KRLemmons African American History

July 31 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 31 *

1874 – Patrick Francis Healy, a Jesuit priest, is inaugurated as
president of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
Healy is the first African American to head a
predominantly white university and is credited with the
modernization of the university’s curriculum and the
expansion of its campus.

1921 – Whitney Young, Jr. is born in Lincoln Ridge, Kentucky. He
will become dean of Atlanta University’s School of Social
Work before becoming executive director of the National
Urban League. As its leader during the 1960’s, he will
guide the organization through one of the most socially
and politically active decades in America’s history. A
1969 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
Young will speak out against government and business’ lack
f commitment to African Americans. During a visit to
Nigeria in 1971, he will join the ancestors on March 11,
1971 after a swimming accident in Lagos.

1931 – Kenny Burrell is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will become
a prolific composer and professional musician specializing
in the guitar. For over forty years, he will be a jazz
professional. Kenny, who will credit Charlie Christian,
Oscar Moore, and Django Reinhardt as influences, as well
as such bluesmen as T-Bone Walker and Muddy Waters, will
play on his first major recording session in Detroit in
1951 with a Dizzy Gillespie combo that will include John
Coltrane, Milt Jackson, and Percy Heath. Even though the
young guitarist will keep heavy company, including that of
such other up-and-coming Detroiters as Tommy Flanagan,
Yusef Lateef, Pepper Adams, and Elvin Jones, he will
remain in Detroit to study at Wayne State University, from
which he will earn a B.A. in music composition and theory
in 1955. He will also study classical guitar with Joseph
Fava during that period and continue to employ finger-
style and other techniques. After the mid-Sixties, he will
lead his own group plus work in “All-Star” settings and
will perform with college bands and orchestras. He will
also perform with professional orchestras such as the
Detroit Symphony and the Buffalo Philharmonic.

1938 – New York Yankees suspend Jake Powell, after he says on
Chicago radio that he would “hit every colored person in
Chicago over the head with a club.”

1960 – At a New York City meeting of the Nation of Islam, the
Honorable Elijah Muhammad calls for the creation of a
Black state in America.

1962 – Wesley Snipes is born in Orlando, Florida. After growing
up in the Bronx, New York City, he will become a film
actor starring in films such as “New Jack City,” “Jungle
Fever,” “Passenger 57,” “Demolition Man,” “Money Train,”
“Rising Sun,” “Major League,” “Sugar Hill,” “White Men
Can’t Jump,” and “King of New York.”

1969 – Racially motivated disturbances in Baton Rouge cause the
governor of Louisiana to mobilize the National Guard.

1981 – Attorney Arnette R. Hubbard is installed as the first
woman president of the National Bar Association, the
largest national group of African American attorneys,
legal scholars, and jurists. Hubbard is a graduate of
John Marshall Law School in Chicago and past president
of the Cook County Bar Association.

1985 – Prince is big at the box-office with the autobiographical
story of the Minneapolis rock star — “Purple Rain.” The
ilm grosses $7.7 million in its first three days of
release on 917 movie screens. The album of the same name
is, at the time, the top LP in the United States, as well.

1988 – Willie Stargell, formerly of the Pittsburgh Pirates, becomes
the 200th man inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, New York.

1990 – Shoal Creek, a private club in Birmingham, Alabama, that
drew criticism for being all-white, announces it had
accepted a Black businessman as an honorary member.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – July 30 *

1822 – James Varick is consecrated as the first bishop of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion (AMEZ). Varick
had formed the first African American church in New York
City in 1796 when forced to sit in segregated seating in
the white John Street Methodist Episcopal Church and had
established the first AMEZ church in New Haven,
Connecticut.

1839 – Slave rebels, led by Joseph Cinque, kill the captain and
take over the slave ship Amistad in the most celebrated
of American slave mutinies. The rebels were captured off
Long Island on August 26.

1863 – President Lincoln gave an order to shoot a Confederate
prisoner for every African American prisoner that was shot;
it became known as the “eye-for-eye” order. A rebel
prisoner would also be condemned to life in prison doing
hard labor, for every African American prisoner sold into
slavery. The order had restraining influence on the
Confederate government, though individual commanders and
soldiers continued to murder captured African American
soldiers.

1864 – The Union Army explodes a mine under rebel lines near
Petersburg, Virginia, commits three white and one African
American divisions and is soundly defeated. The African
American division of the Ninth Corps sustains heavy
casualties in an ill-planned attack. The only Union success
of the day is scored by the Forty-third U.S. Colored Troops
which captures two hundred rebel prisoners and two stands
of colors. Decatur Dorsey of the Thirty-ninth U.S. Colored
Troops wins a Congressional Medal of Honor.

1866 – Edward G. Walker, son of abolitionist David Walker, and
Charles L. Mitchell are elected to the Massachusetts
Assembly from Boston and become the first African Americans
to sit in the legislature of an American state in the
post-Civil War period.

1866 – White Democrats, led by police, attack a convention of
African American and white Republicans in New Orleans,
Louisiana. More than 40 persons are killed, and at least
150 persons are wounded. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, Military
commander of the state, says “It was not riot; it was an
absolute massacre…which the mayor and the police of the
city perpetrated without the shadow of a necessity.”

1885 – Eugene Kinckle Jones is born in Richmond, Virginia. He will
attend Cornell University where he will become one of the
seven founders of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. After
completing his education, he will become a social worker
and first executive secretary of the National Urban League.
During his 20-year tenure with the league, he will be
instrumental in its expansion to 58 affiliates and a budget
of $2.5 million as well as expanding its fellowship program
to train social workers. The League, under his direction,
will significantly expand its multifaceted campaign to crack
the barriers to black employment, spurred first by the boom
years of the 1920s, and then, by the desperate years of the
Great Depression. He will implement boycotts against firms
that refused to employ blacks, pressure schools to expand
vocational opportunities for young people, constantly
prod Washington officials to include blacks in New Deal
recovery programs, and drive to get blacks into previously
segregated labor unions. He will be a member of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet, an informal group of
African American public policy advisors to the President.
He will join the ancestors on January 11, 1954.

1945 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., activist and politician, is elected
to the U.S. House of Representatives representing Harlem.

1956 – Anita Hill is born in Morris, Oklahoma. She will become an
attorney, educator, author and activist. She will receive
her law degree from Yale University, and after a stint at
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), she will
teach law at the University of Oklahoma. In 1991 she will be
catapulted into the public spotlight when she brings
allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court
nominee Clarence Thomas. At Thomas’s Senate confirmation
hearings, she will testify that Thomas had made unwelcome
sexual advances while he was her supervisor at the EEOC in
the 1980s. Although Thomas’s appointment will be
subsequently confirmed, her testimony will bring the issue
of sexual harassment to public attention, forever changing
relations between men and women in the workplace. In 1997,
she will publish “Speaking Truth to Power,” a personal
memoir and study of her involvement in the Thomas hearings.
She will resume her teaching career at Brandeis University.

1959 – Willie McCovey steps to the plate for the first time in his
major-league baseball career. McCovey, of the San Francisco
Giants bats 4-for-4 in his debut against Robin Roberts of
the Philadelphia Phillies. He hits two singles and two
triples, driving in two runs. It is the start of an All-Star
career that will land McCovey in baseball’s Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown, New York.

1961 – Lawrence Fishburne is born in Augusta, Georgia. He will start
his acting career at the age of 12, getting his big break
portraying Joshua Hall on the ABC soap opera, “One Life to
Live in 1973.” He will be originally cast in the hit tv show
“Good Times,” but the role will eventually go to Ralph
Carter. He will later earn a supporting role in Francis Ford
Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now,” as well as a recurring role as
“Cowboy Curtis” alongside Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) in
the CBS children’s television show, “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.”
However, it will be his 1991 role in “Boyz N The Hood” that
gains him lasting recognition as an outstanding actor. The
next year, he will win a Tony Award for his stage
performance in August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running,” which
is followed by an Oscar nomination one year later for his
portrayal of Ike Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It?.”
Also in 1992, he will receive an Emmy Award for an episode
of the short-lived TV series “Tribeca.” He will be known for
his role as Morpheus, the hacker-mentor of Neo (Keanu
Reeves) in the blockbuster science fiction movie series “The
Matrix.” He will also appear alongside Tom Cruise as his IMF
superior in Mission: Impossible III.

1967 – Eight days of racially motivated disturbances end in Detroit,
Michigan. The uprising, the worst of its kind in the 20th
century, kills 43 people, injures 2,000, and results in over
5,000 arrests and over 1,400 fires.

1967 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. Four persons are killed.

1970 – Author, television columnist, and Hofstra University
professor Louis Lomax, joins the ancestors after being
fatally injured in a car accident near Santa Rosa, New
Mexico.

1984 – Reggie Jackson hits the 494th home run of his career,
passing the Yankees’ Lou Gehrig and taking over 13th place
on the all-time home run list. Larry Sorenson is the
victim who gave up Reggie’s milestone homer.

1988 – The first National Black Arts Festival opens in Atlanta,
Georgia. The biennial festival includes over 50
architectural and art exhibits including the works of
Romare Bearden, Edwin Harleston, Camille Billops, David
Driskell, and over 140 others.

1994 – The first U.S. troops land in the Rwandan capital of Kigali
to secure the airport for an expanded international aid
effort.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 29 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 29 *

1895 – The First National Convention of Black Women is held in
Boston, Massachusetts.

1909 – Chester Himes is born in Jefferson City, Missouri. He will
become a noted crime novelist whose books will reflect his
encounters with racism. The domination of his dark-skinned
father by his light-skinned mother was a source of deep
resentment that will shape his racial outlook. The family’s
frequent relocations, as well as the accidental blinding of
his brother, will further disrupt his childhood. He will
attend Ohio State University. From 1929 to 1936 he will be
jailed at the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery,
and while there, he will begin to write fiction. A number
of his stories will appear in Esquire and other American
magazines. After his release from prison, he will work at
numerous odd jobs and join the Works Progress
Administration, eventually serving as a writer with the
Ohio Writers’ Project. His first novel, “If He Hollers Let
Him Go” (1945), will detail the fear, anger, and humiliation
of a black employee of a racist defense plant during World
War II. “Lonely Crusade” (1947) will concern racism in the
labor movement. “Cast the First Stone” (1952) will portray
prison life, and “The Third Generation” (1954) will examine
family life. In the mid-1950s, he will move to Paris. There
he will write chiefly murder mysteries set in New York
City’s village of Harlem. These will include “The Crazy Kill
(1959), “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” which describe the
underbelly of the American dream and introduce “Gravedigger
Jones” and “Coffin Ed Johnson” to the reading public (1965;
will be made into a film in 1970), and “Blind Man with a
Pistol” (1969; that will later be retitled “Hot Day, Hot
Night”). Among his other works will be “Run Man, Run” (1966),
a thriller; “Pinktoes” (1961), a satirical work of
interracial erotica; “Come Back Charleston Blue”; and “Black
on Black” (1973), a collection of stories. He will also
publish two volumes of autobiography, “The Quality of Hurt”
(1972) and “My Life As Absurdity” (1976). He will join the
ancestors on November 12, 1984 in Moraira, Spain.

1919 – The first convention of the National Association of Negro
Musicians is held in Chicago. Illinois. NANM’s charter
members include Clarence Cameron White, who will call for
the formation of the association, and R. Nathaniel Dett,
Nora Holt, and Florence Cole Talbert among others. NANM
will be active in furthering African American music and
performers, and will award its first scholarship to a
young Marian Anderson. NANM continues to exist, with
chapters all over the country. Its headquarters will be
located in Chicago, Illinois.

1942 – William Dean, Jr., plans a boycott unless African Americans
are permitted to play on major league baseball teams.

1970 – Six days of racially motivated disturbances start in
Hartford, Connecticut, leaving one person dead.

1974 – Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals steals his 700th base.

1988 – The South African government bans the anti-apartheid film
“Cry Freedom”.

1991 – Physician Bernard A. Harris, Jr. becomes a full-fledged
astronaut. Harris, who will join NASA’s Johnson Space
Center in 1987 as a clinical scientist and flight surgeon,
is now eligible for future flight assignments.

1996 – At the Atlanta Olympics, Carl Lewis wins the gold medal in
the long jump, becoming only the fifth Olympian to win
gold medals in four straight games.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 28 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 28 *

1802 – Alexandre Dumas is born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie in
Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, near Paris, France, the grandson
of the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie.
While his grandfather serves the government of France as
General Commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of
Santo Domingo, (today’s Dominican Republic but at the time
a part of Haiti), he marries Marie-Céssette Dumas, a Black
slave. In 1762, she gives birth to a son, Thomas-Alexandre,
and she joins the ancestors soon thereafter. When the
Marquis and his young son return to Normandy, it is at a
time when slavery still exists, and the boy will suffer as
a result of being half Black. In 1786, Thomas-Alexandre
joins the French army, but to protect the aristocratic
family’s reputation, he enlists using his mother’s maiden
name. Following the Revolution in France, the Marquis loses
his estates but his mulatto son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas,
distinguishes himself as a capable and daring soldier in
Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, rising through the ranks to
become a General by the age of 31. Thomas Alexandre Dumas
will marry Marie Labouret Dumas, a French woman and
Alexandre Dumas is born from this union. He will become an
acclaimed author of the French classics “The Three
Musketeers”, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “The Man in the
Iron Mask”, “The Corsican Brothers,” “Twenty Years After,”
“The Vicomte de Bragelonne,” “The Regent’s Daughter,”
“Queen Margot,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Black Tulip,”
“The Nutcracker,” and “La Dame de Montsoreau.” Despite his
success and aristocratic connections, his being of mixed-
blood will impact on him all of his life. In 1843, he will
write a short story that addresses some of the issues of
race and the effects of colonialism. Nevertheless, inbred
racist attitudes will impact his rightful position in
France’s history long after he joins the ancestors on
December 5, 1870. Buried in the place where he was born,
he will remain in the cemetery at Villers-Cotterêts until
November 30, 2002. Under orders of the French President,
Jacques Chirac, his body will be exhumed and in a
televised ceremony, his new coffin, draped in a blue-
velvet cloth and flanked by four men costumed as the
Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, will
be transported in a solemn procession to the Panthéon of
Paris, the great mausoleum where French luminaries are
interred. In his speech, President Chirac will say: “With
you, we were D’Artagnan, Monte Cristo or Balsamo, riding
along the roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting
palaces and castles — with you, we dream.” In an
interview following the ceremony, President Chirac will
acknowledge the racism that had existed, saying that a
wrong is now righted with Alexandre Dumas enshrined
alongside fellow authors Victor Hugo and Voltaire.

1866 – Congress passes a law that African American regiments
should be part of the regular army, which results in the
organization of the 9th and 10th Cavalry.

1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
guaranteeing due process of law, is declared in effect.
which grants citizenship for African Americans and
provides for federal intervention when state governments
are accused of violating an individual’s constitutional
rights.

1903 – Maggie Lena Walker founds and becomes the first president
of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond,
Virginia. She will be elected at age seventeen to office
in the Independent Order of St. Luke, a Black burial
society. On this date, she will found the Saint Luke
Penny Savings Bank and becomes the first female bank
president in America. St. Luke Penny Savings Bank is
still in operation today as the Consolidated Bank and
Trust Company, the nation’s oldest continuously existing
African American bank.

1914 – Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode is born in Los Angeles,
California. An athlete turned actor, Strode will become a
top-notch decathlete and a football star at UCLA, breaking
the color barrier at the same time as Kenney Washington.
He will meet his wife, an Hawaiian princess and stand-in
for the swim sequences for Hedy Lamarr. Woody will play
for the Cleveland Rams prior to their move to Los Angeles.
He will become part of Hollywood lore after meeting
director John Ford and becoming a part of the Ford
“family”, appearing in almost a dozen Ford westerns.
Strode will also play the powerful gladiator who does
battle with Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus.” He will also be
a professional wrestler, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous
George. Woody will live in a modest home overlooking
Glendora and the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles
about 25 miles. He will join the ancestors on December 31,
1994.

1915 – United States forces invade Haiti and the country becomes
a defacto protectorate. U.S. troops will remain there
until 1924.

1917 – Led by W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson, over 10,000
African Americans march down Fifth Avenue in New York City
to the sound of muffled drums in silent protest of
lynchings and other racial indignities that are rampant in
the United States.

1949 – Vida Blue is born in Mansfield, Louisiana. He will become a
Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher. In his
17-year career, he will play for the Oakland Athletics,
San Francisco Giants, and Kansas City Royals. He will have
a 24-8 record in 1971, striking out 301 batters, and will
win both the Cy Young and American League MVP awards. He
will be the starting pitcher for the American League in
the 1971 All-Star Game, and for the National League in the
1978 All-Star Game. He will win 20 games in 1973 as he
leads the A’s to the World Championship. He will win 22
games in 1975. In 1978, he will win 18 games as he leads
the Giants to 83 wins as they battle all year for the
National League West Division which is won that year by
the Los Angeles Dodgers. His great year is rewarded as he
won the Sporting News National League Pitcher Of The Year.
He will also make a name and career after baseball for
himself in the San Francisco Bay Area by donating his time
to many charitable causes, mostly promoting baseball in
the inner city.

1977 – Roy Wilkins turns over NAACP leadership to Benjamin L Hooks.

1985 – Lou Brock is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, New York.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 27 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 27 *

1816 – “Negro Fort”, a former British fort built during the War of
1812 in Spanish-held Florida, is attacked by U.S. troops.
This battle will help to precipitate the First Seminole War.
The British will evacuate Florida in the spring of 1815,
leaving the well-constructed and fully-armed fort on the
Apalachicola River in the hands of their allies, about 300
fugitive slaves, including members of the disbanded Corps
of Colonial Marines, and 30 Seminole and Choctaw Indians.
News of “Negro Fort” (as it will come to be called) will
attract as many as 800 fugitive slaves, from as far away
as Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory, to seek refuge
at the fort. They will eventually settle in the surrounding
area. Under the command of a Black man named Garson and a
Choctaw chief (whose name is unknown), the inhabitants of
“Negro Fort” will launch raids across the Georgia border.
In March of 1816, under mounting pressure from Georgia
slaveholders, General Andrew Jackson will petition the
Spanish Governor of Florida to destroy the settlement. At
the same time, he will instruct Major General Edmund P.
Gaines, commander of U.S. military forces “in the Creek
nation,” to destroy the fort and “restore the stolen
negroes and property to their rightful owners.” On this
date, following a series of skirmishes in which they will
be routed by “Negro Fort” defenders, the American forces
and their 500 Lower Creek allies will launch an all-out
attack under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan
Clinch, with support from a naval convoy commanded by
Sailing Master Jairus Loomis. A plaque will mark the
location of the fort’s powder magazine. The two sides will
exchange cannon fire, but the shots of the inexperienced
Black gunners will fail to hit their targets. A cannon
ball from the American forces will enter the opening to
the fort’s powder magazine, igniting an explosion that
will destroy the fort and kill all but 30 of 300 occupants.
Garson and the Choctaw chief, among the few who will
survive the carnage, are handed over to the Creeks, who
will shoot Garson and scalp the chief. Other survivors will
be returned to slavery. The U.S. Army will build
Fort Gadsden on this site in 1818 and occupy it until 1821,
when Spain cedes Florida to the United States. Fort Gadsden
is a National Historic Landmark, maintained by the National
Park Service, located six miles southwest of Sumatra,
Florida and is National Register Number: 72000318.

1880 – Inventor, Alexander P. Ashbourne, is awarded a patent for
refining coconut oil.

1919 – Chicago race riots kill 23 African Americans, 15 whites, and
injure more than 500, despite the warnings of Ida B.
Wells-Barnett to city officials to improve conditions for
African Americans in the city.

1937 – Woodie King, Jr. is born in Baldwin Springs, Alabama. He
will attend high school in Detroit and go on to attend
Leman College in New York and earn his M.F.A. from Brooklyn
College. In 1965, he will join Mobilization for Youth,
where he will spend the next five years working as the
cultural director. In 1970, he will found the New Federal
Theatre and the National Black Touring Circuit in New York
City, where he will be producing director. He will produce
shows both on and off Broadway, and will directed
performances across the country in venues like the New York
Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Center Stage of
Baltimore and the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. His work will
earn him numerous nominations and awards, including a 1988
NAACP Image Award for his direction of “Checkmates”
(featuring Denzel Washington and 1993 Audelco Awards for
Best Director and Best Play for his production of “Robert
Johnson: Trick The Devil.” He will also receive an Obie
Award for Sustained Achievement. He will have an honorary
doctorate in humane letters conferred by Wayne State
University and a doctorate of fine arts by the College of
Wooster. In addition to his directing and producing of
theater, he will find time to write extensively about it.
He will contribute to numerous magazines, such as “Black
World,” “Variety” and “The Tulane Drama Review,” and will
also write a number of books.

1950 – Albert L. Hinton joins the ancestors, becoming the first
African American reporter to lose his life in a theater of
military operation, when an Army transport plane carrying
him crashes into the Sea of Japan while enroute to Korea.

1962 – Martin Luther King, Jr., is jailed in Albany, Georgia for
participating in a civil rights demonstration.

1967 – In the wake of urban rioting, President Johnson appoints
the Kerner Commission to assess the causes of the violence,
the same day Black militant H. Rap Brown said in Washington
that violence was “as American as cherry pie.”

1968 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Gary, Indiana.

1984 – Reverend C.L. Franklin joins the ancestors in Detroit,
Michigan, after a long coma sustained after being shot by
a burglar in his home. He was the founder of the New
Bethel Baptist Church, where his radio sermons drew a
nationwide audience and where the singing career of his
daughter, Aretha, began.

1999 – Harry “Sweets” Edison, a master of the jazz trumpet who was
a mainstay of the Count Basie band, joins the ancestors in
Columbus, Ohio at the age of 83. In a career spanning more
than 60 years, Edison had that rarest of qualities, an
utterly individual style. Although his sound was not
especially unique, his articulation, his ability to invest
each note with a driving sense of swing, was completely
his own. It didn’t matter whether he was playing with
Basie, with Frank Sinatra or Oscar Peterson, or on any of
his innumerable recording sessions; his solos, stamped with
his singular phrasing, always popped out of the mix.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 26 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 26 *

1847 – Twenty-five years after the first free African Americans
arrive at the colony of Cape Mesurado, the commonwealth
of Liberia declares itself an independent republic.
Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a Virginia native, becomes its
first president.

1865 – Catholic priest Patrick Francis Healy passes his final
Ph.D. examinations in philosophy at the University of
Louvrain in Belgium. He becomes the first African
American to earn a Ph.D.

1916 – Spottswood W. Robinson III is born in Richmond, Virginia.
He will pursue a distinguished career in law, in private
practice, as a representative of the NAACP Legal Defense
Fund, dean of the Howard University Law School, and as a
member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 1966,
he will be named a U.S. Circuit Judge of the DC Circuit
by President Lyndon B. Johnson, becoming the first African
American jurist on that court. He will later become the
first African American Chief Judge of the District of
Columbia Circuit Court. He will join the ancestors on
October 11, 1998.

1918 – Two days after she moves into a predominantly, though not
exclusively, white Philadelphia neighborhood, an African
American woman’s house is stoned. The incident will set
off four days of riots in which one African American and
three whites are killed.

1926 – The Spingarn Medal is awarded to Carter G. Woodson for
“ten years of devoted service in collecting and
publishing the records of the Negro in America.”

1948 – President Harry S Truman issues Executive Order 9981,
directing “equality of treatment and opportunity for all
personnel without regard to race, color, religion or
national origin” in federal employment and the armed
forces.

1948 – Bob Howard becomes the first African American host of a
network show – CBS’ “The Bob Howard Show.”

1951 – The Army announces that it is disbanding the 24th Infantry
Regiment, its last and oldest all African American
regiment, in order to integrate all White and African
American troops in the Korean War zone.

1998 – Larry Doby, the first African American in major league
baseball’s American League, and Joe Rogan, a player in
the Negro Leagues, are inducted into Baseball’s Hall of
Fame.

2009 – Rickey Henderson, age 50 and Jim Rice, age 56, are inducted
into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.
Henderson lead the American League in steals 12 times and
holds the record for steals with 1,406, runs scored with
2,295, unintentional walks with 2,129, and homers leading
off a game with 81. He also set the modern major league
record for stolen bases with 130. Rice batted .298 with
382 home runs and 1,451 RBI from 1974 to 1989. He drove
in 100 or more runs eight times, batted over .300 seven
times, and topped 200 hits four times. Rice is also the
only player in major league history with at least 35 homers
and 200 hits in three consecutive seasons (1977-79).

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – July 25 *

1916 – Garrett T. Morgan, inventor of the gas mask, rescues six
persons from a gas-filled tunnel, five miles from shore
under Lake Erie, in Cleveland, Ohio.

1918 – A race riot occurs in Chester, Pennsylvania. Three
African Americans and 2 whites are killed.

1921 – Liberty Life Insurance Company is founded by Frank L.
Gillespie. After a 1926 merger with Supreme Life and
Casualty of Columbus, Ohio, and Northeastern Life of
Newark, New Jersey, the resulting company will be called
Supreme Life Insurance Company and be, at one time, one
of the largest African American insurance companies in
the nation.

1930 – Nineteen-year-old Josh Gibson is called out of the stands
to substitute for the regular catcher for the Pittsburgh
Homestead Grays, one of the best-known all-Negro
professional baseball teams. Gibson will go on to play
15 years with a variety of teams in the Negro leagues.
His lifetime batting average, .423, will earn him
election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

1941 – Nathaniel “Nate” Thurmond is born in Akron, Ohio. He will
become an all-star college basketball player and Hall of
Fame NBA player. Agile and deceptively strong, he will
hone his talents at Bowling Green State University, where
he will average 17.8 ppg and 17.0 rpg and be selected an
All-America his senior year. In 1963, he will be drafted
third in the NBA draft by the San Francisco Warriors and
will play the forward position because Wilt Chamberlain
is the Warriors’ pivot man. When San Francisco trades
Chamberlain to Philadelphia in 1965, he will return to his
natural position and develop into one of the NBA’s truly
dominant centers. He will log 14 NBA seasons with San
Francisco, Golden State, Chicago and Cleveland. He will be
selected to play in seven All-Star Games and be named NBA
All-Defensive First Team twice and Second Team three times.
He will first make NBA history when he grabs 18 rebounds in
one quarter against the Baltimore Bullets in 1965. Then on
opening night in 1974, he will make history again as the
first player to ever record a quadruple double-double
figures in four categories in one game (22 points, 14
rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocked shots). When he retires,
he will have scored 14,437 points and grabbed 14,464
rebounds (sixth all-time), both 15.0 per game averages. He
will be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame on July 1,
1985.

1943 – The U.S. Navy launches the “Leonard Roy Harmon’ in Quincy,
Massachusetts, the nation’s first warship named for an
African American. Harmon, a messman, was posthumously
awarded the Navy Cross for heroism.

1954 – Walter Jerry Payton is born in Columbia, Mississippi. He
will be the Chicago Bears’ first-round draft choice and the
fourth player selected in the 1975 National Football League
Draft and will develop into a superstar of unusual
dimensions during his 13-season NFL tenure from 1975 to
1987, all of which he will spend with the Chicago Bears.
The 5-10, 200-pound running back who will rush for 3,563
yards in four seasons at Jackson State University will go
on to dominate the rushing section of the NFL record book
during and long after his career will end. The records he
will hold at the time of his retirement include 16,726
total yards, 10 seasons with 1,000 or more yards rushing,
275 yards rushing in one game against the Minnesota Vikings
(1977), 77 games with more than 100 yards rushing, and 110
rushing touchdowns. He will have 4,368 combined net
attempts and account for 21,803 combined net yards. He will
also score an impressive 750 points on 125 touchdowns. He
will win the NFC rushing title five straight years from
1976 to 1980. He will also lead the NFC with 96 points in
1977 and win the NFL kickoff return championship in his
rookie 1975 campaign. He will be named both All-Pro and
All-NFC seven times and play in nine Pro Bowl games. He
will be selected as the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1977
and 1985, the NFL Offensive Player of the Year in 1977 and
1985 and the NFC Most Valuable Player in 1977. An amazing
runner, he will rush for more than 1,000 yards 10 of his
13 seasons. His best season will come in 1977, when he runs
for 1,852 yards, third best in history at that time. His
492 career pass receptions for 4,538 yards and 15
touchdowns will contribute to his exceptional combined net
yard totals. Extremely durable, he will miss one game in
his rookie campaign and then play in 186 consecutive games.
He will be a major factor in the Chicago Bear’s Super Bowl
XX win. He will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of
Fame on July 31, 1993. He will join the ancestors on
November 1, 1999 after succumbing to cancer.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance begins in Rochester, New
York. Subsequent to this civil unrest, the major employers
in the metropolitan area (Kodak, Xerox, Sybron, and Bausch
& Lomb) show marked improvements in their hiring of
African Americans.

1966 – Constance B. Motley becomes the first African American
woman to be appointed a federal judge.

1972 – The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, where African Americans
were used as guinea pigs in syphilis experiments for 40
years, is admitted to by U.S. government health officials.

1981 – Walter Payton signs a contract to play with the Chicago
Bears of the NFL on his 27th birthday. The famed running
back will earn almost $2 million over his three years.
‘Sweetness’, as he is nicknamed (because of his
disposition), becomes the highest paid player in the
National Football League at the time.

1990 – “Black Enterprise” publisher Earl G. Graves and Los Angeles
Lakers star Magic Johnson become the largest minority-
controlled franchise in the country when they sign a $ 60
million agreement to purchase Pepsi-Cola of Washington, DC.

1991 – Dennis Hightower is promoted to president of Disney Consumer
Products-Europe/Middle East. Hightower will have operating
responsibility for all book and magazine publishing,
merchandise licensing, children’s records and music, film
promotion and television sponsorship and will manage the
company’s eight subsidiaries and six offices in Europe and
the Middle East.

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

KRLemmons Uncategorized

freaks & geeks at the Harlem Book Fair

elliottzetta's avatarFledgling

indexWe lost a giant in the field of children’s literature. Walter Dean Myers passed away yesterday, shocking and saddening everyone in the kidlit community. I doubt I will publish over fifty books for kids in my lifetime but I do hope to leave behind a legacy of service to the community that is as meaningful as Mr. Myers’. It’s been ten years since my own father passed away and I still think about him almost every day. My thoughts and prayers are with the Myers family. I will certainly urge my BookUP kids to select Monster for one of our summer reads.

When I return from Senegal I’ll have a few days to prepare for this fantastic panel at the 2014 Harlem Book Fair. The research I’m doing here in Dakar is for The Return, Book 3 in my “freaks & geeks” trilogy. But many of us (including…

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KRLemmons Uncategorized

call for proposals: REFORMA

Edith's avatarCotton Quilts Edi

The Call for Proposals to present at the Fifth REFORMA National Conference (RNC5) taking place in San Diego, CA, April 1-4, 2015, is now open! REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking


Please visit the website below to get the information and send your proposals for leading presentations, facilitating breakout sessions, or exhibiting posters. The conference’s theme is “Libraries Without Borders: Creating Our Future”. The 2014 REFORMA National Conference Program Committee will evaluate proposals for relevance to the conference theme, as well as clarity, originality, and timeliness.

http://reforma.org/rncv_cfp

 

Deadline is September 1, 2014.

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KRLemmons Uncategorized

Call for Panel Proposals for 2014 KidLit Con: Blogging Diversity in Young Adult and Children’s Lit: What’s Next?

NJ's avatarMulticulturalism Rocks!

2014KidLitConLogoType of Event: 2014 Kidlistosphere Conference

Theme: Blogging Diversity in Young Adult and Children’s Lit: What’s Next?

When: October 10-11, 2014

Where: Tsakopoulos Library Galleria 828 I Street Sacramento, CA 95814, USA.

Goal of the event: “(…) find out ‘the best way to get the right books into the young reader’s hands.'”

Organizers and additional information
This is the eighth annual kid lit conference organized by Kidlitosphere Central, the Society of bloggers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature. The event is a great venue for “librarians, authors, teachers, parents, booksellers, publishers, and readers.”

If you’re a blogger, you’re kindly invited to submit a session proposal by August 1st, 2014. For more information and to register, click here.

Would be awesome if you’d help out the event and the kidlit community by spreading the word!

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