KRLemmons African American History

May 17 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – May 17 *

1875 – The first Kentucky Derby is won by African American jockey
Oliver Lewis riding a horse named Aristides. Fourteen of
the 15 jockeys in the race are African Americans. The
winning purse for the race is $ 2,850. Lewis won the one
and a half mile “Run for the Roses” in a time of 2
minutes, 37-3/4 seconds.

1881 – Frederick Douglass is appointed Recorder of Deeds for the
District of Columbia.

1909 – White firemen on Georgia Railroad strike in protest of the
employment of African American firemen.

1915 – The National Baptist Convention is chartered.

1937 – Hazel Rollins O’Leary is born in Newport News, Virginia. She
will graduate from Fisk University and will receive a law
degree from Rutgers University in 1966. She will gain
experience in the energy regulatory field working for the
Federal Energy Administration. After working for a few years
heading her own energy consulting firm and becoming
president of the Northern States Power Company, she will be
appointed Secretary of Energy in 1993 by President Bill
Clinton.

1942 – Henry St. Claire Fredericks is born in New York City. He
will become an entertainer and songwriter for film. He also
will be a singer of urban folk-blues, better known as Taj
Mahal. He will be one of the first American artists to
blend blues and world music. For over three decades, Taj
Mahal will teach generations the wonders of Robert Johnson,
Sleepy John Estes, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed. With a
catalogue of almost thirty albums (including some for
children!), one can find film soundtracks (“Sounder,”
“Brothers”), music for television dramas (“The Tuskegee
Project,” “The Man Who Broke A Thousand Chains”) as well as
his best-loved classics like “Natch’l Blues.”

1944 – Felix Eboue’ joins the ancestors in Cairo, Egypt at the age
of 59 after succumbing to pneumonia. He had been the
highest ranking French colonial administrator of African
descent in the first half of the twentieth century. He had
been a successful administrator for the French government in
the Caribbean and in Africa. During World War II, he had been
a staunch ally of the exiled French government headed by
General Charles de Gaulle.

1954 – The Supreme Court outlaws school segregation in Brown v.
Board of Education. The ruling is a major victory for the
NAACP, led by Thurgood Marshall of the Legal Defense Fund,
and other civil rights groups. The rulings declares that
racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.

1956 – “Sugar” Ray Charles Leonard is born in Wilmington, North
Carolina. Leonard will win the National Golden Gloves
championship at 16, an Olympic gold medal in 1976, and have
a successful professional boxing career. He will be named
Fighter of the Decade for the 1980s. He will enter the
decade a champion and will leave the decade a champion.
In between, he will win an unprecedented five world titles
in five weight classes and compete in some of the era’s
most memorable contests. His career boxing record will be 36
wins (25 by knockout), 3 losses, and 1 tie. After retiring
from the ring, he will become a successful boxing analyst.
He will be enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of
Fame in 1997.

1957 – The Prayer Pilgrimage, attracting a crowd of over 30,000, is
held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
Timed to coincide with the third anniversary of Brown v.
Board of Education, the pilgrimage is organized by Martin
Luther King, Jr., the NAACP, and others to advocate greater
voting and civil rights for African Americans.

1962 – Marshall Logan Scott is elected the first African American
moderator of the Presbyterian Church.

1962 – E. Franklin Frazier joins the ancestors in Washington, DC at
the age of 67. Dr. Franklin had been a leading sociologist
who retired from Howard University and had been the first
African American president of the American Sociological
Association.

1969 – A commemorative stamp of W.C. Handy, “Father of the Blues,”
is issued by the U.S. Postal Service, making Handy the
first African American blues musician honored on a postage
stamp.

1969 – Rev. Thomas Kilgore, a Los Angeles pastor, is elected
president of the predominantly white American Baptist
Convention.

1970 – Hank Aaron becomes the ninth baseball player to get 3,000
hits.

1980 – A major racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in
Miami, Florida after a Tampa, Florida jury acquitted four
former Miami police officers of fatally beating African
American insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. The
disturbance in that city’s Liberty City neighborhood
results in eighteen persons being killed and more than
three hundred persons injured.

1987 – The work of four contemporary African American artists –
Sam Gilliam, Keith Morrison, William T. Williams, and
Martha Jackson-Jarvis – is shown in the inaugural
exhibition of the new Anacostia Museum in Washington, DC.

1987 – Eric “Sleepy” Floyd of the Golden State Warriors sets a
playoff record for points in a single quarter. He pours
in 29 points in the fourth period in a game this night
against Pat Riley’s Los Angeles Lakers.

1994 – The U.N. Security Council approves a peacekeeping force and
an arms embargo for violence-racked Rwanda.

1997 – Laurent Kabila declares himself the new President of Zaire
and renames it the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The
country had been previously under the 37 year rule of
dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

2012 – Donna Summer, the “Queen of Disco” whose hits included “Hot
Stuff,” “Bad Girls,” “Love to Love You Baby” and “She Works
Hard for the Money,” joins the ancestors at the age of 63.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 16 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – May 16 *

1792 – Denmark abolishes the importation of slaves.

1857 – Juan Morel Campos is born in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He will
become a musician and composer who will be one of the
first to integrate Afro-Caribbean styles and folk rhythms
into the classical European musical model. He will be
considered the father of the “danza.” He willjoin the
ancestors on May 12, 1896.

1917 – Harry T. Burleigh, composer, pianist, and singer, is
awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for excellence in the
field of creative music.

1929 – John Conyers, Jr. is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will
be elected to the House of Representatives from Michigan’s
1st District in 1964, where he will advocate home rule and
Congressional representation for the District of Columbia.
He will be the principal sponsor of the 1965 Voting Rights
Act and the 1983 Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday bill, as
well as a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus.

1930 – Lillie Mae Jones is born in Flint, Michigan. She will
become an uncompromising jazz singer using the stage name,
Betty Carter, who will earn the nickname “Betty Bebop” for
her bop improvisational style. She will tour with Lionel
Hampton and Miles Davis during her career. In 1997, she
will receive the National Medal of Arts award from
President Bill Clinton. She will join the ancestors on
September 26, 1998.

1966 – Stokely Carmichael (later named Kwame Ture) is elected
chairman of SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, a group formed during the Freedom Marches and
dedicated to voter registration in the South.

1966 – Janet Damita Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. Sister of
the famous Jacksons of the Jackson 5 singing group, she
will have her own successful career, first in acting
(“Good Times,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” and “Fame”), then as
a solo recording artist. Her albums “Control” and
“Rhythm Nation 1814” will earn her five American Music
Awards and a Grammy award.

1966 – The National Welfare Rights Organization is organized.

1977 – Modibo Keita joins the ancestors in Bamako, Mali. He was
the first president of Mali, from 1960 to 1968.

1979 – Asa Philip Randolph, labor leader and civil rights pioneer,
joins the ancestors in New York at the age of 90.

1985 – Michael Jordan is named Rookie of the Year in the National
Basketball Association. Jordan, of the Chicago Bulls, was
the number three draft choice. At the time, Michael was
third in the league scoring a 28.2 average and fourth in
steals with 2.39 per game.

1990 – Sammy Davis Jr., actor, dancer, singer and world class
entertainer, joins the ancestors in Beverly Hills,
California at the age of 64 from throat cancer. Davis,
born in Harlem, was a member of the Hollywood “Rat Pack.”
He also had starring roles in a host of Broadway musicals
and motion pictures and had been an entertainer for over
sixty years.

1997 – In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko ends 32 years of
autocratic rule, ceding control of the country to rebel
forces.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 15 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – May 15 *

1795 – John Morront, the first African American missionary to work
with Indians, is ordained as a Methodist minister in
London, England.

1802 – Jean Ignace joins the ancestors in Baimbridge, Guadeloupe.
He dies in the revolt against the Napoleonic troops sent to
the Caribbean island to reimpose slavery.

1891 – The British Central African Protectorate (now Malawi) is
established.

1918 – In a World War I incident that will later be known as “The
Battle of Henry Johnson,” the African American attacks
advancing Germans, frees sentry Needham Roberts, and forces
the retreat of the enemy troops. Johnson and Roberts will
be awarded the Croix de Guerre, France’s highest military
award. They are the first Americans ever to win the award.

1923 – “The Chip Woman’s Fortune” by Willis Richardson opens at the
Frazee Theatre on Broadway. The play, staged by the
Ethiopian Art Theatre of Chicago, is the first dramatic work
by an African American playwright to be presented on
Broadway.

1934 – Alvin Francis Poussaint is born in the village of East Harlem
in New York City. After being educated at Columbia College,
Cornell University Medical School, and the University of
California’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, he will become a
psychiatrist and educator specializing in African American
psychological and social issues. He will begin his career
teaching at Tufts Medical School and Harvard Medical School.
He will then join Operation Push. He will be a consultant
for the television series, “The Cosby Show” and “A Different
World, hired to ensure that the story lines present positive
images of African Americans. He will later become Associate
Dean and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
(1993).

1938 – Diane Nash is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will become an
civil rights activist and one of the founders of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960. She will be part
of the first group of civil rights activists who will refuse
to pay bail for protesting under the “Jail, No Bail”
strategy employed in the South. She will later marry fellow
civil rights activist James Bevel and take his last name as
her middle name. She and her husband will receive the Rosa
Parks award from the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference in 1965.

1942 – The 93rd Infantry is activated at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. It
is the first African American division formed during World
War II and is assigned to combat duty in the South Pacific.

1946 – Camilla Williams appears in the title role of Madama
Butterfly with the New York City Opera. She is the first
African American female concert singer to sign a contract
with a major American opera company.

1953 – Former Heavyweight Champion, Jersey Joe Walcott, is knocked
out by Rocky Marciano at Chicago Stadium at two minutes, 25
seconds of the first round.

1970 – Two African American students (Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and
James Earl Green) at Jackson State University in
Mississippi are killed when police open fire during student
protests.

1983 – James VanDerZee joins the ancestors in Washington, DC at the
age of 96. He had been a prominent photographer who
recorded and contributed to the Harlem Renaissance. Over
his long career, which extended into his 90s, he captured
the images of many famous African Americans.

1992 – Mary M. Monteith (later Simpkins) joins the ancestors in
Columbia, South Carolina. She was a civil right activist
who had been a state secretary of the NAACP and
instrumental in the fight to desegregate South Carolina
public schools.

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