KRLemmons African American History

January 7 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 7 *

1822 – A colony of free African Americans sent to Africa by the
American Colonization Society, is established on the west
coast of Africa. It is the beginning of the African American
colonization of Liberia. This colony will become the
independent nation of Liberia in 1847.

1868 – The Mississippi constitutional convention convenes in Jackson.
It is attended by seventeen African Americans and eighty-three
whites.

1868 – The Arkansas constitutional convention convenes in Little Rock.
It is attended by eight African Americans and forty-three
whites.

1890 – William B. Purvis is awarded patent #419,065 for the fountain
pen.

1891 – Zora Neale Hurston, who will become a brilliant folklorist,
novelist, and short story writer, is born in Notasulga,
Alabama. For reasons known only to her, she will claim 1901 as
her birth year and the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida as
her birthplace. She will be one of the more influential writers
of the Harlem Renaissance, known for her novel “Their Eyes Were
Watching God” and her folklore collections, including “Of Mules
and Men.” She will join the ancestors on January 28, 1960.

1892 – A mine explosion kills 100 in Krebs, Oklahoma. African
Americans trying to help rescue white survivors, are driven
away at gunpoint.

1911 – Thelma “Butterfly” McQueen is born in Tampa, Florida. She will
be educated in Augusta, Georgia and Long Island, New York.
After graduation, she will study dance, joining the Venezuela
Jones Negro Youth Group. After performing in the “Butterfly
Ballet” (in a 1935 production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”)
McQueen will be dubbed—and forever referred to
as—“Butterfly”. She will make her stage debut in George
Abbot’s “Brown Sugar”, and soon after, in 1939, she will appear
as Lulu in “The Women” and in her most famous role, Prissy in
“Gone With The Wind.” She will join the ancestors on December
22, 1995.

1917 – Ulysses Simpson Kay is born in Tucson, Arizona. He will become
a classical composer and one of the first American composers
to travel to the Soviet Union. He will be known for his works
for orchestra, piano, and chamber ensemble. He will join the
ancestors on May 20, 1995.

1927 – The first touring Harlem Globetrotter game is played in
Hinckley, Illinois before a crowd of 300 people. It will be a
success, bringing in $75 in profit.

1950 – The James Weldon Johnson Collection officially opens at Yale
University. Established in 1941 through a gift by Grace Nail
Johnson, widow of the famed author, diplomat and NAACP
official, the collection will eventually include the papers of
Johnson, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois, Richard Wright, Jean
Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, and many other writers of the
Harlem Renaissance.

1955 – Marian Anderson appears as Ulrica in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in
Maschera” with the New York Metropolitan Opera. In her debut
performance at the Met, Anderson becomes the first African
American ever to sing with the company.

1964 – The Bahamas achieve internal self-government & cabinet level
responsibility.

2003 – Thurgood Marshall, a famed civil rights lawyer and U.S. Supreme
Court Justice, is honored by the United States Postal Service
with the 26th stamp issuance in the Black Heritage
Commemorative Series.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 6 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 6 *

1773 – “Felix,” a Boston slave, and others petition Massachusetts
Governor Hutchinson for their freedom. It is the first of
a record eight similar petitions filed during the
Revolutionary War.

1831 – The World Anti-Slavery Convention opens in London, England.

1832 – William Lloyd Garrison founds the New England Anti-Slavery
Society at the African Meeting House in Boston,
Massachusetts, where he issues the society’s “Declaration
of Sentiments” from the Meeting House pulpit.

1882 – Thomas Boyne receives the Congressional Medal of Honor for
bravery in two New Mexico battles while a sergeant in Troop
C, 9th U.S. Calvary.

1906 – Benedict Wallet Vilakazi is born in South Africa. He will
become a pre-apartheid Zulu poet, novelist, and educator.
In 1946, he will become the first Black South African to
receive a Ph.D. He will become the first Black South African
to teach white South Africans at the university level. He
will join the ancestors on October 26, 1947 after succumbing
to meningitis.

1937 – Doris Payne is born in Bronx, New York. She will become a
rhythm and blues singer better known as Doris Troy and best
known for her song “Just One Look.” She will also be known
as “Mama Soul.” “Mama, I Want To Sing” will be a stage
musical based on her life, and co-written with her sister,
Vy. It will run for 1,500 performances at the Heckscher
Theatre in Harlem. She will play the part of her own mother,
Geraldine. She will join the ancestors on February 16, 2004,
succumbing to emphysema.

1966 – Harold R. Perry becomes the second African American Roman
Catholic bishop since the U.S. was founded and the first in
the 20th century.

1968 – John Daniel Singleton is born in Los Angeles, California.
He will become an Academy Award-nominated film director,
screenwriter, and producer. His movies will depict his
native South Los Angeles with both its sweet and violent
sides given equal consideration. He will attend Pasadena
City College and the University of Southern California.
He will receive many distinctions, beginning during his
time as an undergraduate screenwriter at the University
of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts,
including nominations for Best Screenplay and Director for
“Boyz N the Hood.” He will be the youngest person ever
nominated for Best Director at the 1991 Academy Awards for
“Boyz N the Hood” and the first (and, to date, the only)
African American to be nominated for the award.

1971 – Cecil A. Partee is elected president pro tem of the Illinois
State Senate. He is the first African American to hold this
position.

1984 – Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., is
inaugurated as Chief Justice. The Philadelphia native,
former deputy attorney general of the state, and thirteen-
year veteran of the Court, is the first African American to
head a state Supreme Court.

1989 – Elizabeth Koontz joins the ancestors at the age of 69. She
was a noted educator and the first African American
president of the National Education Association. She also
had been director of the Women’s Bureau in the U.S.
Department of Labor.

1993 – Jazz great, John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, joins the ancestors
in Englewood, New Jersey at the age of 76. He had played
actively until early 1992.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 5 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 5 *

1804 – Ohio begins the restriction of the rights and movements of
free African Americans by passing the first of several
“Black laws.” It is a trend that will be followed by most
Northern states.

1869 – Matilda Sissieretta Jones is born in Portsmouth, Virginia.
She will become a gifted singer (soprano), who will rise
to fame as a soloist and troupe leader during the later
part of the nineteenth century. She will be nicknamed
“Black Patti”, after a newspaper review mentioned her as
an African American equal to the acclaimed Italian soprano
Adelina Patti. American racism will prevent her from
performing with established white operatic groups. She will
tour Europe, South and North America and the West Indies as
a soloist. In 1896, she will form her own troupe, “Black
Patti’s Troubadours,” which will combine the elements of
opera and vaudeville, creating musical comedy. She will
join the ancestors on June 24, 1933.

1911 – Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity is founded on the campus of
Indiana University by Elder Watson Diggs, Byron Kenneth
Armstrong, and eight others. It will be the first African
American fraternity to be chartered as a national
organization.

1929 – Wilbert Harrison is born in Charlotte, North Carolina. He
will become a singer and will be best known for his
recordings “Kansas City,” and “Let’s Work Together.” In
2001, his recording of “Kansas City” will be given a Grammy
Hall of Fame Award. He will join the ancestors in Spencer,
North Carolina on October 26, 1994.

1931 – Alvin Ailey is born in Rogers, Texas and will move to Los
Angeles, California at the age of twelve. There, on a
junior high school class trip to the Ballet Russe de Monte
Carlo, he will fall in love with concert dance. In 1958, Mr.
Ailey will found his own company, the Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater, which makes its debut in New York. Mr. Ailey
will have a vision of creating a company dedicated to the
preservation and enrichment of the American modern dance
heritage and the uniqueness of Black cultural expression.
In 1969, Alvin Ailey will found the Alvin Ailey American
Dance Center, the official school of the Ailey Company, and
he will go on to form the Repertory Ensemble, the second
company, in 1974. His commitment to education is the
foundation of the organization’s long-standing involvement
in arts-in-education programs, including AileyCamp. He will
join the ancestors on December 1, 1989 in New York City.

1938 – James Ngugi is born in Kamiriithu, Kenya. He will become a
writer whose works will depict events in colonial and post
colonial Kenya. He will integrate Marxist-Leninist beliefs
into his novels, which will include “Weep Not Child,” “The
River Between,” “A Grain of Wheat,” “Petals of Blood,” and
“Matigari ma Mjiruumgi.” He will later change his name to
Ngugi wa Thiong’o. His writings will cause him to be
imprisoned by the Kenyan government and he will later leave
the country for England and the United States.

1943 – George Washington Carver joins the ancestors after succumbing
to anemia at the age of 81. He was a pioneering plant
chemist and agricultural researcher noted for his work with
the peanut and soil restoration while at Tuskegee Institute.

1943 – William H. Hastie, civilian aide to the secretary of war,
resigns to protest segregation in the U.S. Armed Forces.

1947 – Ted Lange is born in Oakland, California. He will become an
actor and be best known for his role as ‘Isaac’ on the TV
series, “The Love Boat.”

1948 – A commemorative stamp of George Washington Carver is issued
by the U.S. Postal Service. The posthumous honor bestowed
upon the famed agricultural expert and researcher is only
one of the many awards he received, including the 1923
Spingarn Medal and membership in the NYU Hall of Fame.

1957 – Jackie Robinson announces his retirement from professional
baseball.

1971 – The Harlem Globetrotters lose 100-99 to the New Jersey Reds,
ending their 2,495-game win streak.

1975 – The Broadway premiere of “The Wiz” opens, receiving
enthusiastic reviews. The show, a Black version of “The
Wizard of Oz” will run for 1,672 shows at the Majestic
Theatre. Moviegoers, however, gave a thumbs down to the
cinema version of the play that starred Diana Ross and
Michael Jackson years later. One memorable song from the
show is “Ease on Down the Road.”

1987 – David Robinson becomes the first player in Naval Academy
history to score more than 2,000 points. This was
accomplished when the Midshipmen defeat East Carolina
91-66. He will go on to become a major star of the NBA.

1993 – Reggie Jackson is inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame with
94% of the votes.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 4 *

1787 – Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic
lodge, and others petition the Massachusetts legislature for
funds to return to Africa. The plan is the first recorded
effort by African Americans to return to their homeland.

1832 – A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.

1901 – Cyril Lionel Richard James is born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. He
will become a writer, historian, Marxist social critic, and
activist who deeply influenced the intellectual underpinnings
of West Indian and African movements for independence. He was
born into an educated family in colonial Trinidad. At the age
of nine He earned a scholarship to Queen’s Royal College, in
Port of Spain, Trinidad, and graduated in 1918. In 1932 James
left Trinidad for England. He will become involved in socialist
politics, gravitating toward a faction of anti-Stalinist
Marxists. He applied Leon Trotsky’s views about a worldwide
workers’ revolution to his colonial home. The result, in part,
was “The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British
Government in the West Indies” (1932), in which he called for
Caribbean independence. For a time in the 1970s he taught at
Federal City College in Washington, D.C. He lived the last
years of his life in London. Three volumes of his collected
works appeared as “The Future in the Present” (1977), “Spheres
of Existence” (1980), and “At the Rendezvous of Victory”
(1984). He will join the ancestors on May 31, 1989 in London,
England.

1920 – Andrew “Rube” Foster organizes the Negro National Baseball
League.

1935 – Floyd Patterson is born in Waco, North Carolina. He will become
a boxer, winning a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympic Games
in the middleweight class. He will become the first gold
medalist to win a world professional title. He will join the
ancestors on May 11, 2006.

1937 – Grace Ann Bumbry is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will grow
up at 1703 Goode Avenue in the city. She will join the Union
Memorial Methodist Church’s choir at eleven, and sing at Sumner
High School. She will be a 1954 winner on the “Arthur Godfrey
Talent Scouts” show. After her concert debut in London in 1959,
Bumbry debuts with the Paris Opera the next year. In 1961,
Richard Wagner’s grandson features her in Bayreuth, Germany’s
Wagner Festival. The first person of African descent to sing
there, Bumbry will be an international sensation and win the
Wagner Medal. A mezzo-soprano who also successfully sang the
soprano repertoire, Grace Bumbry will record on four labels and
sing in concerts world wide. Her honors will include induction
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, the UNESCO Award, the
Distinguished Alumna Award from the Academy of Music of the
West, Italy’s Premio Giuseppe Verdi, and being named Commandeur
des Arts et Lettres by the French government.

1944 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is appointed the first African American
official in the U.S. State Department.

1971 – Dr. Melvin H. Evans is inaugurated as the first elected governor
of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1985 – Congressman William H. Gray is elected chairman of the House
Budget Committee, the highest congressional post, to date, held
by an African American.

1986 – David Robinson blocks a N.C.A.A. record 14 shots while playing
for the U.S. Naval Academy.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 3 *

1621 – William Tucker is born in Jamestown, Virginia. He is the first
African American child, on record, born in the American
colonies.

1945 – The Albany Institute of History and Art in New York State opens
its exhibit “The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of
Contemporary American Artists.” The show includes works by
Aaron Douglas, William H. Johnson, Palmer Hayden, Eldzier
Cortor, Lois Mailou Jones, and others and will run for five weeks.

1947 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s
annual report calls 1946 “one of the grimmest years in the
history of the NAACP.” The report details violence and
atrocities heaped on “Negro veterans freshly returned from a
war to end torture and racial extermination,” and said “Negroes
in America have been disillusioned over the wave of lynchings,
brutality and official recession from all of the flamboyant
promises of post war democracy and decency.”

1947 – William Dawson becomes the first African American to head a
congressional committee; Congressional proceedings are televised
for the first time as viewers in Washington, Philadelphia and
New York got to see some of the opening ceremonies of the 80th
Congress.

1956 – The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, established in 1870,
officially changes its name to the Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church. The denomination is headquartered today in Memphis,
Tennessee, and comprises a membership of nearly 500,000.

1961 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. is elected Chairman of The House
Education and Labor Committee.

1966 – Floyd B. McKissick, a North Carolina attorney, is named national
director of The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

1969 – Louis Stokes is sworn in as the first African American
congressman from the state of Ohio. He will serve more that ten
terms in Congress and be distinguished by his leadership of the
1977 Select Committee on Assassinations and chairmanship of the
House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics
Committee).

1969 – Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. is seated by Congress
after being expelled by Congress in 1967, and re-elected by the
voters in his Harlem district.

1983 – Tony Dorsett sets an NFL record with a 99-yd rush, in a game
between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings.

1984 – Syria frees captured U.S. pilot Robert Goodman, shot down over
Damascus, after a personal appeal from Rev. Jesse Jackson.

1985 – Soprano, Leontyne Price bids adieu to the Metropolitan Opera in
New York. She sings the title role of “Aida”. Price had been
part of the Metropolitan Opera since 1961.

1985 – The Israeli government confirms the resettlement of 10,000
Ethiopian Jews.

1987 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first female artist –
“Lady Soul,” Aretha Franklin.

1989 – “The Arsenio Hall Show” premieres. It is the first regularly
scheduled nightly talk show to star an African American.

1997 – Bryant Gumbel co-hosts his final “Today” show on NBC.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 2 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 2 *

1800 – Members of the Free Black Commission of Philadelphia petitions
Congress to abolish slavery.

1831 – The “Liberator” is published for the first time. An abolitionist
newspaper, it is started by William Lloyd Garrison.

1837 – The first National Negro Congress is held in Washington, DC.

1872 – The Mississippi legislature meets and elects John R. Lynch as the
Speaker of the House, at the age of twenty-four.

1898 – Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander is born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. She will become the first African American to
earn a Ph.D. in economics. She will join the ancestors on
November 1, 1989.

1903 – President Theodore Roosevelt shuts down the U.S. Post Office in
Indianola, Mississippi, for refusing to accept its appointed
postmistress because she is an African American.

1915 – John Hope Franklin is born in Rentlesville, Oklahoma. He will
become a scholar and historian most famous for his book “From
Slavery to Freedom: A History of Negro Americans,” which will
sell over two million copies. He will join the ancestors on
March 25, 2009.

1947 – Calvin Hill is born in the Turner Station neighborhood in
Dundalk, Maryland. He will be a running back with a 12 year
National Football League career from 1969 to 1981. He played for
the Dallas Cowboys, Washington Redskins and Cleveland Browns.
He will be named to the Pro Bowl team 4 times (1969, 1972, 1973
and 1974). He will be the father of NBA star Grant Hill.

1957 – Sugar Ray Robinson is defeated by Gene Fullmer for the world
middleweight boxing title.

1963 – Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “That’s The Way Love Is” is released by
Duke Records.

1965 – The Selma, Alabama voter registration drive begins, led by the
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is a major effort to get
African American voters registered to vote in Alabama.

1970 – Clifton Reginald Wharton, Jr. becomes the first African American
president of Michigan State University and the first African
American president of a major American university in the
twentieth century.

1970 – Dr. Benjamin E. Mays is named the first African American
president of the Atlanta, Georgia Board of Education.

1977 – Erroll Garner, pianist and composer, joins the ancestors in Los
Angeles, California. He was considered the best-selling jazz
pianist in the world, most famous for the jazz standard “Misty.”

1977 – Ellis Wilson joins the ancestors. An artist known for his
striking paintings of African Americans, his work had been
exhibited at the New York World’s Fair of 1939, the Harmon
Foundation, and the Detroit Institute of Arts. Among his
best-known works are “Funeral Procession,” “Field Workers,” and
“To Market.”

1980 – Larry Williams, rhythm and blues singer best known for “Bony
Maronie”, joins the ancestors. He is found dead with a
gunshot wound to the head at the age of 45.

1981 – David Lynch, singer with The Platters, joins the ancestors at the
age of 76.

1984 – W. Wilson Goode, the son of a sharecropper, is sworn in as the
first African American mayor of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1991 – Sharon Pratt Dixon is sworn in as mayor of Washington, DC,
becoming the first African American woman to head a city of
Washington’s size and prominence.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 1 *

***********************************************************************
* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #7 – Imani (ee-MAH-nee) Faith: To believe with all our hearts *
* in our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our people and the *
* righteousness and victory of our struggle. *
* http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
***********************************************************************

1788 – The Quakers in Pennsylvania emancipate their slaves.

1804 – Haiti achieves independence from France.

1808 – The slave trade is outlawed in the United States. This stopped
the legal importation of African slaves, but did not stop
domestic trading in slaves.

1831 – William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of “The
Liberator” in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper will become
a major influence in the movement to abolish slavery in the
United States.

1856 – Bridget “Biddy” Mason and her children are granted their freedom
by the California courts. After gaining her freedom, she will
move to Los Angeles, where she will become a major landowner and
be known for her philanthropy to the poor.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation,
declaring freedom for slaves living in the states that joined
the rebellion that will become known as the Civil War.

1900 – The British protectorates of Northern & Southern Nigeria are
established.

1916 – The first issue of the “Journal of Negro History” is published
with Carter G. Woodson as editor.

1956 – Sudan becomes independent.

1959 – Chad becomes an autonomous republic within the French Community.

1960 – Cameroon gains independence from France.

1962 – Rwanda is granted internal self-government by Belgium.

1964 – The Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland is dissolved.

1973 – The West African Economic Community is formed with Benin, Ivory
Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta as
members.

1986 – Aruba becomes an independent part of Kingdom of the Netherlands.

1990 – David Dinkins is sworn in as first African American mayor of
New York City.

2005 – Shirley Chisholm, an advocate for minority rights who became the
first African American woman elected to Congress and later the
first African American to seek a major party’s nomination for
the U.S. presidency, joins the ancestors at the age of 80. The
Rev. Jesse Jackson calls her a “woman of great courage.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 31 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 31 *

***********************************************************************
* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #6 – Kuumba (koo-OOM-bah) Creativity: To do always as much as *
* we can, in the way that we can, in order to leave our community *
* more beautiful than when we inherited it. *
* http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
***********************************************************************

1775 – Alarmed by the impact of the British Dunmore proclamation, that
would give freedom to slaves who would fight on their side,
Gen. George Washington reverses himself and authorizes the
enlistment of free Blacks.

1783 – The importation of African slaves is banned by all of the
northern states in the United States.

1862 – The Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church holds a Watch
Night service in Suburban Maryland. It begins a tradition when
African Americans pray and worship in anticipation of the next
day, New Year’s Day 1863, when President Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation is to take effect.

1871 – Annie Welthy Daughtry (later Holland) is born in Isle of Wight
County, Virginia. In 1921, she will be appointed North Carolina
Supervisor of Negro Elementary Education, a position she will
hold until she joins the ancestors. In 1927, she will found
North Carolina’s Colored Parent Teachers’ Association. She will
join the ancestors suddenly on January 6, 1934, while
addressing a county-wide meeting of Black teachers in
Louisburg, North Carolina.

1900 – Sculptor and educator Selma Burke is born in Mooresville, North
Carolina. She will be commissioned to create a profile of
President Franklin D. Roosevelt after a national competition
sponsored by the Fine Arts Commission in Washington, DC. The
completed project, a plaque, is unveiled and installed at the
Record of Deeds Building in Washington DC.

1930 – Odetta Felious Gordon Holmes is born in Birmingham, Alabama.
She will become a famous folksinger, known simply as “Odetta”,
who will sing all over the world and at major peace and civil
rights meetings, including the 1963 March on Washington. Among
the many musicians who cite Odetta as a major musical influence
have been Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.

1948 – Donna Summer is born in Boston, Massachusetts. She will be the
reigning “Queen of Disco” music in the 1970’s, known for her
renditions of “Bad Girls” and “Last Dance.”

1953 – Hulan Jack is inaugurated as Manhattan borough president, the
first African American to hold the post.

1953 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Paul R. Williams for
his achievements as an architect.

1962 – Katanga becomes part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

1964 – In a speech before a group of young people, Malcolm X urges them
“to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for
yourself. This generation, especially of our people, have a
burden, more so than at any other time in history. The most
important thing we can learn to do today is think for
ourselves.”

1972 – Roberto Clemente, Pittsburgh Pirate slugger, joins the ancestors
after a plane crash on his way to a humanitarian mission to
Nicaragua.

1976 – Roland Hayes joins the ancestors in Boston, Massachusetts at the
age of 89. He had been an acclaimed tenor whose pioneering
recitals of German lieder and other classical music opened the
concert stage for African American singers

1984 – The first nationally broadcast telethon for the United Negro
College Fund raises $14.1 million. The telethon will become an
annual fundraising drive that will support more than 40
historically African American institutions of higher learning
and draw widespread individual and corporate support.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 30 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 30 *

***********************************************************************
* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #5 – Nia (nee-AH) Purpose: To make as our collective vocation *
* the building and developing of our community in order to restore *
* our people to their traditional greatness. *
* http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
***********************************************************************

1842 – Josiah T. Walls is born near Winchester, Virginia. He will
become, in 1871, Florida’s first African American congressman.

1892 – Physician, Dr. Miles V. Lynk, publishes the first African
American medical journal.

1916 – Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, of Brown University, becomes
the first African American running back named to the All-
American team.

1928 – Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel is born in Magnolia, Mississippi. Better
known as Bo Diddley, he will influence a generation of musicians
including such groups as the Rolling Stones and the Doors. A
favorite of President John F. Kennedy, who invited Diddley to
play in the White House in 1962, he will be inducted into the
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He will join the ancestors
on June 2, 2008.

1929 – The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is incorporated.

1929 – The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign begins in Chicago
with picketing of Chain stores on the South Side. The campaign
spread to New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities and
continued throughout the Depression.

1929 – Mordecai W. Johnson receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
work as the first African American president of Howard
University.

1935 – Marian Anderson makes a historic appearance in New York City’s
Town Hall. Fresh from a triumphant tour in Europe, Anderson
will be hailed by New York critics as one of the “great singers
of our time.” Her performance will mark a new era in the
Philadelphian’s long and successful career. Her performance is
described by Howard Taubman, the New York Times reviewer, as
“music-making that probed too deep for words.”

1952 – Tuskegee Institute reports there were no lynchings during the
year for the first time in the 71 years it has been keeping such
records.

1960 – Poet Langston Hughes is presented the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal and
cited as “the poet laureate of the Negro race.”

1960 – Two U.S. courts issues temporary injunctions to prevent eviction
of about seven hundred African American sharecroppers in Haywood
and Fayette counties, Tennessee.

1961 – Ben Johnson is born in Falmouth, Jamaica. He will become a world
class 100 meter runner. He win the Olympic gold medal in 1988
and will be later disqualified for using steroids.

1975 – The constitution of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar comes
into effect.

1975 – Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods is born in Cypress, California. He will
become the first African American or Asian American to win the
Masters Golf tournament. He will accomplish this feat in his
first year on the PGA tour at the age of 21 also making him the
youngest person to win the Masters tournament.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 29 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 29 *

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* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #4 – Ujamaa (oo-JAH-mah) Cooperative Economics: To build and *
* maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit *
* from them. http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
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1907 – Robert Weaver is born in Washington, DC. He will become the
first African American appointed to a presidential cabinet
position when President Lyndon B. Johnson names him to head
the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development.
He will join the ancestors on July 17, 1997.

1917 – Thomas Bradley is born in Calvert, Texas. He will become a
successful politician in California and will be elected as the
first African American mayor of Los Angeles by winning 56% of
the vote. He will serve as mayor for twenty years (five terms).
He will join the ancestors on September 29, 1998.

1925 – At 67, Anna Julia Cooper receives her doctorate from the
University of Paris. Officials of the French Embassy present
the degree to her at ceremonies at Howard University. Cooper
had been a noted college and secondary school educator and will
continue to teach and work for educational improvement for
African Americans until her death at the age of 105.

1939 – Kelly Miller joins the ancestors in Washington, DC. The first
African American to be admitted to Johns Hopkins University (In
1887), and later a longtime professor and dean at Howard
University, Miller was a noted writer, essayist, and newspaper
columnist who opposed the accommodations policies of Booker T.
Washington. He was best known, however, as a champion for
educational development for African Americans, dramatically
increasing enrollment at Howard and founding a “Negro-Americana
Museum and Library,” which will become Howard’s Moorland-
Spingarn Research Center.

1952 – Noted jazz bandleader Fletcher Henderson joins the ancestors in
New York City. Henderson worked early in his career with Harry
Pace of Black Swan Records as a recording manager and, in 1924,
started playing at the Roseland Ballroom, the same year he
added New Orleans trumpeteer Louis Armstrong to the band.
Armstrong’s short tenure helped it evolve from a dance to a
jazz band and established Henderson as the founding father of
the big band movement in jazz.

1954 – The Kingdom of the Netherlands, with Netherlands & Netherlands
Antilles as autonomous parts, comes into being.

1982 – Jamaica issues a postage stamp to honor Bob Marley.

2008 – Jazz trumpeter, Freddie Hubbard, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to a heart attack in Sherman Oaks, California.

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