KRLemmons African American History

July 18 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 18 *

1753 – Lemuel Haynes, colonial American Congregational clergyman,
is born in West Hartford, Connecticut. He will be
abandoned at five months old by his African father and
Anglo mother. He will be indentured to a white family in
Massachusetts. When he becomes a free man at age 21 in
1774, one of his first choices is to join freedom’s cause
and serve in a military unit from Connecticut. He will
not only fight on the battlefield, but will write about
freedom in poems and essays. He will be inspired by the
Declaration of Independence, and in 1776 will write an
essay about the need to extend freedom to Africans. His
essay is called, “Liberty Further Extended.” After the
American Revolutionary War, he will study Latin, Greek
and theology, and will be licensed to preach in 1780. In
1785, he will be ordained to a church in Torrington,
Connecticut, making him the first African American to
pastor a white congregation. He also will become the
first African American to receive an honorary degree
(M.A.) from a White college (Middlebury College), in 1804
at its second commencement. He will serve as pastor in
Bennington, Manchester, and Granville, New York, until he
joins the ancestors on September 28, 1833 at the age of
eighty.

1863 – The 54th Massachusetts Volunteers charge Fort Wagner in
Charleston, South Carolina. Although the Union forces
suffer great losses, Sergeant William H. Carney of Company
C exhibits bravery in battle by maintaining the colors
high despite three bullet wounds. Although cited for
bravery, it will take 37 years for Carney to receive the
Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions.

1899 – Patent number 629,286 is issued to L.C. Bailey for a
folding bed.

1905 – Granville T. Woods patents railway brakes.

1918 – Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is born near Umtata in Transkei,
South Africa in the Eastern Cape, into the royal family
of the Tembu, a Xhosa-speaking tribe. His father is Chief
Henry Mandela. He will be educated at University College
of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and
qualifies to practice law in 1942. He will join the
African National Congress in 1944 and engage in resistance
against the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies
after 1948. He will go on trial for treason in 1956-1961
and be acquitted in 1961. After the banning of the ANC in
1960, he will argue for the setting up of a military wing
within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive will
consider his proposal on the use of violent tactics and
agree that those members who wished to involve themselves
in his campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the
ANC. This will lead to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe.
He will be arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years’
imprisonment with hard labor. In 1963, when many fellow
leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe are arrested,
he will be brought to stand trial with them for plotting
to overthrow the government by violence. His statement
from the dock will receive considerable international
publicity. On June 12, 1964, he is among eight accused,
that will be sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to
1982, he will be incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off
the shore from Cape Town; thereafter, he will be at
Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland. He will be
released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he will
plunge himself wholeheartedly into his life’s work,
striving to attain the goals he and others had set out
almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first
national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa
after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela
will be elected President of the ANC while his lifelong
friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, will become the
organization’s National Chairperson. He will become the
first Black African President of South Africa on May 10,
1994 (Inauguration Date). Happy 95th birthday, President
Mandela.

1941 – Martha Reeves is born in Eufaula, Alabama. Her family will
move to Detroit, Michigan before her first birthday. As a
child, she will sing in her grandfather’s church and in
school, and continue her vocal training through high school.
After graduating in 1959, she will join a girl group called
the Fascinations, and the following year co-founds the
Del-Phis, whose membership will include the future
Vandellas. In 1961, she will win a talent contest as a solo
act and get a nightclub engagement performing as Martha
LaVaille. There she will be noticed by Motown executive
William “Mickey” Stevenson, who will invite her to stop by
the label’s offices. She will not land an audition right
away, but will parlay her visit into a secretarial job in
the A&R department. She will catch a lucky break when backup
singers are needed for a recording session, and the Del-Phis
will wind up supporting Marvin Gaye on his first hit, 1962’s
“Stubborn Kind of Fellow.” Stevenson will be impressed
enough to record a Del-Phis (renamed the Vels) single,
“You’ll Never Cherish a Love So True (‘Til You Lose It),”
and release it on Motown’s Mel-O-Dy subsidiary. One day,
Mary Wells fails to show up for a recording session, and
musicians’ union rules demand that a lead vocalist be
present on the microphone — so she will be hastily tapped
to sing “I’ll Have to Let Him Go.” That song will become
the first single credited to the newly renamed Martha & the
Vandellas in 1963. Their second single, the ballad “Come
and Get These Memories,” will reach the Rhythm & Blues Top
Five. Martha & the Vandellas will rack up an impressive
slate of Motown classics that will include the Top Five
smashes “(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave” and “Dancing in the
Street,” plus “Nowhere to Run,” “I’m Ready for Love,”
“Jimmy Mack,” and “Honey Chile,” all of which will make the
Rhythm & Blues Top Five. Martha & the Vandellas’ run of
success will continue through 1967. They will continue to
perform and record for several more years, but will never
match their past success and will disband in December 1972
after a farewell concert in Detroit. She will eventually
leave Motown and record for other labels with minimal
success. In 1989, she will reunite with original Vandellas
Annette Sterling and Rosalind Holmes and cut the single
“Step Into My Shoes” for British producer Ian Levine’s
Motor City label. However, she will continue to make her
primary living on the nostalgia circuit. She will be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.

1951 – Jersey Joe Walcott, at age 37, becomes oldest boxer to date,
to win the World Heavyweight Championship knocking out
Ezzard Charles in five rounds.

1959 – William Wright becomes the first African American to win a
a USGA title, the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship.
He is 23 and a senior at Western Washington University.

1964 – Racially motivated disturbances occur in Harlem in New York
City. The civil unrest will last until July 22 and will
spread into the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

1970 – Willie Mays gets his 3,000th base hit.

1998 – The “Spirit of Freedom Memorial” and “Theme Park” is
unveiled in Washington, DC to honor the U. S. Colored
Troops, who fought in the U.S. Civil War.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 17 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 17 *

1794 – Richard Allen organizes Philadelphia’s Bethel African
Methodist Episcopal Church.

1794 – Absalom Jones and his followers dedicate The African Church
of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. On August 12, 1794, the St.
Thomas parishioners will affiliate with the Protestant
Episcopal Church.

1862 – Congress approves the rights of African Americans to bear
arms to fight in the Civil War and enlist in the Union Army
by passing two laws, the Confiscation and Militia acts.
Over 208,000 African Americans and their white officers
will serve in the Union Army, with 38,000 losing their
lives.

1863 – Unions troops, with First Kansas volunteers playing a
leading role, route rebels at Honey Springs, Indian
Territory. African American troops capture the colors of a
Texas regiment.

1911 – Frank Snowden is born in York County, Virginia. He will
become the foremost scholar on Blacks in ancient history,
notably for his books “Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in
the Greco-Roman Experience” and “Before Color Prejudice:
The Ancient View of Blacks”. He will document that in ancient
Rome and Greece, racial prejudice was not an issue. Much of
this, according to his research, is because most of the
Blacks they encountered were not slaves. Most slaves in the
Roman Empire were white. Most of the Blacks they met were
warriors, statesmen, and mercenaries. Therefore, Blacks were
not subjected to the racism of modern civilization. He will
study ancient art and literature, and find evidence that
Blacks were able to co-exist with the Greeks and Romans. He
will join the ancestors on February 18, 2007.

1935 – Carol Diann Johnson (Diahann Carroll) is born in the Bronx,
New York. She will be better known as Diahann Carroll,
star of Broadway (“House of Flowers”), television (“Julia”),
and films including “Carmen Jones” and “Claudine”, the
latter earning her an Academy Award nomination as Best
Actress. Beginning her music career at an early age, she
will be the recipient of a Metropolitan Opera scholarship
for studies at New York’s High School of Music and Art at a
mere ten years of age. While still a teenager, she will
begin working part-time as a model, a TV actress, and as a
nightclub singer, leading to her Broadway debut (the Harold
Arlen/Truman Capote production “House of Flowers”) and her
film debut (the modern version of Bizet’s opera “Carmen”
with an all-black cast “Carmen Jones”) both in 1954. More
movie work will come her way (including the 1959 film
version of “Porgy & Bess”), as well as a Tony Award in 1962
for her work on the Broadway production “No Strings.”
Beginning in the late ’50s, she will launch a successful
recording career, issuing albums on a regular basis
throughout the next two decades (including such titles as
1957’s “Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen,” 1960’s
“Diahann Carroll and Andre Previn,” and 1962’s “The
Fabulous “Diahann Carroll,” among many others). In the late
’60s, she will star in the TV sitcom “Julia,” for which she
will be nominated for an Emmy Award and the recipient of a
Golden Globe Award for Best Actress. The ’70s will see her
give arguably the finest acting performance of her career
in 1974’s “Claudine,” for which she was nominated for an
Academy Award. She will return to TV work in the mid-’80s
with her portrayal of businesswoman Dominique Devereaux on
the hit nighttime soap opera “Dynasty,” while she earns her
second Emmy nomination for a guest appearance on the comedy
series “A Different World” (also during the same decade, she
will publish an autobiography, 1986’s “Diahann”). In the
’90s, she will star in a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s
“Sunset Boulevard” and tour the U.S. performing classic
Broadway standards in “Almost Like Being in Love: The Lerner
and Loewe Songbook.” 2001 will see the release of the
16-track compilation “Nobody Sees Me Cry: The Best of the
Columbia Years.”

1944 – An ammunitions depot at Port Chicago, California explodes
killing 320 men including 202 African Americans assigned by
the Navy to handle explosives. The resulting refusal of 258
African Americans to return to the dangerous work formed the
basis of the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what
will become known as the Port Chicago Mutiny.

1959 – Billie Holiday, blues singer, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to liver failure at the age of 44 in Metropolitan
Hospital, New York City.

1967 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Cairo, Illinois
(within 100 miles of the Mississippi border. The Illinois
National Guard is mobilized during the three day civil
disturbance.

1967 – Innovative and famed jazz musician, John Coltrane joins the
ancestors after succumbing to cirrhosis of the liver at the
age of 40 in Huntington Hospital, Long Island, New York.

1981 – The Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B.
Williams, a twenty-three-year-old photographer, for the
murder of two of the twenty-eight Black youths killed in a
series of slayings and disappearances in Atlanta. He will
deny the charges and be convicted in February, 1982.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 16 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 16 *

1829 – A poem in tribute to the late Philadelphia caterer Robert
Bogle is published. Bogle is the first known
professional African American caterer. Among his
descendants will be Robert W. Bogle, publisher of the
Philadelphia “Tribune”, and Donald Bogle, noted film
critic and author of “Black Americans in Film and
Television”.

1862 – Ida B. Wells (later Barnett) is born in Holly Springs,
Mississippi. She will complete her studies at Rust College
and in 1888 will become a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee.
While living in Memphis, she will become an editor and co-
owner of a local Black newspaper called “The Free Speech
and Headlight.” She will write her editorials under the
pen-name “Iola.” When a respected black store owner and
friend of hers is lynched in 1892, she will use her paper
to attack the evils of lynching and encourage the Black
townsmen of Memphis to go west. While attending an editor’s
convention in New York, she will receive word not to return
to Memphis because her life would be in danger. She will
take her cause to England to gain support and earn a
reputation as a fiery orator and courageous leader of her
people. Upon returning to the United States, she will
settle in Chicago and form the Women’s Era Club, the first
civic organization for African American women. The name
will be later changed to the Ida B. Wells Club in honor of
its founder. She will never forget her crusade against
lynching, and, in 1895 will publish “A Red Record,” which
will record race lynching in America. She will keep active
until the birth of her second son, Herman. She will resign
as president of the Ida B. Wells Club and devote her time
to raising her two young sons and subsequently her two
daughters. However, by the start of the 20th century, the
racial strife in the country will be disturbing. Lynching
and race riots will abound across the nation. In 1909, she
will be asked to be a member of the “Committee of 40.”
This committee will establish the groundwork for the
organization now known as the NAACP, the oldest civil
rights organization in the country. She will continue her
tireless crusade for equal rights for African Americans
until she joins the ancestors on March 25, 1931.

1894 – A group of African-American miners in Alabama is killed by
striking white miners.

1904 – Harold Dadford West is born in Flemington, New Jersey. He
will attend the University of Illinois, where he will
receive a bachelor of arts degree in 1925. He will be an
associate professor and head of the science department at
Morris Brown College in Atlanta from 1925 to 1927. In 1927,
he will join the faculty of Meharry Medical College in
Nashville, Tennessee, as an associate professor of
physiological chemistry. During his early years on the
faculty of Meharry Medical College, he will complete a
master of arts degree and a doctorate. He will be a
recipient of a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Fund
at the University of Illinois while he earns a master of
arts degree in 1930. Following that he will be a
Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, receiving a doctorate
degree from the same university in 1937. The title of his
dissertation will be “The Chemistry and Nutritive Value of
Essential Amino Acids.” In 1938, he will become professor
of biochemistry and chairperson of the department. His work
in biochemical research will be vast, including studies of
tuberculosis and other bacilli, the antibiotic biocerin,
and aromatic hydrocarbons. He will work with amino acids,
becoming the first to synthesize threonine. As noted in the
Journal of the National Medical Association, among his
other investigations will be “the role of sulfur in
biological detoxification mechanisms; blood serum calcium
levels in the Negro in relation to possible significance in
tuberculosis; relation of B-vitamins, especially
pantothenic acid, to detoxification of sulfa-drugs and
susceptibility to bacillary disease.” In 1952, he will be
named the fifth president of Meharry Medical College, its
first African American president. In 1963, he will be the
first Black American to serve on the State Board of
Education. He will retire as president in 1965, returning
to the position of professor of biochemistry. When he
retires from Meharry in 1973, he will become a trustee of
the college. In his final years he will work on a complete
history of the college. He will join the ancestors on March
5, 1974.

1923 – Mari Evans is born in Toledo, Ohio. She will become an author
and be best known for her poetry collections. She will
attend the University of Toledo and later teach at several
schools in the Midwest and East, including Purdue and
Indiana universities. She will begin five years of writing,
producing, and directing for an Indianapolis television
program, “The Black Experience,” in 1968, the same year her
first poetry collection, “Where Is All the Music?”, is
published. With her second collection, “I Am a Black Woman”
(1970), she will gain acclaim as an important new poet. Her
poem “Who Can Be Born Black” is often anthologized. Her
later collections will include “Nightstar: 1973–1978” (1981),
whose poems will praise blues artists and community heroes
and heroines, and “A Dark and Splendid Mass” (1992). She
will also write works for juvenile readers and several plays,
including “River of My Song” (produced 1977) and the musical
“Eyes” (produced 1979), an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s
“Their Eyes Were Watching God.” She will edit the anthology
“Black Women Writers (1950–1980): A Critical Evaluation”
(1984).

1934 – Donald Payne is born in Newark, New Jersey. He will graduate
from Seton Hall University in 1957. He will be president of
the Young Men’s Christian Association of the United States
from 1970 to 1973. In 1988 he will be elected to the U.S.
Congress becoming the first African American elected to
Congress from the state of New Jersey. He will join the
ancestors on March 6, 2012.

1936 – The movie “The Green Pastures” premieres in New York’s Radio
City Music Hall, featuring Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, the
Hall Johnson Choir, and Rex Ingram as “De Lawd.” The film,
a Warner Brothers production, is William Keighley’s
adaptation of Marc Connelly’s Pulitzer Prize winning
Broadway musical.

1961 – Ralph Boston of the United States, sets what is then the long
jump record at 27′ 2″.

1977 – Janelle Penny Commissiong of Trinidad and Tabago is crowned
Miss Universe. She is the first person of African descent
to win the title.

1988 – Carl Lewis runs 100 meters in 9.78 seconds. Florence Joyner
runs 100 meters in women’s world record time of 10.49
seconds. Jackie Joyner-Kersee sets women’s heptathlete
record of 7,215 points.

1990 – Dr. Gwendolyn Baker was elected President of the New York
Board of Education, the first African American woman to
hold such an office.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 15 *

1822 – The city of Philadelphia opens its public schools for
African Americans.

1864 – General A. J. Smith, with fourteen thousand men, including
a brigade of African American troops, defeats Nathan B.
Forrest at Harrisburg, near Tupelo, Mississippi.

1869 – A.J. Hayne, an African-American captain of the Arkansas
militia, is assassinated.

1929 – Francis Bebey is born in Douala, Cameroon. He will become
a self-taught master guitarist, composer, and sanza player.
During his childhood, his family and teachers will attempt
to alienate him from the roots culture around him. As he
will relate to the press in France in 1984, “I was schooled
to ignore, and even to detest, traditional African styles.”
His musical family will surround him with a variety of
Western instruments, accordion, violin, piano, mandolin,
and–the instrument he will settle on at age nine–guitar.
Despite the efforts of his colonial-era instructors, he
will ‘discover’ Africa. A traditional doctor and musician,
Eya Mouéssé, will lead him to his first African music love
affair: the local harp and mouth-bow, which he will seek out
at all night celebrations in order to hear. As a teenager in
Douala, the capital, he will play guitar and drums in an
ashiko–Cameroonean highlife–band. The experience will lead
inevitably to his discovery of international dance styles of
the era, especially Afro-Cuban music and American swing
jazz. He will go to Paris to study at the Sorbonne in the
mid ’50s, and there his musical path will be altered yet
again when he discovers the classical guitar of Andre
Segovia and will begin to study the instrument. Upon
graduation, he will lead a jazz band in the city, and will
have the distinction of giving future Afropop superstar and
saxophonist Manu Dibangu his first professional gig. He will
come to the United States in 1958 to continue his studies at
New York University. As he travels in Africa and learns more
about its traditions, he will begin to create original
works, including socially aware and sometimes satirical
poems set to the music of traditional instruments like the
West African kora. In 1967, he will win the Grand Literary
Prize of Black Africa for his novel “Le Fils d’Agatha
Moudio.” In the 1980s, when he will be widely renowned as a
novelist, poet, composer and performer, he will begin to
play traditional African instruments himself. He will
record “African Sanza” in 1982, a set of original
compositions for the central African lamellophone (sometimes
called hand piano or thumb piano). His forays into sanza and
also ndewhoo (Pygmee flute) paralleled dramatic changes in
his approach to guitar. Inspired by his explorations in
African music, he will develop distinctive new techniques:
tapping the guitar to produce the sound of a talking drum,
and wrapping one bass string around the next to produce a
percussive snare drum effect. During the years when Afropop
will rise to international attention, he will be often cited
as a guiding force, a kind of father figure in the global
spread of African music. He will continue to tour, as much
as six months a year, with sons Patrick Jr. (Toops) and
Patrick, and also to record new works right to the end. He
will join the ancestors on May 28, 2001 after succumbing to
a sudden heart attack. He is sometimes referred to as the
father of world music.

1951 – Mary White Ovington, one of the white founders of the NAACP
and author of “The Walls Come Tumbling Down,” a history of
the NAACP, dies at the age of 86.

1961 – Forest Whitaker is born in Longview, Texas. He will attend
the Music Conservatory at the University of Southern
California in Los Angeles, as well as the Drama Studio
London. He will debut as a screen actor in 1982’s “Fast
Times at Ridgemont High.” He will follow with notable roles
in “Platoon,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” and “The Color of
Money.” In 1988, he will play the role of musician Charlie
Parker in the film, “Bird,” for which he will win Best
Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. He will also appear in
the films “The Crying Game,” “Bloodsport,” “Phenomenon” and
direct “Waiting to Exhale.” He will be originally called
upon to write and direct a live-action movie adaptation of
Bill Cosby’s cartoon, “Fat Albert,” but differences between
the two will lead to him leaving production. He will be
considered for the role of Dr. Jonathon Crane (The
Scarecrow) in “Batman Triumphant.” The film will progress
as far as pre-production when Warner Brothers decides to
pull the plug. In 2002, he will be the host and narrator of
“The Twilight Zone,” which will last one season. In 2006,
he will join the cast of FX’s cop serial “The Shield,” as
Lieutenant John Kavanaugh. His performance as the tormented
internal affairs cop will help continue the show’s
popularity among viewers. He will be nominated for, and
win the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of
Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator, in 2006 film, “The Last King
of Scotland.”

1968 – Ellen Holly integrates daytime television when she appears
on ABC’s “One Life To Live” as Carla, an African American
“passing” for white. The role is a marked departure for
the New York City-born African American, whose first
professional role was with Joseph Papp’s New York
Shakespeare Festival as the white Desdemona to William
Marshall’s Othello in 1958. Holly had been a featured
player in Papp’s company and had played several
Shakespearean roles, including Lady Macbeth opposite James
Earl Jones in “Macbeth” and Princess Katherine opposite
Robert Hooks in “Henry V,” before being signed to the soap
opera.

1969 – Rod Carew ties the major league record with his 7th steal of
home in a season.

1970 – James McGhee is sworn in as the first African American mayor
of Dayton, Ohio.

1973 – Willie McCovey becomes 15th major league player to hit 400
Home Runs.

1980 – Benjamin Hooks addresses the GOP convention after a lobbying
effort and threatens a walkout by 121 African American
delegates. Hooks speaks before the convention despite
leading candidate Ronald Reagan’s refusal to appear at the
NAACP convention earlier in the month.

1980 – New violence erupts in the riot-torn Liberty City section of
Miami, Florida. Two months after riots that killed 18 and
resulted in $ 100 million in property damage, the violence
will leave 40 injured and result in 40 arrests.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 14 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 14 *

1798 – The first direct federal tax on the states is enacted — on
dwellings, land & slaves.

1848 – Walter ‘Wiley’ Jones is born a slave in Madison county, Georgia.
He will become a barber after the Civil War. He will establish
the first streetcar system in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, the
Wiley Jones Street Car Line, in 1886. He will invest his
income wisely and by 1890, he will be estimated to be worth
$300,000. He will own real estate, a large general store, a
popular saloon, a race track, and a horse stable “of the
finest trotters in the South.” Each day, hundreds of Pine
Bluff residents will ride the six-mile-long Jones Street
Car Line. Conductors in neat uniforms with distinctive caps
will assist riders and collect fares. He will join the
ancestors on December 7, 1904 after succumbing to a heart
attack and Bright’s disease. At the time of his transition,
he will be the richest African American in Arkansas.

1876 – Sarah A. Dicket opens a seminary for African American girls
in Mississippi.

1888 – The “Indianapolis Freeman”, the nation’s first illustrated
African American newspaper, is founded by Edward Cooper. It
will be subsidized by the Republican Party for some of its
existence and will enjoy a large circulation because of its
news coverage’s variety and scope and its attention to
Black culture. In the 1890s, the Freeman will acquire a
reputation as the country’s leading black journal. Black
press historian, I. Penn Garland, will call it “The
Harper’s Weekly of the colored race.” During WW I, the
paper will editorialize on the hypocrisy of a nation
fighting a war to save democracy at the same time it
tolerates blatant racism in its laws and institutions. The
Freeman also will cover extensively the wartime
achievements of Black Hoosiers. In the 1920s, the Freeman
will experience economic problems and subsequently fold in
1927.

1891 – J. Standard is awarded a patent for the refrigerator.

1893 – Spencer Williams is born in Vidalia, Louisiana. After
serving in the U.S. Army, he will become a writer for a
series of African American films being produce by an
affiliate of Paramount Pictures. This will lead to a career
in Hollywood. He will appear in some of the early African
American talking movies including “The Lady Fare,” “Oft in
the Silly Night,” and Music Has Charms.” “He will produce
“Hot Biscuits,” “Bronze Buckaroo,” and “Harlem Rides the
Range.” He will write, direct, and star in “The Blood of
Jesus” and “Juke Joint. He will star as Andy in the
television production of “Amos ‘n’ Andy,” a role for which
he is best remembered. He will join the ancestors on
December 13, 1969.

1895 – J.B. Allen receives a patent for a clothes line support.

1914 – Dr. Kenneth Bancroft Clark is born in the Canal Zone, Panama.
He will become a noted psychologist who will co-found the
Northside Center for Child Development in New York City in
March, 1946 with his wife, Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark. Their
pioneering research on the psychological damage to African
American children caused by segregation will be used as
part of the basis for the “Brown vs. Board of Education”
school desegregation decision of the Supreme Court. In
1996, exactly fifty years after its founding, a history of
Northside Center will be published by The University Press
of Virginia. “Children, Race, and Power, Kenneth and Mamie
Clark’s Northside Center,” by Gerald Markowitz and David
Rosner, will tell the fascinating story of how Northside
began, survived, and exerted its influence, during a
formative time in our country’s history. He will join the
ancestor on May 1, 2005. The Northside Center will
celebrate sixty years of excellence in June, 2006.

1932 – Roosevelt “Rosey” Grier is born in Cuthbert, Georgia. He
will become a professional football player and will play
for the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams. After
retiring from football in 1968, he will become an movie
actor. His film credits will include “Roots-The Next
Generations,” “Reggie’s Prayers,” “The Sophisticated
Gents,” “The Glove,” “The Seekers,” “The Timber Tramps,”
“The Treasure of Jamaica Reef,” “The Thing with Two
Heads,” “The Desperate Mission,” “Black Brigade,” “The Big
Push,” and “A Second Chance.” He will also become a singer
who will perform in Carnegie Hall, the author of “Needle-
Point for Men” and “Rosey: The Gentle Giant” and an
ordained minister. He will enter history when he apprehends
Sirhan Sirhan after the assassin shoots Bobby Kennedy.

1934 – Robert Lee Elder is born in Dallas, Texas. He will be
introduced to the game of golf as a caddie when he was a
teenager in southern California. After serving in the Army
on a golf team, he will become an active player on the
United Golf Association Tour. He will dominate the tour,
capturing titles in 1963, 1964, 1966, and 1967. In 1967,
he will become the second African American to qualify and
play in the previously whites-only Professional Golfer’s
Association (PGA). His achievements will include being the
first African American to be invited and play in the South
African Open (1971), the first African American to qualify
for the Ryder Cup Team (1979) and the first African
American to play in the Masters Tournament (1975). Among
his victories will be The Monsanto Open (1974) and The
Houston Open (1976). He will join the Senior PGA Tour in
1984.

1943 – Julius Bledsoe joins the ancestors in Hollywood, California.
He was an important stage and film actor whose roles in
“Deep River”, “In Abraham’s Bosom”, and the stage and film
versions of “Showboat” won him wide acclaim.

1951 – The George W. Carver National Monument is dedicated in
Joplin, Missouri. This is the first national monument to
honor an African American.

1968 – Hank Aaron hit his 500th career home run in Atlanta, Georgia
leading the Braves to a 4-2 win over the San Francisco
Giants. (In April of 1974, Hammerin’ Hank will eclipse the
old home run mark of 714 held by Babe Ruth.)

1972 – Former New York State Senator Basil A. Paterson is elected
vice-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the
first African American to hold a leadership position in a
national political party.

1990 – Ernie Singleton is named president of MCA Records’ Black
Music Division. As president, Singleton oversees the
day-to-day activities of the division and the company’s
artist roster that includes Bobby Brown, Heavy D. & the
Boyz, Gladys Knight, and Patti LaBelle. He, along with
Jheryl Busby, president of Motown Records Company, Sylvia
Rhone, president of Atco EastWest Records, and Ed Eckstine,
president of Mercury Records, are the highest ranking
African Americans in the mainstream record business.

1994 – A tidal wave of Hutu refugees from Rwanda’s civil war floods
across the border into Zaire, swamping relief organizations.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 13 *

1787 – The Continental Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance,
which, in addition to providing for a government and
civil liberties for the new territory, excludes slavery
northwest of the Ohio River except as punishment for a
crime.

1863 – Over 1,200 people, mostly African Americans, are killed in
anti-draft rioting in New York City. Rioting begins, in
part, when poor whites revolt against military service
exemptions that allow for a payment of $ 300 in lieu of
being drafted, a price that they cannot afford. The
“Draft Riots” also reflect a growing hostility toward
African Americans, who are seen as the cause of the war.

1868 – Oscar J. Dunn, a former slave, is installed as Lieutenant
Governor of Louisiana.

1919 – Race riots break out in Longview & Gregg counties in Texas.

1928 – Robert N.C. Nix, Jr. is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In 1971, he will be the first African American to serve on
the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and, in 1984, the first
African American chief justice of a state supreme court.
Chief Justice Nix will be further honored when he is named
president of the Conference of Chief Justices, a national
organization of judges and justices in the U.S. He will
join the ancestors on August 23, 2003.

1948 – Daphne Maxwell (later Reid) is born in Manhattan, New York.
While pursuing a major in Interior Design and Architecture
at Northwestern University, an English teacher from her
high school will submit her photograph to a magazine editor
and friend who was preparing an article on college women.
The result will be a trip to New York and her first full-
page photograph in Seventeen magazine. Quickly signed by
the Eileen Ford Agency, she will appear in many magazines,
and will also become the first Afican American woman to
grace the cover of Glamour magazine. She will transition
into the acting field. She will have the opportunity to
audition for a part in the series “The Duke” starring
Robert Conrad, who will promise her a continuing role, and
keep his word. In 1979, she will go to Los Angeles where
she will continue to work with Robert Conrad, who enlists
her as the villainess in his series, “A Man Called Sloane,”
and subsequently her first movie of the week, “The Coach of
the Year.” She will meet her husband, Tim Reid, who she had
previously known in Chicago. She is most widely recognized
for her role as Aunt Viv on NBC’s hit comedy “The Fresh
Prince of Bel Air.” She is also known for her role on the
CBS comedy series “Frank’s Place,” in which she co-starred
with her husband, Tim. The couple will team up again when
she stars as Mickie Dennis on CBS’ “Snoops,” and also on
the King World syndicated talk show, “The Tim and Daphne
Show” for 76 1-hour episodes. She will also star as Eartha
on the Showtime series, “Linc’s.” She and Tim will
establish New Millennium Studios in Petersburg, Virginia
in 1997. It will be Virginia’s only full-service film
production studio.

1954 – David Thompson is born in Boiling Springs, North Carolina.
He will become a college and professional all-star
basketball player. At North Carolina State in the mid-1970s,
he will be a three-time All-American and two-time College
Player of the Year. It was he who popularized the
“alley-oop.” He will bring his explosive game to the
professional level in 1975 when he is drafted by both the
NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the ABA’s Virginia Squires. He will
opt for the ABA with the Denver Nuggets, who acquire his
rights in a trade with the Virginia Squires. In the first of
nine professional seasons (Denver Nuggets 1975-82, Seattle
Supersonics 1982-84), he will average 26.0 points per game,
be chosen MVP in the ABA All-Star Game and the ABA’s Rookie
of the Year. He will enjoy similar success in the NBA. He
will be a four-time NBA All-Star and win the MVP Award in
the 1979 All-Star Game. A two-time First Team All-NBA
selection in 1977 and 1978, he will average 22.1 ppg in the
regular season and 22.9 ppg in the playoffs during his NBA
career. His prolific scoring career will be remembered most
for the 73-point outburst he had in the final game of the
1978 season. In what will be the closest race for the NBA
scoring title, his outburst (third highest in NBA history)
will leave him just .06 points behind George Gervin. The
Denver Nuggets will honor him for his career achievements
when they retire his number 33 jersey on Nov. 12, 1992.

1963 – Anthony Jerome “Spud” Webb is born in Dallas, Texas. He will
become one of the shortest players in NBA history but with
a vertical jump of 44″ (112 cm). Webb is most famous for
his performance in the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest. He will
surprise teammate and defending dunk champion Dominique
Wilkins by entering the contest. He made history that day
not only because of his size, but also because he will win
by defeating Wilkins with 2 perfect 50 scores in the final
round. He is the shortest player ever to have competed in
the NBA Slam Dunk competition. He will play most of his NBA
career with the Atlanta Hawks, but will also have stints
with the Sacramento Kings, Minnesota Timberwolves and
Orlando Magic. He will retire from basketball in 1998 with a
9.9 points per game average over his 12 year NBA career. He,
along with Greg Grant and Keith Jennings, is the third-
shortest player in NBA history. Only Earl Boykins (5’5″) and
Muggsy Bogues (5’3″) are shorter.

1965 – Thurgood Marshall, an Appeals Court judge for three years,
is appointed Solicitor General of the United States, the
first African American to hold the office.

1985 – Arthur Ashe, the first African American male to win
Wimbledon, is inducted into the International Tennis Hall
of Fame.

1985 – The first “Live Aid”, an international rock concert in
London, Philadelphia, Moscow and Sydney, takes place to
raise money for Africa’s starving people. Over $70
million is collected for African famine relief.

1998 – A jury in Poughkeepsie, New York, rules that the Rev. Al
Sharpton and two others had defamed a former prosecutor
by accusing him of raping Tawana Brawley.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 12 *

1864 – George Washington Carver, African American botanist is born
in Diamond Grove, Missouri. He will receive a B.S. from
the Iowa Agricultural College in 1894 and a M.S. in 1896.
He will become a member of the faculty of Iowa State
College of Agriculture and Mechanics in charge of the
school’s bacterial laboratory work in the Systematic Botany
department. His work with agricultural products develops
industrial applications from farm products, called chemurgy
in technical literature in the early 1900s. His research
will develop 325 products from peanuts, 108 applications
for sweet potatoes, and 75 products derived from pecans. He
will move to Tuskegee, Alabama in 1896 to accept a position
as an instructor at the Tuskegee Institute of Technology
and remain on the faculty until he joins the ancestors on
January 5, 1943. His work in developing industrial
applications from agricultural products will derive 118
products, including a rubber substitute and over 500 dyes
and pigments from 28 different plants. He will receive the
Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1923. He will be
responsible for the invention in 1927 of a process for
producing paints and stains from soybeans, for which three
separate patents were issued. George Washington Carver will
be bestowed with an honorary doctorate from Simpson College
in 1928. He will be made a member of the Royal Society of
Arts in London, England. Dr. Carver will be honored by U.S.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on July 14, 1943 when
$30,000 is committed for a national monument to be
dedicated to his accomplishments. The area of Carver’s
childhood near Diamond Grove, Missouri will be preserved as
a park, with a bust of the agricultural researcher,
instructor, and chemical investigator. This park will be
the first national monument dedicated to an African
American in the United States. He will be inducted
posthumously into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in
1990.

1887 – Mound Bayou, an all African American town in Mississippi, is
founded by Isaiah Montgomery.

1936 – Actress Rose McClendon joins the ancestors after succumbing
to pneumonia in New York City. A student at the American
Academy of Dramatic Art in Carnegie Hall, McClendon won
fame for her roles in the plays “Deep River”, “In Abraham’s
Bosom”, and “Porgy.” She also founded, with Dick Campbell,
the Negro People’s Theater and with Campbell and Muriel
Rahn, the Rose McClendon Players.

1936 – Cornelius Johnson sets the world record in the high jump.

1937 – William Henry “Bill” Cosby is born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He will become one of the most popular African
American entertainers, first in comedy, where his albums
will earn him five Grammy awards, then in Las Vegas and
elsewhere. He will later star in the television series “I
Spy”, which will be the first of several successful
television series. These series will include “The Bill Cosby
Show,” “The New Bill Cosby Show,” and “The Cosby Show.” “The
Cosby Show” will hold the number one rating for three years.
He will also author numerous books, including “Fatherhood,”
and “Love and Marriage.” His successes will reward him with
financial success and he will become a leading
philanthropist.

1944 – Donna Denise Nicholas is born in Detroit, Michigan. After
graduating from the University of Michigan, she will become
an actress starring in “Room 222” as Liz McIntyre, “In the
Heat of the Night” as Harriet DeLong, “Baby, I’m Back”, and
“Ghost Dad.” After appearing in a variety of televion shows
from the 1960s through the 2000s, she will write her first
novel, “Freshwater Road,” published by Agate Publishing in
August, 2005.

1949 – Frederick M. Jones patents an air conditioning unit.

1951 – Governor Adlai Stevenson, calls out the Illinois National
Guard to stop rioting in Cicero, Illinois. A mob of 3,500
racists try to keep an African American family from moving
into the all-white city.

1958 – “Yakety Yak”, by The Coasters, becomes the number one song
in the country, according to “Billboard” magazine. It is
the first stereo record to reach the top of the chart.

1959 – Rolonda Watts is born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She
will become an African American actress and television
talk show host. She will be the host of “The Rolonda Show,”
a syndicated talk show that will run for four seasons
during the 1990s.

1960 – Congo, Chad & The Central African Republic declare their
independence.

1963 – Maryland National Guard troops impose limited martial law in
Cambridge, Maryland after open confrontations between civil
rights demonstrators and white segregationists.

1966 – A racially motivated disturbance begins in the city of
Chicago, prompting the governor to call in the Illinois
National Guard.

1967 – Five days of racially motivated disturbances begin in Newark,
New Jersey. Over twenty three persons are killed. The
racial uprising involves ten of the city’s twenty-three
square miles. More than 1,500 persons are injured and 1,300
are arrested. Police report 300 fires. The Newark
rebellion, the worst outbreak of racial violence since the
Watts riots (in Los Angeles), spread to other New Jersey
communities, including New Brunswick, Englewood, Paterson,
Elizabeth, Palmyra, Passaic, and Plainfield. The New Jersey
National Guard is mobilized.

1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal.

1979 – Minnie Ripperton, a singer best known for her recording of
“Lovin’ You,” joins the ancestors after succumbing to breast
cancer at the age of 32.

1980 – John W. Davis, civil rights activist and former president of
West Virginia State College, joins the ancestors in
Englewood, New Jersey at the age of 92.

1991 – “Boyz in the Hood”, a film written and directed by John
Singleton, premieres. A coming-of-age film set in gang-and-
violence-ridden South Central Los Angeles, its positive
message will earn Singleton critical acclaim and two Academy
Award nominations.

1992 – In an emotional farewell speech, Benjamin Hooks, outgoing
executive director of the NAACP, urges the group’s
convention in Nashville, Tennessee, to show the world that
it remains vital.

2001 – Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York
City police station, agrees to an $8.7 million settlement._

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 11 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 11 *

1836 – Antônio Carlos Gomes is born in Campinas, Brazil. He will
become the most distinguished nineteenth-century
Brazilian opera composer, who will also achieve
considerable success in Europe. Gomes will be the second
son of Fabiana Maria J. Cardoso and Manuel José Gomes, a
composer and bandleader born to a black freedwoman and
an unknown father. Manuel José also taught piano and
violin in Campinas and will introduce his two young sons
to the rudiments of music. Antônio Carlos will debut
publicly at the age of 11, playing the triangle in his
father’s orchestra in a ceremony honoring Emperor Pedro
II. He will study clarinet, violin, and piano, for which
he will compose his first pieces. His brother José Pedro
de Santana Gomes will study violin and viola and later
became Brazil’s most important late-nineteenth-century
violinist. In 1859 Antônio Carlos Gomes will enroll in
the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory of Music. He had already
composed his first mass (1854) and will soon be
commissioned to write a cantata by the conservatory’s
director, Francisco Manuel da Silva.The reigning master of
Brazilian opera, Antônio Carlos Gomes will achieve world
renown in 1870 when his opera Il Guarany premiers at La
Scala in Milan, Italy. Although he will adhere to the
conventions of mid-nineteenth-century Italian opera, he
will look to Afro-Brazilian themes for some of his operas
and instrumental works. Following the premiere of his
cantata The Last Hour at Calvary (1859), Gomes will be
appointed conductor at the Imperial Academy of Music and
National Opera. Gomes will write two operas Il Guarany
(1870) and Lo Schiavo (1889) which drew on Brazilian
subjects. In 1893 Gomes will tour the United States, where
he will conduct some of his works at Chicago’s Columbia
Universal Exhibition. Appointed to head the Conservatory
of Music in Belém, he will return to Brazil in 1895, but
will succumb to cancer three months after assuming the
directorship on September 16, 1896 in Belém, Brazil.

1905 – Niagara Movement meetings begin in Buffalo, New York.
Started by 29 intellectuals including W.E.B. Du Bois, the
Niagara Movement will renounce Booker T. Washington’s
accommodation policies set forth in his famed “Atlanta
Compromise” speech ten years earlier. The Niagara
Movement’s manifesto is, in the words of Du Bois, “We want
full manhood suffrage and we want it now….We are men!
We want to be treated as men. And we shall win.” The
movement will be a forerunner of the NAACP.

1915 – Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a multitalented lawyer, politician,
and entrepreneur, joins the ancestors in Little Rock,
Arkansas. Active in the Underground Railroad, he worked
with Frederick Douglass and after success as a clothing
retailer, became the publisher and editor of “Mirror of
the Times,” the first African American newspaper in
California. The first African American elected a
municipal judge, Gibbs was also active in Republican
politics, serving as a delegate to national conventions
and as U.S. consul to Madagascar.

1925 – Mattiwilda Dobbs is born in Atlanta, Georgia. She will
become a coloratura (a soprano specializing in florid
ornamental trills & runs) in the 1950’s, making her
operatic debut at La Scala in Milan in 1953 and her U.S.
debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1955. She will
become the first African American to sing at La Scala and
the second African American woman to sing at the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Although Marian
Anderson, a Black opera singer from Pennsylvania, will
precede her to that stage in 1955, Dobbs will be the first
African American woman to be offered a long-term contract
by the Met. She will sing twenty-nine performances, in
six roles, over eight seasons. Following the example set
by African American performer and activist Paul Robeson,
she will refuse to perform for segregated audiences. In
Atlanta, she could perform in African American churches or
colleges, but she will not be able to perform for a large
integrated audience until the Atlanta City Auditorium is
desegregated in 1962, when she will be joined onstage and
given a key to the city by Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. It will be
the first of many performances in her home city. Before
the organization of the Atlanta Opera in 1985, she will
perform in operas produced and directed by the acclaimed
opera singer Blanche Thebom, and in 1974, she will sing at
the gala marking the inauguration of her nephew, Maynard
Jackson, as mayor of Atlanta. After retiring from the
stage, she will begin a teaching career at the University
of Texas, where she will be the first African American
artist on the faculty. She will spend the 1974-75 school
year as artist-in-residence at Spelman College, giving
recitals and teaching master classes. In 1979, Spelman
will award honorary doctorate degrees to both Dobbs and
Marian Anderson. She will continue her teaching career as
professor of voice at Howard University, in Washington,
D.C. She will serve on the board of the Metropolitan Opera
and on the National Endowment of the Arts Solo Recital
Panel. She will continue to give recitals until as late as
1990 before retiring to Arlington, Virginia. She will move
to a retirement center in Atlanta in 2013.

1931 – Thurston Theodore Harris is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.
He will become a rhythm and blues vocalist. He will be
best known for his recordings of “Little Bitty Pretty One,”
and “Over and Over.” He will join the ancestors in Pomona,
California after succumbing to a heart attack on April 14,
1990.

1948 – Earnest Lee “Ernie” Holmes is born in Jamestown, Texas. He
will become a professional football player and will be a
defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He will be
part of the “Steel Curtain” front four and help Pittsburgh
in winning Super Bowls IX and X. He will join the ancestors
after being killed in an automobile accident on January 17,
2008.

1950 – Patricia Eva “Bonnie” Pointer is born in Oakland, California.
She will become a singer and member of the vocal group,
The Pointer Sisters. The four sisters will begin their
career singing gospel music and will eventually debut in
1973 as a secular group recording for ABC/Blue Thumb
Records. In 1974, the Pointer Sisters will perform at the
Grand Ole Opry, becoming the first African American female
group to do so. They also will become the first African
American female group to be number one on Billboard’s
country and western chart. They will change to a trio in
1977 when sister Bonnie signs as a solo act with Motown
Records. The group will be best known for their hits
“Slow Hand” (1981), “What a Surprise” (1981), “Excited”
(1982), “I Need You” (1983), and the Grammy Award-winning
“Jump” (1983) and “Automatic” (1984).

1953 – Leon Spinks is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will win the
Olympic Light Heavyweight Gold Medal in 1976 and go on to
become a professional boxer. He will win his first nine
professional bouts, becoming the World Heavyweight Champion,
defeating Muhammad Ali. After losing to Ali in a rematch,
his career will decline and he will not be able to duplicate
his earlier successes.

1954 – The first White Citizens Council organizes in Indianola,
Mississippi. Reminiscent of the end of Reconstruction, the
Klan, the White Citizens’ Council, and other White
supremacist groups will attempt to prevent any further
progress in the civil rights movement.

1958 – Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine, African-American youths
who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas, receive the Spingarn Medal for their “heroism and
pioneering roles in upholding the basic ideals of American
democracy in the face of continuing harassment and constant
threats of bodily injury.”

1960 – Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper Volta & Niger declare
independence from their European colonial rulers.

1977 – The Medal of Freedom is awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. in a White House ceremony.

1987 – Bo Jackson signs a $7.4 million contract to play football
for the Los Angeles Raiders for five years. Jackson becomes
a two-sport player as he continues to play baseball with
the Kansas City Royals.

1992 – Undeclared presidential hopeful Ross Perot, addressing the
NAACP convention in Nashville, Tennessee, startles and
offends his listeners by referring to the predominantly
African American audience as “you people.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 10 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 10 *

1775 – General Horatio Gates, George Washington’s adjutant
general issues an order excluding African Americans from
serving in the Continental Army.

1875 – Mary McLeod Bethune is born in Mayesville, South Carolina.
She will become a noted educator and founder of Daytona
Normal and Industrial Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida
in 1904 (now Bethune-Cookman College). With the help of
benefactors, she will attend college hoping to become a
missionary in Africa. When that did not materialize, she
will establish a school for African American girls in
Daytona Beach, Florida. From six students it will grow
and merge with an institute for African American boys and
eventually became the Bethune-Cookman School. Its quality
far surpassed the standards of education for African
American students, and rivaled those of schools for white
students. She will work tirelessly to ensure funding for
the school, and use it as a showcase for tourists and
donors, to exhibit what educated African Americans could
do. She will be president of the college from 1923 to 1942
and 1946 to 1947, one of the few women in the world who
will serve as a college president at that time. She will
also be active in women’s clubs, and her leadership in
them will allow her to become nationally prominent. She
will work for the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1932, and become a member of Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,”
sharing the concerns of Black people with the Roosevelt
administration while spreading Roosevelt’s message to
Blacks, who had been traditionally Republican voters. Upon
her ascension to the ancestors on May 18, 1955, columnist
Louis E. Martin will say, “She gave out faith and hope as
if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.” Her home
in Daytona Beach will become a National Historic Landmark,
and her house in Washington, D.C., in Logan Circle, will
be preserved by the National Park Service as a National
Historic Site. A stature will be placed in Lincoln Park
in Washington, D.C.
1927 – David Norman Dinkins is born in Trenton, New Jersey. He
will move as a child to Harlem. He will serve as a marine
during World War II and will attend and graduate from
Howard University after the war. He will receive his law
degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1956. He was in private
practice until 1975, even though he was active in politics
and held some office. He began full time elective office
in New York City that year and held the offices of City
Clerk and Manhattan Borough President. In 1989 he will be
elected as the first African American mayor of the city of
New York, defeating three-time mayor Ed Koch. He will
serve one term, being defeated in 1993 by Rudolph Giuliani.

1936 – Billie Holiday records “Billie’s Blues” for Okeh Records in
New York. Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw and Cozy Cole supported
Holiday, instrumentally, on the track.

1941 – Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton joins the ancestors in Los
Angeles, California at age 56. The innovative piano
soloist, composer, and arranger claims to have invented
jazz and makes a series of recordings for the Library of
Congress that immortalizes his style. Fifty years after
his death, playwright George C. Wolfe will present a well-
regarded play on Morton’s life, “Jelly’s Last Jam.”

1943 – Arthur Ashe is born in Richmond, Virginia. He will become a
professional tennis player winning 33 career titles. In
winning his titles, he will become the first African
American male to win Wimbledon (1975) and the U.S. Open
(1968) and will be the first African American enshrined in
the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He will also be the
author of “A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-
American Athlete,” and “Days of Grace.” During a second
heart surgery in 1983, it is likely that he was given blood
tainted with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which
causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). After
acknowledging his disease, he became an active fundraiser
and speaker on behalf of AIDS research. He will join the
ancestors on February 6, 1993.

1945 – Ronald E. ‘Ron’ Glass is born in Evansville, Indiana. He will
graduate from the University of Evansville with a major in
Drama and Literature. His acting career will begin at the
Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He will move to
Hollywood after four years in Minneapolis. He will be best
known for his television role as Sgt. Harris on the long-
running series, “Barney Miller.” His other television credits
will be roles in “The New Odd Couple,” “Rhythm & Blues,” “All
in the Family,” “Sanford & Sons,” “Streets of San Francisco,”
“Family Matters,” and “Murder, She Wrote.” His feature film
credits include “It’s My Party” and “House Guest.”

1949 – Frederick M. Jones patents a starter generator.

1951 – Sugar Ray Robinson is defeated for only the second time in
133 fights as Randy Turpin takes the middleweight crown.

1960 – Roger Timothy Craig is born in Davenport, Iowa. He will
become a professional football player, being drafted in the
second round of the 1983 NFL Draft out of the University of
Nebraska by the San Francisco 49ers. He will play for the
49ers eight years, claiming three Super Bowl titles and
selected for the Pro Bowl four times. In 1985, he will
become the first player to surpass 1,000 yards rushing and
receiving in the same season. By the end of his career, he
will become the 49ers’ second leading rusher all-time with
7,064 yards. He will also become co-Super Bowl record holder
for Most Points Per Game (18 vs. Miami, 1985) and Most TDs
Per Game (3).

1962 – Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested during a civil rights
demonstration in Albany, Georgia.

1966 – Martin Luther King, Jr. begins a Chicago campaign for fair
housing. It is his first foray into a northern city for
desegregation activities.

1972 – The Democratic convention opens in Miami Beach, Florida.
African Americans constitute 15 per cent of the delegates.
Representative Shirley Chisholm receives 151.95 of 2,000-
plus ballots on the first roll call.

1973 – The Bahamas attain full independence within the British
Commonwealth having been a British colony almost
uninterruptedly since 1718.

1984 – Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden of the New York Mets becomes the youngest
player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. Gooden is
19 years, 7 months and 24 days old. He leads the National
League to a 3-1 win at Candlestick Park in San Francisco,
California.

1993 – Kenyan runner Yobes Ondieki becomes the first human to run 10
km (6.25 miles) in less than 27 minutes. Ondieki, known for
his extremely arduous training sessions, will say after
setting his world record, “My world-record race actually felt
easier than my tough interval workouts.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 9 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 9 *

1863 – Union troops enter Port Hudson, Louisiana. With the fall of
Vicksburg (on July 4) and Port Hudson, Union troops
control the Mississippi River and The Confederacy is
cut into two sections. Eight African American regiments
play important roles in the siege of Port Hudson.

1868 – Francis L. Cardozo is installed as secretary of the
state of South Carolina and becomes the first African
American cabinet officer on the state level.

1893 – Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the world’s first
open-heart surgery at Chicago’s Provident Hospital
(which he founded in 1891) on James Cornish, who had
been stabbed in the chest and was dying from blood
accumulation around the heart. Dr. Williams brought Mr.
Cornish to surgery, where he proceeded to open his
chest, drain the blood and successfully sutured the
pericardium.

1901 – Jester Hairston is born in Belew’s Creek, North Carolina,
and will move at a very early age to the Homestead
section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he will grow
up. He will attend the Massachusetts Agriculture College
(now University of Massachusetts), dropping out in the
1920s due to lack of money. After impressing a
benefactor with his singing, he will be sponsored at
Tufts University, graduating in 1929. He will move to New
York and will meet Hall Johnson, who will teach him to
respect Negro spirituals. He will begin his Hollywood
career in 1935 when Warner Brothers purchases the show,
“Green Pastures.” His early acting roles, will include
long-running parts on the radio and television versions
of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” as well as bit parts in Tarzan films.
Although many of his early acting jobs will portray less
than flattering images of Blacks, he will never apologize
for playing racial stereotypes. “We had a hard time then
fighting for dignity,” he will say years later. “We had
no power. We had to take it, and because we took it the
young people today have opportunities.” In addition to
his roles in television’s “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and “Amen,”
Hairston will excel as a musician, first with the Eva
Jessye Choir and later as assistant conductor of the Hall
Johnson Choir. He will also arrange choral music for
more than 40 film soundtracks. He will also become the
first African American to direct The Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. His film credits will include “The Alamo,” “To
Kill a Mockingbird,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Lady
Sings the Blues,” “The Last Tycoon” and “Lilies of the
Field,” for which he will compose the song “Amen.” That
song, which he dubbed for Sidney Poitier in the movie,
will reflect Hairston’s lifelong dedication to preserving
old Negro spirituals. He will be a sought-after choral
director who will organize Hollywood’s first integrated
choir and compose more than 300 spirituals. In his later
years, when working with students at college workshops,
Hairston will tell them, “You can’t sing legato when the
master’s beatin’ you across your back.” He will join the
ancestors in Los Angeles, California on January 18, 2000.

1927 – Attorney William T. Francis is named minister to Liberia.

1936 – June Millicent Jordan is born in the village of Harlem, New
York City. She will become a poet and author of books for
children and young adults and will be nominated for the
National Book Award in 1972 for “His Own Where.” Her
teaching career will begin in 1967 at the City College of
New York. Between 1968 and 1978 she will teach at Yale
University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Connecticut College.
She then will become the director of The Poetry Center and
be an English professor at SUNY at Stony Brook from 1978 to
1989. From 1989 to 2002 she was a full professor in the
departments of English, Women Studies, and African American
Studies at the University of California Berkeley. At
Berkeley, she will found Poetry for the People in 1991. The
program inspires and empowers students to use poetry as a
means of artistic expression. Reflecting on how she began
with the concept of the program, she said: “I did not wake
up one morning ablaze with a coherent vision of Poetry for
the People! The natural intermingling of my ideas and my
observations as an educator, a poet, and the African
American daughter of poorly documented immigrants did not
lead me to any limiting ideological perspectives or resolve.
Poetry for the People is the arduous and happy outcome of
practical, day-by-day, classroom failure and success”.
She will compose three guideline points that embody the
program, which will be published with a set of her students’
writings in 1995, entitled June Jordan’s Poetry for the
People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. She will join the
ancestors on June 14, 2002 after succumbing to breast cancer.

1947 – O.J. (Orenthal James) Simpson is born in San Francisco,
California. He will become a professional football player
after winning the Heisman Trophy – USC – in 1968. He will
be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after playing
for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. He will
then become an actor and be known for his roles in the
“Naked Gun” series, “The Towering Inferno,” “Roots,” and
“Capricorn One.” He will be charged with, and acquitted
of the murder of ex-wife, Nicole and Ron Goldman in 1995.

1951 – Dave Parker is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a
professional baseball player and will replace Roberto
Clemente as the right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates
after Clemente’s death. In 1978, he will become the first
Pirate to become Most Valuable Player since Clemente. He
will win three Gold Glove awards. His career will diminish
after he suffers from weight and knee problems, eventually
leading to drug problems. He will be traded to Cincinnati
and then to the Athletics, where he will contribute to their
1988 and 1989 pennants as a Designated Hitter and team
leader.

1955 – E. Frederick Morrow is appointed an administrative aide to
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is the first African
American to hold an executive position on a White House
staff.

1971 – Clergyman and activist Leon H. Sullivan is awarded the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his achievements in transmitting
“the social gospel into economic progress for his people.”

1978 – Larry Holmes wins a decision over Ken Norton for the WBC
crown.

1979 – Dr. Walter Massey is named director of the Argonne National
Laboratory.

1987 – Percy E. Sutton, former New York State legislator, president
of the Borough of Manhattan, founder of Inner City
Broadcasting and owner of the Apollo Theatre, receives the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.

2006 – Milan B. Williams, one of the original members of the Rhythm &
Blues group, The Commodores, joins the ancestors at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas, after a long battle with cancer at the age of 58.
He was one of the founding members of the Commodores, which
formed in 1968 while all the members were in college at the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The group, whose best known
member was singer Lionel Richie, had a series of hits during
the 1970s and 1980s, including “Brick House,” “Easy” and
“Three Times A Lady.” He wrote the band’s first hit, “Machine
Gun.”

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