KRLemmons African American History

December 7 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 7           *

1874 – White Democrats kill seventy-five Republicans in a
massacre at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1885 – The Forty-Ninth Congress (1885-87) is convened. Two
African American congressmen, James E. O’Hara of North
Carolina and Robert Smalls of South Carolina are in
attendance.

1931 – Comer Cottrell is born in Mobile, Alabama.  In 1970, he
will become founder and president of Pro-line
Corporation, the largest African American-owned business
in the southwest, which he will start with $ 600 and a
borrowed typewriter.  An entrepreneur with a wide range
of interests, Cottrell will also become the first
African American to own a part of a major league
baseball team, the Texas Rangers, in 1989.

1941 – During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller
of Waco, Texas, a messman aboard the battleship Arizona
who had never been instructed in firearms, heroically
downs three Japanese planes before being ordered to
leave the ship.  Miller will be awarded the Navy Cross
for his bravery.

1941 – The Downtown Gallery in New York City presents the
exhibit “American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Century”.
Included in the exhibit is work by Robert Duncanson,
Horace Pippin, Eldzier Cortor, Richmond Barte’ and
others.

1941 – Lester Granger is named executive director of the
National Urban League.

1941 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to novelist
Richard Wright, “one of the most powerful of
contemporary writer,” for “his powerful depiction in
his books, ‘Uncle Tom’s Childre-n,’ and ‘Native Son,’
of the effect of proscription, segregation and denial
of opportunities to the American Negro.”

1942 – Reginald F. Lewis is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will
receive his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1968.
He will eventually become a partner in Murphy, Thorpe &
Lewis, the first African American law firm on Wall
Street.  In 1989, he will become president and CEO of
TLC Beatrice International Holding Inc.  With TLC’s
leverage acquisition of Beatrice International Food
Company, Lewis becomes the head of the largest African
American-owned business in the United States.  TLC
Beatrice had revenues of $1.54 billion in 1992. He will
join the ancestors in January, 1993, succumbing to brain
cancer.

1972 – W. Sterling Cary is elected president of the Nation
Council of Churches.

1978 – Billy Sims is awarded the Heisman Trophy at the annual
awards dinner sponsored by the Downtown Athletic Club.
The running back from the University of Oklahoma is the
sixth junior to win the award.

1981 – John Jacobs is named president of the National Urban
League.

1985 – Bo Jackson of Auburn University wins the Heisman Trophy.

1990 – Rhythm and Blues artist, Dee Clark, joins the ancestors in
Smyrna, Georgia at the age of 52.

1993 – The South African transitional executive council is set up.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 6 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 6           *

1806 – The African Meeting House is established in Boston,
Massachusetts and will become the oldest African
American house of worship still standing in the United
States.  This house of worship will be constructed
almost entirely by African American laborers and
craftsmen, but funds will be contributed by the white
community. Because of the leadership role its
congregation takes in the early struggle for civil
rights, the African Meeting House will become known as
the Abolition Church and Black Faneuil Hall. Frederick
Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison will be speakers
there.

1849 – Harriet Tubman escapes from slavery in Maryland.  She
will return to the South nineteen times and bring out
more than three hundred slaves.

1865 – Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, abolishing slavery is completed.  The
proclamation of its acceptance will take place on
December 18, 1865.

1869 – The National Black labor convention meets in Washington,
DC.

1870 – Joseph H Rainey becomes the first African American in
the House of Representatives, from the state of South
Carolina.

1871 – P.B.S. Pinchback is elected president pro tem of the
Louisiana Senate and acting lieutenant governor.  He is
the first African American to serve in these positions
in state government.

1875 – The Forty-Fourth Congress of 1875-1877 convenes with a
high of eight African Americans taking office.  They are
Senator Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi and congressmen
Jeremiah Haralson of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida,
John Roy Lynch of Mississippi, John A. Hyman of North
Carolina, Charles E. Nash of Louisiana,; and Joseph H.
Rainey and Robert Smalls of South Carolina.

1892 – Theodore Lawless is born.  He will become a medical
pioneer.

1932 – Don King is born.  He will become the most controversial
and best known boxing promoter in the history of the
sport.

1949 – Blues legend Huddie “Leadbelly” Ledbetter joins the
ancestors in New York City.

1956 – Nelson Mandela and 156 others are jailed for political
activities in South Africa.

1960 – 500 store owners sign pledges of nondiscrimination in
Tucson, Arizona.

1961 – Dr. Frantz O. Fanon, noted author of “Black Skins, White
Masks” and “Wretched of the Earth”, joins the ancestors
in Washington, DC. He succumbs to leukemia at the
National Institutes of Health.

1977 – South Africa grants Bophuthatswana its independence.
The constitution in effect after South Africa’s first
all-race elections in April 1994 will abolish this
black homeland, which will be reabsorbed into South
Africa.

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