Award winning African American Illustrator Kadir Nelson is Day 26 of the 28 Days Later. Read more about him and his journey here. To view some of his illustrations, visit his website.
February 26 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – February 26 *
1844 – James Edward O’Hara is born in New York City to an Irish
merchant and a West Indian woman. He will move to North
Carolina after completing his basic education. After studying
law at Howard University, he will be admitted to the North
Carolina bar and become a practicing attorney in Halifax
county and active in state politics. He will later become a
two-term United States Congressman from North Carolina, serving
in the forty-eighth and forty-ninth congress.
1870 – Wyatt Outlaw, Town Commissioner in Graham, North Carolina, joins
the ancestors after being executed (lynched) by the “White
Brotherhood,” The Ku Klux Klan. He was president of the
Alamance County Union League of America (an anti Ku Klux Klan
group), helped to establish the Republican party in North
Carolina and advocated establishing a school for African
Americans. The Klan will hang him from an oak tree near the
Alamance County Courthouse. Dozens of Klansmen will be arrested
for the murders of Outlaw and other African Americans in
Alamance and Caswell Counties. Many of the arrested men will
confess, but, despite protests by Governor William W. Holden,
a federal judge in Salisbury will order them released.
1926 – Dr. Carter G. Woodson starts Negro History Week. This week
will be expanded to Black History Month in 1976.
1926 – Theodore “Tiger”(The Georgia Deacon) Flowers becomes the first
African American middleweight champion of the world. He will
defeat Harry Greb in fifteen rounds to win the title in New
York City.
1928 – Antoine “Fats” Domino is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He
will be a pioneering Rhythm & Blues pianist whose hits will
include “Ain’t That A Shame” and “Blueberry Hill.”
1930 – “The Green Pastures” opens on Broadway at the Mansfield Theater
with Richard B. Harrison as “De Lawd.”
1946 – A race riot in Columbia, Tennessee results in two deaths and
ten injured persons.
1964 – Boxer Cassius Clay converts to Islam, adopting the name
Muhammad Ali, saying, “I believe in the religion of
Islam…believe in Allah and peace…”
1965 – During civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, that were
designed to get the attention of the Johnson administration in
Washington, DC, police violence erupts against the marchers.
In an effort to protect his mother from a beating, 26 year old
Jimmie Lee Jackson strikes a police officer. He will join the
ancestors after being shot and killed. Civil rights activists,
outraged by his death, will plan a march from the Edmund Pettus
Bridge in Selma to Montgomery.
1966 – Andrew Brimmer becomes the first African American governor of
the Federal Reserve Board when he is appointed by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.
1984 – Rev. Jesse Jackson acknowledges that he referred to New York
City as “Hymietown.”
1985 – At the 27th Grammy Awards, Best Album of the Year for “Can’t
Slow Down”, is presented to Lionel Richie. Tina Turner is a
big winner with Best Song, Best Record and Best Pop Vocal
Performance by a Female for “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.J
The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later Day 25: Celeste O. Norfleet
The Brown Bookshelf 28 Days Later is pleased to feature Celeste O. Norfleet on Day 25. Norfleet, the author of popular young adult books, Download Drama, Getting Played, Fast Forward, Pushing Pause, and She Said, She Said. To read more about her interesting author journey click here and visit her website.
February 25 African American Historical Events
Today in Black History – February 25 *
1867 – Tennessee Gov. William Gannaway Brownlow issues a proclamation
warning that the unlawful events of the Ku Klux Klan “must and
SHALL cease” and that militia would be immediately organized
against the organization. This is in response to Ku Klux Klan
activities in a nine county area. The Klan’s aim is to
reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South
during the Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican’s party’s
infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish
control of the black labor force, and restore racial
subordination in every aspect of Southern life. (Editor’s Note:
The KKK was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee on December 15, 1865)
1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi becomes the first African
American Senator. He is elected by the Mississippi legislature
to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jefferson Davis. After the
Senate term expires, he will become the first President of
Alcorn A&M College, in Lorman, Mississippi (the first African
American land-grant institution in the United States).
1948 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is ordained as a Baptist minister.
After graduating from Morehouse College in June, 1948, he will
enter the Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.
1964 – Twenty-two year old Cassius Clay becomes world heavyweight
boxing champion when he defeats Sonny Liston in Miami, Florida.
The feared Liston is the favorite, but Clay predicts he will
“float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Soon after his
victory, Clay will assume his Muslim name of Muhammad Ali. He
will be considered by many, the greatest heavyweight champion
of all time.
1978 – Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. joins the ancestors at the age of
58 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. James was an early graduate
of the Tuskegee Institute Flying School and flew more than 100
missions during the Korean War. He was the first African
American to achieve the rank of four-star general.
1980 – Robert E. Hayden, African American poet and former poetry
consultant to the Library of Congress, joins the ancestors in
Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hayden’s most notable works include
“Words in Mourning Time and Angle of Ascent: New and Selected
Poems.”
1991 – Adrienne Mitchell becomes the first African American woman to
die in a combat zone in the Persian Gulf War when she joins
the ancestors after being killed in her military barracks in
Dharan, Saudi Arabia.
1992 – Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, Lisa Fischer, Luther Vandross,
B.B. King, Boyz II Men, and James Brown, among others, win
Grammy awards in ceremonies hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.
1999 – A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentences white supremacist John
William King to death for chaining James Byrd Jr., an African
American man, to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces.
2000 – The killers of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, four
white New York police officers, are acquitted of all charges
by a jury in Albany, New York. Diallo had been fired upon 41
times, with 19 shots hitting him while holding only his wallet
in the vestibule of his own home.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 