KRLemmons African American History

September 10 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 10 *

1847 – John Roy Lynch is born a slave in Concordia Parish,
Louisiana. Becoming free during the American Civil War,
he will settle in Natchez, Mississippi. There he will
learn the photography business, attend night school, and
enter public life in 1869 as justice of the peace for
Natchez county. In November, 1869 Lynch will be elected
to the Mississippi House of Representatives, and re-
elected in 1871. Although Blacks never will be in the
majority in the Mississippi legislature, Lynch will be
chosen speaker of the House in 1872. He will be elected
to the U.s. House of Representatives in 1873. In 1884,
he will become the first African American to preside
over a national convention of a major U.S. political
party and deliver the keynote address, when he was
appointed temporary chairman. In his book, “The Facts
of Reconstruction” (1913), Lynch will attempt to dispel
the erroneous notion that Southern state governments
after the Civil War were under the control of Blacks.
He will join the ancestors on November 2, 1939 in
Chicago, Illinois.

1886 – Poet Georgia Douglas Johnson is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
(Editor’s Note: Her birth is uncertain, given as early as
1877 and as late as 1886). Among her books will be “Heart
of a Woman”, “Bronze”, “An Autumn Love Cycle”, and “Share
My Love”. She will be anthologized in Arna Bontemps’s
“American Negro Poetry” and Davis and Lee’s “Negro
Caravan,” among others. Her home in Washington, DC, will
become the center for African American literary
gatherings. She will join the ancestors on May 14, 1966.

1913 – George W. Buckner, a physician from Indiana, is named
minister to Liberia.

1913 – The Cleveland Call & Post newspaper is established.

1927 – Jacques E. Leeds in born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will
become a leading African American attorney in Baltimore.
He will become the first African American appointed a
commisioner on the Maryland Worker’s Compensation
Commission in 1991 (by governor William Donald Schaefer).

1930 – Charles E. Mitchell, certified public accountant and banker
from West Virginia, is named minister to Liberia.

1940 – Roy Ayers is born in Los Angeles, California. In high
school Ayers will form his first group, the Latin Lyrics,
and in the early 60s will begin working professionally
with flautist/saxophonist Curtis Amy. He will become a
popular jazz vibraphonist and vocalist, reaching the peak
of his commercial popularity during the mid-70s and early
80s.

1948 – Robert “Bob” Lanier is born in Buffalo, New York. He will
become a professional basketball player and will be a NBA
center for 14 years (10 years with the Detroit Pistons and
4 years with the Milwaukee Bucks). He will be an eight-
time NBA All-Star and will be elected to the Basketball
Hall of Fame in 1991.

1956 – Louisville, Kentucky integrates its public school system.

1960 – Running barefoot, Ethiopian Abebe Bikila wins the marathon
at the Rome Olympic Games.

1961 – Jomo Kenyatta returns to Kenya from exile to lead his
country.

1962 – Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black vacates an order of a
lower court, ruling that the University of Mississippi
had to admit James H. Meredith, an African American Air
Force veteran whose application for admission had been on
file and in the courts for fourteen months.

1963 – 20 African American students enter public schools in
Birmingham, Tuskegee and Mobile, Alabama, following a
standoff between federal authorities and Governor George
C. Wallace.

1965 – Father Divine joins the ancestors in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Divine, born George Baker, was the founder
of the Peace Mission, a religious group whose followers
worshiped Divine as God incarnate on earth.

1972 – Gayle Sayers, of the Chicago Bears, retires from pro
football.

1973 – A commemorative stamp of Henry Ossawa Tanner is issued by
the U.S. Postal Service. Part of its American Arts issue,
the stamp celebrates the work and accomplishments of
Tanner, the first African American artist elected to the
National Academy of Design.

1973 – Muhammad Ali defeats Ken Norton in a championship
heavyweight boxing match in Los Angeles — and avenges a
loss to Norton the previous March in San Diego.

1974 – Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal.

1974 – Lou Brock, of the St. Louis Cardinals, breaks Maury Wills’
major league record for stolen bases in a season.
‘Lighting’ Lou Brock steals his 105th base on his way to
a career total of 938 stolen bases, a record which will
be later broken by Rickey Henderson.

1976 – Mordecai Johnson, the first African American president of
Howard University, joins the ancestors at age 86.

1986 – Sprinter, Evelyn Ashford is defeated for the first time in
eight years. Ashford loses to Valerie Brisco-Hooks in
the 200-meter run held in Rome, Italy.

2000 – At The 52nd Annual Primetime Emmy awards the following
quotes were made as Charles Dutton and Halle Berry
accepted their respective awards – “There goes my acting
career.” – Charles S. Dutton, accepting as outstanding
director of a miniseries or movie for HBO’s “The Corner.”
– “Wherever Dorothy Dandridge is right now, I know she is
standing tall and proud and smiling.” – Halle Berry,
accepting a best actress Emmy for the HBO movie
“Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 9 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 9 *

1739 – Led by a slave named Jemmy (Cato), a slave revolt occurs
in Stono, South Carolina. Twenty-five whites are killed
before the insurrection is put down.

1806 – Sarah Mapps Douglass is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She is the daughter of renowned abolitionists Robert
Douglass, Sr. and Grace Bustill Douglass. As a child, she
enjoys life among Philadelphia’s elite and will be well
educated by a private tutor. She will become a teacher in
New York, but will return to Philadelphia where she will
operate a successful private school for Black women,
giving women of color the opportunity to receive a high
school education. As the daughter of one of the
Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society’s founding
members, she will become active in the abolitionist
movement at a young age. She will develop a distaste for
the prejudices of white Quakers early on and will devote
much of her life to combating slavery and racism. She
will develop a close friendship with white Quaker
abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimke. At the urgings
of the Grimke sisters, She will attend the Anti-Slavery
Convention of American Women, held in New York in
1837–the first national convention of American
antislavery women to integrate Black and white members–
and serve on the ten-member committee on arrangements for
the convention. Throughout her abolitionist career, she
will also serve as recording secretary, librarian, and
manager for the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society,
contribute to both the Liberator and the Anglo-African
Magazine, become a fundraiser for the Black press, give
numerous public lectures, and serve as vice-president of
the women’s branch of the Freedmen’s Aid Society. From
1853 to 1877, she will serve as a supervisor at the
Institute for Colored Youth, a Quaker-sponsored
establishment. During this time, she will also acquire
basic medical training at the Female Medical College of
Pennsylvania and at Pennsylvania Medical University,
where she will study female health and hygiene–subjects
on which she will lecture in evening classes and at
meetings of the Banneker Institute. In 1855, she will
marry African American Episcopal clergyman William
Douglass. She will join the ancestors on September 8, 1882.

1816 – Rev. John Gregg Fee, the son of white slaveholders, is
born in Bracken County, Kentucky. He will become member
of the American Missionary Association, and will found a
settlement called “Berea” on land donated to him by an
admirer, Cassius Marcellus Clay. It will be later that
he will be inspired to build a college, adjacent to the
donated land – Berea College, the first interracial
college in the state. During the American Civil War, He
will work at Camp Nelson to have facilities constructed
to support freedmen and their families, and to provide
them with education and preaching while the men were being
taught to be soldiers. He died on January 11, 1901.

1817 – Captain Paul Cuffe, entrepreneur and civil rights
activist, joins the ancestors at the age of 58, in Westport,
Masschusetts. Cuffe was a Massachusetts shipbuilder and
sea captain. He also was one of the most influential
African American freedmen of the eighteenth century. In
1780, Cuffe and six other African Americans refused to
pay taxes util they were granted citizenship.
Massachusetts gave African Americans who owned property
the vote three years later. Although Cuffe became
wealthy, he believed that most African Americans would
never be completely accepted in white society. In 1816,
Cuffe began one of the first experiments in colonizing
African Americans in Africa when he brought a group to
Sierra Leone. Cuffe’s experiment helped inspire the
founding of the American Colonization Society later
that year.

1823 – Alexander Lucius Twilight, becomes the first African
American to earn a baccalaureate degree in the United
States, when he graduates from Middlebury College with
a BA degree.

1915 – A group of visionary scholars (George Cleveland Hall,
W.B. Hartgrove, Alexander L. Jackson, and James E.
Stamps) led by Dr. Carter G. Woodson found the
Association for the Study of Negro Life and History
(ASNLH) in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Woodson is convinced
that among scholars, the role of his own people in
American history and in the history of other cultures
was being either ignored or misrepresented. Dr. Woodson
realizes the need for special research into the
neglected past of the Negro. The association is the
only organization of its kind concerned with preserving
African American history.

1928 – Silvio Cator of Haiti, sets the then long jump record at
26′ 0″.

1934 – Sonia Sanchez is born in Birmingham, Alabama. She will
become a noted poet, playwright, short story writer, and
author of children’s books. She will be most noted for
her poetry volumes “We a BaddDDD People”, “A Blues Book
for Blue Black Magical Women”, and anthologies she will
edit including “We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by
Black Americans.”

1941 – Otis Redding is born in Dawson, Georgia, the son of a
Baptist minister. He will become a rhythm and blues
musician and singer and will be best known for his
recording of “[Sittin’ on] The Dock of the Bay,” which
will be released after he joins the ancestors (succumbs in
a small airplane crash) in December, 1967. Some of his
other hits were “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”, “Respect”,
and “Try A Little Tenderness.” He will join the ancestors
on December 10, 1967 after his plane crashed while he was
en route to a concert in Madison, Wisconsin.

1942 – Inez Foxx is born in Greensboro, North Carolina. She will
become a rhythm and blues singer and will perform as
part of a duuo act with her brother, Charlie. Their
biggest hit will be “Mockingbird” in 1963. They will
record together until 1967.

1942 – Luther Simmons is born in New York City, New York. He
will become a rhythm and blues singer with the group
“The Main Ingredient.” They will be best known for
their hit, “Everybody Plays the Fool.”

1945 – Dione LaRue is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She
will become a rhythm and blues singer better known as
“Dee Dee Sharp.” Her first hit will be “It’s Mashed
Potato Time” in 1962. She will also record “Gravy” [For
My Mashed Potatoes], “Ride!”, “Do the Bird”, and “Slow
Twistin’ “(with Chubby Checker).

1957 – President Eisenhower signs the first civil rights bill
passed by Congress since Reconstruction.

1957 – Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth is mobbed when he attempts to
enroll his daughters in a “white” Birmingham school.

1957 – Nashville’s new Hattie Cotton Elementary School with
enrollment of one African American and 388 whites is
virtually destroyed by a dynamite blast.

1962 – Two churches are burned near Sasser, Georgia. African
American leaders ask the president to stop the “Nazi-
like reign of terror in southwest Georgia.”

1963 – Alabama Governor George Wallace is served a federal
injunction when he orders state police to bar African
American students from enrolling in white schools.

1968 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first (and first African
American) Men’s Singles Tennis Champion of the newly
established U.S. Open tennis championships at Forest
Hills, New York.

1971 – More than 1,200 inmates at the Attica Correctional
Facility in upstate New York gain control of the
facility in a well-planned takeover. During the initial
violence, 50 correctional officers and civilian
employees are beaten and taken hostage. Correctional
officer William Quinn receives the roughest beating and
is soon freed by the inmates due to the severity of his
injuries. Police handling of the takeover will result
in the deaths of many inmates and will turn the nation’s
interest toward the conditions in U.S. penal
institutions.

1979 – Robert Guillaume wins an Emmy award for ‘Best Actor in a
Comedy Series’ for his performances in “Soap”.

1981 – Vernon E. Jordan resigns as president of the National
Urban League and announces plans to join a Washington DC
legal firm. He will be succeeded by John E. Jacob,
executive vice president of the league.

1984 – Walter Payton, of the Chicago Bears, breaks Jim Brown’s
combined yardage record — by reaching 15,517 yards.

1985 – President Reagan orders sanctions against South Africa
because of that country’s apartheid policies.

1990 – Liberian President Samuel K. Doe is captured and joins
the ancestors after being killed by rebel forces. In
1985, he was elected president, but Charles Taylor and
followers overthrew his government in 1989, which will
spark a seven-year long civil war.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 8 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 8 *

1866 – Charles Harrison Mason is born on the Prior Farm near
Memphis, Tennessee. He will be inspired by the
autobiography of evangelist Amanda Berry Smith in 1893.
He and Charles Price Jones will form a fellowship of
churches, named “Church of God.” He will rename the
group the “Church of God in Christ,” to distinguish the
group from the other “Church of God” forming around that
time. After attending the “Azusa Street Revival” in Los
Angeles, California, he will adopt the new Pentecostal
teachings of Elder William Seymour, such as ‘speaking in
tongues.’ After the opposition of Charles Jones in these
new beliefs, they will split and he will win the legal
rights to the “Church of God in Christ” name. He will be
elected General Overseer of the Church in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1907, later becoming the Senior Bishop (now
referred to as Presiding Bishop). He will lead the COGIC
group of churches until he joins the ancestors on November
17, 1961. At this time, the Church membership totals
around 400,000. Afterwards, the Church will grow
exponentially, until in 2000, it is estimated over 6
million people were members of the denomination.

1875 – The governor of Mississippi requests federal troops to
protect African American voters. Attorney General Edward
Pierrepont refuses the request and says “the whole
public are tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in
the South…”

1925 – Ossian Sweet, a prominent Detroit doctor, is arrested on
murder charges after shots are fired into a mob in front
of the Sweet home in a previously all-white area. Sweet
is defended by Clarence Darrow, who won an acquittal in
the second trial.

1940 – Willie Tyler is born in Red Level, Alabama. He will
become a well known ventriloquist along with his wooden
partner, Lester.

1956 – Maurice Cheeks is born. He will become a professional
basketball player and will play guard for the New York
Knicks and the Philadelphia ’76ers.

1957 – Tennis champion, Althea Gibson, becomes the first
African American athlete to win a U.S. national tennis
championship.

1965 – Dorothy Dandridge, nominated for an Oscar for her
performance in “Carmen Jones,” joins the ancestors at
the age of 41 in Hollywood, California.

1968 – Black Panther Huey Newton is convicted of voluntary
manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an Oakland
policeman. He will later begin a 2 to l5-year jail
sentence.

1968 – Saundra Williams is crowned the first Miss Black America
in a contest held exclusively for African American
women in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1973 – Hank Aaron sets the record for most Home Runs in 1
league (709).

1975 – The city of Boston begins court ordered citywide busing
of public schools amid scattered incidents of violence.

1981 – Roy Wilkins, longtime and second executive director of
the NAACP, joins the ancestors.

1990 – Marjorie Judith Vincent of Illinois is selected as Miss
America in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Haitian
native, a third-year law student at Duke University,
is the fourth woman of African descent to become Miss
America.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 7 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 7 *

1800 – The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is dedicated
in New York City.

1859 – John Merrick is born a slave in Clinton, North Carolina.
He will be raised by a single mother and will learn to
read and write in a Reconstruction School. He will later
become a brick mason in Raleigh, North Carolina and learn
the barber trade during a lull in construction.
Subsequently, he will move to Durham where he will own
several barber shops, some of which cater to wealthy
white men. He will become involved in real estate and the
Royal Knights of King David, a fraternal benefit society.
It will be there, that he will get the idea of life
insurance based on activities in these very popular mutual
benefit societies developing in the south. He will
eventually co-found not only the North Carolina Mutual Life
Insurance Company, but assist in establishing Durham’s first
African American bank and drug store. He will also serve as
president of Lincoln Hospital. He will join the ancestors on
August 6, 1919.

1914 – Jean Blackwell Hutson is born in Summerfield, Florida.
From 1948 until she retired in 1980, she will help build
the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in
Harlem into the world’s primary source for books, art,
historical documents and other materials on people of
African Descent. She will also help the center in 1981,
win a federal grant so the collection could move from its
cramped quarters to a more spacious $3.7 million, five-
story building in Harlem. By then, she will be retired as
the institution’s head and will take a job in the office
of library administration at the Public Library’s
headquarters in New York. She will join the ancestors on
February 4, 1998 in Harlem Hospital. At the time of her
death, the Schomburg Collection will hold about 150,000
volumes, 3.5 million manuscripts, the largest assemblage of
photographs documenting Black life, and rare artifacts –
including a 16th century manuscript, “Ad Catholicum” by Juan
Latino, believed to be the first book published by a person
of African descent.

1917 – Jacob Lawrence is born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He
will become one of the leading painters in chronicling
African American history and urban life. Among his most
celebrated works will be the historical panels “The Life
of Toussaint L’ouverture” and “The Life of Harriet
Tubman.” He will join the ancestors on June 9, 2000.

1930 – Theodore Walter “Sonny” Rollins, jazz saxophonist, is
born in New York City. Rollins will grow up in a
neighborhood where Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins (his
early idol), and Bud Powell were playing. After recording
with the latter in 1949, Rollins begins recording with
Miles Davis in 1951. During the next three years he
composes three of his best-known tunes, “Oleo,” “Doxy,”
and “Airegin,” and continues to work with Davis, Charlie
Parker, and others. Following his withdrawal from music
in 1954 to cure a heroin addiction, Rollins re-emerges
with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet in 1955, and
the next four years prove to be his most fertile. He
will be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972. On
September 7th 2011, he is named as one of the honorees for
the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. He will be celebrated for
his talent in improvisational saxophone.

1934 – James Milton Campbell, Jr. is born in Inverness,
Mississippi. He will becomes a blues guitar artist better
known as “Little Milton.” He started his career playing
in blues bands when he was a teenager. His first
recording was accompanying pianist Willie Love in the
early 50s. He then appeared under his own name on three
singles issued on Sam Phillips’ Sun label under the
guidance of Ike Turner. His vocal style will be in the
mould of Bobby “Blues” Bland and “T-Bone” Walker. His
hits will include “We’re Gonna Make It,” “Who’s Cheating
Who,” “Grits Ain’t Groceries,” and “That’s What Love
Will Do.” He will join the ancestors on August 4, 2005.

1937 – Olly Wilson is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will
become a classical composer whose works will be played
by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Oakland City
Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and many
others.

1942 – Richard Roundtree is born in New Rochelle, New York. He
will attend college on a football scholarship but will
later give up athletics to pursue an acting career.
After touring as a model with the Ebony Fashion Fair, he
will join the Negro Ensemble Company’s acting workshop
program in 1967. He will make his film debut in 1970’s
“What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?,” but is still an
unknown when filmmaker Gordon Parks, Sr. cast him as
Shaft. The role will shoot Roundtree to instant fame,
launching the blaxploitation genre and proving so
successful at the box office that it helped save MGM
from the brink of bankruptcy. Thanks to the film’s
popularity — as well as its two sequels, 1972’s
“Shaft’s Big Score!” and the following year’s “Shaft in
Africa,” and even a short-lived television series. He
will also appear in films including the 1974 disaster
epic “Earthquake,” 1975’s “Man Friday” and the
blockbuster 1977 TV miniseries “Roots.”

1949 – Gloria Gaynor is born in Newark New Jersey. She will
become a singer and will be best known for her 1979
hit, “I Will Survive”. The hit tops the charts in both
the United Kingdom and the United States.

1954 – Integration of public schools begins in Washington, DC
and Baltimore, Maryland.

1972 – Curtis Mayfield earns a gold record for his album,
“Superfly”, from the movie of the same name. The LP
contained the hits, “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly” —
both songs were also million record sellers.

1980 – Bessie A. Buchanan, the first African American woman to
be elected to the New York State legislature, joins the
ancestors in New York City. Before her political career,
she was a Broadway star who had leading roles in
“Shuffle Along” and “Showboat.”

1986 – Bishop Desmond Tutu becomes the archbishop of Cape Town,
two years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his
nonviolent opposition to apartheid in South Africa. As
archbishop, he was the first Black to head South
Africa’s Anglican church. In 1948, South Africa’s white
minority government institutionalized its policy of
racial segregation and white supremacy known as
apartheid–Afrikaans for “apartness.” Eighty percent of
the country’s land was set aside for white use, and
black Africans entering this territory required special
passes. Blacks, who had no representation in the
government, were subjected to different labor laws and
educational standards than whites and lived in extreme
poverty while white South Africans prospered.

1987 – Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon at
Johns Hopkins University Hospital, leads a surgical
team that successfully separates Siamese twins who had
been joined at the head.

1994 – U.S. Marines begin training on a Puerto Rican island
amid talk in Washington of a U.S.-led intervention in
Haiti.

2011 – Sonny Rollins is named as one of the honorees for the 2011
Kennedy Center Honors. He will be celebrated for his
talent in improvisational saxophone.* Today in Black History – September 7 *

1800 – The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church is dedicated
in New York City.

1859 – John Merrick is born a slave in Clinton, North Carolina.
He will be raised by a single mother and will learn to
read and write in a Reconstruction School. He will later
become a brick mason in Raleigh, North Carolina and learn
the barber trade during a lull in construction.
Subsequently, he will move to Durham where he will own
several barber shops, some of which cater to wealthy
white men. He will become involved in real estate and the
Royal Knights of King David, a fraternal benefit society.
It will be there, that he will get the idea of life
insurance based on activities in these very popular mutual
benefit societies developing in the south. He will
eventually co-found not only the North Carolina Mutual Life
Insurance Company, but assist in establishing Durham’s first
African American bank and drug store. He will also serve as
president of Lincoln Hospital. He will join the ancestors on
August 6, 1919.

1914 – Jean Blackwell Hutson is born in Summerfield, Florida.
From 1948 until she retired in 1980, she will help build
the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in
Harlem into the world’s primary source for books, art,
historical documents and other materials on people of
African Descent. She will also help the center in 1981,
win a federal grant so the collection could move from its
cramped quarters to a more spacious $3.7 million, five-
story building in Harlem. By then, she will be retired as
the institution’s head and will take a job in the office
of library administration at the Public Library’s
headquarters in New York. She will join the ancestors on
February 4, 1998 in Harlem Hospital. At the time of her
death, the Schomburg Collection will hold about 150,000
volumes, 3.5 million manuscripts, the largest assemblage of
photographs documenting Black life, and rare artifacts –
including a 16th century manuscript, “Ad Catholicum” by Juan
Latino, believed to be the first book published by a person
of African descent.

1917 – Jacob Lawrence is born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He
will become one of the leading painters in chronicling
African American history and urban life. Among his most
celebrated works will be the historical panels “The Life
of Toussaint L’ouverture” and “The Life of Harriet
Tubman.” He will join the ancestors on June 9, 2000.

1930 – Theodore Walter “Sonny” Rollins, jazz saxophonist, is
born in New York City. Rollins will grow up in a
neighborhood where Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins (his
early idol), and Bud Powell were playing. After recording
with the latter in 1949, Rollins begins recording with
Miles Davis in 1951. During the next three years he
composes three of his best-known tunes, “Oleo,” “Doxy,”
and “Airegin,” and continues to work with Davis, Charlie
Parker, and others. Following his withdrawal from music
in 1954 to cure a heroin addiction, Rollins re-emerges
with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet in 1955, and
the next four years prove to be his most fertile. He
will be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972. On
September 7th 2011, he is named as one of the honorees for
the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. He will be celebrated for
his talent in improvisational saxophone.

1934 – James Milton Campbell, Jr. is born in Inverness,
Mississippi. He will becomes a blues guitar artist better
known as “Little Milton.” He started his career playing
in blues bands when he was a teenager. His first
recording was accompanying pianist Willie Love in the
early 50s. He then appeared under his own name on three
singles issued on Sam Phillips’ Sun label under the
guidance of Ike Turner. His vocal style will be in the
mould of Bobby “Blues” Bland and “T-Bone” Walker. His
hits will include “We’re Gonna Make It,” “Who’s Cheating
Who,” “Grits Ain’t Groceries,” and “That’s What Love
Will Do.” He will join the ancestors on August 4, 2005.

1937 – Olly Wilson is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will
become a classical composer whose works will be played
by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Oakland City
Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and many
others.

1942 – Richard Roundtree is born in New Rochelle, New York. He
will attend college on a football scholarship but will
later give up athletics to pursue an acting career.
After touring as a model with the Ebony Fashion Fair, he
will join the Negro Ensemble Company’s acting workshop
program in 1967. He will make his film debut in 1970’s
“What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?,” but is still an
unknown when filmmaker Gordon Parks, Sr. cast him as
Shaft. The role will shoot Roundtree to instant fame,
launching the blaxploitation genre and proving so
successful at the box office that it helped save MGM
from the brink of bankruptcy. Thanks to the film’s
popularity — as well as its two sequels, 1972’s
“Shaft’s Big Score!” and the following year’s “Shaft in
Africa,” and even a short-lived television series. He
will also appear in films including the 1974 disaster
epic “Earthquake,” 1975’s “Man Friday” and the
blockbuster 1977 TV miniseries “Roots.”

1949 – Gloria Gaynor is born in Newark New Jersey. She will
become a singer and will be best known for her 1979
hit, “I Will Survive”. The hit tops the charts in both
the United Kingdom and the United States.

1954 – Integration of public schools begins in Washington, DC
and Baltimore, Maryland.

1972 – Curtis Mayfield earns a gold record for his album,
“Superfly”, from the movie of the same name. The LP
contained the hits, “Freddie’s Dead” and “Superfly” —
both songs were also million record sellers.

1980 – Bessie A. Buchanan, the first African American woman to
be elected to the New York State legislature, joins the
ancestors in New York City. Before her political career,
she was a Broadway star who had leading roles in
“Shuffle Along” and “Showboat.”

1986 – Bishop Desmond Tutu becomes the archbishop of Cape Town,
two years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his
nonviolent opposition to apartheid in South Africa. As
archbishop, he was the first Black to head South
Africa’s Anglican church. In 1948, South Africa’s white
minority government institutionalized its policy of
racial segregation and white supremacy known as
apartheid–Afrikaans for “apartness.” Eighty percent of
the country’s land was set aside for white use, and
black Africans entering this territory required special
passes. Blacks, who had no representation in the
government, were subjected to different labor laws and
educational standards than whites and lived in extreme
poverty while white South Africans prospered.

1987 – Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon at
Johns Hopkins University Hospital, leads a surgical
team that successfully separates Siamese twins who had
been joined at the head.

1994 – U.S. Marines begin training on a Puerto Rican island
amid talk in Washington of a U.S.-led intervention in
Haiti.

2011 – Sonny Rollins is named as one of the honorees for the 2011
Kennedy Center Honors. He will be celebrated for his
talent in improvisational saxophone.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 6 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 6 *

1826 – John Brown Russwurm graduates from Bowdoin College. While
many sources consider him to be the first African American
in America to graduate from college, he was preceded by
Edward Jones (B.A. Amherst College – August 23, 1826) and
Alexander Lucius Twilight (B.A. Middlebury College –
1823).

1848 – National Black Convention meets in Cleveland, Ohio with
some seventy delegates. Frederick Douglass is elected
president of the convention.

1865 – Thaddeus Stevens, powerful U.S. congressman, urges
confiscation of estates of Confederate leaders and the
distribution of land to adult freedmen in forty-acre
lots.

1866 – Frederick Douglass becomes the first African American
delegate to a national political convention.

1876 – A race riot occurs in Charleston, South Carolina.

1892 – George “Little Chocolate” Dixon beats Jack Skelly in New
Orleans to win the world featherweight title. While some
African American citizens celebrate for two days, the New
Orleans Times-Democrat says, “It was a mistake to match a
Negro and a white man, to bring the races together on any
terms of equality even in the prize ring.”

1905 – The Atlanta Life Insurance Company is established by A.F.
Herndon.

1930 – Leander Jay Shaw, Jr. is born in Salem, Virginia. He will
become a justice of the Florida State Supreme Court in
1983 and, in 1990, the chief justice, a first in Florida
and the second African American chief justice in any
state supreme court.

1966 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in Atlanta,
Georgia.

1967 – President Lyndon B. Johnson names Walter E. Washington,
commissioner and “unofficial” mayor of Washington, DC.

1968 – The Kingdom of Swaziland achieves full independence from
Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy.

1982 – Willie Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, sees his
uniform, number 8, retired by the Bucs. It is the fourth
Pirate player’s uniform to be so honored. The other
three belonged to Roberto Clemente (#21), Honus Wagner
(#33) and Pie Traynor (#20).

1988 – Lee Roy Young becomes the first African American Texas
Ranger in the police force’s 165-year history. Young is
a 14-year veteran of the Texas Department of Public
Safety.

1989 – The International Amateur Athletic Federation bans Ben
Johnson of Canada from competition, after he tests
positive for steroids. He is also stripped of all of his
track records.

1989 – The National Party, the governing party of South Africa,
loses nearly a quarter of its parliamentary seats to
far-right and anti-apartheid rivals, its worst setback
in four decades.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 5 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 5 *

1804 – Absalom Jones is ordained a priest in the Protestant
Episcopal Church.

1846 – John Wesley Cromwell is born into slavery in Portsmouth,
Virginia. After receiving freedom, he and his family
will move to Philadelphia. In 1865, he will return to
Portsmouth to open a private school, which will fail due
to racial harassment. He will enter Howard University in
Washington, DC in 1871. He will receive a law degree and
be admitted to the bar in 1874. He will be the first
African American to practice law for the Interstate
Commerce Commission. He will found the weekly paper, “The
People’s Advocate” in 1876. In 1881, he will be elected
President of Bethel Library and Historical Association in
Washington, DC. He will use this position to generate
interest in African American history. He will inspire the
foundation of the Association for the Study of Negro Life
and History in 1915. He will also be the Secretary of the
American Negro Academy. He will join the ancestors on
April 14, 1927.

1859 – “Our Nig” by Harriet E. Wilson is published. It is the
first novel published in the United States by an African
American woman and will be lost to readers for years
until reprinted with a critical essay by noted African
American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1983.

1877 – African Americans from the Post-Civil-War South, led by
Benjamin ‘Pap’ Singleton, settle in Kansas and establish
towns like Nicodemus, to take advantage of free land
offered by the United States government through the
Homestead Act of 1860.

1895 – George Washington Murray is elected to Congress from South
Carolina.

1916 – Novelist Frank Yerby is born in Augusta, Georgia. A student
at Fisk University and the University of Chicago, Yerby’s
early short story “Health Card” will win the O. Henry
short story award. He will later turn to adventure novels
and become a best-selling author in the 1940’s and 1950’s
with “The Foxes of Harrow”, “The Vixens” and many others.
His later novels will include “Goat Song”, “The Darkness
at Ingraham’s Crest-A Tale of the Slaveholding South”,
and “Devil Seed”. In total, Yerby will publish over 30
novels that sell over 20 million copies. He will leave
the United States in 1955 in protest against racial
discrimination, moving to Spain where he will remain for
the rest of his life. He will join the ancestors on
November 29, 1991, after succumbing to congestive heart
failure in Madrid. He will be interred there in the
Cementerio de la Almudena.

1960 – Cassius Clay of Louisville, Kentucky, wins the gold medal
in light heavyweight boxing at the Olympic Games in Rome,
Italy. Clay will later change his name to Muhammad Ali
and become one of the great boxing champions in the world.
In 1996, at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia,
Muhammad Ali will have the honor of lighting the Olympic
flame.

1960 – Leopold Sedar Senghor, poet, politician, is elected
President of Senegal.

1972 – Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway win a gold record — for
their duet, “Where is the Love”. The song gets to number
five on the pop music charts and is one of two songs for
the duo to earn gold. The other will be “The Closer I Get
To You” (1978).

1995 – O.J. Simpson jurors hear testimony that police detective
Mark Fuhrman had uttered a racist slur, and advocated the
killing of Blacks.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 4 *

1781 – California’s second pueblo near San Gabriel, Nuestra Senora
la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (Los Angeles,
California) is founded by forty-four settlers, of whom at
least twenty-six were descendants of Africans. Among the
settlers of African descent, according to H.H. Bancroft’s
authoritative “History of California,” were “Joseph Moreno,
Mulatto, 22 years old, wife a Mulattress, five children;
Manuel Cameron, Mulatto, 30 years old, wife Mulattress;
Antonio Mesa, Negro, 38 years old, wife Mulattress, six
children; Jose Antonio Navarro, Mestizo, 42 years old,
wife, Mulattress, three children; Basil Rosas, Indian, 68
years old, wife, Mulattress, six children.”

1848 – Louis H. Latimer is born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A one-
time draftsman and preparer of patents for Alexander
Graham Bell, he will later join the United States Electric
Company, where he will patent a carbon filament for the
incandescent lamp. When he joins the ancestors on December
11, 1928, he will be eulogized by his co-workers as a
valuable member of the “Edison Pioneers,” a group of men
and women who advanced electrical light usage in the
United States. He will join the ancestors on December 11,
1928.

1865 – Bowie State College (now University) is established in
Bowie, Maryland.

1875 – The Clinton Massacre occurs in Clinton, Mississippi. Twenty
to thirty African Americans are killed over a two-day
period.

1908 – Richard Wright, who will become the author of the best-
selling “Native Son,” “Uncle Tom’s Children,” and “Black
Boy,” is born near Natchez, Mississippi. Wright will be
among the first African American writers to protest white
treatment of African Americans. He will join the ancestors
on November 28, 1960.

1942 – Merald ‘Bubba’ Knight is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
become a singer with his sister Gladys Knight as part of
her background group, The Pips. They will record many
songs including “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “Best Thing
That Ever Happened to Me,” “I Heard It Through the
Grapevine,” “Every Beat of My Heart,” “Letter Full of
Tears,” and “The Way We Were/Try to Remember” medley.

1953 – Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs is born in New York City. He will
become an actor and will star in “Alien Nation,”
“Rituals,” “Roots,” “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Quiet Fire,”
“L.A. Heat,” and “L.A. Vice.”

1957 – The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, calls out the
National Guard to stop nine African American students
from entering Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas. Three weeks later, President Dwight Eisenhower
sends a force of 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers (The 101st
Airborne) to Little Rock to guarantee the peaceful
desegregation of the public school.

1960 – Damon Kyle Wayans is born in New York City, New york. He
will become an actor/comedian and will star in “In Living
Color,” “Major Payne,” “Blankman,” “Celtic Pride,”
“The Great White Hype” and many others.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 3 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 3 *

1783 – Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal
Church, purchases his freedom with his earnings as a
self-employed teamster.

1838 – Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, disguised as a
sailor, escapes from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland to
New Bedford, Massachusetts via New York City. He will
take the name Douglass, after the hero of Sir Walter
Scott’s poem “Lady of the Lake”.

1865 – The Union Army commander in South Carolina orders the
Freedmen’s Bureau personnel to stop seizing land.

1868 – Henry McNeal Turner delivers a speech before the Georgia
legislature defending African Americans’ rights to hold
state office. The lower house of the Georgia
legislature, rules that African Americans were ineligible
to hold office, and expels twenty-eight representatives.
Ten days later the senate expels three African Americans.
Congress will refuse to re-admit the state to the Union
until the legislature seats the African American
representatives.

1891 – John Stephens Durham, assistant editor of the Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin, is named minister to Haiti.

1891 – Cotton pickers organize a union and stage a strike for
higher wages in Texas.

1895 – Charles Houston is born. He will become a leader of the
NAACP.

1910 – Dorothy Leigh Mainor (later Maynor) is born in Norfolk,
Virginia. She will become a renown soprano and will sing
with all of the major American and European orchestras.
She will found the Harlem School of the Arts in 1963, after
ending her performing career. She will retire as executive
director of the school in 1979. She will join the ancestors
on February 19, 1996 in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

1918 – Five African American soldiers are hanged for alleged
participation in the Houston riot of 1917.

1919 – The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, owned by African
Americans Noble Johnson and Clarence Brooks, releases its
first feature-length film, “A Man’s Duty”.

1970 – Representatives from 27 African nations, Caribbean nations,
four South American countries, Australia, and the United
States meet in Atlanta, Georgia, for the first Congress of
African People.

1970 – Billy Williams ends the longest National League consecutive
streak at 1,117 games.

1974 – NBA guard, Oscar Robinson, retires from professional
basketball.

1984 – A new South African constitution comes into effect, setting
up a three-chamber, racially divided parliament – White,
Indian and Colored (mixed race) people.

1990 – Jonathan A. Rodgers becomes president of CBS’s Television
Stations Division, the highest-ranking African American to
date in network television. Rodgers had been general
manager of WBBM-TV, CBS’s Chicago station.

2012 – Michael Clarke Duncan, nominated for an Academy Award for his
role in the 1999 film “The Green Mile,” joins the ancestors
at the age of 54. He suffered a myocardial infarction on
July 13 and never fully recovered.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 2 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 2 *

1766 – Abolitionist, inventor, and entrepreneur, James Forten is
born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1833 – Oberlin College, one of the first colleges to admit
African Americans, is founded in Oberlin, Ohio.

1864 – In series of battles around Chaffin’s Farm in the suburbs
of Richmond, Virginia, African American troops capture
entrenchments at New Market Heights, make a gallant but
unsuccessful assault on Fort Gilmer and help repulse a
Confederate counterattack on Fort Harrison. The Thirty-
Ninth U.S. Colored Troops will win a Congressional Medal
of Honor in the engagements.

1902 – “In Dahomey” premieres at the Old Globe Theater in Boston,
Massachusetts. With music by Will Marion Cook and lyrics
by poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, it is the most successful
musical of its day.

1911 – Romare Bearden is born in Charlotte, North Carolina. His
family will move to the village of Harlem in New York
City in 1914. He will call New York his home for the
rest of his life. A student at New York University, the
American Artists School, Columbia University, and the
Sorbonne, Bearden’s depiction of the rituals and social
customs of African American life will be imbued with an
eloquence and power that will earn him accolades as one
of the finest artists of the 20th century and a master
of collage. Among his honors will be election to the
American Academy of Arts and Letters and the National
Institute of Arts and Letters, and receiving the
President’s National Medal of Arts in 1987. He will join
the ancestors in 1988.

1928 – Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver is born in Norwalk,
Connecticut. He will become a jazz pianist, bandleader,
and composer who will initially lead the Jazz Messengers
with drummer Art Blakey before forming his own band in
1956. A pioneer of the hard bop style, he will attract
to his band the talents of Art Farmer, Donald Byrd, and
Blue Mitchell, among others.

1945 – The end of World War II (V-J Day). A total of 1,154,720
African Americans have been inducted or drafted into the
armed forces. Official records list 7,768 African
American commissioned officers on August 31, 1945. At
the height of the conflict, 3,902 African American women
(115 officers) were enrolled in the Women’s Army
Auxiliary Corps (WACS) and 68 were in the Navy auxiliary,
the WAVES. The highest ranking African American women
were Major Harriet M. West and Major Charity E. Adams.
Distinguished Unit Citations were awarded to the 969th
Field Artillery Battalion, the 614th Tank Destroyer
Battalion, and the 332nd Fighter Group (Tuskegee Airmen).

1946 – William Everett “Billy” Preston is born in Houston, Texas.
He will become a musician songwriter and singer. His hits
will include “Will It Go Round in Circles”, “Nothing from
Nothing”, “Outa-Space”, “Get Back” (with The Beatles),
and “With You I’m Born Again”(with Syreeta). He also will
appear in film: “St. Louis Blues” and play with Little
Richard’s Band. He will collaborate with some of the
greatest names in the music industry, including the
Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Little Richard, Ray Charles,
George Harrison, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Sam
Cooke, King Curtis, Sammy Davis Jr., Sly Stone, Aretha
Franklin, the Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, Richie Sambora,
and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He will play the electric
piano on the Get Back sessions in 1969 and is one of
several people sometimes credited as the “Fifth Beatle”.
He is one of only two non-Beatles to receive label
performance credit on any Beatles record. He will join
the ancestors on June 6, 2006 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

1956 – The Tennessee National Guard is sent to Clinton, Tennessee,
to quell white mobs demonstrating against school
integration.

1960 – Eric Dickerson is born in Sealy, Texas. He will become a
professional football player and will become NFC Rookie
of the Year in 1983. He will also set a NFL single-
season rushing record of 2,105 yards in 1984.

1963 – Alabama Governor George Wallace blocks the integration of
Tuskegee High School in Tuskegee, Alabama.

1965 – Lennox Claudius Lewis, former WBC boxing champ, is born
in West Ham, London, England.

1966 – Frank Robinson is named Most Valuable Player of the
American League.

1971 – Cheryl White becomes the first African American woman
jockey to win a sanctioned horse race.

1975 – Joseph W. Hatchett sworn in as first African American
state supreme court justice in the South (Florida) in
the twentieth century.

1978 – Reggie Jackson is 19th player to hit 20 home runs in 11
straight years.

1989 – Rev. Al Sharpton leads a civil rights march through the
Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 1 *

1867 – Robert T. Freeman becomes the first African American
to graduate from Harvard Dental School.

1875 – White Democrats attacked Republicans at Yazoo City,
Mississippi. One white and three African-Americans were
killed.

1912 – Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, English-born composer of Hiawatha’s
Wedding Feast and professor of music at Trinity College of
Music in London, joins the ancestors in Croyden, England.
Coleridge-Taylor was the most important Black composer of
his day and toured the United States three times, where he
played with Will Marion Cook, Clarence Cameron White, and
collaborated with Paul Laurence Dunbar in setting several
of his poems to music.

1925 – Rosa Cuthbert (later Guy) is born in Trinidad. She will leave
Trinidad with her parents for America in 1932. During World
War II she will join the American Negro Theatre. She will
study theatre and writing at the University of New York. Most
of her books are about the dependability of family members
that care and love each other. She will be one of the founders
of The Harlem Writers guild (1950). Her works will include: “Bird
at My Window” (1966), “Children of Longing” (1971), “The Friends”
(1973), “Ruby” (1976), “Edith Jackson” (1978), “The Disappearance”
(1979), “Mirror of Her Own” (1981), “A Measure of Time (1983),
and New Guys Around the Block (1983), Paris, Pee Wee and Big Dog (1984), My Love, My Love, or the Peasant Girl (1985), And I Heard a Bird Sing (1987). She will become the author of “The Friends,” “Ruby,” and “Edith Jackson.”

1937 – Ron O’Neal is born in Utica, New York. He will become an
actor and will star in movies during the 1970’s and be
best known for his role in “Superfly.”

1948 – William T. Coleman is appointed by Justice Frankfurter as a
clerk to the U.S. Supreme Court, the first African
American to hold the position. A Harvard Law School
graduate and Army Air Corps veteran, Coleman will again
enter public service, first as president of the NAACP
Legal Defense and Education Fund and, in 1975, as
Secretary of Transportation under President Gerald Ford.

1970 – Dr. Hugh S. Scott of Washington, DC, becomes the first
African American superintendent of schools in a major US.
city.

1971 – The Pittsburgh Pirates field an all African American team
in a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies.

1973 – George Foreman knocks out Jose Roman in the first round to
retain his heavyweight title.

1975 – General Daniel (“Chappie”) James Jr. is promoted to the
rank of four-star general and named commander-in-chief of
the North American Air Defense Command. He is the first
African American to achieve this rank.

1977 – Ethel Waters, singer and actress, joins the ancestors in
Chatsworth, California at the age of 80. She was the
first African American entertainer to move from vaudeville
to ‘white’ entertainment. She starred in many movies such
as “Something Special” (1971), “Carib Gold” (1955), “The
Member of the Wedding” (1952), “Pinky” (1949), “Cabin in
the Sky” (1943), “Cairo” (1942), “Tales of Manhattan”
(1942), “Black Musical Featurettes, V. 1″ (1929), Short
Subjects V. 1” (1929), and “On With the Show” (1929).
She also was in the first network show to feature an
African American actress as the star (The Beulah Show-
1950).

1979 – Hazel W. Johnson becomes the first African American woman
to attain general officer rank in American military
history. Under her tenure as Chief, the Army Nurse Corps
continued to improve standards of education and training.
The Army Nurse Corps Standards of Nursing Practice were
published as an official Department of the Army Pamphlet
(DA PAM 40-5). She received the Distinguished Service
Medal, Legion Of Merit, Meritorious Service Medal, and
the Army Commendation Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster among
her awards and honors.

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