KRLemmons African American History

June 14 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 14 *

1921 – Georgianna R. Simpson becomes the first African American
woman to receive a Ph.D. when she is awarded the degree,
in German, by the University of Chicago.

1931 – Margaret Bradley is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will
become a popular and enduring television personality known
as Marla Gibbs, notable for her roles in the ‘Jeffersons’
and ‘227’.

1941 – John Edgar Wideman is born in Washington, DC. He is will
become a Rhodes scholar and writer of such fictional works
as ‘Hurry Home’, ‘Damballah’, and ‘Philadelphia Fire’. He
will be the second African American to win a Rhodes
scholarship. He will become the only writer to be awarded
the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice– once in 1984 for
his novel “Sent for You Yesterday” and again in 1990 for
“Philadelphia Fire.” In 1990, he will also receive the
American Book Award for Fiction. He will be awarded the
Lannan Literary Fellowship for Fiction in 1991 and the
MacArthur Award in 1993. Other honors will include the St.
Botolph Literary Award (1993), the DuSable Museum Prize for
Nonfiction for Brothers and Keepers (1985), the Longwood
College Medal for Literary Excellence, and the National
Magazine Editors’ Prize for Short Fiction (1987). In 1996,
he will edit the annual anthology “The Best American Short
Stories” (Houghton Mifflin).

1970 – Cheryl Adrienne Brown, Miss Iowa, becomes the first
African American to compete in the Miss America beauty
pageant.

1971 – The Justice Department files suit against the St. Louis
suburb of Black Jack, charging the community with illegally
using municipal procedures to block an integrated housing
development.

1989 – Congressman William Gray, chairman of the House Democratic
Caucus, is elected Democratic Whip of the House of
Representatives, the highest ranking leadership position
ever held by an African American in Congress.

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

KRLemmons African American History

June 13 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 13 *

1774 – Rhode Island prohibits the importation of slaves, the
first state to do so.

1866 – The House of Representatives passes the 14th Amendment,
guaranteeing civil rights for African Americans.

1868 – Ex-slave Oscar T. Dunn is installed as Lieutenant
Governor of Louisiana. It is the highest executive
office held by an African American at that time.

1870 – Richard T. Greener becomes the first African American
to graduate from Harvard University.

1893 – T.W. Stewart patents a mop.

1937 – Eleanor Holmes (later Norton) is born in Washington,
DC. A graduate of the Yale University School of Law,
Norton will become chairperson of the New York City
Commission on Human Rights, and a Georgetown University
law professor before being elected a non-voting delegate
to Congress representing the District of Columbia.

1967 – President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals
Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring
Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August
30, after a heated debate, the Senate will confirm
Marshall’s nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. Two days
later, he will be sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren,
making him the first African American in history to sit
on America’s highest court.

1977 – The convicted assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., James Earl Ray, is recaptured following
his escape three days earlier from a Tennessee prison.

1989 – Kareem Abdul Jabbar plays in his final NBA game as the
Detroit Pistons sweep the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA
title.

1990 – The United Nations calls on South Africa to free Nelson
Mandela.

1990 – Bernadette Locke becomes the first female on-court men’s
basketball coach when she is named assistant coach of the
University of Kentucky men’s basketball team.

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

KRLemmons African American History

June 12 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 12 *

1826 – Sarah Parker Remond is born in Salem, Massachusetts. She will
become a major abolitionist. She will also be an African
American physician, lecturer and agent of the American
Anti-Slavery Society. She will deliver speeches throughout
the United States on the horrors of slavery. Because of her
eloquence, she will be chosen to travel to England to gather
support for the abolitionist cause in the United States and,
after the American Civil War starts, for support of the
Union Army and the Union blockade of the Confederacy. She
is the sister of orator Charles Lenox Remond. She will join
the ancestors on December 13, 1894.

1840 – The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention convenes in
London, England. Among those in attendance will be
African American Charles Remond, who will refuse to be
seated at the meeting when he and the other delegates
learn that women are being segregated in the gallery.

1876 – A monument is dedicated to Richard Allen in
Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. It is the first known
monument erected by African Americans to honor one of
their heroes.

1904 – William Hendrick Foster is born in Calvert, Texas. He will
become a star in the Negro Baseball League. He will play
for the Chicago American Giants from 1923-1937. A left-hander,
he will win 137 games, more than any other left-handed
pitcher. Throughout his career, he will regularly participate
in post-season play in the California Winter League and with
barnstorming squads of Negro Leagues all-stars. In exhibition
contests against major league stars, he will post a .600+ win
percentage. After his retirement from baseball, he will
pursue various coaching positions, ultimately landing the
post of head baseball coach and dean of men at his alma mater,
Alcorn College in Mississippi. He will join the ancestors on
September 16, 1978. He will be inducted into the Baseball
Hall Of Fame in 1996.

1935 – Ella Fitzgerald records her first record for Brunswick
Records. The songs on the record were “Love and Kisses”
and “I’ll Chase the Blues Away”. She is featured with
Chick Webb and his band. Ella is 17 years old at the
time and will conduct the Webb band for three years
after he joins the ancestors in 1939.

1961 – The Hinds County, Mississippi Board of Supervisors
announces that more than one hundred “Freedom Riders”
had been arrested.

1963 – Medgar Evers, field secretary for the Mississippi
NAACP, joins the ancestors after being killed in the
driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
The African American civil rights leader is shot to
death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. During
World War II, Evers volunteered for the U.S. Army and
participated in the Normandy invasion. In 1952, he
joined the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP). As a field worker for the NAACP,
Evers traveled through his home state encouraging poor
African Americans to register to vote and recruiting
them into the civil rights movement. He was instrumental
in getting witnesses and evidence for the Emmitt Till
murder case, which brought national attention to the
+ plight of African Americans in the South. He will be
widely mourned throughout the civil rights movement and
posthumously receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.

1963 – Civil rights group demonstrates at Harlem construction
sites to protest discrimination in the building trade
unions.

1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Virginia
miscegenation law (marriage or cohabitation between
whites and non-whites). This decision establishes that
no state law can prohibit interracial marriages.

1967 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in
Cincinnati, Ohio. Three hundred persons are arrested,
and the National Guard is mobilized.

1972 – The National Black MBA Association is incorporated.
An organization of over 2,000 minority holders of
advanced business degrees, the organization’s mission
is to assist the entry of interested minorities into
the business community.

1981 – Larry Holmes defends his heavyweight boxing title by
earning a third-round TKO (technical knockout) over
Leon Spinks in Detroit, Michigan.

1989 – The U.S. Supreme Court expands the abilities of white
males to challenge court-approved affirmative action
plans, even years after they take effect.

1995 – The Supreme Court deals a potentially crippling blow
to federal affirmative action programs, ruling Congress
was limited by the same strict standards as states in
offering special help to minorities.

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

KRLemmons African American Music

June 11 Artist of the Day: Hazel Dorothy Scott

June 11 Artist of the Day is Hazel Dorothy Scott, who was also born on this day in 1920. A music prodigy, Hazel Dorothy Scott performed classical and jazz music.  Read about this multitalented artist here:

Smithsonian Magazine: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/womens-history/hazel-scotts-lifetime-of-high-notes-145939027/

Youtube video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySQ8cA4a-f8, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWX8Tlu8Bqg, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM3-kUzdTDg

 

KRLemmons African American History

June 11 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 11 *

1799 – Richard Allen, the first African American bishop in
the United States, is ordained a deacon of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania by Bishop Francis Asbury.

1915 – Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, the first African American in
the United States to be named a judge, joins the
ancestors in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of 87.

1920 – Hazel Dorothy Scott is born in Port-of-Spain,
Trinidad and raised in New York City from the age of
four. A child prodigy, she will enroll at New York
City’s Juilliard School of Music and star in
nightclubs, Broadway shows, and films. A fixture in
jazz society uptown and downtown in New York, most
notably for her jazz improvisations on familiar
classical works, she will be credited with putting
the “swing in European classical music.” She will be
the first African American woman to have her own
television show, “The Hazel Scott Show”. The show will
be short-lived because she will publicly oppose
McCarthyism and racial segregation, and the show will be
cancelled in 1950 when she is accused of being a
Communist sympathizer. She will be married to Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr. from 1945 to 1956, with whom she will
have one child before their divorce. She will join the
ancestors after succumbing to cancer at the age of 61 on
October 2, 1981 in New York City.

1930 – Charles Rangel is born in New York City. He will defeat
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. for the latter’s Congressional
seat in the 16th District and serve on the House Judiciary
Committee hearings on the impeachment of President Richard
M. Nixon. He will also chair the Congressional Black
Caucus and be a strong advocate in the war on drugs and
drug crime as chairman of the House Select Committee on
Narcotics Abuse and Control.

1937 – Amalya L. Kearse is born in Vaux Hall, New Jersey. She
will become the first African American woman judge on the
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second District of New York. She
will earn her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College
and her law degree at University of Michigan Law School.
She will be active in legal circles, the National Urban
League, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

1937 – Johnny Brown is born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He will
become a comedian and will be known for his roles on “Good
Times,” and “The Jeffersons,” “Family Matters,” and
“Martin.”

1951 – Mozambique becomes an oversea province of Portugal.

1963 – Vivian Malone and James Hood, accompanied by U.S. Deputy
Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, attempt to register at
the University of Alabama. They are met by Governor George
Wallace, who bodily blocks their entrance to a campus
building. When National Guardsmen return later in the day
with Malone and Hood to enter the building, Wallace steps
aside.

1964 – In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life
imprisonment for allegedly attempting to sabotage the white
South African government.

1967 – A race riot occurs in Tampa, Florida. The Florida National
Guard is mobilized to suppress the violence.

1972 – Hank Aaron, of the Atlanta Braves, ties Gil Hodges of the
Dodgers for the National League record for the most grand-
slam home runs in a career, with 14. The Braves will beat
the Philadelphia Phillies 15-3.

1978 – Joseph Freeman Jr. becomes the first African American
priest in the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
(Mormons).

1982 – Larry Holmes defeats Gerry Cooney to retain the WBC
heavyweight crown.

2003 – William Marshall, actor, joins the ancestors at the age of
78 after succumbing to complications from Alzheimer’s
disease. His roles ranged from Othello and Frederick
Douglas to a vampire in the 1972 movie “Blacula.”

2006 – Dr. James Cameron, who survived an attempted lynching by a
white mob in 1930 and went on to found America’s Black
Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, joins the
ancestors at the age of 92.

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

KRLemmons African American History

June 10 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 10 *

1854 – James Augustine Healy is ordained as a Catholic priest in
ceremonies at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France at the
age of 24. He will later become the first African American
Roman Catholic bishop.

1898 – Hattie McDaniel is born in Wichita, Kansas. A vaudevillian,
she will begin her acting career at age 37 in the film ‘The
Golden West.’ She will go on to roles in over 70 films,
including ‘The Little Colonel’, ‘Show Boat’, and most
notably ‘Gone With The Wind’, which will earn her an Oscar
as best supporting actress in 1940. She will also star in
the radio program ‘Beulah’ from 1947 to 1951. She will join
the ancestors on October 26, 1952.

1899 – The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
(I.B.P.O.E.) is founded in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1910 – Chester Arthur Burnett is born in White Station, Mississippi.
He will be better known as ‘Howlin Wolf’, a delta bluesman
whose recordings will inspire English rock bands to adopt
his style and material. He will join the ancestors on
January 10, 1976.

1940 – The famed Cotton Club in Harlem closes. Home to some of the
most important jazz talents of their day, including Duke
Ellington, Lena Horne, and many others, the club falls
victim to changing musical tastes and poor attendance.

1940 – Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey joins the ancestors in London,
England at the age of 52.

1946 – Jack Arthur Johnson, the first African American heavyweight
boxing champion, joins the ancestors after succumbing to
injuries from an automobile accident near Raleigh, North
Carolina at the age of 68. He will be buried in Graceland
Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.

1964 – The U.S. Senate imposes cloture for the first time on a civil
rights measure, ending a southern filibuster by a vote of
71-29.

1972 – Sammy Davis, Jr. earns his place at the top of the popular
music charts for the first time, after years in the
entertainment business with his first number one song, “The
Candy Man”. The song stayed at the top for three consecutive
weeks and stayed on the pop charts for 16 weeks.

1980 – Nelson Mandela, jailed for life by the apartheid government
of South Africa, has his writings smuggled from prison and
made public, continuing to spark the general population.

1985 – Herschel Walker, of the New Jersey Generals, breaks the 2,000
yard mark in rushing during the season as the Generals win
over Jacksonville 31-24. The effort sets a United States
Football League (USFL) record. This feat had only been
reached twice in the National Football League (NFL) — once
by O.J. Simpson in 1973 for 2,003 yards and Eric Dickerson
in 1984 for 2,105 yards.

1997 – Geronimo Pratt, political prisoner and ex-Black Panther, is
released from prison on bail. A judge agrees that had
Pratt’s original jury known that the prosecution key witness
was a FBI and police informant, the outcome may have been
different. In 1999, after winning his appeal of the decision
that ordered his release, charges against Pratt were dropped
by the Los Angeles District Attorney and no new trial was
sought.

2004 – Ray Charles, Keyboardist, Composer, and Singer who won 12
Grammy awards, joins the ancestors after succumbing to liver
disease at the age of 73.

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

KRLemmons African American Music

June 9 Artist of the Day: Jackie Wilson

June 9 Artist of the day is Jackie Wilson, who was also born on this day.  He was a talented vocalist and a charismatic stage performer.  Read about this multitalented vocalist performer here.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://rockhall.com/inductees/jackie-wilson/bio/

NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125019270

Youtube videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nEfuE8Pw4U, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_0DGEIyAkU

KRLemmons African American History

June 9 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 9 *

1877 – Meta Vaux Warwick (later Fuller) is born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. She will become a sculptor who will train at
the Pennsylvania Museum and School for Industrial Arts and
travel to Paris to study with Auguste Rodin. Her sculptures
will be exhibited at the salon in Paris as well as
extensively in the U.S. for 60 years. Her most famous works
will include “Ethiopia Awakening,” “Mary Turner (A Silent
Protest Against Mob Violence),” and “The Talking Skull.”

1934 – Jack Leroy “Jackie” Wilson, entertainer who will be known as “Mr.
Excitement,” is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will be important
in the transition of Rhythm and Blues into Soul. He will be
considered a master showman, and one of the most dynamic and
influential singers and performers in R&B and Rock n’ Roll
history. Gaining fame in his early years as a member of the R&B
vocal group Billy Ward and His Dominoes, he will go solo in 1957
and record over 50 hit singles that span R&B, pop, soul, doo-wop
and easy listening. During a 1975 benefit concert, he will
collapse on stage from a heart attack and subsequently fall into
a coma that persists for nearly nine years until he joins the
ancestors on January 21, 1984, at the age of 49. By this time,
he will be one of the most influential artists of his generation.
A two-time Grammy Hall of Fame Inductee, he will be inducted in
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2004, Rolling Stone
magazine will rank him #69 on their list of the 100 Greatest
Artists of All Time.

1948 – Oliver W. Hill becomes the first African American to be
elected to the Richmond, Virginia City Council.

1963 – Fannie Lou Hamer and five other voter registration workers
were arrested in Winona, Mississippi on their way home from
a workshop in Charleston, SC. They were held in the Winona
jail for four days, during which they were severely beaten
with nightsticks and fists by policemen, and with leather
straps by prison trustees under the direction of police
officers.

1978 – Larry Holmes wins the WBC heavyweight title by defeating Ken
Norton in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1980 – Comedian Richard Pryor suffers almost fatal burns at his San
Fernando Valley, California home, when a mixture of “free-
base” cocaine explodes.

1983 – Scott Joplin, noted jazz musician and composer of ragtime
music, is the sixth African-American depicted in the U.S.
Postal Service’s Black Heritage USA commemorative series of
postage stamps.

1998 – Three white men are charged in Jasper, Texas, with the brutal
dragging death of James Byrd Jr., an African American.

1998 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones joins the ancestors in Washington,
DC.

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