Today’s Woman is Barbara McNair: Actress, Singer, and one of the first African American women to host a TV show. Information about this multitalented woman can be found at these links:
NYTimes Obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/06/arts/television/06mcnair.html?_r=0
TV Biography: http://www.tvguide.com/celebrities/barbara-mcnair/bio/141186
Today in Black History – March 4 *
1837 – The second major African American newspaper, the “Weekly
Advocate” changes its name to the “Colored American.”
1869 – The forty-second Congress convenes (1871-73) with five
African American congressmen: Joseph H. Rainey, Robert
Carlos Delarge, and Robert Brown Elliott from South Carolina;
Benjamin S. Turner, of Alabama; Josiah T. Walls of Florida.
Walls is elected in an at-large election and is the first
African American congressman to represent an entire state.
1889 – The fifty-first Congress convenes. Three Black congressmen:
Henry P. Cheatham of North Carolina; Thomas E. Miller of
South Carolina; and John Mercer Langston of Virginia.
1897 – Willie Covan is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will become one
of the earliest successful tap dancers, appearing in the
original production of “Shuffle Along” as well as with the
Four Covans.
1901 – The congressional term of George H. White, last of the post
Reconstruction congressmen, ends.
1922 – Theater legend Bert Williams joins the ancestors at the age of
46 in New York City. He was considered the foremost African
American vaudeville performer, teaming first with George
Walker in 1895, most notably in “In Dahomey,” and later as a
soloist with the Ziegfeld Follies.
1932 – Miriam Zenzi Makeba, “Empress of African Song,” is born in
Prospect Township, South Africa. Although exiled from her
homeland, Makeba will become an internationally known
singer and critic of apartheid. Throughout her life and
singing career, She will use her voice to to draw the attention
of the world to the music of South Africa and to its oppressive
system of racial separation. After appearing in the
semi-documentary antiapartheid film, “Come Back, Africa,” she
will attract international attention. This will include
meeting Harry Belafonte, who will become her sponsor and
promoter in the United States. Because her music always
contained a political component – the denunciation of
apartheid, her South African passport will be revoked in 1960.
Her career in the United States will be crippled by her
marriage to Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture’), who was
active in the Black Panther Party. Her career will continue
to flourish in Europe. She will later become a United Nations
delegate from Guinea and will continue to record and perform.
She will return to her homeland, South Africa, in 1990 and in
1991, will make her first performance there in over thirty
years. She will join the ancestors on November 10, 2008 after
succumbing to a heart attack suffered after singing her hit
song “Pata Pata” during a concert organized to support writer
Robert Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like
organization in the Campania region of Italy.
1934 – Barbara McNair is born in Racine, Wisconsin. She will become a
singer and actress, and will host her own television program
(The Barbara McNair Show). The glamorous actress will
moonlight as a pop singer between TV and film roles during
the 1960s. She will be a classy addition to Berry Gordy’s
talent roster when his firm attempts to diversify its appeal.
She will cut a pair of albums for Motown in 1966 and 1969.
1944 – Robert Dwayne “Bobby” Womack is born in Cleveland, Ohio. He
will become a Rhythm and Blues performer, guitarist and
songwriter.
1954 – The first African American sub-cabinet member is appointed.
President Eisenhower names J. Earnest Wilkins of Chicago as
the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor.
1968 – Joe Frazier defeats Buster Mathis for the world heavyweight
boxing championship by knockout in the eleventh round.
1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr. announces plans for the Poor People’s
Campaign in Washington, DC. He says that he will lead a
massive civil disobedience campaign in the capital to pressure
the government to provide jobs and income for all Americans.
He tells a press conference that an army of poor white, poor
African Americans and Hispanics will converge on Washington
on April 20 and will demonstrate until their demands were met.
1981 – A jury in Salt Lake City convicts Joseph Paul Franklin, an
avowed racist, of violating the civil rights of two black men
who were shot to death.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The woman for March 3 is Juanita Kidd Stout, the first African American woman to serve on a state supreme in Pennsylvania. Find out more about this woman by clicking on the links below:
NYTimes Obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/24/us/j-k-stout-pioneering-judge-in-pennsylvania-is-dead-at-79.html
Library of Congress American Memory: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awmss5/judg_attys.html
Today in Black History – March 3 *
1820 – In an attempt to resolve the conflict between pro and
antislavery forces, the Missouri Compromise becomes law. In
the final law, Missouri joins the Union as a slave state
while Maine joins as a free one. The measure prohibits
slavery to the north of the southern boundary of Missouri.
1821 – Thomas L. Jennings receives a patent for an invention to “dry
scour” (dry clean) clothes. It is the earliest known patent
granted to an African American.
1865 – Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and
Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedman’s Bureau, to
provide health and education to newly freed slaves displaced
by the Civil War.
1865 – Congress charters Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Bank with
business confined to African Americans.
1869 – The University of South Carolina is opened to all races. Two
African Americans, B.A. Boseman and Francis L. Cardozo were
elected to a seven-man board of trustees.
1896 – The South Carolina legislature passes a measure creating the
Colored Normal Industrial, Agricultural and Mechanical
College (later South Carolina State) in Orangeburg.
1931 – Cab Calloway records the classic “Minnie The Moocher,” a song
that would be forever linked to him. The song combined
scat-singing with nonsense syllables and lyrics of drug use,
recounting how Minnie and her cocaine-using lover, Smokey
Joe, went to Chinatown, where “he showed her how to kick the
gong around” – slang for opium smoking.
1962 – Jacqueline Joyner (later Kersee) is born in East Saint Louis,
Illinois. She will become an Olympic champion, winning two
medals (silver in 1984 and gold in 1988) in the heptathlon
and another gold medal in the long jump at the 1988 Games in
Seoul, South Korea.
1967 – Grenada gains partial independence from Great Britain.
1988 – Juanita Kidd Stout becomes the first African American woman to
serve on a state supreme court when she is sworn in as an
associate justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
1991 – Motorist Rodney King is severely beaten by four Los Angeles
police officers after a high-speed chase in a scene captured
on home video by George Holliday.
1998 – Larry Doby, the second African American to play major league
baseball and the first African American to play in the
American League (Cleveland Indians), is selected for
induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
2013 – Bobby Rogers, an original member of Motown’s group, “The Miracles,”
joins the ancestors. His passing was confirmed by the group’s
longtime front man, Smokey Robinson. Robinson, Rogers and the
rest of the Miracles were a cornerstone act for writer-producer
Berry Gordy’s infant Motown Records, putting songs such as “Shop
Around,” “Tracks of My Tears” and “The Tears of a Clown” on the R&B
and pop charts throughout the 1960s. After Robinson left the group,
the Miracles had a No. 1 hit with “Love Machine” in 1976. When the
group disbanded in the late 1970s, Rogers started an interior design
business. The Miracles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 2012.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 