KRLemmons African American History

April 9 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 9 *

1816 – The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized at a
general convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1865 – Nine African American regiments of Gen. John Hawkins’s
division help to smash the Confederate defenses at Fort
Blakely, Alabama. Capture of the fort will lead to the
fall of Mobile. The 68th U.S. Colored Troops will have
the highest number of casualties in the engagement.

1865 – Robert E. Lee surrenders Army of Northern Virginia to
Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, ending the
Civil War.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE CONFEDERACY: The Confederacy is
the first to recognize that African Americans are major
factors in the war. The South impresses slaves to work
in mines, repair railroads and build fortifications,
thereby releasing a disproportionately large percentage
of able-bodied whites for direct war service. A handful
of African Americans enlisted in the rebel army, but few,
if any, fired guns in anger. A regiment of fourteen
hundred free African Americans received official
recognition in New Orleans, but was not called into
service. It later became, by a strange mutation of
history, the first African American regiment officially
recognized by the Union army.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNION NAVY: One out of every
four Union sailors was an African American. Of the
118,044 sailors in the Union Navy, 29,511 were African
Americans. At least four African American sailors won
Congressional Medals of Honor.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNION ARMY: The 185,000 Black
soldiers in the Union army were organized into 166 all
Black regiments (145 infantry, 7 cavalry, 12 heavy
artillery, 1 light artillery, 1 engineer). The largest
number of African American soldiers came from Louisiana
(24,052), followed by Kentucky (23,703) and Tennessee
(20,133). Pennsylvania contributed more African
American soldiers than any other Northern state (8,612).
African American soldiers participated in 449 battles,
39 of them major engagements. Sixteen Black soldiers
received Congressional Medals of Honor for gallantry in
action. Some 37,638 African American soldiers lost
their lives during the war. African American soldiers
generally received poor equipment and were forced to do
a large amount of fatigue duty. Until 1864, African
American soldiers (from private to chaplain) received
seven dollars a month whereas white soldiers received
from thirteen to one hundred dollars a month. In 1863
African American units, with four exceptions (Fifth
Massachusetts Cavalry, Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth
Massachusetts Volunteers and Twenty-ninth Connecticut
Volunteers), were officially designated United States
Colored Troops (USCT). Since the War Department
discouraged applications from African Americans, there
were few commissioned officers. The highest ranking of
the seventy-five to one hundred African American
officers was Lt. Col. Alexander T. Augustana, a surgeon.
Some 200,000 African American civilians were employed
by the Union army as laborers, cooks, teamsters and
servants.

1866 – The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 is passed over the
president’s veto. The bill will confer citizenship on
African Americans and give them “the same right, in
every State and Territory… as is enjoyed by white
citizens.”

1870 – The American Anti-Slavery Society is dissolved.

1898 – Paul Leroy Robeson is born in Princeton, New Jersey. The
son of an ex-slave turned Methodist minister, Robeson
will attend Rutgers University on a full scholarship,
where he will excel and obtain 12 letters in four sports,
be named to the All-American football team twice, be a
member of the debate team, and earn a Phi Beta Kappa key.
He will study law at Columbia University in New York and
receive his degree in 1923. There he will meet and marry
Eslanda Cardozo Goode, who will be the first African
American woman to head a pathology laboratory. He will
work as a law clerk in New York, but once again will
face discrimination and leave the practice when a white
secretary refuses to take dictation from him. He will
later become one of America’s foremost actors and singers.
He will make 14 films including “The Emperor Jones,”
“King Solomon’s Mines,” and “Showboat.” During the 1940’s
he will continue to have success on the stage, in film,
and in concert halls, but will remain face to face with
prejudice and racism. After finding the Soviet Union
to be a tolerant and friendly nation, he will begin to
protest the growing Cold War hostilities between the
United States and the USSR. He will question why
African Americans should support a government that did
not treat them as equals. At a time when dissent was
hardly tolerated, Robeson will be looked upon as an
enemy by his government. In 1947, he will be named by
the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the
State Department will deny him a passport until 1958.
Events such as these, along with a negative public
response, will lead to the demise of his public career.
He will be an inspiration to millions around the world.
His courageous stance against oppression and inequality
in part will lead to the civil rights movement of the
1960s. He will join the ancestors on January 23, 1976,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after living in seclusion
for ten years.

1929 – Valenza Pauline Burke is born in Brooklyn, New York to
parents who had immigrated to the United States from
Barbados. She will become a novelist known as Paule
Marshall. She will author “Browngirl, Brownstones,”
“Praisesong for the Widow,” “The Chosen Place, The
Timeless People,” “Soul Clap Hands and Sing,” and
Daughters.” She will also write a collection of short
stories, “Reena and Other Stories.”

1939 – When she is refused admission to the Daughters of the
American Revolution’s Constitution Hall to give a
planned concert, Marian Anderson performs for 75,000 on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Two months later, she
will be honored with the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for her
talents as “one of the greatest singers of our time”
and for “her magnificent dignity as a human being.”

1950 – Juanita Hall becomes the first African American to win a
Tony award for her role as Bloody Mary in the musical
“South Pacific.”

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is buried after funeral services
at Ebenezer Baptist Church and memorial services at
Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia. More than
300,000 persons march behind the coffin of the slain
leader which is carried through the streets of Atlanta
on a farm wagon pulled by two Georgia mules. Scores of
national dignitaries, including Vice-President Hubert
Humphrey, attend the funeral. CORE and the Fellowship of
Reconciliation send twenty-three dignitaries. Ralph
David Abernathy is elected to succeed King as head of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1993 – The Reverend Benjamin Chavis is chosen to head the NAACP,
succeeding Benjamin Hooks.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 8 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 8 *

1922 – Carmen McRae is born in the village of Harlem in New York
City. She will study classical piano in her youth, even
though singing was her first love. She will win an
amateur contest at the Apollo Theater and begin her
singing career. She will be influenced by Billie
Holiday, who will become a lifelong friend and mentor.
She will devote her albums and the majority of her
nightclub acts to Lady Day’s memory. Her association
with jazz accordionist Matt Mathews will lead to her
first solo recordings in 1953-1954. In her later years,
McRae’s original style will influence singers Betty
Carter and Carol Sloane. Her best known recordings will
be “Skyliner” (1956) and “Take Five” with Dave Brubeck
(1961). She will also work in films and will appear in
“Hotel” (1967) and “Jo Jo Dancer Your Life is Calling”
(1986). She will receive six Grammy award nominations
and the National Endowment for the Arts’ National Jazz
Masters Fellowship Award in 1994. She will join the
ancestors on November 10, 1994.

1938 – Cornetist and bandleader Joe “King” Oliver joins the
ancestors in Savannah, Georgia. He was considered one
of the leading musicians of New Orleans-style jazz and
served as a mentor to Louis Armstrong, who played with
him in 1922 and 1923.

1953 – Louis “Sweet Lou” Dunbar is born in Houston, Texas. He will
become a professional basketball player (for 27 years) with
the Harlem Globetrotters. After his playing days, he will
become the Director of Player Personnel. He will be the 25th
person to receive the Globetrotter “Legends” Distinction,
awarded on February 9, 2007 at Houston’s Toyota Center. He
will also become a member of the National Basketball Retired
Players Association (Legends of Basketball).

1974 – Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hits his 715th home run
against a pitch thrown by Los Angeles Dodger Al Downing
at a home game in Fulton County Stadium. Aaron’s home
run breaks the long-standing home run record of Babe
Ruth.

1975 – Frank Robinson, major league baseball’s first African
American manager, gets off to a winning start as his
team, the Cleveland Indians, defeat the New York
Yankees, 5-3.

1980 – State troopers are mobilized to stop racially motivated
civil disturbances in Wrightsville, Georgia. Racial
incidents are also reported in Chattanooga, Tennessee,
Oceanside, California, Kokomo, Indiana, Wichita, Kansas,
and Johnston County, North Carolina.

1987 – Los Angeles Dodgers general manager Al Campanis is fired
for alleged racially biased comments about the
managerial potential of African Americans.

1990 – Percy Julian, who helped create drugs to combat glaucoma
and methods to mass produce cortisone, and agricultural
scientist George Washington Carver are the first African
American inventors admitted into the National Inventors
Hall of Fame in the hall’s 17-year history.

1992 – Tennis great Arthur Ashe announces at a New York news
conference that he had AIDS. He contracted the virus
from a transfusion needed for an earlier heart surgery.
Ashe will join the ancestors in February 1993 of
AIDS-related pneumonia at age 49.

2001 – Tiger Woods becomes the first golfer to hold all four
major professional golf titles at one time when he wins
the 2001 Masters tournament.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 7 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 7 *

1712 – A slave uprising in New York City results in the death of
nine whites. This is one of the first major revolt of
African slaves in the American colonies. After the
militia arrives, the uprising will be suppressed. As a
result of the action, twenty one slaves will be executed
and six others will commit suicide.

1867 – Johnson C. Smith University is founded in Charlotte, North
Carolina.

1872 – William Monroe Trotter is born in Chillicothe, Ohio. Editor
of the Boston “Guardian,” he will also be a militant civil
rights activist and adversary of Booker T. Washington and
his moderate politics.

1915 – Eleanora Fagan is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She will
become a jazz singer who will influence the course of
American popular singing, better known as Billie Holiday or
“Lady Day.” She will be best known for her songs, “Strange
Fruit,” “Lover Man,” and “God Bless the Child.” Although she
will enjoy limited popular appeal during her lifetime, her
impact on other singers will be profound. Troubled in life
by addiction, She will join the ancestors as a result of
drug and alcohol abuse on July 17,1959.

1922 – Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria is born in Havana, Cuba. He will
drop out of school to become a professional musician,
playing gigs at the legendary Tropicana Club in Havana. In
1950 Santamaria will move to New York, where he will hook
up with such Latin jazz greats as Perez Prado, Tito Puente
and Cal Tjader. In 1963 Santamaria will score his first Top
10 hit with the single “Watermelon Man,” written by then
bandmate Herbie Hancock. Santamaria will perform and record
steadily throughout the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. In 1977,
he will be awarded a Grammy for his album “Amancer.” In
1999 Rhino Records will release a double-CD retrospective
of Santamaria’s music, The Mongo Santamaria Anthology
1958-1995, culling his greatest work during those five
decades. He will be considered one of the most influential
percussionists of his generation. He will join the ancestors
in Miami, Florida on February 1, 2003.

1934 – William Monroe Trotter joins the ancestors in Boston,
Massachusetts at the age of sixty-two.

1938 – Trumpeter Frederick Dewayne “Freddie” Hubbard is born in
Indianapolis, Indiana. From a musical family, he will play
four instruments in his youth and will later play with “Slide”
Hampton, Quincy Jones, and Art Blakey. A leader of his own
band starting in the 1960’s, he will record the noteworthy
albums “Red Clay,” “First Light,” and the Grammy Award-winning
“Straight Life.” He will join the ancestors on
December 29, 2008.

1940 – The first U.S. stamp ever to honor an African American is
issued bearing the likeness of Booker T. Washington. His
likeness is on a 10-cent stamp.

1954 – Tony Dorsett is born in Rochester, Pennsylvania. He will
become a star football player at the University of
Pittsburgh, where he will win the Heisman Trophy in 1976.
He will then become the number one pick in the 1977 NFL
draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He will play in two Super Bowls,
five NFC championship games, four Pro Bowls, will be All-NFL
in 1981, and NFC rushing champion in 1982. His career totals
include 12,739 yards rushing, 398 receptions for 3,544 yards,
16,326 combined net yards, 90 touchdowns, and a record 99
yard run for a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in
1983. He will end his career with the 1988 Denver Broncos.
He will be enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame in 1994.

1994 – Civil war erupts in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane
crash claims the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and
Burundi. In the months that follow, hundreds of thousands of
minority Tutsi and Hutu intellectuals will be slaughtered.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 6 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 6 *

1798 – James P. Beckwourth is born in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He
will become a noted scout in the western United States and
will discover a pass in the Sierra Nevada mountains between
the Feather and Truckee rivers that will bear his name. He
will join the ancestors on October 29, 1866.

1830 – James Augustine Healy is born to an Irish planter and a slave
on a plantation near Macon, Georgia. He will become the
first African American Roman Catholic priest and the first
African American Roman Catholic bishop in America. He
will join the ancestors on August 5, 1900.

1865 – Writing in the “Philadelphia Press” under the pen name
“Rollin,” Thomas Morris Chester describes the Union Army’s
triumphant entry into the city of Richmond, Virginia, during
the closing days of the Civil War. Rollin is the only
African American newspaperman writing for a mainstream
daily. There will be no others for almost 70 years.

1869 – Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, the principal of the Institute for
Colored Youth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is named Minister
to Haiti and becomes the first major African American diplomat
and the first African American to receive a major appointment
from the United States government.

1909 – Matthew Henson, accompanying Commander Robert Peary’s
expedition, is the first, in the party of six, to discover the
North Pole. The claim, disputed by scientific skeptics, was
upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation. Although in
later years Henson will be called Peary’s servant or merely
“one Negro” on the expedition, Henson is a valuable colleague
and co-discoverer of the pole. Peary says, “I couldn’t get
along without him.”

1917 – America enters World War I. President Wilson, who has just
inaugurated a policy of segregation in government agencies,
tells Congress that “the world must be made safe for
democracy.”

1931 – The first trial of the Scottsboro Boys begins in Scottsboro,
Alabama. This trial of nine African American youths accused
of raping two white women on a freight train become a cause
celebre.

1931 – Ivan Dixon is born in New York City. He will become an actor
and director and will be best known for his comedic role on
the TV series “Hogan’s Heroes.” One of his first acting
credits will be for the celebrated television anthology show
“The Dupont Show of the Month” in the 1960 production of
“Arrowsmith.” He will go on to act in the film version of the
theatrical drama “A Raisin in the Sun” with Ruby Dee and
Sidney Poitier in 1961, in which he plays Asagai, the African
boyfriend of Beneatha. He will also portray Jim in the 1959
film version of “Porgy and Bess.” His other pre-“Hogan’s
Heroes” film work includes: “Something of Value” (1957), “The
Murder Men” (1961), and “The Battle at Bloody Beach” (1961).
After leaving Hogan’s heroes he will appear in more films
including “A Patch of Blue” and “Car Wash.” Ivan will begin
directing films in the early 1970s, such as the 1972 gang
warfare flick “Trouble Man” and the 1973 action movie “The
Spook Who Sat by the Door” (which he will also produce). For
television, he will direct “Love Is Not Enough” (1978), the
series “Palmerstown, U.S.A.” (1980), the detective series
“Hawaiian Heat” (1984), and the telemovie “Percy & Thunder”
(1993).

1937 – William December is born in the village of Harlem in New York
City. He will become one of the most romantic leading men of
film and television, better known as ‘Billy Dee Williams.’
Among his best known roles will be football great Gale Sayers
in the TV movie “Brian’s Song” as well as leading parts in
the movies “Lady Sings the Blues,” “Mahogany” and two “Star
Wars” films.

1971 – “Contemporary Black Artists in America” opens at the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York City. The exhibit includes
the work of 58 master painters and sculptors such as Jacob
Lawrence, Charles White, Alma Thomas, Betye Saar, David
Driskell, Richard Hunt, and others.

1994 – The presidents of Rwanda and Burundi are killed in a mysterious
plane crash near Rwanda’s capital. Widespread violence erupts
in Rwanda over claims the plane had been shot down.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 5 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 5 *

1839 – Robert Smalls is born into slavery in Beaufort, South
Carolina. He will become a Civil War hero by sailing an
armed Confederate steamer out of Charleston Harbor and
presenting it to the Union Navy. He will later become a
three-term congressman from his state.

1856 – Booker Taliaferro Washington is born a slave near Hale’s
Ford, Virginia. He will become a world renown educator,
founder of Tuskegee Institute. He will become one of the
most famous African American educators and leaders of the
19th century. His message of acquiring practical skills and
emphasizing self-help over political rights will be popular
among whites and segments of the African American community.
His 1901 autobiography, “Up From Slavery”, which details his
rise to success despite numerous obstacles, will become a
best-seller and further enhances his public image as a
self-made man. As popular as he will be in some circles,
Washington will be aggressively opposed by critics such as
W.E.B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. He will join the
ancestors on November 14, 1915. He will become the first
African American to be honored on a U.S. postage stamp.

1879 – Charles W. Follis is born in Cloverdale, Virginia. He is the
first African American to play professional football. He
will play halfback for the Blues of Shelby, Ohio in 1904.
The Blues were part of the American Professional Football
League, a forerunner of the National Football League.

1915 – Jess Willard defeats Jack Johnson for the heavyweight boxing
crown in twenty three rounds.

1934 – Stanley Turrentine is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He
will become a jazz saxophonist and in 1953, will replace the
famed John Coltrane in the popular big band of Earl Bostic.
After a three-year army stint, which affords him his only
formal musical training, Turrentine comes to prominence on
the New York Jazz scene as a member of Max Roach’s group
in 1959. Over the years, Turrentine’s recordings will
combine musical energies with friends such as Ron Carter,
Roland Hanna, Ray Charles, Freddie Hubbard, Jon Hendricks,
George Benson, Cedar Walton, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Burrell,
Milt Jackson, Joe Sample, Shirley Scott, Jimmy Smith, Grady
Tate, and many others. He will be nominated for the Grammy
Award four times.

1937 – Colin Powell is born in New York City. He will become a
highly decorated Army officer, receiving the Bronze Star and
Purple Heart during the Vietnam War, and will be later
promoted to four-star general in 1988. He will become the
first African American to serve as the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff for the U.S. Armed Forces.

1956 – Booker T. Washington becomes the only African American
honored twice on a U.S. postage stamp. To commemorate the
centennial of his birth, the U.S. Postal Service issues a
stamp depicting the cabin where he was born.

1967 – Philadelphia ’76er Wilt Chamberlain sets a NBA record of 41
rebounds in a single game.

1976 – FBI documents, released in response to a freedom of
information suit, reveal that the government mounted an
intensive campaign against civil rights organizations in the
sixties. In a letter dated August 25, 1967, the FBI said
the government operation, called COINTELPRO, was designed
“to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise
neutralize the activities of Black nationalists, hate-type
groups, their leadership, spokesmen, membership and
supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and
civil disorders.” A later telegram specifically named the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference as organizations having
“radical and violence prone leaders, members and followers.”

1977 – Gertrude Downing receives a patent for the corner cleaner
attachment.

1984 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar breaks Wilt Chamberlain’s all-time career
scoring record of 31,419 points (31,421).

1990 – Seven African American journalists are inducted into the
newly created Hall of Fame of the National Association of
Black Journalists in Washington, DC. Dubbed “pioneers of
mainstream journalism,” the inductees include Dorothy Butler
Gilliam of the Washington Post, Malvin R. Goode of ABC
News, Mal H. Johnson of Cox Broadcasting, Gordon Parks of
Life Magazine, Ted Poston of the New York Post, Norma
Quarles of Cable News Network, and Carl T. Rowan of King
Features Syndicate. Twelve Pulitzer Prize winners are also
honored at the awards ceremonies.

2000 – Ending a two-year investigation, an independent counsel clears
Labor Secretary Alexis Herman of allegations that she had
solicited $ 250,000 in illegal campaign contributions.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 4 African American Historical Events

 

* Today in Black History – April 4 *

1915 – McKinley Morganfield is born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. He
will be discovered in 1941 by two music archivists from the
Library of Congress, traveling the back roads of Mississippi
looking for the legendary Robert Johnson. They recorded two
of Morganfield’s songs and lit a fire in the ambitious young
man. He will leave Mississippi for Chicago two years later
to become a blues singer better known as “Muddy Waters.” He
will join the ancestors on April 30, 1983 in Chicago,
Illinois.

1928 – Marguerite Ann Johnson is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She
will become the first African American streetcar conductor
in San Francisco, a dancer, nightclub singer, editor, and
teacher of music and drama in Ghana and professor of
American Studies at Wake Forest University, better known as
Maya Angelou. She will also become noted as the author of a
multi-volume autobiographical series, as well as several
volumes of poetry.

1938 – Vera Mae Smart Grosvenor, who will become the author of the
popular and influential cookbook “Vibration Cooking”(1970),
is born in Fairfax, South Carolina.

1939 – Hugh Masekela is born in South Africa. He will become a
musician and band leader. He will be a major force in South
African Jazz, and will become known throughout the world.

1942 – Richard Parsons is born in New York City. In 1990, he will
be named chief executive officer of Dime Savings Bank, the
first African American CEO of a large, non-minority U.S.
savings institution.

1959 – The Federation of Mali is formed, consisting of Senegal & the
territory of Mali in the French Sudan. It will dissolve in
1960.

1960 – Senegal and Mali gain separate independence.

1968 – Acknowledged leader of the U.S. civil rights movement, Martin
Luther King, Jr. joins the ancestors after being
assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His death will result
in a national day of mourning and the postponement of the
beginning of the baseball season. Over 30,000 people will
form a funeral procession behind his coffin, pulled by two
Georgia mules. King’s death will also set off racially
motivated civil disturbances in 160 cities leaving 82 people
dead and causing $ 69 million in property damage. President
Lyndon B. Johnson declares Sunday, April 6, a national day
of mourning and orders all U.S. flags on government
buildings in all U.S. territories and possessions to fly at
half-mast.

1972 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., former congressman and civil rights
leader, joins the ancestors in Miami, Florida at the age of
63.

1974 – Hank Aaron ties the baseball career home run record set by
Babe Ruth, when he hits his 714th home run in Cincinnati,
Ohio.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 3 *

1865 – The Fifth Massachusetts Colored Cavalry and units of the
Twenty-fifth Corps are in the vanguard of Union troops
entering Richmond. The Second Division of the Twenty-Fifth
Corps help to chase Robert E. Lee’s army from Petersburg to
Appomattox Court House, April 3-10. The African American
division and white Union soldiers are advancing on General
Lee’s trapped army with fixed bayonets when the Confederate
troops surrender.

1889 – The Savings Bank of the Order of True Reformers opens in
Richmond, Virginia.

1934 – Richard Mayhew is born in Amityville, New York. A student
at the Art Students League, Brooklyn Museum Art School, and
Columbia University, as well as the Academia in Florence,
Italy, Mayhew will be one of the most respected and
revolutionary landscape artists of the 20th century. He
will also form “Spiral,” a forum for artistic innovation
and exploration of African American artists’ relationships
to the civil rights movement, with fellow artists Romare
Bearden, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, and others.

1936 – James Harrell McGriff is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He will be surrounded by music as a child, with both parents
playing piano and cousins Benny Golson and Harold Melvin,
who were pursuing their own musical talents. He will be
influenced to play the organ by neighbor Richard “Groove”
Holmes, with whom he will study privately. He will also
study organ at Philadelphia’s Combe College of Music and at
Julliard. In addition, he will study with Milt Buckner and
with classical organist Sonny Gatewood. His first hit will
be with his arrangement of “I Got A Woman”, on the Sue
label, which made it to the top five on both Billboard’s
Rhythm and Blues and Pop charts. There will be close to 100
albums with Jimmy McGriff’s name at the top as leader. He
will record for Sue, Solid State, United Artists, Blue Note,
Groove Merchant, Milestone, Headfirst and Telarc. Over his
prolific career, he will record with George Benson, Kenny
Burrell, Frank Foster, J.J. Johnson and a two-organ jam
affair with the late “Groove” Holmes.

1944 – The U.S. Supreme Court (Smith v. Allwright) said that “white
primaries” that exclude African Americans are
unconstitutional.

1950 – Carter G. Woodson, “the father of black history,” joins the
ancestors in Washington, DC at the age of 74.

1961 – Edward “Eddie” Regan Murphy is born in Brooklyn, New York. A
stand-up comedian and star of “Saturday Night Live” before
pursuing a movie career, Murphy will become one of the
largest African American box office draws. Among his most
successful movies will be “48 Hours,” “Trading Places,”
“Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coming to America,” and “Harlem
Nights.”

1963 – Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the Birmingham anti-
segregation campaign begins. Before it is over, more than
2,000 demonstrators, including King, will be arrested. The
Birmingham Manifesto, issued by Fred Shuttlesworth of the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights the morning of
the campaign, summarizes the frustration and hopes of the
protesters: “The patience of an oppressed people cannot
endure forever…. This is Birmingham’s moment of truth in
which every citizen can play his part in her larger
destiny.”

1964 – Malcolm X speaks at a CORE-sponsored meeting on “The Negro
Revolt What Comes Next?” In his speech “The Ballot or
Bullet,” Malcolm warns of a growing black nationalism that
will no longer tolerate patronizing white political action.

1968 – Less than 24 hours before he is assassinated in Memphis,
Tennessee, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
delivers his famous “mountaintop” speech to a rally of
striking sanitation workers.

1990 – Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan joins the ancestors in suburban
Los Angeles, California, at the age of 66.

1996 – An Air Force jetliner carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown
and American business executives crashes in Croatia,
killing all 35 people aboard.

2007 – Eddie Robinson, the longtime Grambling University coach who
transformed a small, Black college into a football power
that sent hundreds of players to the NFL, joins the
ancestors at the age of 88. The soft-spoken coach spent 57
years at Grambling State University, where he set a
standard for victories with 408 and nearly every season
relished seeing his top players drafted by NFL teams.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 2 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 2 *

1855 – John Mercer Langston is elected clerk of Brownhelm, Ohio,
township. He will be considered the first African American
elected to public office.

1918 – Charles Wilbert White is born in Chicago, Illinois. An artist
who will work with traditional materials (pen, ink, oil on
canvas and lithography), White will transform the image of
African Americans and earn praise from critics and artists
alike. White will receive dozens of awards and his work will
be collected by museums on three continents and major
corporations. He will be known for his WPA-era murals. He will
be briefly married to famed sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth
Catlett. His best known work will be “The Contribution of
the Negro to American Democracy,” a mural at Hampton University
depicting a number of notable blacks including Denmark Vesey,
Nat Turner, Peter Salem, George Washington Carver, Harriet
Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and Marian Anderson. He will teach
at the Otis Art Institute from 1965 until he joins the ancestors
on October 3, 1979.

1932 – Bill Pickett, a well-known cowboy who was acclaimed by
President Theodore Roosevelt as “one of the best trained
ropers and riders the West has produced,” joins the
ancestors. Pickett performed as a bulldogger in Europe,
Mexico, and the United States, where he was often assisted
by two relatively unknown white cowboys, Tom Mix and Will
Rogers.

1939 – Marvin Gaye, Jr. is born in Washington, DC. He will sign
with Motown in 1962 and begin a 22-year career that includes
hits “Pride and Joy,” duets with Mary Wells and Tammi
Terrell, as well as best-selling albums exploring his social
consciousness (“What’s Going On”) and sexuality (“Let’s Get
It On,” “Midnight Love, and “Sexual Healing”). He will join
the ancestors on April 1, 1984.

1969 – The Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association
signs Lew Alcindor for a reported $1,400,000 five-year
contract. Alcindor will later change his name to Kareem
Abdul-Jabar and his team to the Los Angeles Lakers.

1984 – Coach John Thompson of Georgetown University becomes the
first African American coach to win the NCAA Division I
basketball championship. The team, led by Patrick Ewing,
wins over the University of Houston, 84-75.

2003 – Edwin Starr, Rhythm & Blues singer, joins the ancestors at
age 61 after succumbing to a heart attack. He recorded the
hits “War” and “Agent Double-O Soul.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 1 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 1 *

1867 – African Americans vote in a municipal election in Tuscumbia,
Alabama. Military officials set aside the election pending
clarification on electoral procedures.

1868 – Hampton Institute is founded in Hampton, Virginia, by General
Samuel Chapman Armstrong.

1895 – Alberta Hunter is born in Memphis, Tennessee. She will run
away from home at the age of twelve and go to Chicago,
Illinois to become a Blues singer. She will work in a
variety of clubs until the violence in the Chicago club
scene prompts her to move to New York City. There she will
record for a variety of blues labels. She will write a lot
of her own songs and songs for other performers. Her song
“Down Hearted Blues,” will become Bessie Smith’s first
record in 1923. She will perform in Europe and America
until 1956, when she will retire from performing. She will
work for more than twenty years as a nurse in a New York
hospital and in 1977, at the age of 82, surprisingly return
to the stage. She will perform until she joins the
ancestors in 1984.

1905 – The British East African Protectorate becomes the colony of
Kenya.

1917 – Scott Joplin joins the ancestors in New York City. One of
the early developers of ragtime and the author of “Maple
Leaf Rag,” Joplin also created several rag-time and grand
operas, the most noteworthy of which, “Treemonisha,”
consumed his later years in an attempt to have it published
and performed.

1924 – The British Crown takes over Northern Rhodesia from the
British South Africa Company.

1929 – Morehouse College, Spelman College and Atlanta University
are merged, creating a ‘new’ Atlanta University. Dr. John
Hope of Morehouse College, is named president.

1930 – Zawditu, the first reigning female monarch of Ethiopia, joins
the ancestors. She was the second daughter of Emperor
Menelik II. She had been Empress of Ethiopia since 1916.

1939 – Rudolph Bernard Isley is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will
become a singer at the age of six with his brothers O’Kelly,
Ronald and Vernon Isley and form the group, The Isley
Brothers. They will leave Cincinnati in 1956 and go to New
York City to pursue their musical career. Rudolph and his
brothers will obtain fame and success nationally and
internationally earning numerous platinum and gold albums
which contain such classic hits as “Shout,” “Twist and
Shout,” “It’s Your Thing,” “Who’s That Lady,” “Fight the
Power,” “For the Love of You,” “Harvest For The World,”
“Live It Up,” “Footsteps in the Dark,” “Work to Do,” “Don’t
Say Good Night” and many others.

1950 – Charles R. Drew, surgeon and developer of the blood bank
concept, joins the ancestors after an automobile accident
near Burlington, North Carolina at the age of 45.

1951 – Oscar Micheaux joins the ancestors in Charlotte, North
Carolina. Micheaux formed his own film production company,
Oscar Micheaux Corporation, to produce his novel “The
Homesteader” and over 30 other movies, notably “Birthright,”
which was adapted from a novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning
author T.S. Stribling, and “Body and Soul,” which marked the
film debut of Paul Robeson.

1966 – The first World Festival of Negro Arts opens in Dakar,
Senegal, with the U.S. African American delegation having
one of the largest number of representatives. First prizes
are won by poet Robert Hayden, engraver William Majors,
actors Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln, gospel singer Mahalia
Jackson, jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, and sociologist
Kenneth Clark.

1984 – Marvin Gaye joins the ancestors after being shot to death by
his father, Marvin Gaye, Sr. in Los Angeles, California,
one day before his forty-fifth birthday. The elder Gaye
will plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and receive
probation. Marvin Gaye was one of the most talented soul
singers of all time. Unlike most soul greats, Gaye’s
artistic inclinations evolved over the course of three
decades, moving from hard-driving soul-pop to funk and
dance grooves.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 31 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 31 *

1850 – The Massachusetts Supreme Court rejects the argument of
Charles Sumner in the Boston school integration suit and
established the “separate but equal” precedent.

1853 – At concert singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield’s New York
debut in Metropolitan Hall, African Americans are not
allowed to attend. Angered and embarrassed at the exclusion
of her race, Greenfield will perform in a separate concert
at the Broadway Tabernacle for five African American
congregations.

1871 – John Arthur “Jack” Johnson is born in Galveston, Texas. He
will become a professional boxer and will become the first
African American to be crowned world heavyweight boxing
champion. His championship reign will last from 1908 to 1915.
He will join the ancestors on June 10, 1946 after succumbing
to injuries from an automobile accident. He will be inducted
into the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1954, and is on the roster of
both the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World
Boxing Hall of Fame. In 2005, the United States National Film
Preservation Board deemed the film of the 1910 Johnson-
Jeffries fight “historically significant” and will place it
in the National Film Registry.

1930 – President Hoover nominates Judge John J. Parker of North
Carolina for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The NAACP
launches a national campaign against the appointment. Parker
is not confirmed by the Senate.

1948 – A. Phillip Randolph tells the Senate Armed Services Committee
that unless segregation and discrimination were banned in
draft programs he would urge African American youths to
resist induction by civil disobedience.

1949 – William Grant Still’s opera, “Troubled Island” receives its
world premiere at the New York City Opera. In addition to
marking Robert McFerrin’s debut as the first African American
male to sing with the company, the opera is the first ever
written by an African American to be produced by a major
opera company.

1967 – Jimi Hendrix begins the tradition of burning his guitar in
London, England.

1968 – The provisional government of the Republic of New Africa is
founded in Detroit, Michigan.

1973 – Ken Norton defeats Muhammad Ali in a 12 round split decision
in San Diego, California. Norton will break Ali’s jaw
during the bout.

1980 – Jesse Owens joins the ancestors in Tucson, Arizona at the age
of 66, and President Jimmy Carter adds his voice to the
tributes that pour in from around the world. Jesse won four
gold medals in track at the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

1980 – Larry Holmes wins the vacant world heavyweight title by
knocking out Leroy Jones in the eighth round.

1988 – Toni Morrison wins the Pulitzer Prize for “Beloved,” a
powerful novel of a runaway slave who murders her daughter
rather than see her raised in slavery.

1995 – President Bill Clinton briefly visits Haiti, where he
declares the U.S. mission to restore democracy there a
“remarkable success.”

1999 – Four New York City police officers are charged with murder
for killing Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant, in
a hail of bullets. They shot at him 41 times, hitting him
with 19 shots. The officers will later be acquitted of all
charges, even involuntary manslaughter.

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