KRLemmons African American History

February 11 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 11 *

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1783 – Jarena Lee, the first woman to preach in an AME church, at
Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, is born in Cape
May, New Jersey. She will chronicle her life’s work in her
book, “Religious Experiences and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee:
A Preachin’ Woman” (1849). Jarena Lee will be one of first
African American women to speak out publicly against slavery.
She will join the ancestors in 1849.

1790 – The Society of Friends (Quakers) presents a petition to
Congress calling for the abolition of slavery.

1958 – Mohawk Airlines schedules Ruth Carol Taylor on her initial
flight from Ithaca, New York to New York City. She becomes the
first African American flight attendant for a United States-
based air carrier.

1961 – Robert Weaver becomes the highest-ranking African American in
the federal government as he is sworn in as administrator of
the Housing and Home Finance Agency.

1966 – Willie Mays signs with the San Francisco Giants for $ 130,000
a year. At the time, this is one of the highest salaries in
professional baseball.

1977 – Clifford Alexander, Jr. is confirmed as the first African
American Secretary of the Army. He will hold the position
until the end of President Jimmy Carter’s term.

1977 – Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam is named head of state
in Ethiopia. He will rule Ethiopia and be backed by the
Soviet government until he loses the civil war in 1991 to the
forces supporting Meles Zenawi.

1989 – Rev. Barbara Clementine Harris becomes the first woman
consecrated as a bishop in the Episcopal Church, in a ceremony
held in Boston.

1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from prison after being held for
nearly 27 years without trial by the South African government.
The founder and unofficial leader of the African National
Congress, Mandela became, during his imprisonment, a symbol
for the struggle of Black South Africans to overcome apartheid.

1990 – James “Buster” Douglas defeats Mike Tyson in a stunning upset
in Tokyo to win the heavyweight boxing championship. Almost two
years later to the day, Tyson will be convicted of rape and two
related charges filed by a Miss Black America contestant in
Indianapolis, Indiana.

2012 – Whitney Houston, the woman with the pitch-perfect voice who once
reigned as the queen of pop at the Grammys, joins the ancestors
at the age of 48.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 10 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 10 *
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1868 – Republican conservatives draft new constitution which
concentrates political power in the hands of the governor and
limits the impact of the Black vote. This is made possible by
Conservatives, aided by military forces, who seize the
convention hall and establish control over the reconstruction
process in Florida.

1927 – Mary Leontyne Violet Price, who will be acclaimed as one of the
world’s greatest operatic talents, is born in Laurel,
Mississippi. She will amass many operatic firsts, being the
first African American to sing opera on network television and
the first African American to receive the Presidential Medal
of Freedom. Among her honors will be the NAACP’s Spingarn
Medal, three Emmys, and Kennedy Center Honors.

1937 – Roberta Cleopatra Flack is born in Black Mountain (Asheville),
North Carolina. She will begin her professional singing career
in Washington, DC. She will go on to win Grammys for “The First
Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” “Where Is the Love,” and “Killing
Me Softly with His Song.”

1942 – Mary Lovelace O’Neal is born in Jackson, Mississippi. Educated
at Howard and Columbia universities, she will become a
professor of fine arts and head of the Art Department at
University of California at Berkeley. Academia will allow her
the freedom to become a painter who will exhibit her work
in museums in the United States, Morocco, and Chile.

1943 – Eta Phi Beta, the national business and professional sorority,
is incorporated in Detroit, Michigan. It will have chapters
throughout the United States and number among its members
civil rights activist Daisy Bates and artist Margaret T.
Burroughs.

1945 – The United States, Russia, Great Britain, and France approve a
peace treaty with Italy, under which Italy renounces all
rights and claims to Ethiopia and Eritrea.

1945 – The Chicago Defender reports that over a quarter of a million
African Americans migrated to California during the years 1942
and 1943. As the percentage of African Americans in
California increases from 1 1/2% to more than 10% of the
total population, so does the practice of racial segregation.

1971 – Bill White becomes the first African American major league
baseball announcer when he begins announcing for the New
York Yankees.

1989 – Ronald H. Brown, who had served as Jesse Jackson’s campaign
manager, becomes chairman of the Democratic National
Committee, the first African American to hold the position
in either party.

1990 – South African President, Frederik Willem de Klerk announces
that Nelson Mandela will be set free on February 11th after
27 years in prison.

1992 – Alex Haley, author of “Roots,” and “Autobiography of Malcolm
X,” joins the ancestors while on a lecture tour in Seattle,
Washington at the age of 70.

1992 – Mike Tyson is convicted in Indianapolis, Indiana of raping a
contestant in the Miss Black America competition and
sentenced to six years in an Indiana prison.

1998 – Dr. David Satcher is confirmed by the U.S. Senate to become
Surgeon General.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 9 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 9 *

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1906 – Never fully recovering from a bout of pneumonia in 1899, poet
and author Paul Laurence Dunbar joins the ancestors in Dayton,
Ohio, at the age of 33. He nonetheless produced three novels
(including “The Sport of the Gods”), three books of verse,
three collections of short stories, two unpublished plays,
and lyric pieces set to music by Will Marion Cook.

1944 – Alice Walker is born In Eatonton, Georgia. Best known for “The
Color Purple,” which will win the American Book Award and the
Pulitzer Prize, she will also write a variety of other
critically praised and award-winning works including poetry
and children’s books and edit a book on Zora Neale Hurston,
whom she will credit as her role model.

1944 – John Rozelle is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will become an
artist and professor at the Art Institute of Chicago. His
work reflects his self identification as an “African American
sentinel,” or visual historian, guide, and advocate of
contemporary African American culture.

1951 – Dennis “Dee Tee” Thomas is born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He will
become a rhythm and blues musician with the group, ‘Kool & the
Gang.’

1953 – Gary Franks is born in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1990, he
will be elected to Congress from Connecticut’s 5th District
and become the first African American Republican congressman
since Oscar De Priest left office in 1934.

1962 – Jamaica signs an agreement with Great Britain to become
independent.

1964 – Arthur Ashe, Jr. becomes the first African American on a United
States Davis Cup Team.

1964 – A speech by U.S. Representative Martha Griffiths in Congress,
on sex discrimination, results in civil rights protection for
women being added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

1971 – Satchel Paige becomes the first African American elected to
professional baseball’s Hall of Fame for his career in the
Negro Leagues.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 8 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 8 *

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1865 – The first African American major in the United States Army is a
physician, Dr. Martin Robinson Delany.

1894 – Congress repeals the Enforcement Act, which makes it easier for
some states to disenfranchise African American voters.

1925 – Marcus Garvey is sent to federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia for
mail fraud in connection with the sale of stock in his Black
Star Line. His prosecution was vigorously advocated by several
prominent African American leaders, including Robert Sengstacke
Abbott and others. Garvey was railroaded because of the power
he had amassed over the African American population of America.

1925 – Students stage a strike at Fisk University to protest the
policies of the white administration at the school.

1944 – Harry S. McAlpin of the “Daily World” in Atlanta, Georgia, is
the first African American journalist accredited to attend
White House press conferences.

1965 – Dr. Joseph B. Danquah, Ghanaian political leader, joins the
ancestors. He had been the leader of the United Gold Coast
Convention, a political body which had pressed the British for
a gradual relinquishing of colonial rule.

1968 – Gary Coleman is born in Zion, Ohio. He will become a child
actor portraying “Arnold” in the television series, “Different
Strokes,” which aired from 1978 to 1986. He will join the ancestors
on May 28, 2010.

1968 – Highway Patrol Officers kill three South Carolina State
University students during a demonstration in Orangeburg,
South Carolina. Students are protesting against a whites-only
Orangeburg bowling alley.

1970 – Alonzo Mourning is born in Chesapeake, Virginia. He will become
a basketball star at Georgetown University and will go on to
play for the NBA Miami Heat. He will be praised for his
courage for making a comeback after undergoing a kidney
transplant and years later winning his first NBA Championship
with the Miami Heat in 2006. Prior to the Heat, he will play
for the Charlotte Hornets and New Jersey Nets.

1984 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers scores 27 points
while leading his team to a 111-109 victory over the Boston
Celtics. Abdul-Jabbar passes Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA career
record of 12,682 field goals.

1986 – Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman to host
a nationally syndicated talk show.

1986 – 5′ 7″ Spud Webb, of the Atlanta Hawks, wins the NBA Slam Dunk
Competition.

1990 – CBS News suspends resident humorist Andy Rooney for racial
comments he supposedly made to a gay magazine, comments
Rooney denies making.

1995 – The U.N. Security Council approves sending 7,000 peacekeepers
to Angola to cement an accord ending 19 years of civil war.

2000 – Edna Griffin, an Iowa civil-rights pioneer best known for
integrating lunch counters, joins the ancestors at the age of
90. In 1948, Griffin led the fight against Katz Drug Store in
downtown Des Moines, which refused to serve blacks at its
lunch counter. Griffin staged sit-ins, picketed in front of
the store and filed charges against the store’s owner, Maurice
Katz, who was fined. The Iowa Supreme Court then enforced the
law which made it illegal to deny service based on race. She
organized Iowans to attend the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
1963 march on Washington, D.C., and helped start the former
radio station KUCB. On May 15, 1999, Des Moines’ mayor
proclaimed “Edna Griffin Day.” On February 5, 2000, Griffin
was inducted into the Iowa African American Hall of Fame.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 7 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 7 *

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1712 – Twenty-one slaves are executed after killing nine whites when
a slave revolt occurs in New York City.

1872 – The doors of Alcorn Agricultural & Mechanical College open.

1883 – James Hubert “Eubie” Blake is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He
will become a pianist, who will be an instrumental part of the
creation of a new music movement named ‘ragtime.’ He will
form a song-writing team with Noble Sissle that will create
many Broadway musicals. He will temporarily retire after
` World War II and will see a resurgence of his career in the
1960’s, with renewed public interest in ragtime. He will
remain active as a jazz pianist and composer until his
ninety-ninth year. He will join the ancestors on February 12,
1983 in New York City.

1926 – The first Negro History Week begins. Originated by Dr. Carter
G. Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and
History, the Sunday kickoff celebration involves ministers,
teachers, professionals, and business people in highlighting
the “achievements of the Negro.” The concept will win
increasing popularity and be expanded in 1976 to an entire
month of local and national events exploring African American
culture.

1946 – A filibuster in the United States Senate kills the Fair
Employment Practices Commission bill.

1974 – Grenada achieves its independence from Great Britain.

1986 – Haiti’s President-for-Life, Jean-Claude Duvalier loses control
of his country to strikes, led by students. The U.S.
government asked him to resign and helped him flee to exile
in France. Henri Namphy becomes leader of Haiti.

1991 – The Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is sworn in as Haiti’s first
democratically elected president.

2000 – Tiger Woods gains his sixth straight PGA Tour victory with an
astonishing comeback to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am,
becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1948 to win six
in a row.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 6 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 6 *

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* Black Facts every day of the year. *
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1810 – The Argentine national hero from Buenos Aires, Argentina,
Antonio Ruiz (El Negro Falucho), joins the ancestors, fighting
for his country.

1820 – The first organized emigration back to Africa begins when
86 free African Americans leave New York Harbor aboard the
Mayflower of Liberia. They are bound for the British colony
of Sierra Leone, which welcomes free African Americans as well
as fugitive slaves.

1867 – The Anglo-American merchant George Peabody, founds the $ 2
million Peabody Education Fund. It is the first philanthropy
established in the wake of the Civil War to promote free public
education in 12 Civil War devastated southern states for whites
and African Americans. The Peabody Fund will provide funding
for construction, endowments, scholarships, teacher and
industrial education for newly freed slaves.

1898 – Haywood Hall is born in South Omaha, Nebraska. After
relocating to Minneapolis, Minnesota with his family, he will
join the U.S. Army. He will serve with the 370th Infantry in
France during World War I. Returning to Chicago, Illinois after
the war, he will be active as a Black Nationalist, becoming a
member of the African Blood Brotherhood and the Communist Party
of the USA. In 1925, he will adopt the pseudonym, Harry
Haywood. He will be a leading proponent of Black Nationalism,
self-determination, and the idea that American Blacks are a
colonized people who should organize themselves into a nation.
From 1926 to 1930, he will study in the Soviet Union, where he
will meet several anti-colonial revolutionaries, including
Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh. On his return to the U.S. in 1931, he
will be chosen to lead the Communist Party’s Negro Department,
and in 1934 will be elected a member of its politburo. The
Spanish Civil War will take him to Spain in 1937, where he
will fight in a volunteer Communist brigade against General
Francisco Franco’s fascist regime. During World War II, his
belief in black self-determination and territorial autonomy
will put him at odds with Communist Party policy, which had
gravitated away from support for a Black nation in the American
south. His agitation on “The Negro Question” led to his
expulsion from the Party in 1959. He will remain in Chicago,
supporting Black Nationalist movements such as the Nation of
Islam. He will publish “Negro Liberation” (1948), a detailed
analysis of the national character of Black oppression,
particularly in the South. In his later years he will write
his memoirs, “Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-
American Communist” (1978). Harry Haywood’s greatest
contribution will be his central role in developing a
theoretical understanding of the Black nation in the United
States. He will join the ancestors on January 4, 1985.

1898 – Melvin Beaunorus Tolson, author and educator, is born in
Moberly, Missouri. Educated at Fisk, Lincoln, and Columbia
Universities, his first volume of poetry, “Rendezvous with
America,” will be published in 1944. He will be best known
for “Libretto for the Republic of Liberia,” published in
1953. He will join the ancestors on August 29, 1966.

1931 – The Harlem Experimental Theatre Group performs its first play
at St. Philips Parish House. The group’s advisory board
includes famed actress Rose McClendon, author Jesse Fauset,
and Grace Nail.

1933 – Walter E. Fauntroy is born in Washington, DC. He will become a
civil rights leader and minister. He will later become the
non-voting delegate to the United States Congress for the
District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991.

1945 – Robert Nesta Marley is born in St. Ann, Jamaica to Captain
Norval and Cedella Marley. He will become a successful singer
along with his group, The Wailers. Bob Marley and The Wailers
were among the earliest to sing Reggae, a blend of Jamaican
dance music and American Rhythm & Blues with a heavy dose of
Rastafarianism, the Jamaican religion that blends Christian and
African teachings. He will join the ancestors on May 11, 1981
at the age of 36, succumbing to cancer. As a result of his
accomplishments, he will be awarded Jamaica’s Order Of Merit,
the nation’s third highest honor, (April, 1981) in recognition
of his outstanding contribution to the country’s culture. He
will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

1950 – Natalie Maria Cole is born to Nat “King” and Maria Cole in Los
Angeles, California. She will follow in her famous father’s
footsteps and become a recording star. She will become a
Grammy Award-winning singer, and Best New Artist in 1975. She
will attain musical success in the mid-1970s as a Rhythm & Blues
artist with the hits “This Will Be”, “Inseparable”, and “Our
Love”. After a period of failing sales and performances due to a
heavy drug addiction, She will reemerge as a pop artist with the
1987 album, “Everlasting,” and her cover of Bruce Springsteen’s
“Pink Cadillac”. In the 1990s, she will re-record standards by
her father, resulting in her biggest success, “Unforgettable…
with Love,” which will sell over seven million copies.

1961 – The “jail-in” movement starts in Rock Hill, South Carolina,
when arrested students demand to be jailed rather than pay
fines.

1993 – Arthur Ashe, tennis champion, joins the ancestors at the age of
49. He succumbs from complications of AIDS, contracted from a
transfusion during a earlier heart surgery.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 5 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 5 *

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1866 – The distribution of public land and confiscated land to freedmen
and loyal refugees in forty acre lots is offered in an
amendment to the Freedmen’s Bureau bill by Congressman Thaddeus
Stevens. The measure is defeated in the House by a vote of 126
to 37. An African American delegation, led by Frederick
Douglass calls on President Johnson and urges ballots for
former slaves. The meeting ends in disagreement and controversy
after Johnson reiterates his opposition to African American
suffrage.

1934 – Henry (Hank) Aaron is born in Mobile, Alabama. After starting
his major league baseball career with the Milwaukee Braves in
1954, he will distinguish himself as a home-run specialist.
Aaron will be considered by some, the best baseball player in
history. Over his 23-year Major League Baseball career, he will
compile more batting records than any other player in baseball
history. He will hold the record for runs batted in with 2297,
and will be a Gold Glove Winner in 1958, 1959, and 1960. His
most famous accomplishment will come on April 8, 1974, when at
the age of 40, he will hit a 385-foot home run against the Los
Angeles Dodgers, surpassing Babe Ruth’s record of 714 career
home runs. He will end his career with 755 home runs. In 1982,
he will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. After his
retirement, he will return to the Atlanta Braves as a vice-
president for player development, and will be promoted to
senior vice-president in 1989.

1941 – Barrett Strong is born in West Point, Mississippi. He will
become a Rhythm and Blues singer best known for his recording
of “Money (That’s What I Want).” He will also be a prolific
songwriter, responsible for hits such as “Just My
Imagination,” “Papa Was A Rolling Stone,” and “Ball of
Confusion.” He will receive a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm &
Blues Song for co-writing “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone”. He will
be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004.

1956 – L.R. Lautier becomes the first African American to be admitted
to the National Press Club.

1958 – Clifton W. Wharton, Sr. becomes the first African American to
head an American diplomatic mission in Europe when he is
confirmed as minister to Romania.

1962 – A suit seeking to bar Englewood, New Jersey, from maintaining
“racial segregated” elementary schools, is filed in United
States District Court.

1968 – Students in Orangeburg, South Carolina try to end the
discriminatory practices of a local bowling alley. Their
confrontation with police and the National Guard, and the
subsequent death of three students, creates widespread
outrage among students on campuses across the South.

1969 – Cinque Gallery is incorporated by African American artists
Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, and Norman Lewis. Located
in the SoHo district of New York City, the nonprofit gallery’s
mission is to assist in the growth and development of minority
artists and to end the cycle of exclusion of their work from
the mainstream artistic community.

1972 – Robert Lewis Douglas, founder, owner and coach of the New York
Renaissance is the first African American inducted into the
Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. The
New York Renaissance was an African American team that won 88
consecutive games in 1933.

1977 – Sugar Ray Leonard defeats Luis Vega in 6 rounds in his first
professional fight.

1989 – Kareem Abdul-Jabar becomes the first NBA player to score 38,000
points.

1994 – Avowed white supremacist Byron de la Beckwith is convicted of
Medger Evers’ murder, more than thirty years after Evers was
shot in the back from ambush. After deliberating for seven
hours, a jury of eight African Americans and four whites
convicted 73-year-old De La Beckwith of Medgar Evers’s murder,
sentencing him to life in prison. He died there seven years
later. As a Mississippi State Supreme Court justice wrote
about the retrial: “Miscreants brought before the bar of
justice in this state must, sooner or later, face the cold
realization that justice, slow and plodding though she may be,
is certain in the state of Mississippi.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 4 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 4 *

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1794 – Slavery is abolished by France. France will have a very lukewarm
commitment to abolition and will, under Napoleon, reestablish
slavery in 1802, along with the reinstitution of the “Code
Noir,” prohibiting blacks, mulattos and other people of color
from entering French colonial territory or intermarrying with
whites.

1822 – The American Colonization Society founds the African colony for
free African Americans that will become the country of Liberia,
West Africa.

1913 – Rosa Louise McCauley is born in Tuskegee, Alabama. In 1932,
she will marry Raymond Parks. She will work at a number of
jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her
husband’s urging, she will finish high school studies in 1933,
at a time when less than 7% of African Americans had a high
school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political
participation by Black people difficult, she will succeed in
registering to vote on her third try. In December 1943, she
will become active in the Civil Rights Movement, joining the
Montgomery chapter of the NAACP. When the seamstress and
NAACP member refuses to yield her seat to a white man on a
Montgomery, Alabama bus on December 1, 1955, her actions will
spark a 382-day boycott of the buses in Montgomery, halting
business and services in the city and become the initial act
of non-violent disobedience of the American Civil Rights
movement. She will be honored with the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal
for her heroism and later work with Detroit youth(1979) and
be called the “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.” She will
join the ancestors on October 24, 2005. The United States
Senate will pass a resolution on October 27, 2005 to honor
Mother Parks by allowing her body to lie in honor in the U.S.
Capitol Rotunda. The House of Representatives approved the
resolution on October 28. Since the founding of the practice
of lying in state in the Rotunda in 1852, She will be the
31st person, the first woman, the first American who had not
been a U.S. government official, and the second non-
government official (after Frenchman Pierre L’Enfant). On
October 30, 2005 President George W. Bush will issue a
Proclamation ordering that all flags on U.S. public areas
both within the country and abroad be flown at half-staff on
the day of her funeral. On February 5, 2006, at Super Bowl XL,
played at Detroit’s Ford Field, the late Coretta Scott King
and Mother Parks, who had been a long-time resident of “The
Motor City”, will be remembered and honored by a moment of
silence.

1947 – Sanford Bishop is born in Mobile, Alabama. He will graduate
from Morehouse College and Emory University Law School. He
will specialize in civil rights law and will become a member
of the Georgia Legislature from 1977 to 1993 (House and
Senate). In 1993, he will be elected a member of the United
States House of Representatives from Georgia.

1952 – Jackie Robinson is named Director of Communication for WNBC in
New York City, becoming the first African American executive
of a major radio-TV network.

1965 – Joseph Danquah joins the ancestors in Nsawam Prison in Ghana at
the age of 69. He had been a Ghanaian scholar, lawyer and
nationalist. He had led the opposition against Kwame Nkrumah
who had him imprisoned.

1969 – The Popular Liberation Movement Of Angola begins an armed
struggle against Portugal.

1971 – The National Guard is mobilized to quell civil disobedience
events in Wilmington, North Carolina. Two persons are killed.

1971 – Major League Baseball announces a special Hall of Fame wing for
special displays about the Negro Leagues. These exhibits will
provide information on these most deserving but rarely
recognized contributors to Baseball.

1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps nineteen-year-old
newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from her apartment in
Berkeley, California.

1980 – Camara Laye joins the ancestors in Senegal at the age of 52.
He was a Guinean novelist considered a pioneer of West African
literature.

1986 – A stamp of Sojourner Truth is issued by the United States
Postal Service as part of its Black Heritage USA commemorative
series. Truth was an abolitionist, woman’s rights activist and
a famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

1996 – Congressman J.C. Watts (R-Oklahoma) becomes the first African
American selected to respond to a State of the Union address.

1997 – Sixteen months after O.J. Simpson was cleared of murder charges,
a civil trial jury blames him for the killings of his ex-wife
and her friend and orders him to pay millions in compensatory
damages.

2003 – Charlie Biddle, a leader of Montreal’s jazz scene in the 1950s
and ’60s who played bass with Thelonious Monk and Charlie
Parker, joins the ancestors after a battle with cancer at the
age of 76. Biddle was a native of Philadelphia who moved to
Canada in 1948. Over the next five decades, the World War II
veteran and former car salesman became synonymous with jazz in
Montreal. Biddle opened his own club, Uncle Charlie’s Jazz
Joint, in suburban Ste-Therese in 1958. He later performed in
such legendary Montreal nightspots as The Black Bottom and the
Penthouse, where he worked with the likes of Oscar Peterson,
Art Tatum, Charlie Parker and Lionel Hampton. When there were
no jobs in Montreal, he played smaller Quebec cities with a
group called Three Jacks and a Jill. Until the time of his
passing, he played four nights a week at Biddle’s Jazz and
Ribs, a Montreal landmark for nearly 25 years. In 1979, he
organized the three-day festival that some say paved the way
for the renowned Montreal International Jazz Festival.

2005 – Ossie Davis, renown actor and civil rights advocate, joins the
ancestors in Miami, FL, while on location for yet another
acting project at the age of 87.

2007 – For the first time in Super Bowl history, two African American
coaches will lead their teams in the NFL Championship game.
The Chicago Bears will be coached by Lovie Lee Smith and the
Indianapolis Colts will be coached by Tony Dungee. The
Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears will be set to face
off in South Florida during Super Bowl XLI in a historic
meeting where both African American coaches will vie for the
Vince Lombardi Trophy. The winner will be the first African
American coach to win the Super Bowl.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 3 *

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1855 – The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares that the United States
Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional.

1874 – Blanche Kelso Bruce is elected to the United States Senate from
Mississippi. He will be the first African American senator to
serve a full term and the first to preside over the Senate
during a debate.

1879 – Charles Follis is born in Wooster, Ohio. He will become the
first African American professional football player in the
United States reported by the press. He will play for a
professional team known as the Shelby Blues, in Shelby, Ohio.
starting in 1904 and will retire in 1906 due to injuries.
Most sources will state that 1904 was when his career started,
when he signed a contract on September 16, but Hall of Fame
research indicates the 1902 Shelby Athletic Club that Follis
played on, was indeed professional. Editor’s note: In 1972,
The Pro Football Hall of Fame will discover proof that William
(Pudge) Heffelfinger, a Yale All-American, played one game for
$ 500, for the Allegheny Athletic Association in 1892, making
him the actual ‘first’ to play football for pay. Follis will
join the ancestors on April 5, 1910 after succumbing to
pneumonia.

1935 – Johnny “Guitar” Watson is born in Houston. Texas. He will
become a guitarist and singer known for his wild style of
guitar playing and the sound which merged Blues Music with
touches of Rhythm & Blues and Funk. He will join the ancestors
after succumbing to a heart attack, while performing at the
Yokohama Blues Cafe in Japan, on May 17, 1996.

1938 – Emile Griffith is born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He will
move to New York City as a young man and discover boxing. He
will win the Golden Gloves title and turn professional in
1958. In his career, he will meet 10 world champions and box
339 title-fight rounds, more than any other fighter in history.
He will be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame
with the distinction of being the third fighter in history to
hold both the welterweight and middleweight titles. He will
join the ancestors on July 23, 2013,

1938 – Elijah Pitts is born in Mayflower, Arkansas. He will become a
professional football player with the Green Bay Packers. A
major contributor as a running back, he will help his team win
Super Bowl I. He will spend nine years with the Green Bay
Packers during their championship years under Hall of Fame
coach Vince Lombardi. The Packers will win four NFL
championships and two Super Bowls during his career. He will
return to the Super Bowl thirty years later as a running back
coach with the Buffalo Bills. He will join the ancestors on
July 10, 1998 after succumbing to abdominal cancer.

1939 – The Baltimore Museum of Art exhibit, “Contemporary Negro Art”,
opens. The exhibit, which will run for 16 days, will feature
works by Richmond Barthe, Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley,
Jr., and Jacob Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture series.

1947 – Percival Prattis of “Our World” in New York City, becomes the
first African American news correspondent admitted to the
House and Senate press galleries in Washington, DC.

1948 – Laura Wheeler Waring, portrait painter and illustrator, joins
the ancestors. Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, she received the Harmon Award in 1927 for achievement in
the fine arts and, with Betsey Graves Reyneau, completed a set
of 24 renderings of their works entitled “Portraits of
Outstanding Americans of Negro Origins” for the Harmon
Foundation in the 1940’s.

1948 – Rosa Ingram and her fourteen and sixteen-year-old sons are
condemned to death for the alleged murder of a white Georgian.
Mrs. Ingram states that she acted in self-defense.

1964 – School officials report that 464,000 Black and Puerto Rican
students boycotted New York City public schools.

1980 – Muhammad Ali starts tour of Africa as President Jimmy Carter’s
envoy.

1981 – The Air Force Academy drops its ban on applicants with sickle-
cell trait. The ban was considered by many a means of
discriminating against African Americans.

1984 – A sellout crowd of 18,210 at Madison Square Garden in New York
City sees Carl Lewis best his own world record in the long
jump by 9-1/4 inches.

1989 – Former St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman, Bill White becomes
the first African American to head an American professional
sports league when he was named to succeed A. Bartlett
Giamatti as National League president.

1993 – The federal trial of four police officers charged with civil
rights violations in the videotaped beating of Rodney King,
began in Los Angeles.

1993 – Marge Schott is suspended as Cincinnati Reds owner for one year
for her repeated use of racial and ethnic slurs.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 2 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 2 *

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* Black Facts every day of the year.
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1914 – William Ellisworth Artis is born in Washington, North
Carolina. He will become one of the finest African American
artists of the twentieth century. He will be educated at
Syracuse University and become a student of Augusta Savage.
Artis’s sculptures will exhibit a strong originality and a
romantic, almost spiritual appeal. His works will be
exhibited at Atlanta University, the Whitney Museum, the
“Two Centuries of Black American Art” exhibit and collected
by Fisk University, Hampton University, the North Carolina
Museum of Art, and private collectors. He will join the
ancestors in 1977 in Northport, New York.

1915 – Biologist Ernest E. Just receives the Spingarn Medal for his
pioneering research on fertilization and cell division.

1948 – President Harry S. Truman sends a message to Congress
pressing for civil rights legislation, including anti-
lynching, fair employment practices, and anti-poll tax
provisions.

1956 – Autherine J. Lucy becomes the first African American student
to attend the University of Alabama.

1956 – Seven whites and four African Americans are arrested after
an all-night civil rights sit-in at the Englewood, New
Jersey city hall.

1956 – Four African American mothers are arrested after a sit-in at
a Chicago elementary school. The mothers later receive
suspended $50 fines. Protests, picketing and demonstrations
continue for several weeks against de facto segregation,
double shifts and mobile classrooms.

1971 – Ugandan army strongman Major-General Idi Amin ousts Milton
Obote and assumes full power as military head of state and
forms an 18-man cabinet to run the country. Amin, a Muslim,
strengthens ties with Arab nations and launches a genocidal
program to purge Uganda’s Lango and Acholi ethnic groups.
He will order all Asians to leave the country, which will
thrust Uganda into economic chaos. During Amin’s regime,
about 300,000 Ugandans will be killed.

1984 – Ralph Sampson, one of the Houston Rockets ‘Twin Towers’, is
named Rookie of the Month in the National Basketball
Association. To earn the honor, Sampson averages 24.4
points, 12 rebounds and 2.43 blocked shots per game during
the month of January. In addition, Sampson will become the
only rookie (up to that time) to be named to the NBA’s All-
Star Game.

1988 – A commemorative stamp of James Weldon Johnson is issued by
the United States Postal Service as part of its Black
Heritage USA series.

1990 – In a dramatic concession to South Africa’s Black majority,
President F.W. de Klerk lifts a ban on the African National
Congress, and sixty other political organizations and
promises to free Nelson Mandela.

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