KRLemmons African American History

April 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 25 *

1905 – Doxey Alphonso Wilkerson is born in Excelsior Springs, Missouri.
He will become an educator at Howard University in Washington, DC
and Yeshiva University in New York City. In 1944, he will publish
an essay in the anthology, “What The Negro Wants,” which will
illustrate comparisons between the Allied struggle in Europe
during World War II and the civil rights struggle of African
Americans in the United States. As a member of the American
Communist Party, he will work as a civil rights activist. This
affiliation will cause him to be repeatedly investigated by
the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities. After
resigning from the Communist Party in 1957, he will continue to
be active in civil right activities and educational pursuits
until his retirement in 1984. He will join the ancestors on
June 17, 1993 in Norwalk, Connecticut.

1916 – Madeline M. Turner receives a patent for the fruit press.

1918 – Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia. Discovered
at an amateur contest at the Apollo Theatre in 1934, she will
be a leading jazz vocalist of the swing era. Known for her
renditions of such songs as “A Tisket, A Tasket” (her first
million-seller), her unique scat styling and series of recordings
of great American songwriters will make her an enduring favorite
of jazz lovers. She will join the ancestors on June 15, 1996 in
Beverly Hills, California.

1942 – Ruby Doris Smith Robinson is born in Atlanta, Georgia. She will
become a civil rights activist and a founding member of The
Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). She will be
one of the original “Freedom Riders,” and will assist in creating
the policy of “jail, no bail,” employed by activists to fill
southern jails and bring national attention to the civil rights
struggle. After becoming SNCC’s first and only female executive
secretary, she will become ill with leukemia and joins the
ancestors on October 7, 1967 in Atlanta, Georgia.

1944 – The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is founded by Dr. Frederick
Douglass Patterson, then president of Tuskegee Institute, with 27
charter colleges and universities and a combined enrollment of
14,000 students.

1944 – George Herriman joins the ancestors in Los Angeles, California
at the age of 63. He had been a successful cartoonist who was
the author of the comic strip “Krazy Kat.” The comic strip ran
successfully from 1913 until this date.

1945 – The United Nations is founded at a San Francisco meeting
attended by African American consultants, most notably W.E.B.
Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Ralph J. Bunche and Walter White.

1950 – At the NBA’s annual players draft, the Boston Celtics select
Charles “Chuck” Cooper. He is the first African American ever
drafted by an NBA team.

1960 – A consent judgment in a Memphis federal court ended restrictions
barring voters in Fayette County, Tennessee. This was the first
voting rights case under the Civil Rights Act.

1972 – Major General Frederick E. Davidson becomes the first African
American to lead an Army division when he is assigned command of
the 8th Infantry Division in Europe.

1979 – Olodum, an internationally recognized Afro-Brazilian Carnival
association, is founded in Bahia, Brazil. The music of this
group celebrates Black history and protests racial discrimination.
The name Olodum is derived from the name of the supreme Yoruba
deity, Olodumare’.

1990 – Tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon joins the ancestors in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the age of 67. A leading influence
in the bop movement along with Billy Eckstine and Dizzy Gillespie,
Gordon played in London in the early 1960’s and stayed until the
mid-1970’s. Elected to the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980, his role in
the 1986 movie “‘Round Midnight” will revive interest in his music
and earn him an Academy Award nomination for best actor.

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

KRLemmons African American Biography, African Authors, Resources

April 25 Poet of the Day: Kwame Dawes

April 25 Poet of the Day is Kwame Dawes.  Born in Ghana, Kwame Dawes later moved to Jamaica and spent most of his childhood and early adult life there.  In addition to poetry, Kwame also writes fiction, nonfiction and plays.  Read about this multitalented artist here:

Additional resources about Kwame Dawes:

Poets.Org: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/2118, http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22007

Poetry Archive: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=17247

Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kwame-dawes

PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/uwm/dawes.html, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/poet-kwame-dawes-remembers-uncle-kofi-awoonor-with-reading-of-the-weaver-bird/

Calabash Interview: http://www.nyu.edu/calabash/vol5no1/0501115.pdf

Kickstarts Fund for African Poetry: http://www.dailynebraskan.com/arts_and_entertainment/article_db86abbe-0b67-11e2-88e2-001a4bcf6878.html

YouTube Interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puv51J7RBXo When Disaster Strikes (Haiti): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DsSpTUQuSg, Poetry reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx5Vohf5rW0

KRLemmons African American Biography, African American Poetry, Lesson Plans, Resources

April 24 Poet of the Day: Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton is April 24 Poet of the Day.  Poet, Educator and Author of the Everett Anderson children’s books series, Lucille Clifton was born on June 27, 1936 in Depew, New York.  Read about this prolific writer here:

Additional resources about Lucille Clifton:

PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/clifton.html

NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124113507

Shmoop Lesson Plan on “Homage to My Hips”: http://www.shmoop.com/homage-hips/ May have to register in order to access all resources.

Poetry Foundation: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/lucille-clifton

Voices From the Gap: http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/cliftonLucille.php

Poets & Writers Interview: http://www.pw.org/content/no_ordinary_woman_lucille_clifton

Modern American Poetry: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/clifton/clifton.htm

YouTube Videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPr6EOggzm0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEVdSYqyk2Y

 

KRLemmons African American History

April 24 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 24 *

1867 – The first national meeting of the Ku Klux Klan is held at
the “Maxwell House” in Nashville, Tennessee.

1867 – African American demonstrators stage ride-ins on Richmond,
Virginia streetcars. Troops were mobilized to restore
order.

1884 – The Medico-Chirurgical Society of the District of Columbia
is founded. It is the first African American medical
society.

1886 – Augustine Tolton is ordained as a Catholic priest after
studying at the College of the Propagation of the Faith in
Rome for five years. Tolton will distinguish himself as a
speaker and a pastor at Catholic churches in New Jersey,
New York City, Chicago, and Quincy, Illinois.

1895 – The National Association of Colored Physicians, Dentists and
Pharmacists is organized at the First Congregational Church
in Atlanta, Georgia. It will change its name to the
National Medical Association in 1903.

1937 – Joseph “Joe” Henderson is born in Lima, Ohio. He will make
his initial reputation in what might be called Blue Note
Records’ second classic phase in the early 1960s, when a
new generation of young musicians began to extend the basic
hard bop framework of the label’s seminal 1950s output in
more experimental directions. He will be one of the players
at the core of that development, both as a leader and in
recordings as a sideman with artists like Kenny Dorham, Lee
Morgan, Andrew Hill, McCoy Tyner, Larry Young and Horace
Silver, among others. His firm grasp of the root idiom
combined with his experimental nature made him an ideal
exponent of the new style, which did not abandon jazz
structures in as radical a fashion as the free jazz
movement. He will join the ancestors on June 30, 2001 in
San Francisco.

1943 – Speaking on race relations and racial equality at Wayne
State University, Langston Hughes says, “I am for the
Christianity that fights poll tax, race discrimination,
lynching, injustice and inequality of the masses. I don’t
feel that religion should be used to beat down Jews [and]
Negroes, and to persecute other minority groups.

1944 – In Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court rules that a
“white primary” law that excludes African Americans from
voting is a violation of the 15th Amendment and thus
unconstitutional.

1948 – James Melvin Washington is born in Knoxville, Tennessee.
He will become a leading theologian whose emphasis was the
African American religious experience. He will be a
professor at the Union Theological Seminary in New York
from 1975 until he joins the ancestors on May 3, 1997. His
published works will include “Frustrated Fellowship: The
Black Baptist Quest for Social Power” (1986), “A Testament
of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr.”
(1986), and “Conversations with God: Two Centuries of
Prayers by African Americans” (1994).

1954 – Wesley Cook is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He will
become an activist during his teenage years and will be
arrested and beaten for demonstrating against presidential
candidate governor George Wallace of Alabama. He will be a
founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of the Black
Panther Party in 1968 and will be known as Mumia Abu-Jamal.
After spending the summer months in 1970 working on the BPP
newspaper in California, he will return to Philadelphia to
work as a radio journalist with the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting and will have his own talk show on station
WUHY. He will lose his position as a radio journalist after
his continual criticism of mayor Frank Rizzo and
specifically his coverage of the police treatment of the
militant organization MOVE. While working as a taxicab
driver, he will be accused of killing a Philadelphia
policeman, Daniel Faulkner in 1981. Faulkner is killed in
an altercation with Mumia’s brother, after wounding Mumia.
Mumia is presumed to be the shooter and will be convicted
of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. This
verdict is handed down ignoring testimony of witnesses who
saw the killer flee and irregularities during the trial.
On death row since the trial, Mumia will have numerous
appeals turned down. His case will attract worldwide
attention as a racist miscarriage of justice.

1965 – An armed revolt against the dictatorship in the Dominican
Republic is ended with an invasion by United States troops.
Participating in the revolt is Maximiliano Gomez Horatio,
the leader of the Dominican Popular Movement.

1972 – James M. Rodger, Jr., of Durham, North Carolina, is honored
in a White House ceremony as National Teacher of the Year.
He is the first African American to receive the honor.

1972 – Robert Wedgeworth is named director of the American Library
Association. He is the first African American to head the
organization.

1993 – Oliver Tambo joins the ancestors in Johannesburg, South
Africa at the age of 75. He was the former president of
the African National Congress (ANC), law partner of Nelson
Mandela and an important anti-apartheid leader.

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