KRLemmons African American History

March 26 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 26 *

1831 – Richard Allen joins the ancestors at the age of 71. He had been
nominated by author Vernon Loggins for the title, “Father of
the Negro.”

1872 – Thomas J. Martin is awarded a patent for the fire extinguisher.

1910 – William H. Lewis is appointed assistant attorney general of the
United States.

1937 – William Hastie is appointed to a federal judgeship in the Virgin
Islands. With the appointment, Hastie becomes the first African
American to serve on the federal bench in the U.S. or its
territories. Judge Hastie will serve on the bench for two years
then become dean and professor of law at Howard University in
Washington DC.

1944 – Diana Ross is born in Detroit, Michigan. Ross, with Mary Wilson
and Florence Ballard, will form the Supremes in 1961 and have
15 consecutive smash-hit singles with the group. Ross will
also pursue an acting career in such movies as “Lady Sings the
Blues” and receive a Tony Award for her Broadway show, “An
Evening with Diana Ross.” Both with the Supremes and as a solo
artist, she will have more number-one records than any other
artist in the history of the charts.

1950 – Theodore Pendergrass is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become a lead singer for Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes
in 1970 and will pursue an active solo career in 1976. His solo
career will later be temporarily interrupted by an auto
accident that will leave him paralyzed from the chest down. His
debut album, “Teddy Pendergrass (1977),” struck Platinum, as
did the next four albums – “Life Is A Song Worth Singing,”
“Teddy,” “Teddy Live” and “T.P.” Other releases include “Love
Language,” “Working It Back” and “Joy.” He will be nominated
for a Grammy more than three times and be the holder of a 1980
“Best Rhythm & Blues Artist” award from Billboard Magazine. The
Philadelphia Music Foundation will honor him with a
Philadelphia Music Award for “Best Urban Album” in 1989. He will
join the ancestors on January 13, 2010 after succumbing to colon
cancer.

1984 – Ahmed Sekou Toure’ joins the ancestors in a hospital in
Cleveland, Ohio. He was the country of Guinea’s first
president and a well-known political figure throughout Africa.

1991 – The Reverend Emanuel Cleaver becomes the first African American
mayor of Kansas City, Missouri. At this time, Kansas City is
seventy percent white, but he will win the election with 53
percent of the vote, while his opponent receives forty-seven
percent.

1992 – A judge in Indianapolis sentences former heavyweight boxing
champion Mike Tyson to six years in prison for raping a Miss
Black America contestant.

1995 – Former diplomat-turned-radio talk show host Alan Keyes enters the
race for the Republican presidential nomination.

1998 – President Clinton stands with President Nelson Mandela in a
racially integrated South African parliament to salute a country
that was “truly free and democratic at last.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 25 *

1807 – The British Parliament abolishes the African slave trade. 
Although slavery was abolished within England in 1772, it 
was still allowed in the British colonies, as was the slave 
trade. The continued slave trade was not only accepted, but 
considered essential to the power and prosperity of the 
British Empire. English slave-merchants made fortunes 
carrying slaves from Africa to the British colonies in 
North America and the Caribbean, and many of England’s 
industries, notably textiles and sugar refining, depended 
on raw materials produced by slave labor on colonial 
plantations. Still, there were opponents, and in 1787, they
launched a nationwide campaign to seek the abolition of the 
slave trade.

1843 – African American explorer Dodson sets out in search of the 
Northwest Passage.

1910 – The Liberian Commission recommends financial aid to Liberia 
and the establishment of a U.S. Navy coaling station in the 
African country.

1931 – Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, militant African American 
rights and anti-lynching advocate, and a founder of the 
NAACP, joins the ancestors in Chicago at the age of 78.

1931 – Nine African American youths are arrested in Scottsboro, 
Alabama, for allegedly raping two white women. Although 
they will be quickly convicted, in a trial that outraged 
African Americans and much of the nation, the case will be 
appealed and the “Scottsboro Boys” will be retried several 
times.

1939 – Toni Cade Bambara is born in New York City. She will become 
a noted writer of such fiction as “Gorilla, My Love,” and 
“The Salt Eaters.” She will join the ancestors, after 
succumbing to colon cancer, on December 9, 1995.

1942 – Aretha Louise Franklin is born in Memphis, Tennessee. She 
will be abandoned by her mother when she was 6, and raised 
by her father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, who is one of 
the most famous Black ministers in the North, and her aunt, 
the legendary gospel singer Clara Ward. She will grow up 
singing in her father’s New Bethel Baptist Church in 
Detroit, Michigan. Family friends Mahalia Jackson and Sam 
Cooke will encourage her recording career, and when Columbia
Records producer John Hammond first hears the 18-year-old, 
he calls her “an untutored genius, the best natural singer 
since Billie Holiday.” It will not be until her move from 
Columbia’s pop/jazz orchestrations to Atlantic Records’ 
soulful, Rhythm and Blues style, in 1966, that her career 
skyrockets. Under the auspices of Jerry Wexler, she will 
sing fierce, frantic hits like “I Never Loved a Man,”
“Respect,” “Natural Woman,” and “Chain of Fools.” In 1968, 
she will make the cover of Time magazine. From her first 
singing experiences in her father’s church through a singing 
career and 21 gold records, she will earn the title, “Queen 
of Soul.” She will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of 
Fame in 1987. 

1965 – The Selma-to-Montgomery march ended with rally of some fifty
thousand at Alabama capitol. One of the marchers, a white
civil rights worker named Viola Liuzzo, is shot to death on
U.S. Highway 80 after the rally by white terrorists. Three
Klansmen are convicted of violating her civil rights and
sentenced to ten years in prison.

1967 – Debra Janine “Debi” Thomas is born in Poughkeepsie, New York. 
After being raised in San Jose, California by her mother(who 
shuttled her back and forth between home, school and 
practice at the rate of 3,000 miles per month), she will 
become the first African American to win the world figure 
skating championship (1986). She will later become the 
first African American to win a medal in the Winter Olympics 
(Bronze Medal in Figure Skating – February 27, 1988).

1975 – Salem Poor, who fought alongside other colonists during the 
Battle of Bunker Hill, is honored as one of four 
“Contributors to the Cause,” a commemorative issue of the 
U.S. Postal Service.

1991 – Whoopi Goldberg wins the Academy Award for best actress in a 
supporting role for “Ghost.” Also winning an Oscar is 
Russell Williams II, for best sound editing for the movie 
“Dances with Wolves.” It is Williams’s second Oscar in a 
row (the first was for “Glory”), a record for an African 
American.

1994 – American troops complete their withdrawal from Somalia.

2000 – Character actress Helen Martin, who played the little old 
lady next door in the mid-1980s television series “227” and
Halle Berry’s matriarch in the political comedy “Bulworth,”
joins the ancestors at the age of 90. An original member 
of Harlem’s American Negro Theater, Martin was one of the 
first African American actresses to appear on Broadway when 
Orson Welles cast her in his production of “Native Son.” 
She worked primarily as a stage actress early in her career,
but was perhaps best known for appearing as grandmotherly 
characters in television series about African American 
families.

Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Mr. Rene’ A. Perry.
KRLemmons African American History

March 24 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 24 *

1912 – Dorothy Irene Height is born in Richmond, Virginia. In 1965,
she will inaugurate the Center for Racial Justice, which is
still a major initiative of the National YWCA. She will
serve as the 10th National President of the Delta Sigma
Theta Sorority, Inc. from 1946 to 1957, before becoming
president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1958.
Working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy
Wilkins, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph and others, She
will participate in virtually all major civil and human
rights event in the 1950’s and 1960’s. For her tireless
efforts on behalf of the less fortunate, President Ronald
Reagan will present her the Citizens Medal Award for
distinguished service to the country in 1989. She will
receive the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in July, 1993.
She will be inducted into the “National Women’s Hall of
Fame” in October, 1993 and President Bill Clinton will
present her the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in
August 1994. She will join the ancestors on April 20, 2010.

1941 – “Native Son,” a play adapted from Richard Wright’s novel of
the same name, opens at the St. James Theatre in New York
City.

1944 – Patricia Louise Holt is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She will become a singer best known as Patti Labelle. As a
teenager, she and Cindy Birdsong (later a member of the
Supremes) will sing with the Ordettes. When two girls
leave the group, Nona Hendrix and Sarah Dash will sign on
and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells will be born in 1961.
By the next year, they will have their first multimillion
seller, “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman.” With other hits,
including “All Or Nothing” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,”
the group will develop a strong following worldwide. After
years of success and being “Rocked and Rolled out,” as
Patti describes it, the group will disband on good terms
in 1977. She will continue to perform as a solo artist and
will release top-selling albums. She will receive numerous
awards including Philadelphia’s Key to the City, a medal
from the Congressional Black Caucus, a citation from
Congress on her 20th anniversary in the music business,
another citation from President Reagan, a cable ACE, the
B’nai B’rith Creative Achievement Award, two NAACP
Entertainer of the Year Awards, the NAACP Image Award for
three consecutive years, the Ebony Achievement Award, the
Martin Luther King Lifetime Achievement Award, three Emmy
nominations, eight Grammy nominations and a 1992 Grammy
Award for Best R&B Female Vocal performance for her album
“Burnin.”

1958 – Bill Russell, center for the Boston Celtics, becomes the
NBA’s MVP. He is again named as MVP in 1961, 1962, 1963
and 1965.

1962 – Benny ‘Kid’ Paret is knocked out in the twelfth round by
Emile Griffith, in a welterweight title bout in New York
City. Paret will join the ancestors 10 days later.

1969 – Joseph Kasavubu, President of the Congo, joins the ancestors.
In 1960, he and Mobutu Sese Seko overthrew the government of
Patrice Lumumba.

1972 – Z. Alexander Looby, the first African American to serve on
the Nashville City Council, joins the ancestors in
Nashville, Tennessee. He had also been a successful
Nashville attorney, in the forefront of the Civil Rights
Movement, for many years. In 1960, he survived the April
19th bombing of his home.

1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Chuck Wepner in a 15-round bout to
retain his world heavyweight crown.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 23 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 23 *

1784 – Tom Molineaux, who will become America’s most celebrated
early boxing success, is born into slavery in Virginia.
He will emigrate to London after winning money to purchase
his freedom in a fight. He will challenge champion Tom
Cribb in a fight attended by 10,000 spectators in 1810,
which he will apparently win but is ruled against, by a
partisan referee. After a subsequent loss to Cribb in
1811, he will sink into alcoholism and will join the
ancestors penniless in Galway, Ireland, in 1818 at the age
of 34.

1938 – Maynard Jackson is born in Dallas, Texas. He will be elected
the first African American mayor of Atlanta, Georgia for
two terms, 1974 to 1982, and be re-elected in 1989 for an
unprecedented third term. He will join the ancestors on June
23, 2003.

1953 – Yvette Marie Stevens is born in Great Lakes, Illinois. She
will become better known as Chaka Khan, lead singer of the
rock group Rufus (winner of a 1974 Grammy) and a three-time
Grammy-winning soloist.

1955 – Moses Malone is born in Petersburg, Virginia. He will begin
his career in professional basketball in 1974 when he
becomes the first player in ABA basketball history to make
the move directly from high school ball to playing in a
professional league. He will join the now-defunct American
Basketball Association’s Utah Stars. His career will peak
during his seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers. Matched
with Julius Erving, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones and Andrew
Toney in the 1982-83 season, the 76ers will lead the league
with a 65-17 regular-season record and win the championship.
He will win both NBA MVP and NBA Finals MVP that year. His
other achievements will include NBA MVP (1979, ’82), All-NBA
first team (1979, ’82, ’85), All-NBA second team (1980, ’81,
’84, ’87), NBA All-Defensive first team (1983) and NBA
All-Defensive second team (1979). He will also hold career
records for the most consecutive games without a
disqualification (1,212), most free throws made (8,531),
most offensive rebounds (6,731) and most turnovers (3,804).
He will achieve the milestone of playing his 45,000th
minute, on Dec. 14, 1994, against the Boston Celtics. He
will be recognized not only for greatness as an all-around
player, but also for his longevity, as he will play for two
ABA teams and eight NBA teams over 22 years.

1968 – Rev. Walter Fauntroy, a former aide of Martin Luther King
Jr., becomes the first non-voting congressional delegate
from the District of Columbia since the Reconstruction
period.

1985 – Patricia Roberts Harris, Cabinet Member, ambassador and
first African American woman to head a law school, joins
the ancestors in Washington, DC.

1985 – “We Are The World”, by USA for Africa, a group of 46 pop
stars, enters the music charts for the first time at number
21.

1998 – President Bill Clinton hails “the new face of Africa” as he
opens a historic six-nation tour in Ghana.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 22 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 22 *

1492 – Alonzo Pierto, explorer of African descent, sets sail from
Spain with Christopher Columbus.

1873 – Slavery is abolished in Puerto Rico. The Spanish Crown
finally ends slavery in one of its last Latin American
colonies. Slave owners are compensated with 35 million
pesetas per slave. Despite the pronouncement of abolition,
slaves are still required to keep working for three more
years as indentured servants.

1882 – African American Shakespearean actor Morgan Smith joins the
ancestors in Sheffield, England. Smith had emigrated to
England in 1866, where he performed in Shakespeare’s Richard
III, Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Merchant of Venice, as well as
Othello.

1931 – Richard Berry Harrison receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal
for his role as “De Lawd” in “The Green Pastures” and for
his “long years …as a dramatic reader and entertainer,
interpreting to the mass of colored people in church and
school, the finest specimens of English drama from
Shakespeare down.”

1943 – George Benson is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He will
begin playing the guitar at age 8, will sing in nightclubs
as a child and form a rock group at age 17. He will move to
New York City in 1963 and join Jack McDuff’s band but will
leave in 1965 to form his own group with Lonnie Smith,
Ronnie Cuber, and Phil Turner. He will become a session
guitarist in the late 1960s, working with such artists as
Miles Davis, Ron Carter, and Herbie Hancock and developing
a reputation as one of the best jazz guitarists. The release
of his triple Grammy Award-winning “Breezin'” in 1976, with
its hit single, “This Masquerade,” will mark Benson’s return
as a vocal artist. His follow-up album, “In Flight” (1977),
and his double live set “Weekend in L.A.” (1978) will
confirm his wide popularity. After “Livin’ Inside Your Love”
(1979), he will release the equally popular “Give Me the
Night” (1980), his first collaboration with Quincy Jones,
which will garner an impressive sweep of five Grammy Awards.
Later albums will include “While the City Sleeps” (1986),
“Twice the Love” (1988), “Tenderly” (1989), and “Love
Remembers” (1993).

1957 – Stephanie Mills is born in Brooklyn, New York. She will
become a singer and actress and be best known for her role
as Dorothy in the stage show of “The Wiz.” She will win a
talent show at the Apollo Theater six weeks in a row at age
nine. She will appear in the Broadway play “Maggie Flynn,”
tour with the Isley Brothers, and release her debut album
in 1973. She will land the part of Dorothy in 1975,
recording an album for Motown during the show’s four-year
run. In 1980, she will have a worldwide hit with “Never Knew
Love Like This Before,” which rises to the Top Ten in the
U.S. She will be married for a short while to Shalamar’s
Jeffrey Daniels and work with Teddy Pendergrass in 1981. In
1983, she will land a daytime television show on NBC. She
will also later play Dorothy in a revival of “The Wiz.”

1968 – Pennsylvania State troopers are mobilized to put down a
student rebellion on the campus of Cheyney State College.

1986 – Debi Thomas becomes the first African American woman to win
the world figure skating championship.

______________________________________________________________
Munirah Chronicle is edited by Mr. Rene’ A. Perry

KRLemmons African American History

March 21 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 21 *

1934 – Al Freeman, Jr. is born in San Antonio, Texas. He will become
an actor and will be known for his roles in “One Life to
Live,” “My Sweet Charlie,” “Once Upon A Time When We Were
Colored,” “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” and “Down in The
Delta.” He will join the ancestors on August 9, 2012. He was
a professor in the Department of Theater Arts at Howard
University until the time of his transition.

1946 – The Los Angeles Rams sign Kenny Washington, the first African
American player to join a National Football League team since
1933.

1949 – The Rens, originally from New York, but now representing
Dayton, Ohio, play their last game against the Denver Nuggets.
Their lifetime record, amassed over 26 years, is 2,318 wins
and 381 losses. Their opponents, the Nuggets, will become
the first NBA team to be owned by African Americans, when
Bertram Lee and Peter Bynoe lead a group of investors that
buys the club in 1989.

1955 – NAACP chairman, author, and civil rights pioneer, Walter White
joins the ancestors in New York City.

1960 – Police in Sharpeville, near Johannesburg, fire on Black South
Africans protesting racial pass laws. A protest strategy
devised by the Pan-African Congress to flood South African
jails with pass violators, the protesters will suffer 72
deaths and over 200 injuries in the two days of violence that
will become known as the “Sharpeville Massacre.” The ANC is
outlawed.

1965 – Thousands of marchers complete the first leg of a five-day
freedom march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, dramatizing
the denial of voting rights for African Americans. Led by
Martin Luther King, Jr., thousands of marchers are protected
by U.S. Army troops and federalized Alabama National
Guardsmen because of violence encountered earlier, including
the fatal beating of a white minister, Reverend James J. Reeb.

1981 – Michael Donald, an African American teen-ager in Mobile,
Alabama, is abducted, tortured and killed in what prosecutors
charge is a Ku Klux Klan plot. A lawsuit brought by the
Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of Donald’s mother,
Beulah Mae Donald, will later result in a landmark $ 7
million judgment that bankrupts The United Klans of America.

1990 – Namibia celebrates independence from South Africa.

1990 – United States Secretary of State James Baker meets Black
nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, in Namibia, on the
occasion of Namibia’s independence.

1991 – Test results released in Los Angeles show that Rodney King,
the motorist whose beating by police was videotaped by a
bystander, had marijuana and alcohol in his system following
his arrest. President Bush denounces King’s beating as
“sickening” and “outrageous.”

2011 – Disco-era singer Loleatta Holloway joins the ancestors at the
age of 64. She’s mainly known for her 1980 hit single “Love
Sensation” which has been resampled over the years by several
high-profile bands.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 20 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 20 *

1852 – Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by white abolitionist Harriet Beecher
Stowe, is published. The controversial novel will be
credited by many, including Abraham Lincoln, with sparking
the Civil War. Mr. Lincoln will later tell Mrs. Stowe,
that she was “the little woman who wrote the book that
started this great war”.

1852 – Martin R. Delany publishes “The Condition, Elevation,
Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United
States,” the first major statement of the African American
nationalist position. Delany says, “The claims of no people,
according to established policy and usage, are respected by
any nation, until they are presented in a national capacity.”
He adds: “We are a nation within a nation; as the Poles in
Russia, the Hungarians in Austria, the Welsh, Irish, and
Scotch in the British dominions.”

1883 – Jan Matzeliger receives patent #274,207 for his shoe lasting
machine. His invention will revolutionize the shoe industry,
allowing for the first mass production of shoes.

1890 – The Blair Bill, which provides federal support for education
and allocates funds to reduce illiteracy among the freedmen
is defeated in the U.S. Senate, 37-31.

1950 – Dr. Ralph Bunche receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his work
as a mediator in the Palestine crisis. He is the first
African American to be so honored.

1957 – Shelton “Spike” Lee is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
grow up in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, New York,
the son of an accomplished jazz bassist and art teacher,
Bill Lee. He will become a motion picture director,
producing many of his own films. His films, among them
“She’s Gotta Have It,” “Do the Right Thing” and “Jungle
Fever” explore the social, political, and interpersonal
relationships between African Americans and whites similar
to the early work of director Oscar Micheaux.

1970 – Students strike at the University of Michigan and demand
increased African American enrollment. The strike ends on
April 2, after the administration agrees to meet their
demands.

1973 – Roberto Clemente is elected to Baseball’s Hall of Fame, 11
weeks after he joins the ancestors. He becomes the first
person of African descent to be elected to the Hall of Fame
in a special election (before the five-year waiting period).
He also is the first person of Hispanic descent to enter the
Hall of Fame.

1987 – “Hollywood Shuffle” premieres. The film is directed by,
produced by, and stars Robert Townsend. Townsend also used
his own money to bring his comedic vision to the screen.

2000 – Former Black Panther Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, once known as H.
Rap Brown, is captured in Alabama. He is wanted in the fatal
shooting of a sheriff’s deputy in Atlanta, Georgia. Al-Amin
will maintain his innocence. On March 9, 2002, he will be
convicted of 13 criminal charges, including the murder of
sheriif’s deputy Kinchen. Four days later, he will be
sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
He will then be assigned to Georgia State Prison, the state’s
maximum security facility near Reidsville, Georgia. In August,
2007, he will be transferred from state custody to Federal
custody, as Georgia officials decide that he is too high-
profile an inmate for the Georgia prison system to handle.
He will be subsequently moved to a Federal transfer facility
in Oklahoma pending assignment to a Federal penitentiary. On
October 21, 2007, he will be transferred to the ADX Florence
supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. After being diagnosed
with multiple myeloma, he will be transferred again, on July
18, 2014, to Butner (FMC) Federal Medical Center in North
Carolina.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 19 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 19 *

1867 – Congressman Thaddeus Stevens calls up resolution providing
for the enforcement of the Second Confiscation Act of July,
1862. The measure, which provides for the distribution of
public and confiscated land to the freedmen, is defeated.

1870 – “O Guarani,” the most celebrated opera by Afro-Brazilian
composer Antonio Carlos Gomes, premiers at the Scala Theater
in Milan, Italy. His enormous musical talent opened the
doors of the Milan Conservatory where he studied under the
guidance of the greatest opera directors of the time. Among
other operas, Gomes produces “Fosca,” “Condor,” and
“O Escravo” (The Slave).

1872 – T.J. Boyd, inventor, awarded patent for apparatus for
detaching horses from carriages.

1937 – The Count Basie Orchestra, with vocalists Billie Holiday and
Jimmy Rushing, opens at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.

1939 – The New Negro Theater is founded in Los Angeles, California,
by Langston Hughes. The company stages as its first
performance Hughes’s play, “Don’t You Want to be Free?”

1952 – Sergeant Cornelius H. Charlton is posthumously awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery during the Korean
War. He joins the ancestors after being killed in action on
June 2, 1951.

1967 – French Somaliland (Djibouti) votes to continue association
with France.

1968 – Students take over the Administration Building at Howard
University demanding resignation of university officials
and a stronger orientation to Black culture in the
curriculum. It is the first of many college protests over
Black Studies programs on African American and white college
campuses across the nation.

1995 – Twenty one months after retiring from basketball, Michael
Jordan returns to professional basketball with his former
team, the Chicago Bulls.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 18 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 18 *

1895 – 200 African Americans leave Savannah, Georgia for Liberia.

1901 – William Henry Johnson is born in Florence, South Carolina.
He will leave his home for New York and Europe, where
he will develop a deliberate and controversial primitive
painting style. Among his more famous works will be “Chain
Gang,” “Calvary,” and “Descent from the Cross.” He will
join the ancestors on January 1, 1970.

1939 – Charley Frank Pride is born in Sledge, Mississippi. Intent
on a career in baseball, he will begin his country music
career in 1960, singing between innings at a company-
sponsored baseball game where he is a player. A recording
contract will follow in 1964 and a debut with the “Grand
Ole Opry” in 1967. Pride will become the first African
American to become a successful country music star. His
awards will include a 1972 Grammy.

1941 – Wilson Pickett is born in Prattville, Alabama. He will become
Rhythm & Blues singer and will begin his career as the lead
tenor with The Falcons (“I Found a Love” – 1962). He will
become a solo artist and release the hits, “Funky Broadway,”
“In the Midnight Hour,” “Land of 1000 Dances,” “Mustang
Sally,” “It’s Too Late,” and “Don’t Knock My Love.” He will
be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991. He
will join the ancestors on January 19, 2006.

1943 – William Hastie wins the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. A former
federal judge and law school dean, Hastie, a civilian aide
to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, had resigned his
position earlier in the year over the armed forces’
discriminatory practices.

1959 – Irene Cara is born in New York City. She will become an
actress, singer, and songwriter. She will receive an Academy
Award, two Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, plus numerous
other awards emanating from every aspect of the industry. Her
performance in the ground breaking 1980’s picture Fame (1980)
will catapult her into world wide stardom and motivate a
generation of young people to become involved in the
performing arts.

1963 – Vanessa L. Williams is born in Millwood, New York (Westchester
County). She will become the first African American Miss
America. She will later become a popular singer, major
recording star, and movie actress. She will star in the
Tony Award-winning musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” the
mini-series “Odyssey,” and the movies “Eraser,” “Hoodlum,”
“Soul Food,” and “Shut Up and Dance.”

1972 – The USS Jesse L. Brown, the first U.S. naval ship to be named
after an African American naval officer, is launched at
Westwego, Louisiana. Brown was the first African American
pilot in the U.S. Naval Reserve and was the first African
American pilot killed in the Korean War (1950). Editor’s
Note: This was not the first naval vessel named after an
African American. The USS Harmon was named after an enlisted
man, Leonard Roy Harmon, during World War II (1944).

1982 – Singer Teddy Pendergrass is paralyzed as a result of an
automobile accident.

1991 – The Philadelphia ’76ers retire Wilt Chamberlain’s #13 jersey.

1991 – Reggie Miller, of the Indiana Pacers ends his NBA free throw
streak of 52 games.

1992 – Donna Summers gets a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 17 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 17 *

1806 – Norbert Rillieux is born a free man in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Rillieux will become best known for his revolutionary
improvements in sugar refining methods. Awarded his second
patent for an evaporator, the invention will be widely used
throughout Louisiana and the West Indies, dramatically
increasing and modernizing sugar production. He will join
the ancestors on October 8. 1894 in Paris, France.

1865 – Aaron Anderson wins the Navy’s Medal of Honor for his heroic
actions aboard the USS Wyandank during the Civil War.

1886 – A massacre occurs in Carrollton, Mississippi. Twenty African
Americans are killed by white supremacists.

1891 – West Virginia State College is founded in Institute, West
Virginia.

1896 – C.B. Scott receives a patent for the street sweeper.

1898 – Blanche Kelso Bruce joins the ancestors in Washington, DC at
the age of 57.

1912 – Bayard Rustin is born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He will
become a civil rights leader and peace activist. He will join
Martin Luther King Jr. in organizing the bus boycott that will
establish King as a national figure. For the next 10 years,
he will move back and forth between the world of the civil
rights movement and the world of peace activism. He will be
instrumental in helping A. Philip Randolph plan the 1963 March
on Washington. But due to his youthful ties to the Communist
Party, a wartime imprisonment, and an arrest in California on
public morals charges, Rustin will be obligated to limit his
public exposure to avoid problems for King and others whom
Southern white leaders (and the FBI) were attempting to
destroy. He will join the ancestors on August 24, 1987.

1919 – Nathaniel Adams Coles is born in Montgomery, Alabama. Better
known as Nat “King” Cole, he will start his musical career in
a band with his brother Eddie and in a production of “Shuffle
Along.” Leader of the King Cole Trio, he will achieve
international acclaim as a jazz pianist before becoming an
even more popular balladeer known for such songs as “Mona
Lisa,” “The Christmas Song” and “Unforgettable.” Cole will
also have the distinction of being the first African American
to host a network television variety show (1956-1957), a
pioneer in breaking down racial barriers in Las Vegas, and a
founding member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and
Sciences, which will honor him with a posthumous Lifetime
Achievement Grammy in 1989. He will join the ancestors on
February 15, 1965.

1933 – Myrlie Beasley is born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She will
become the wife of civil rights activist Medgar Evers in 1951
and will work with him in order to combat discrimination and
segregation in Mississippi. Together, they will open and
manage the first NAACP Mississippi State Office. Her husband
will be assassinated in 1963, by white supremacist, Byron de
la Beckwith. She will later move to California where she will
graduate from Pomona College. She will work in the corporate
world as Director for Consumer Affairs at the Atlantic
Richfield Company and in government as a Commissioner of the
Los Angeles, California, Board of Public Works. She will be
the first African American woman to serve on that board. She
will be the author of the book, “For Us, the Living,” and the
recipient of numerous honorary degrees. She will later become
Mrs. Myrlie Evers-Williams and be elected vice-chairperson of
the NAACP in 1994, and in 1995 will become the first woman
chairperson. In 1998, she will be succeeded by Julian Bond as
Chair of the NAACP.

1970 – The United States casts its first veto in the U.N. Security
Council. The U.S. kills a resolution that would have condemned
Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled
government of Rhodesia.

2000 – More than 300 members of a religious sect burn to death in a
makeshift church in southwestern Uganda.

2008 – David Paterson is sworn in as New York’s 55th governor. He is
New York’s first Black governor and the nation’s first legally
blind governor.

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