy League university. He will
write many books and articles on African American culture
and other topics, including “To Make a Poet Black” (1939),
a landmark history of African American literature; “No Day
of Triumph” (1942), an autobiographical account of a
journey through southern black communities; and “Stranger
and Alone” (1950), a novel, as well as several more general
historical and sociological works. He will also edit with
Arthur P. Davis, an important anthology, “Cavalcade: Negro
American Writing from 1760 to the Present” (1971). He will
join the ancestors on March 2, 1988 at his home in Ithaca,
New York.

1914 – Garrett Augustus Morgan, the son of former slaves, receives
a patent for an invention he calls the “Safety Hood and
Smoke Protector,” which came to be known as a gas mask.

1925 – Garland Anderson’s “Appearances” opens at the Frolic Theatre
on Broadway.  It is the first full-length Broadway play by
an African American.

1946 – Demond Wilson is born in Valdosta, Georgia.  He will become
an actor and will be best known as Lamont Sanford on the
long-running television show, “Sanford & Son.”

1962 – Jerry Lee Rice is born in Crawford, Mississippi.  He will
become a professional football player, selected as the
16th pick overall in the first round of the NFL draft by
the San Francisco 49ers in 1985. He will be considered to
be the greatest NFL receiver of all time. He will retire
as the leader in a number of statistics. His 1,549
receptions were 448 receptions ahead of the second place
record held by Cris Carter. His 22,895 receiving yards
were 7,961 yards ahead of the second place spot held by
his Raiders teammate Tim Brown. His 197 touchdown
receptions were 67 scores more than Carter’s 130, and his
207 total touchdowns were 32 scores ahead of Emmitt
Smith’s second place spot of 175. He will retire from the
NFL on August 24, 2006.

1979 – Clarence Muse joins the ancestors in Perris, California at
the age of 90. He was a pioneer film and stage actor who
appeared in 219 films. His first film was the second
talking movie ever made.

2000 – Isiah Thomas and Bob McAdoo are enshrined into the
Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.

KRLemmons African American History

October 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – October 12          *

1904 – William Montague Cobb is born in Washington, DC. He will
become the only Black physical anthropologist with a
Ph.D. before the Korean War, He will hold the only Black
perspective on physical anthropology for many years.
He will serve as the Chairman of the Anthropology
Section of the American Association for Advancement of
Science and be the first African American President of
the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
He will be not only a famous physical anthropologist
because of his race, but also because of the great
contributions he made to the field of anthropology. He
grew up pondering the question of race, which ultimately
led him to his studies of anthropology. After graduating
from Dunbar High School, he will continue his studies at
Amherst College, where he will study a wide variety of
subjects and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
After his graduation from Amherst, he will research
embryology at the prestigious Woods Hole Marine Biology
Laboratory in Massachusetts. He will then attend Howard
University Medical School, where he will earn an Masters
Degree in 1929 and will later spend much of his
professional career. The next few years, he will spend
his time at Case Western Reserve University, where he will
earn a Ph.D. and work on the Hamann-Todd Skeletal
Collection. He will return to Howard University in 1932
and begin working on a laboratory of his own to conduct
skeletal research. He will also continue his research on
human cranio-facial union at the Hamann-Todd Collection
and the Smithsonian Institute during the summers. In his
mind, his two best papers on this subject were “The
Cranio-Facial Union and the Maxillary Tuber in Mammals”
(1943), and “Cranio-Facial Union in Man” (1940). These
publications will establish him as a functional anatomist.
He will also make significant contributions in the issue
of race in athletics, where he will claim race was
insignificant to athletics and also profile the biology
and demography of the African American race during the
1930’s. He will leave his legacy of skeletal research with
the Laboratory of Anatomy and Physical Anthropology at
Howard University. This collection of over 600 skeletons
will be considered one of the premiere collections of its
kind. He will also be the editor of the Journal of the
National Medical Association from 1949 to 1977. He will
join the ancestors on November 20, 1990.

1908 – Ann Lane Petry is born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  She
will become the author of “The Street and the Juvenile
Work”, and “Harriet Tubman, Conductor of the
Underground Railroad.” She will join the ancestors on
April 28, 1997.

1925 – Xavier University, America’s only African American
Catholic college, becomes a reality, when the College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences is established.  The
first degrees were awarded three years later. (The
Normal School was founded in 1915.)

1929 – Napoleon Brown Goodson Culp is born in Charlotte, North
Carolina.  He will become a blues singer better known as
“Nappy” Brown.  He will begin his career as the lead singer
for the gospel group, The Heavenly Lights, recording for
Savoy Records.  In 1954, Savoy will convince Brown to
cross over to secular music.  For the next few years,
he will ride the first wave of rock and roll until his
records stop selling.  After years away from the
limelight, he will resurface in 1984 with an album for
Landslide Records.  He will then regularly perform and
record for the New Moon Blues independent label. He will
join the ancestors on September 20, 2008.

1932 – Richard Claxton Gregory is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
He will be better known as “Dick” Gregory and in the
1960’s will become a comedic pioneer, bringing a new
perspective to comedy and opening many doors for Black
entertainers. Once he achieves success in the
entertainment world, he will shift gears and use his
talents to help causes in which he believes.  He will
serve the community for over forty years as a comedian,
civil and human rights activist and health/nutrition
advocate. On October 9, 2000, his friends and
supporters will honor him at a Kennedy Center gala,
showing him their “appreciation for his uncommon
character, unconditional love, and generous service.”

1935 – Samuel David Moore is born in Winchester, Georgia.  He
will become a rhythm and blues singer and one half of
the group: Sam & Dave (Dave Prater).  The two singers
will be brought together onstage at Miami’s King of Hearts
nightclub during an amateur night venue. Sam and Dave
will record for the Alston and Roulette labels before
being discovered by Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler,
who caught their act at the King of Hearts in 1964 and
then sent them to Memphis-based Stax to record the
next year.  They will be best know for their hits,
“Hold On! I’m a Comin'”, “Soul Man”, “I Thank You”,
and “You Got Me Hummin'”.  Sam and Dave will finally
call it quits after a performance in San Francisco on
New Year’s Eve in 1981.  Samuel Moore will live to see
the induction of Sam and Dave into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1992 (Dave Prater will be killed in an
automobile accident on April 9, 1988).

1968 – Equatorial Guinea gains independence from Spain.

1972 – Forty-six African American and white sailors are
injured in a racially motivated insurrection aboard
the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, off the coast of
North Vietnam.

1989 – George Beavers, Jr., the last surviving founder of
Golden State Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles,
California, joins the ancestors. He co-founded this
company in 1925, which is the third largest African
American life insurance company, with $120 million in
assets and $5 billion of insurance in force.

1989 – Herschel Walker is traded from the Dallas Cowboys to
the Minnesota Vikings for 12 players.  The trade will
turn out a lot better for Dallas than for Minnesota.

1999 – Wilt Chamberlain joins the ancestors.  He succumbs to
a heart attack at the age of 63 in his Bel Air home
in Los Angeles, California. Chamberlain was a center
so big, agile and dominant that he forced basketball
to change its rules and is the only player to score
100 points in an NBA game.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.