collaboration, partnerships with other librarians.
December 4 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – December 4 *
1783 – George Washington’s farewell address to his troops is
held at Fraunces Tavern in New York City. The tavern
is owned by Samuel “Black Sam” Fraunces, a wealthy
West Indian of African and French descent who aided
Revolutionary forces with food and money.
1807 – Prince Hall, activist and Masonic leader, joins the
ancestors in Boston, Massachusetts.
1833 – The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded in
Philadelphia by James Barbados, Robert Purvis, James
McCrummell, James Forten, Jr., John B. Vashon and
others.
1895 – Fort Valley State College is established in Georgia.
1895 – The South Carolina Constitutional Convention adopted a
new constitution with “understanding clause” designed
to eliminate African American voters.
1899 – The Fifty-Sixth Congress convenes with only one African
American congressman, George H. White, from North
Carolina.
1906 – Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. is founded on the
campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York,
becoming the first African American Greek-letter
organization.
1909 – The New York “Amsterdam News” is founded by James
Anderson. Originally priced at two cents, it will grow
to a circulation of almost 35,000 by 1990.
1915 – The NAACP leads protest demonstrations against the
showing of the racist movie, “Birth of a Nation.”
1915 – The Ku Klux Klan receives its charter from Fulton
County, Georgia Superior Court. The modern Klan will
spread to Alabama and other Southern states and reach
the height of its influence in the twenties. By 1924,
the organization will be strong in Oklahoma, Indiana,
California, Oregon, Indiana, and Ohio, and have an
estimated four million members.
1927 – President Coolidge commutes Marcus Garvey’s sentence.
Garvey will be taken to New Orleans and deported to his
native Jamaica.
1927 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Anthony Overton,
publisher, insurance executive and cosmetics
manufacturer, for his achievements as a businessman.
1927 – Duke Ellington’s big band opens at the famed Cotton Club
in Harlem. It is the first appearance of the Duke’s
new and larger group. He will play the club until 1932.
1943 – Professional baseball’s commissioner Landis announces
that any club may sign Negroes to a playing contract.
1956 – Bernard King, professional basketball player (New York
Knicks, New Jersey Nets), is born.
1958 – Dahomey (Benin), and the Ivory Coast become autonomous
within the French Community of Nations.
1969 – The Pulitzer Prize for photography is awarded to Moneta
Sleet Jr. of Ebony magazine. He is the first African
American male cited by the Pulitzer committee.
1969 – Clarence Mitchell Jr., director of the Washington Bureau
of the NAACP, is awarded the Spingarn Medal “for the
pivotal role he….played in the enactment of civil
rights legislation.”
1969 – Two Black Panther leaders, Fred Hampton(Illinois State
Chairman) and Mark Clark, join the ancestors after
being killed in a Chicago police raid. The two men are
shot while sleeping in their beds. Fred Hampton is
just 20 years old.
1977 – Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Empire,
crowns himself.
1981 – According to South Africa, Ciskei gains independence,
but is not recognized as an independent country outside
South Africa.
1982 – Hershel Walker, a University of Georgia running back who
amassed an NCAA record of 5,097 yards in three seasons,
is named the Heisman Trophy winner. He is only the
seventh junior to win the award. He will go on to play
with the New Jersey Generals of the U.S. Football League
and the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys in the NFL.
1990 – The Watts Health Foundation reports revenues in excess of
$100 million for the first year in its history.
Established in 1967, the Foundation grew from its initial
site on riot-torn 103rd Street to serve over 80,000
residents of the Greater Los Angeles area with its HMO,
United Health Plan, and its numerous community-based
programs. Led by CEO Dr. Clyde Oden, it is the largest
community-based health care system of its kind in the
nation.
1992 – United States troops land in the country of Somalia.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
December 3 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – December 3 *
1841 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond returns to the United
States after a year and a half in Great Britain. He
had been serving as a delegate to the world Anti-
Slavery Convention in London. He brings with him an
“Address from the People of Ireland” including 60,000
signatures urging Irish-Americans to “oppose slavery by
peaceful means and to insist upon liberty for all
regardless of color, creed, or country.”
1843 – The Society of Colored People in Baltimore, is the first
African American Catholic association whose
documentation has been preserved. Their notebook will
begin today and continue until September 7, 1845.
1847 – Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney begin the
publication of “The North Star” newspaper, one of the
leading abolitionist newspapers of its day.
1864 – The Twenty-Fifth Corps, the largest all African American
unit in the history of the U.S. Army, is established by
General Order # 297 of the War Department, Adjutant
General’s Office. The Colored Troops of the Department
of Virginia and North Carolina were organized into the
Twenty-Fifth Corps under the command of Major General G.
Weitzel.
1866 – John Swett Rock, a Massachusetts lawyer and dentist joins
the ancestors. He had become the first African American
certified to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase appointed Dr. Rock to
present cases before the Supreme Court on December 31,
1865.
1868 – The trial of ex-Confederacy president, Jefferson Davis
starts, marking the first United States trial with
African Americans included in the jury.
1883 – The Forty-Eighth Congress (1883-85) convenes. Only Two
African Americans are included as representatives. They
are James E. O’Hara of North Carolina and Robert Smalls
of South Carolina.
1883 – George L. Ruffin is appointed a city judge in Boston,
Massachusetts.
1922 – Ralph Alexander Gardner-Chavis is born in Cleveland, Ohio.
He will become a pioneer chemist whose research into
plastics leads to the development of so-called “hard
plastics.” His innovations in the manipulation of
catalytic chemicals will lead to the products for the
petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries as well as
plastics.
1951 – President Truman names a committee to monitor compliance
with anti-discrimination provisions in U.S. government
contracts and sub-contracts.
1956 – Wilt Chamberlain plays in his first collegiate basketball
game and scores 52 points.
1962 – Edith Spurlock Sampson is sworn in as the first African
American woman judge.
1964 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to NAACP executive
secretary Roy Wilkins for his contribution to “the
advancement of the American people and the national
purpose.”
1964 – The Independence Bank of Chicago is organized.
1964 – J. Raymond Jones is elected leader of the New York
Democratic organization (Tammany Hall).
1970 – Jennifer Josephine Hosten become the first African
American Miss World.
1979 – An University of Southern California running back,
Charles White, is named the Heisman Trophy winner for
1979. White, who gained a career regular season total
of 5,598 yards, will play professionally for the Los
Angeles Rams.
1982 – Thomas Hearns unifies the world boxing titles in the
junior middleweight division by capturing the WBC title
over Wilfredo Benitez.
1988 – Barry Sanders wins the Heisman Trophy.
1988 – In South Africa, 11 black funeral mourners are slain in
Natal Province in an attack blamed on security forces.
1990 – “Black Art – Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in
African American Art” opens at the Dallas Museum of Art.
United States and Caribbean artists represented among
the more than 150 works include Richmond Barthe’, John
Biggers, Aaron Douglas, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent
Johnson, and Houston Conwill.
1997 – President Clinton hosts his first town hall meeting on
America’s race relations in Akron, Ohio.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry/
December 2 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – December 2 *
1859 – John Brown, abolitionist who planned the failed attack
on the Federal Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, is hanged at
Charles Town, West Virginia.
1866 – Harry T. Burleigh, singer and composer, is born in
Erie, Pennsylvania. He will be educated at the
National Conservatory of Music in New York City, where
he will meet and form a lasting friendship with Anton
Dvorak. He will eventually be awarded the NAACP’s
Spingarn Medal. Burleigh will be best known for his
arrangements of the Negro spiritual “Deep River”. He
will join the ancestors on December 12, 1949.
1884 – Granville T. Woods receives a patent for his first
electric device, an improved telephone transmitter.
1891 – North Carolina A&T College, Delaware State College and
West Virginia State College are established.
1891 – The Fifty-second Congress convenes. Only one African
American congressman has been elected – Henry P.
Cheatham of North Carolina.
1891 – Charles Harris Wesley, historian, educator, and
administrator, is born in Louisville, Kentucky. His
published works will include, “Neglected History,”
“Collapse of the Confederacy,” and “Negro Labor in the
United States,”and “1850-1925: A Study of American
Economic History.” He will join the ancestors on
August 16, 1987.
1908 – John Baxter “Doc” Taylor joins the ancestors as a result
of of typhoid pneumonia at the age of 26. Taylor had
been a record-setting quarter miler and the first
African American Olympic gold medal winner in the 4 x
400-meter medley in the 1908 London games.
1922 – Charles C. Diggs is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will
become an early member of the civil rights movement and
will attend the trial of Emmett Till’s murderers. In
1954, he will defeat incumbent U.S. Representative
George D. O’Brien in the Democratic Party primary
elections for Michigan’s 13th congressional district. He
will go on to win the general election to the 84th
Congress and be subsequently re-elected to the next
twelve Congresses. He will be the first African American
elected to Congress from the state of Michigan. He will
also be elected the first chairman of the Congressional
Black Caucus. He will serve as a congressman from January
3, 1955, until his resignation June 3, 1980. He will
resign from the United States House of Representatives
and serve 14 months of a three-year sentence for mail
fraud, although he maintained his innocence. He will join
the ancestors on August 24, 1998.
1923 – Roland Hayes becomes the first African American to sing
in the Symphony Hall in Boston, Massachusetts.
1940 – William Ferdie ‘Willie’ Brown is born in Yazoo City,
Mississippi. He will play college football at Grambling
State University and will not be drafted by any
professional team after leaving college in 1963. He will
be signed by the Houston Oilers of the American Football
League (AFL), but will be cut from the team during training
camp. He will then be signed by the AFL’s Denver Broncos
and became a starter by the middle of his rookie season. He
will win All-AFL honors in his second season and play in
the AFL All-Star Game, recording nine interceptions for 144
yards. In 1967, he will be traded to the AFL’s Oakland
Raiders and spend the remainder of his playing career there.
He will serve as defensive captain for 10 of his 12 years
with the team. He will be named to five AFL All-Star games
and four NFL Pro Bowls. He will also be named All-AFL three
times and All-NFL four times. His most memorable moment as
a Raider will come during Super Bowl XI, when he intercepts
a Fran Tarkenton pass and return it a Super Bowl-record 75
yards for a touchdown. His record will stand for 29 years.
He will retire after the 1978 season, and finish his Raiders’
career with 39 interceptions. He will finish his 16
professional football season seasons with 54 interceptions,
which he returned for 472 yards and two touchdowns. He will
also recover three fumbles. He will be a member of the
American Football League All-Time Team and be inducted into
the Pro Football Hall of Fame on July 28, 1984, his first
year of eligibility. In 1999, he will be ranked number 50 on
The Sporting News’ list of the 100 Greatest Football Players,
making him the highest-ranking Raiders player.
1943 – “Carmen Jones,” a contemporary reworking of the Bizet
opera “Carmen” by Oscar Hammerstein II with an all-black
cast, opens on Broadway.
1953 – Dr. Rufus Clement, president of Atlanta University, is
elected to the Atlanta Board of Education.
1975 – Ohio State running back Archie Griffin becomes the first
person ever to win the Heisman Trophy twice, when he is
awarded his second trophy in New York City. He amassed
a career record of 5,176 yards and 31 consecutive 100
yard plus games.
1989 – Andre Ware of the University of Houston, becomes the
first African American quarterback to win the Heisman
Trophy.
1992 – Dr. Maya Angelou is asked to compose a poem for William
Jefferson Clinton’s presidential inauguration.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
December Releases
YA Books written by authors of color.
December 1 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – December 1 *
1641 – Massachusetts becomes the first colony to give statutory
recognition to the institution of slavery.
1821 – Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) proclaims independence
from Spain.
1873 – The 43rd Congress (1873-75) convenes with seven African
American congressmen: Richard H. Cain, Robert Brown
Elliott, Joseph H. Rainey and Alonzo J. Ransier, South
Carolina; James T. Rapier, Alabama; Josiah T. Walls,
Florida; John R. Lynch, Mississippi.
1873 – Mifflin Wister Gibb is elected city judge in Little Rock,
Arkansas and becomes the first African American to hold
such a position.
1873 – Bennett College (Greensboro, North Carolina) and Wiley
College (Marshall, Texas) are founded.
1874 – Queen Esther Chapter No. 1, Order of the Eastern Star, is
established at 708 O Street, N.W., Washington, DC in the
home of Mrs. Georgiana Thomas. The first Worthy Matron
is Sister Martha Welch and the first Worthy Patron is
Bro. Thornton A. Jackson. This establishes the first
Eastern Star Chapter among African American women in the
United States.
1877 – Jonathan Jasper Wright, the first African American state
supreme court justice, resigns from the state supreme
court in South Carolina. He resigns knowing that whites
would soon force him off the bench after overthrowing
the Reconstruction government. He will later join the
ancestors on February 19, 1885, in obscurity, of
tuberculosis.
1934 – Paul Williams is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become Billy Paul, rhythm and blues singer, best
known for his song, “Me and Mrs. Jones”. The song,
recorded in 1972 will earn him a Grammy Award.
1935 – Lou Rawls is born in Chicago, Illinois. A successful
rhythm, blues, and jazz singer, he will record over 30
albums including “Unmistakably Lou”, a 1977 Grammy
winner for best R & B vocal performance. He will also
be a strong supporter of African American colleges, as
host of the annual UNCF telethon. He will join the
ancestors on January 6, 2006.
1940 – Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III is born in Peoria,
Illinois. Raised in a brothel owned by his grandmother,
Pryor will try music as a drummer before his big comedy
break on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and a series of
successful, Grammy-winning comedy albums. Pryor will
also make movies, most notably “Stir Crazy” and “Silver
Streak”. Pryor will also battle drug abuse and illness
in his career, including his near death from burns
inflicted while freebasing cocaine and a battle against
multiple sclerosis. He will join the ancestors on
December 5, 2005.
1955 – Rosa Parks, a seamstress, refuses to take a back seat on
a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her refusal to move will
result in her arrest and will begin a 382-day boycott
of the bus system by African Americans and mark the
beginning of the modern American Civil Rights movement.
1958 – The Central African Republic is made an autonomous
member of the French Commonwealth of Nations.
1980 – George Rogers, of the University of South Carolina, is
named the Heisman Trophy winner. Rogers will go on to
achieve success with the Washington Redskins.
1980 – United States Justice Department sues the city of
Yonkers, New York, citing racial discrimination.
1981 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar surpasses Oscar Robertson as
basketball’s second all-time leading scorer (second
only to Wilt Chamberlain). Kareem gets to the total of
26,712 points as the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Utah
Jazz 117-86. Chamberlain’s record will fall in 1984,
when Kareem’s scores reach 31,259. Kareem will wind up
his career in 1989 with 38,387 points.
1982 – Michael Jackson’s album “Thriller” is released and will
go on to become the best-selling album in history, with
over 40 million copies sold worldwide.
1987 – James Baldwin, author, joins the ancestors in St. Paul
de Vence, France, of stomach cancer, at the age of 63.
He explored the plight of oppressed African Americans in
20th century America in a variety of literary forms.
His output included novels and plays, but it was above
all, as an essayist, that he achieved a reputation as
the most literary spokesman in the struggle for civil
rights in the 1950s and 1960s. His three most important
collection of essays were “Notes of a Native Son” in
1955, “Nobody Knows My Name” in 1961, and “The Fire Next
Time” in 1963. The most highly regarded of his novels
were the first three, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” in
1953, “Giovanni’s Room” in 1956, and “Another Country”
in 1962.
1989 – Dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey joins the ancestors
in New York City. Ailey began his professional career
with Lester Horton, founded, and was the sole director
of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 1958.
Initially performing four concerts annually, he took
the company to Europe on one of the most successful
tours ever by an American dance troupe. Among his
honors were the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1977, and
Kennedy Center Honors.
1992 – Pearl Stewart becomes the first African American woman
editor of the Oakland Tribune, which has a circulation
of over 100,000.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
November 30 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – November 30 *
1869 – John Roy Lynch is elected to the Mississippi House of
Representatives.
1912 – Gordon Parks, Sr. is born in Fort Scott, Kansas. In the
late 1930’s, while working as a railroad porter, he
will become interested in photography and launch his
career as a photographer and photojournalist. From
1943 to 1945, he will be a correspondent for the Office
of War Information, giving national exposure to his
work. This will lead to him becoming a staff
photographer for Life magazine in 1948. He will branch
off into film and television in the 1950’s and in 1968
will produce, direct, and write the script and music
for the production of his book, “The Learning Tree.”
He will also direct and write the music scores for the
movies “Shaft,” “Shaft’s Big Score,” The Super Cops,”
“Leadbelly,” “Odyssey of Solomon Northrup” and “Moments
Without Proper Names.” He will also direct “Superfly,”
“Three The Hard Way,” “Aaron Loves Angela,” and be
called a “Twentieth Century Renaissance Man” by the
NAACP, who will award him its Spingarn Medal in 1972.
The Library of Congress will honor him in 1982 with the
National Film Registry Classics designation for his
film, “The Learning Tree.”
1924 – Shirley Anita St. Hill (later Chisholm) is born in
Brooklyn, New York. While an education consultant for New
York City’s day-care division, she will become active in
community and political activities that included the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and her district’s Unity Democratic Club. She
will begin her political career at the age of 40, when she
is elected to the state assembly. In 1968, she will be the
first African American woman elected to Congress,
defeating civil-rights leader James Farmer, who had
asserted in his campaign that African American voters
needed “a man’s voice in Washington.” She will run for
President in 1972 and continue her Congressional duties
until 1982.
1933 – Sam Gilliam is born in Tupelo, Mississippi. He will become
an artist known for his unique manipulation of materials
that result in painted sculpture or suspended paintings.
His work will be shown at the 36th Venice Miennale as well
as in the exhibit “African-American Artists 1880-1987.”
1937 – Robert Guillaume (Williams) is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
He will become an actor and be best known for his roles in
the sit-coms “Soap” and “Benson”.
1944 – Luther Ingram is born in Jackson, Mississippi. He will
become a rhythm and blues musician and singer and will be
best known for the song, “(If Lovin’ You is Wrong) I Don’t
Want to be Right.”
1948 – The Negro National League (Professional Baseball) officially
disbands. Although black teams will continue to play for
several years, they will no longer be major league caliber.
The demise of the Negro Leagues was inevitable as the
younger black players were signed by the white major league
franchises.
1953 – Albert Michael Espy is born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. In
1987, he will be sworn in as the state’s first African
American congressman since John Roy Lynch more than 100
years before. He will become Secretary of Agriculture
during the Bill Clinton administration. Leaving the
cabinet under fire and indicted for corruption, he will
later be vindicated when he is found not guilty.
1956 – Archie Moore is defeated by Floyd Patterson, as Patterson
wins the heavyweight boxing title vacated by the retired
Rocky Marciano. At the age of 21, Patterson becomes the
youngest boxer to be named heavyweight champion.
1962 – Bo Jackson is born in Bessemer, Alabama. The 1985 Heisman
Trophy winner will be one of the few professional athletes
to play in two sports – football and baseball.
1965 – Judith Jamison makes her debut with Alvin Ailey’s American
Dance Theatre in Chicago, dancing in Talley Beaty’s Congo
Tango Palace. Jamison will rejoin the company in 1988 as
artistic associate due to the failing health of Alvin
Ailey. she will become the company’s artistic director in
1989 upon Ailey’s death.
1966 – Barbados gains its independence from Great Britain.
1975 – The state of Dahomey becomes the People’s Republic of
Benin.
1981 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Coleman A. Young
“in recognition of his singular accomplishments as mayor
of the City of Detroit.”
1990 – Ruth Washington, long-time publisher of the Los Angeles
Sentinel, joins the ancestors. Following the death of
her husband Chester, Washington acted as publisher of the
weekly newspaper, founded in 1933, for sixteen years.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 