KRLemmons African American Authors, African American Literature, African American Young Adult Literature

The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Day 16: Kelli London

Kelli London, author of seven young adult novels, is spotlighted today in The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later.  Her titles include: Charly’s Epic Fiascos, Reality Check, Star Power, Boyfriend Season, Cali Boys, and Uptown Dreams.  Her most recent book is the fourth in the Charly’s Epic Fiascos series, Beware of Boys. Read more about this prolific writer here.

KRLemmons African American History

February 16 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 16 *

1801 – The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church officially
separates from its parent, the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Zion church will be incorporated as the African Episcopal
Church of the City of New York. James Varick will be its first
pastor and will later become the first black African Methodist
Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) bishop. It will hold its first national
conference in 1821. The name Zion will not be added to the
church’s name until 1848.

1874 – Frederick Douglass is elected President of Freedman’s Bank and
Trust Company.

1923 – Bessie Smith makes her first recording for Columbia Records.
The record, “Down Hearted Blues,” written by Alberta Hunter
and Lovie Austin, will sell an incredible 800,000 copies and
be Columbia’s first popular hit.

1944 – The U.S. Navy starts its first officer training class of
African Americans at Camp Robert Smalls, Great Lakes, Illinois.
In March, 1944,

1951 – James Ingram is born in Akron, Ohio. He will be raised there
on Kelly Avenue. He will later become a rhythm and blues
singer and will earn at least three Grammy Awards and
seventeen Grammy nominations.

1951 – The New York City Council passes a bill prohibiting racial
discrimination in city-assisted housing developments.

1957 – LeVar Burton is born in Landstuhl, Germany. He will become an
actor, winning a landmark role in the award-winning mini-
series, “Roots,” as the enslaved African youth Kunta Kinte,
while attending USC. He will go on to become a producer,
director and writer for numerous television series and films.

1970 – Joe Frazier knocks outs Jimmy Ellis in the second round to
become the undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion.

1972 – Wilt Chamberlain scores his 30,000th point in his 940th game,
a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the
Phoenix Suns. He is the first player in the NBA to score
30,000 points.

1992 – The Los Angeles Lakers retire Magic Johnson’s uniform, # 32.

1999 – Mary Elizabeth Roche, best known as Betty Roche, joins the
ancestors at the age of 81 in Pleasantville, New Jersey. She
was a singer who performed with Duke Ellington in the 1940s
and 1950s. She sang with the Savoy Sultans from 1941 to
1943, when she joined Ellington’s group. She scored high
marks from critics for the suite “Black, Brown and Beige,” at
Ellington’s first Carnegie Hall concert. She also performed
Ellington’s signature song “Take the A Train” in the 1943
film. “Reveille With Beverly.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 15 *

1848 – Sarah Roberts is barred from a white school in Boston,
Massachusetts. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, files the first
school integration suit on her behalf.

1851 – African American abolitionists invade a Boston courtroom and
rescue a fugitive slave from federal authorities. The fugitive,
Shadrach Minkins was about his job as a waiter in Boston when
United States federal officers showed up at his workplace and
arrested him. Minkins had escaped from slavery in Virginia
the previous year. An act passed by Congress in 1850, the
Fugitive Slave Law, had just been enacted, allowing slave
holders to enlist the aid of the federal government in
recapturing runaway slaves. The Minkins case is to be an
early test of the new law. Within a few hours of his arrest,
Minkins is brought before a federal commissioner. But as he
is being led from the courtroom, a group of Boston African
Americans overpower the guards and free him. He immediately
disappears and is never seen in Boston again. With the help
of the Underground Railroad, Minkins will travel north through
New Hampshire and Vermont, crossing into Canada six days after
his rescue. Out of reach of the U.S. government, Minkins will
settle in Montreal, marry an Irish woman and raise two children
before his death in 1875. Minkins’s rescue will come to
symbolize the spirit of resistance to the legal institutions of
the slave system.

1960 – Darrell Ray Green is born in Houston, Texas. He will become a
professional football player with the Washington Redskins. He
will, for 20 years, be a defensive threat and one of the
fastest men in the NFL. He will retire in 2002 at the age of
42, the oldest Redskin, having played for six head coaches.
He will be enshrined into the College Football Hall of Fame in
2004. On February 2, 2008, he will be voted into the NFL Hall
of Fame on his first ballot, and will be inducted with former
Redskins teamate Art Monk on August 2, 2008.

1961 – U.S. and African Nationalists protesting the slaying of Congo
Premier Patrice Lumumba disrupt United Nations sessions.

1964 – Louis Armstrong’s “Hello Dolly,” a song the world-renowned
trumpeter recorded and almost forgot, becomes the number-one
record on Billboard’s Top 40 charts, replacing The Beatles’
“I Want to Hold Your Hand.” It is Armstrong’s first and
only number-one record.

1965 – Nat King Cole, singer and pianist, joins the ancestors in Santa
Monica, California at the age of 45. He succumbs to lung
cancer.

1968 – Henry Lewis becomes the first African American to lead a
symphony orchestra in the United States when he is named
director of the New Jersey Symphony.

1969 – Noted historian John Henrik Clarke, speaking before the Jewish
Currents Conference in New York City, says, “You cannot
subjugate a man and recognize his humanity, his history…so
systematically you must take this away from him. You begin by
telling lies about the man’s role in history.”

1978 – Leon Spinks defeats Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight
boxing championship in a 15-round decision in Las Vegas,
Nevada.

1992 – At memorial services attended by over 1,600 in Memphis,
Tennessee, author Alex Haley (“Roots,” “Autobiography of
Malcolm X”) is eulogized by his wife, who says, “Thank you,
Alex, you have helped us know who we truly are.”

1992 – NAACP Executive Director, Benjamin L. Hooks, announces that he
would retire from the organization in 1993. He will have
headed the organization for sixteen years.

1999 – The body of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African gunned down
by New York City police, is returned to his native Guinea.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 14 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 14 *

1760 – Richard Allen, is born into slavery in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He will purchase his freedom in 1786 and will
become a preacher the same year. He will become the first
African American ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church
(1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME)
Church in 1816, and first bishop of the AME Church. He will
join the ancestors on March 26, 1831.

1818 – The birth of Frederick Douglass in Tuckahoe (Talbot County),
Maryland, is attributed to this date. He will state, “I have
no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any
authentic record containing it… and it is the wish of most
masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus
ignorant.” He will be a great African American leader and
“one of the giants of nineteenth century America. He was
born Frederick Bailey and will change his name to Douglass
after he escapes slavery in 1838. He will join the ancestors
on February 20, 1895 in Washington, DC.

1867 – Morehouse College is organized in Augusta, Georgia. The
school will be moved later to Atlanta.

1867 – New registration law in Tennessee abolishes racial
distinctions in voting.

1936 – The National Negro Congress is organized at a Chicago meeting
attended by eight hundred seventeen delegates representing
more than five hundred organizations. Asa Phillip Randolph
of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is elected
president of the new organization.

1946 – Gregory Hines is born in New York City. A child tap-dancing
star in the group Hines, Hines, and Dad, Hines will lead a
new generation of tap dancers that will benefit from the
advice and teaching of such tap legends as Henry Le Tang,
“Honi” Coles, Sandman Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Sammy
Davis, Jr. He will also become a successful actor in movies
including “White Knights,” “Tap,” and “A Rage in Harlem.” He
will join the ancestors on August 9, 2003.

1951 – Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta and wins the
middleweight boxing title.

1957 – Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, “King David”, makes
its debut at New York’s Town Hall. The four-part symphony
jazz suite was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

1966 – Wilt Chamberlain breaks the NBA career scoring record at
20,884 points after only seven seasons as a pro basketball
player.

1978 – Maxima Corporation, a computer systems and management company,
is incorporated. Headquartered in Lanham, Maryland, it will
become one of the largest African American-owned companies
and earn its founder, chairman and CEO, Joshua I. Smith,
chairmanship of the U.S. Commission on Minority Business
Development.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 13 *

1818 – The first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the
United States, Absalom Jones, joins the ancestors in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was an instrumental force in
the development of the early African American church and
benevolent society movements.

1882 – Henry Highland Garnet, abolitionist, preacher, diplomat and
protest leader, joins the ancestors in Monrovia, Liberia at
the age of 66.

1892 – The first African American performers, the World’s Fair
Colored Opera Company, appear at New York City’s Carnegie
Hall less than one year after the hall’s opening. In the
company is concert singer Matilda Sissieretta Jones, who will
have her solo debut at Carnegie Hall two years later.

1907 – Wendell P. Dabney establishes “The Union.” The Cincinnati,
Ohio paper’s motto is “For no people can become great without
being united, for in union, there is strength.”

1919 – Eddie Robinson is born in Jackson, Louisiana. He will accept
the head coaching position in 1941, at the Louisiana Negro
Normal and Industrial Institute in Grambling, Louisiana
(later named Grambling State University. Over the next 54
years, he will become the winningest college football coach.
On October 7, 1995, he will win his 400th game, establishing
a record and securing his status as a legend. Sports
Illustrated will place Robinson on the cover of its October
14, 1995 issue, making him the first and only coach of an
historically Black university to appear on the cover of any
major sports publication in the United States. To his credit,
he will produce 113 NFL players, including four Pro Football
Hall of Famers. He will join the ancestors on April 3, 2007.

1920 – The National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs is
founded by Andrew “Rube” Foster. They will be called the
Negro National League. It will become the first successful
African American professional baseball league. Two other
leagues had previously been started, but failed to last more
than one season.

1923 – The first African American professional basketball team “The
Renaissance” is organized by Robert J. Douglas. It is named
after its home court, the Renaissance Casino. They will
play from 1923 to 1939 and have a record of 1,588 wins
against 239 losses. They will become the first African
American team in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

1957 – The Southern Leadership Conference is founded at a meeting of
ministers in New Orleans, Louisiana. Martin Luther King, Jr.
is elected its first president. Later in the year its name
will be changed to the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference.

1976 – General Murtala Mohammed, head of Nigeria, who came to power
in 1975 after General Gowon is ousted, joins the ancestors
after being killed in an unsuccessful counter-coup. His
chief of staff, General Olusegun Obasanjo, will assume
Mohammed’s post and his promise to hand over political power
to civilian rule.

1996 – Minister Louis Farrakhan, of the Nation of Islam, visits Iran
to celebrate its 1979 revolution ousting the Shah.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 12 *

1793 – Congress makes it a crime to hide or protect a runaway slave
by passing the first fugitive slave law.

1865 – Henry Highland Garnet, preacher and abolitionist, becomes the
first African American to preach in the rotunda of the
Capitol to the House of Representatives. It is on the
occasion of a Lincoln birthday memorial.

1896 – Isaac Burns Murphy, considered the greatest American jockey
of all time, joins the ancestors. He was the first jockey
to win the Kentucky Derby two years in a row and became the
first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times. In
1955, Isaac Murphy was the first jockey voted into the
Jockey Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing, in
Saratoga Springs, New York.

1900 – For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson
writes the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” With
music by his brother, J. Rosamond, the song is first sung
by 500 children in Jacksonville, Florida. It will become
known as the “Negro National Anthem.”

1909 – When six African Americans were killed and 200 others driven
out of town in race riots in Springfield, Illinois in the
summer of 1908, many Americans were shocked, because they
associated such violence only with racism in the south.
Springfield was not only a northern city, but the home of
Abraham Lincoln. Three people, Mary Ovington, William E.
Walling, and Dr. Henry Moskowitz, alarmed at the
deterioration of race relations, decided to open a campaign
to oppose the pervasive discrimination against racial
minorities. They issue a call for a national conference
on “the Negro question”, and for its symbolic value, they
will choose the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln,
February 12, 1909, as the date for the conference. Held in
New York City, it will draw an interracial group of 60
distinguished citizens, who will formulate plans for a
permanent organization devoted to fighting all forms of
racial discrimination. That organization will be the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The NAACP will be the oldest and largest civil rights
organization in the U.S. With more than 2,200 branches
across the country, it will be in the forefront of the
struggle for voting rights, and an end to discrimination in
housing, employment, and education.

1934 – William Felton “Bill” Russell is born in Monroe, Louisiana.
He will become a star basketball player and high jumper at
the University of San Francisco. After college, he will
win a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics, as a member of the
United States basketball team. He will then play
professional basketball for the Boston Celtics for thirteen
seasons, winning eight straight NBA titles and eleven
championships. At the end of the 1965-66 season, he will
become the coach of the Boston Celtics.

1983 – Eubie Blake joins the ancestors at the age of 100 in Brooklyn,
New York. Blake was one of the last ragtime pianists and
composers whose most famous songs included “I’m Just Wild
About Harry.” With Noble Sissle, Blake was the composer of
the first all-African American Broadway musical, “Shuffle
Along,” which opened on Broadway in 1921.

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