April 9 Poem A Day on Poets.org featured “Another Elegy” by Jericho Brown. To read his poem and his bio, click on this link: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23447
April 14 African American Historical Events
* Today in Black History – April 14 *
1775 – The first U.S. abolitionist society, the Pennsylvania
Society for the Abolition of Slavery, is formed in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by Quakers. Benjamin
Franklin serves as its first president.
1868 – South Carolina voters approve a new constitution, 70,758
to 27,228, and elect state officers, including the
first African American cabinet officer, Francis L.
Cardozo, secretary of state. The new constitution
requires integrated education and contains a strong
bill of rights section: “Distinctions on account of
race or color, in any case whatever, shall be
prohibited, and all classes of citizens shall enjoy
equally all common, public, legal and political
privileges.”
1873 – The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Slaughterhouse cases
begins process of diluting the Fourteenth Amendment.
The court says the Fourteenth Amendment protects
federal civil rights, not “civil rights heretofore
belonging exclusively to the states.”
1906 – The Azusa Street Revival — proto-mission out of which
the modern Pentecostal movement will spread world-wide
— officially begins when the services led by African
American evangelist William J. Seymour, 36, moves into
the building at 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles,
California.
1915 – James Hutton Brew, “Pioneer of West African Journalism,”
joins the ancestors.
1943 – Howardena Pindell is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She will become an accomplished artist. A student at
Boston and Yale universities, she will receive several
art fellowships and travel the world to create art that
reflects a clear artistic vision and an intense
commitment to issues of racial and social injustice.
1969 – The student Afro-American Society seizes the Columbia
College admissions office and demands a special
admissions board and staff.
1991 – A major retrospective of the late Romare Bearden’s
career and work opens at the Studio Museum of Harlem.
Entitled Memory and Metaphor: The Art of Romare Bearden
1940-1987, the exhibit includes 140 oil and watercolor
paintings as well as numerous collages that chronicle
his exploration of abstract expressionism, social
realism, and reinterpretation of classical themes in
art and literature.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
April 13 African American Historical Events
* Today in Black History – April 13 *
1723 – The governor of Massachusetts issues a proclamation on
the “fires which have been designedly and
industriously kindled by some villainous and desperate
Negroes or other dissolute people as appears by the
confession of some of them.”
1873 – The Colfax Massacre occurs on Easter Sunday morning, in
Grant Parish, Louisiana. More than sixty African
Americans are killed.
1891 – Nellie Walker is born in Chicago, Illinois to an African
American father and Danish mother. She will become a
writer known as Nella Larsen and one of the most
celebrated novelists of the Harlem Renaissance. She
will receive many awards for her writings, including
the Harmon Foundation’s bronze medal for literature in
1929, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930. When she
receives the Guggenheim award, she becomes the first
African American woman recipient. She will best known
for her novels, “Quicksand” and “Passing.” She will
join the ancestors in 1964.
1906 – Riots occur in Brownsville, Texas, when African American
soldiers retaliate against white citizens for racial
slurs.
1907 – Harlem Hospital opens in New York with 150 beds. It will
become one of the early leading African American
hospitals.
1946 – Albert “Al” Green is born in Forrest City, Arkansas. He
will become one of the most popular soul and pop singers
of the 1970’s, known for his recordings “Tired of Being
Alone,” “Let’s Stay Together,” “Here I Am (Come and Take
Me)” and “I’m Still in Love with You.” Green will later
become a minister and return to performing as a gospel
singer, where he will win numerous Grammy awards.
1963 – Sidney Poitier receives an Oscar for best actor for his
performance in “Lilies of the Field.” He is the first
African American male to receive the Academy Award. He
will later become a director and make 1980’s “Stir
Crazy,” the largest-grossing movie by an African
American director ever.
1997 – Eldrick “Tiger” Woods wins the 61st Masters Tournament
in Augusta, Georgia at the age of 21 becoming the
youngest person and first person of Black African descent
to ever win this tournament.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
April 12 African American Historical Events
* Today in Black History – April 12 *
1787 – Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organize Philadelphia’s
Free African Society which W.E.B. Du Bois refers to,
over a century later, “the first wavering step of a
people toward a more organized social life.”
1825 – Richard Harvey Cain is born in Greenbrier, Virginia. He
will become an AME minister, an AME bishop, publisher,
member of the House of Representatives, and a founder
of Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas.
1861 – The Civil War begins as Confederate troops attack Fort
Sumter, South Carolina.
1864 – Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort
Pillow, Tennessee, and massacres the inhabitants,
sparing, the official report says, neither soldier nor
civilian, African American nor white, male or female.
The fort is defended by a predominantly African
American force.
1869 – The North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan
legislation.
1898 – Sir Grantley H. Adams is born in Barbados. He will become
a political leader and will found the Barbados
Progressive League. The league will later become the
Barbados Labour Party. The B.L.P. will win the general
election of 1947 and Adams will be elected the first
premier of Barbados.
1940 – Herbert Jeffrey “Herbie” Hancock is born in Chicago,
Illinois. After graduating from college at age 20, he
will go to New York with Donald Byrd, who had heard him
perform in Chicago. While in New York, Byrd will
introduce Hancock to Blue Note Records executives. This
will lead to work with various established jazz
artists and later Hancock’s first solo album, “Taking
Off,” which includes appearances by Freddie Hubbard and
Dexter Gordon. Contained on this album is Hancock’s
first top 10 hit, “Watermelon Man.” It will not be long
before Hancock gets the attention of the legendary
Miles Davis, who will extend an invitation to Hancock
to join his new group. After working with Davis for
several years Herbie will decide to form his own band,
a sextet which will include Julian Priester, Buster
Williams, and Eddie Henderson. He will become one of
the most popular jazz artists, known for his
compositions “Watermelon Man” and “Chameleon,” as well
as his musical score for the movie “‘Round Midnight,”
for which he will win an Oscar in 1986.
1960 – Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War which
he says is “rapidly degenerating into a sordid military
adventure.”
1968 – African American students occupy the administration
building at Boston University and demand Afro-American
history courses and additional African American
students.
1980 – Liberian President William R. Tolbert Jr. and twenty-
seven others join the ancestors after being killed in
a coup d’etat by army enlisted men led by Master
Sergeant Samuel K. Doe.
1983 – The people of Chicago, Illinois elect Harold Washington
as the city’s first African American mayor.
1989 – Former middleweight boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson
joins the ancestors in Culver City, California, at age
67.
1990 – August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” wins the Pulitzer
Prize for drama. It is the second Pulitzer Prize for
Wilson, who also won one for “Fences” in 1987 and was
awarded the New York Drama Critics’ Award for “Fences,”
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and “Joe Turner’s Come and
Gone.”
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
April 11 African American Historical Events
* Today in Black History – April 11 *
1865 – President Lincoln recommends suffrage for African American veterans
and African Americans who are “very intelligent.”
1881 – Spelman College is founded with $100 and eleven former slaves
determined to learn to read and write. It is opened as the Atlanta
Baptist Female Seminary. The two female founders, Sophia B. Packard
and Harriet E. Giles are appalled by the lack of educational
opportunities for African American women at the time. They will
return to Boston determined to get support to change that and earned
what will prove to be the lifelong support of John D. Rockefeller,
who considers Spelman to be one of his family’s finest investments.
The name Spelman is adopted later in honor of Mrs. Rockefeller’s
parents.
1933 – Tony Brown is born in Charleston, West Virginia. He will become
well known as executive producer, host, and moderator of the
Emmy-winning television series “Black Journal.” In 1971 he will
establish and become the first dean of Howard University’s School
of Communications, a post he will hold until 1974.
1955 – Roy Wilkins is elected the NAACP’s executive secretary following
the ancestral ascension of Walter White.
1956 – Singer Nat “King” Cole is attacked on the stage of a Birmingham
theater by white supremacists.
1966 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African American major league
umpire, working in the American League. He had been the first
African American professional umpire in the minor leagues in
1951.
1967 – Harlem voters defy Congress and re-elect Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. after he had been expelled by the legislative body.
1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs what will become known as the
1968 Housing Act, which outlaws discrimination in the sale,
rental, or leasing of 80% of the housing in the United States.
Passed by the Senate and submitted by the House to Johnson in
the aftermath of the King assassination, the bill also protects
civil rights workers and makes it a federal crime to cross state
lines for the purpose of inciting a riot.
1972 – Benjamin L. Hooks, a Memphis lawyer and Baptist minister, becomes
the first African American to be named to the Federal Communications
Commission.
1979 – Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda. A combined force of
Tanzanian and Ugandan soldiers overthrew the dictator. Amin, who
attained power in 1971 after a coup against socialist-leaning
President Milton Obote, oversaw the killing of at least 100,000
people. It is believed that Idi Amin left Uganda to live in Saudi
Arabia.
1988 – Willie D. Burton becomes the first African American to win the
Oscar for sound when he receives the award for the movie “Bird.”
1997 – The Museum of African American History opens in Detroit. It will
become the largest of its kind in the world.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
April 10 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – April 10 *
1816 – Richard Allen is elected Bishop of the A.M.E. Church, one day
after the church is organized at its first general convention.
1872 – The first National Black Convention meets in New Orleans,
Louisiana. Frederick Douglass will be elected president.
1877 – Federal troops withdraw from Columbia, South Carolina. This
action will allow the white South Carolina Democrats to take
over the state government.
1926 – Johnnie Tillmon (later Blackston) is born in Scott, Arkansas. A
welfare rights champion, Tillmon will become the founding
chairperson and director of the National Welfare Rights
Organization.
1932 – The James Weldon Johnson Literary Guild announces the winners of
its first annual nationwide poetry contest for children. The
judges – Jessie Fauset and Countee Cullen, among others – select
in the teen category a 16-year-old Liberian youth and Margaret
Walker of New Orleans, who receives an honorable mention for her
poem “When Night Comes.”
1938 – Nana Annor Adjaye, Pan-Africanist, joins the ancestors in West
Nzima, Ghana.
1943 – Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. is born in Richmond, Virginia. He will
become a professional tennis player and will be one of the first
African American male tennis stars. He will be the first African
American to win a spot on the American Davis Cup tennis team,
the first to win the U.S. Open and the men’s singles title at
Wimbledon, in 1975. Over his 11-year career he will play in 304
tournaments, winning 51, including the 1970 Australian Open and
Wimbledon in 1975. He will be the number one ranked player in the
world in 1975. A life-threatening heart condition will force him
to retire in 1980 and he will continue to serve as the non-playing
captain of that year’s U.S. Davis Cup team. In 1985 he will become
the second African American inducted into the International Tennis
Hall of Fame. The first was Althea Gibson in 1971. After his career
in tennis, he will become an eloquent spokesperson against racial
intolerance and a critic of South Africa’s racist system of
apartheid. In the United States, he will create tennis programs to
benefit inner-city youth. He will write a three-volume history of
the African American athlete entitled “A Hard Road To Glory” (1988).
Suffering complications from AIDS, contracted from a blood
transfusion during a heart bypass operation, he will join the
ancestors in New York on February 6, 1993.
1958 – W.C. Handy, composer and musician, joins the ancestors at the
age of 84 in New York City.
1959 – Kenneth Edmonds is born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He will
become a professional musician and will begin work in the business
producing music, with his friend Antonio Reid, for Carrie Lucas,
The Whispers, and Dynasty. Since then, they’ve produced hits for
many others. During the 1990s, his dominance will extend beyond
the production arena and into the performing circle. His hit
“Tender Lover” crossed him over into pop territory and eventually
sold more than two million copies. The singles “Whip Appeal” and
“It’s No Crime” were Top Ten R&B and pop hits. He will hit his
peak in 1995, producing hits for artists like Boyz II Men, Madonna
and Whitney Houston and coordinated the “Waiting to Exhale”
soundtrack. In the fall of 1996, he will released “Day,” his first
solo album since 1993 to strong reviews. He will successfully
produce the film “Soul Food” in 1997.
1968 – U.S. Congress passes a Civil Rights Bill banning racial
discrimination in the sale or rental of approximately 80 per cent
of the nation’s housing. The bill also made it a crime to
interfere with civil rights workers and to cross state lines to
incite a riot.
1975 – Lee Elder becomes the first African American to tee off as an
entrant in the Masters’ Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.
2003 – Eva “Little Eva” Boyd, singer, joins the ancestors at age 59
after succumbing to cancer. She recorded the 1960s pop hit “The
Locomotion.”
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
April 9 African American Historical Events
* Today in Black History – April 9 *
1816 – The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized at a
general convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1865 – Nine African American regiments of Gen. John Hawkins’s
division help to smash the Confederate defenses at Fort
Blakely, Alabama. Capture of the fort will lead to the
fall of Mobile. The 68th U.S. Colored Troops will have
the highest number of casualties in the engagement.
1865 – Robert E. Lee surrenders Army of Northern Virginia to
Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, ending the
Civil War.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE CONFEDERACY: The Confederacy is
the first to recognize that African Americans are major
factors in the war. The South impresses slaves to work
in mines, repair railroads and build fortifications,
thereby releasing a disproportionately large percentage
of able-bodied whites for direct war service. A handful
of African Americans enlisted in the rebel army, but few,
if any, fired guns in anger. A regiment of fourteen
hundred free African Americans received official
recognition in New Orleans, but was not called into
service. It later became, by a strange mutation of
history, the first African American regiment officially
recognized by the Union army.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNION NAVY: One out of every
four Union sailors was an African American. Of the
118,044 sailors in the Union Navy, 29,511 were African
Americans. At least four African American sailors won
Congressional Medals of Honor.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNION ARMY: The 185,000 Black
soldiers in the Union army were organized into 166 all
Black regiments (145 infantry, 7 cavalry, 12 heavy
artillery, 1 light artillery, 1 engineer). The largest
number of African American soldiers came from Louisiana
(24,052), followed by Kentucky (23,703) and Tennessee
(20,133). Pennsylvania contributed more African
American soldiers than any other Northern state (8,612).
African American soldiers participated in 449 battles,
39 of them major engagements. Sixteen Black soldiers
received Congressional Medals of Honor for gallantry in
action. Some 37,638 African American soldiers lost
their lives during the war. African American soldiers
generally received poor equipment and were forced to do
a large amount of fatigue duty. Until 1864, African
American soldiers (from private to chaplain) received
seven dollars a month whereas white soldiers received
from thirteen to one hundred dollars a month. In 1863
African American units, with four exceptions (Fifth
Massachusetts Cavalry, Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth
Massachusetts Volunteers and Twenty-ninth Connecticut
Volunteers), were officially designated United States
Colored Troops (USCT). Since the War Department
discouraged applications from African Americans, there
were few commissioned officers. The highest ranking of
the seventy-five to one hundred African American
officers was Lt. Col. Alexander T. Augustana, a surgeon.
Some 200,000 African American civilians were employed
by the Union army as laborers, cooks, teamsters and
servants.
1866 – The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 is passed over the
president’s veto. The bill will confer citizenship on
African Americans and give them “the same right, in
every State and Territory… as is enjoyed by white
citizens.”
1870 – The American Anti-Slavery Society is dissolved.
1898 – Paul Leroy Robeson is born in Princeton, New Jersey. The
son of an ex-slave turned Methodist minister, Robeson
will attend Rutgers University on a full scholarship,
where he will excel and obtain 12 letters in four sports,
be named to the All-American football team twice, be a
member of the debate team, and earn a Phi Beta Kappa key.
He will study law at Columbia University in New York and
receive his degree in 1923. There he will meet and marry
Eslanda Cardozo Goode, who will be the first African
American woman to head a pathology laboratory. He will
work as a law clerk in New York, but once again will
face discrimination and leave the practice when a white
secretary refuses to take dictation from him. He will
later become one of America’s foremost actors and singers.
He will make 14 films including “The Emperor Jones,”
“King Solomon’s Mines,” and “Showboat.” During the 1940’s
he will continue to have success on the stage, in film,
and in concert halls, but will remain face to face with
prejudice and racism. After finding the Soviet Union
to be a tolerant and friendly nation, he will begin to
protest the growing Cold War hostilities between the
United States and the USSR. He will question why
African Americans should support a government that did
not treat them as equals. At a time when dissent was
hardly tolerated, Robeson will be looked upon as an
enemy by his government. In 1947, he will be named by
the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the
State Department will deny him a passport until 1958.
Events such as these, along with a negative public
response, will lead to the demise of his public career.
He will be an inspiration to millions around the world.
His courageous stance against oppression and inequality
in part will lead to the civil rights movement of the
1960s. He will join the ancestors on January 23, 1976,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after living in seclusion
for ten years.
1929 – Valenza Pauline Burke is born in Brooklyn, New York to
parents who had immigrated to the United States from
Barbados. She will become a novelist known as Paule
Marshall. She will author “Browngirl, Brownstones,”
“Praisesong for the Widow,” “The Chosen Place, The
Timeless People,” “Soul Clap Hands and Sing,” and
Daughters.” She will also write a collection of short
stories, “Reena and Other Stories.”
1939 – When she is refused admission to the Daughters of the
American Revolution’s Constitution Hall to give a
planned concert, Marian Anderson performs for 75,000 on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Two months later, she
will be honored with the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for her
talents as “one of the greatest singers of our time”
and for “her magnificent dignity as a human being.”
1950 – Juanita Hall becomes the first African American to win a
Tony award for her role as Bloody Mary in the musical
“South Pacific.”
1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is buried after funeral services
at Ebenezer Baptist Church and memorial services at
Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia. More than
300,000 persons march behind the coffin of the slain
leader which is carried through the streets of Atlanta
on a farm wagon pulled by two Georgia mules. Scores of
national dignitaries, including Vice-President Hubert
Humphrey, attend the funeral. CORE and the Fellowship of
Reconciliation send twenty-three dignitaries. Ralph
David Abernathy is elected to succeed King as head of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1993 – The Reverend Benjamin Chavis is chosen to head the NAACP,
succeeding Benjamin Hooks.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 