KRLemmons African American History

February 17 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 17 *

***********************************************************************
* “Once a year we go through the charade of February being ‘Black *
* History Month.’ Black History Month needs to be a 12-MONTH THING. *
* When we all learn about our history, about how much we’ve *
* accomplished while being handicapped with RACISM, it can only *
* inspire us to greater heights, knowing we’re on the giant shoulders *
* of our ANCESTORS.” Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive *
* Black Facts every day of the year. *
* To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]> *
* In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name *
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1870 – Congress passes a resolution readmitting Mississippi to the
Union on the condition that it will never change its
constitution to disenfranchise African Americans.

1918 – Charles Hayes is born in Cairo, Illinois. He will be elected
to the House of Representatives succeeding Harold Washington
in 1983.

1933 – Bobby Lewis is born. He will become a Rhythm and Blues singer,
who will be at his peak in the 1960’s, and will be best-known
for his recordings of “Tossin’ & Turnin’,” and “One Track
Mind.”

1936 – Jim Brown is born in Saint Simons, Georgia. He will be
considered one of the greatest offensive backs in the history
of football, establishing records with the Cleveland Browns,
for most yards gained and most touchdowns. Brown will also
develop a film career, establish the Negro Industrial and
Economic Union, and work with African American youth.

1938 – Mary Frances Berry is born in Nashville, Tennessee. She will
be an influential force in education and civil rights, become
the first woman of any race to serve as chancellor of a major
research university (University of Colorado in 1976), and a
member of the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

1941 – Joe Louis retains his world heavyweight boxing crown by
knocking out Gus Dorazio.

1942 – Huey P. Newton, a co-founder and minister of defense for the
Black Panther Party, is born in Monroe, Louisiana.

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain, of the NBA Philadelphia Warriors, scores 67
points against St. Louis.

1963 – Michael Jeffrey Jordan, who will be a star basketball player
for the University of North Carolina, the 1984 Olympic gold
medal team and the Chicago Bulls, is born in Brooklyn, New
York. Jordan’s phenomenal style and scoring ability will earn
him universal acclaim and selection on more than eight all-
star NBA teams and NBA Most Valuable Player more than four
times.

1982 – Thelonious Monk, jazz pianist and composer, joins the ancestors
at the age of 64.

1989 – The African countries of Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia
& Libya form an economic common market.

1997 – The Virginia House of Delegates votes unanimously to retire the
state song, “Carry me back to Old Virginny,” a tune which
glorifies the institution of slavery.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 16 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 16 *

***********************************************************************
* “Once a year we go through the charade of February being ‘Black *
* History Month.’ Black History Month needs to be a 12-MONTH THING. *
* When we all learn about our history, about how much we’ve *
* accomplished while being handicapped with RACISM, it can only *
* inspire us to greater heights, knowing we’re on the giant shoulders *
* of our ANCESTORS.” Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive *
* Black Facts every day of the year. *
* To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]> *
* In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name *
***********************************************************************

1801 – The African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Zion Church officially
separates from its parent, the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Zion church will be incorporated as the African Episcopal
Church of the City of New York. James Varick will be its first
pastor and will later become the first black African Methodist
Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) bishop. It will hold its first national
conference in 1821. The name Zion will not be added to the
church’s name until 1848.

1874 – Frederick Douglass is elected President of Freedman’s Bank and
Trust Company.

1923 – Bessie Smith makes her first recording for Columbia Records.
The record, “Down Hearted Blues,” written by Alberta Hunter
and Lovie Austin, will sell an incredible 800,000 copies and
be Columbia’s first popular hit.

1944 – The U.S. Navy starts its first officer training class of
African Americans at Camp Robert Smalls, Great Lakes, Illinois.
In March, 1944,

1951 – James Ingram is born in Akron, Ohio. He will be raised there
on Kelly Avenue. He will later become a rhythm and blues
singer and will earn at least three Grammy Awards and
seventeen Grammy nominations.

1951 – The New York City Council passes a bill prohibiting racial
discrimination in city-assisted housing developments.

1957 – LeVar Burton is born in Landstuhl, Germany. He will become an
actor, winning a landmark role in the award-winning mini-
series, “Roots,” as the enslaved African youth Kunta Kinte,
while attending USC. He will go on to become a producer,
director and writer for numerous television series and films.

1970 – Joe Frazier knocks outs Jimmy Ellis in the second round to
become the undisputed world heavyweight boxing champion.

1972 – Wilt Chamberlain scores his 30,000th point in his 940th game,
a basketball game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the
Phoenix Suns. He is the first player in the NBA to score
30,000 points.

1992 – The Los Angeles Lakers retire Magic Johnson’s uniform, # 32.

1999 – Mary Elizabeth Roche, best known as Betty Roche, joins the
ancestors at the age of 81 in Pleasantville, New Jersey. She
was a singer who performed with Duke Ellington in the 1940s
and 1950s. She sang with the Savoy Sultans from 1941 to
1943, when she joined Ellington’s group. She scored high
marks from critics for the suite “Black, Brown and Beige,” at
Ellington’s first Carnegie Hall concert. She also performed
Ellington’s signature song “Take the A Train” in the 1943
film. “Reveille With Beverly.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 14 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 14 *

***********************************************************************
* “Once a year we go through the charade of February being ‘Black  History Month.’ Black History Month needs to be a 12-MONTH THING. When we all learn about our history, about how much we’ve accomplished while being handicapped with RACISM, it can only inspire us to greater heights, knowing we’re on the giant shoulders of our ANCESTORS.” Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive .
* Black Facts every day of the year.                                  *
*  To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]>         *
*  In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name        *
***********************************************************************

1760 – Richard Allen, is born into slavery in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He will purchase his freedom in 1786 and will
become a preacher the same year.  He will become the first
African American ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church
(1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME)
Church in 1816, and first bishop of the AME Church.  He will
join the ancestors on March 26, 1831.

1818 – The birth of Frederick Douglass in Tuckahoe (Talbot County), Maryland, is attributed to this date.  He will state, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any
authentic record containing it… and it is the wish of most
masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus
ignorant.” He will be a great African American leader and
“one of the giants of nineteenth century America.  He was
born Frederick Bailey and will change his name to Douglass
after he escapes slavery in 1838. He will join the ancestors
on February 20, 1895 in Washington, DC.

1867 – Morehouse College is organized in Augusta, Georgia.  The
school will be moved later to Atlanta.

1867 – New registration law in Tennessee abolishes racial
distinctions in voting.

1936 – The National Negro Congress is organized at a Chicago meeting attended by eight hundred seventeen delegates representing more than five hundred organizations.  Asa Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is elected
president of the new organization.

1946 – Gregory Hines is born in New York City.  A child tap-dancing star in the group Hines, Hines, and Dad, Hines will lead a
new generation of tap dancers that will benefit from the
advice and teaching of such tap legends as Henry Le Tang, 
“Honi” Coles, Sandman Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Sammy
Davis, Jr.  He will also become a successful actor in movies
including “White Knights,” “Tap,” and “A Rage in Harlem.” He
will join the ancestors on August 9, 2003.

1951 – Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta and wins the
middleweight boxing title.

1957 – Lionel Hampton’s only major musical work, “King David”, makes its debut at New York’s Town Hall.  The four-part symphony jazz suite was conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos.

1966 – Wilt Chamberlain breaks the NBA career scoring record at
20,884 points after only seven seasons as a pro basketball
player.

1978 – Maxima Corporation, a computer systems and management company, is incorporated.  Headquartered in Lanham, Maryland, it will become one of the largest African American-owned companies and earn its founder, chairman and CEO, Joshua I. Smith,  chairmanship of the U.S. Commission on Minority Business Development.
          

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 13 *

***********************************************************************
* “Once a year we go through the charade of February being ‘Black     *
* History Month.’ Black History Month needs to be a 12-MONTH THING.   *
* When we all learn about our history, about how much we’ve           *
* accomplished while being handicapped with RACISM, it can only       *
* inspire us to greater heights, knowing we’re on the giant shoulders *
* of our ANCESTORS.” Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive   *
* Black Facts every day of the year.                                  *
*  To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]>         *
*  In the E-mail body place:  Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name        *
***********************************************************************

1818 – The first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the United States, Absalom Jones, joins the ancestors in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He was an instrumental force in
the development of the early African American church and
benevolent society movements.
        
1882 – Henry Highland Garnet, abolitionist, preacher, diplomat and protest leader, joins the ancestors in Monrovia, Liberia at
the age of 66.

1892 – The first African American performers, the  World’s Fair
Colored Opera Company, appear at New  York City’s Carnegie
Hall less than one year after the hall’s opening.   In the
company is concert singer Matilda Sissieretta Jones, who will
have her solo debut at Carnegie Hall two years later.

1907 – Wendell P. Dabney establishes “The Union.”  The Cincinnati, Ohio paper’s motto is “For no people can become great without being united, for in union, there is strength.”

1919 – Eddie Robinson is born in Jackson, Louisiana. He will accept the head coaching position in 1941, at the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute in Grambling, Louisiana
(later named Grambling State University.   Over the next 54
years, he will become the winningest college football coach. 
On October 7, 1995, he will win his 400th game, establishing
a record and securing his status as a legend.  Sports
Illustrated will place Robinson on the cover of its October
14, 1995 issue, making him the first and only coach of an
historically Black university to appear on the cover of any
major sports publication in the United States. To his credit,
he will produce 113 NFL players, including four Pro Football
Hall of Famers. He will join the ancestors on April 3, 2007.

1920 – The National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs is
founded by Andrew “Rube” Foster.  They will be called the
Negro National League.  It will become the first successful
African American professional baseball league.  Two other
leagues had previously been started, but failed to last more
than one season.

1923 – The first African American professional basketball team “The  Renaissance” is organized by Robert J. Douglas.  It is named
after its home court, the Renaissance Casino.  They will
play from 1923 to 1939 and have a record of 1,588 wins
against 239 losses.  They will become the first African
American team in the Basketball Hall of Fame.   

1957 – The Southern Leadership Conference is founded at a meeting ofministers in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Martin Luther King, Jr. is elected its first president.  Later in the year its name
will be changed to the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference.

1976 – General Murtala Mohammed, head of Nigeria, who came to power in 1975 after General Gowon is ousted, joins the ancestors after being killed in an unsuccessful counter-coup.  His
chief of staff, General Olusegun Obasanjo, will assume
Mohammed’s post and his promise to hand over political power
to civilian rule.

1996 – Minister Louis Farrakhan, of the Nation of Islam, visits Iran  to celebrate its 1979 revolution ousting the Shah.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 12 *

***********************************************************
“Once a year we go through the charade of February being ‘Black
History Month.’ Black History Month needs to be a 12-MONTH THING.
When we all learn about our history, about how much we’ve
accomplished while being handicapped with RACISM, it can only
inspire us to greater heights, knowing we’re on the giant shoulders
of our ANCESTORS.” Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive
Black Facts every day of the year.
To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]>
In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name
***********************************************************

1793 – Congress makes it a crime to hide or protect a runaway slave
by passing the first fugitive slave law.

1865 – Henry Highland Garnet, preacher and abolitionist, becomes the
first African American to preach in the rotunda of the
Capitol to the House of Representatives. It is on the
occasion of a Lincoln birthday memorial.

1896 – Isaac Burns Murphy, considered the greatest American jockey
of all time, joins the ancestors. He was the first jockey
to win the Kentucky Derby two years in a row and became the
first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times. In
1955, Isaac Murphy was the first jockey voted into the
Jockey Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing, in
Saratoga Springs, New York.

1900 – For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson
writes the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” With
music by his brother, J. Rosamond, the song is first sung
by 500 children in Jacksonville, Florida. It will become
known as the “Negro National Anthem.”

1909 – When six African Americans were killed and 200 others driven
out of town in race riots in Springfield, Illinois in the
summer of 1908, many Americans were shocked, because they
associated such violence only with racism in the south.
Springfield was not only a northern city, but the home of
Abraham Lincoln. Three people, Mary Ovington, William E.
Walling, and Dr. Henry Moskowitz, alarmed at the
deterioration of race relations, decided to open a campaign
to oppose the pervasive discrimination against racial
minorities. They issue a call for a national conference
on “the Negro question”, and for its symbolic value, they
will choose the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln,
February 12, 1909, as the date for the conference. Held in
New York City, it will draw an interracial group of 60
distinguished citizens, who will formulate plans for a
permanent organization devoted to fighting all forms of
racial discrimination. That organization will be the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The NAACP will be the oldest and largest civil rights
organization in the U.S. With more than 2,200 branches
across the country, it will be in the forefront of the
struggle for voting rights, and an end to discrimination in
housing, employment, and education.

1934 – William Felton “Bill” Russell is born in Monroe, Louisiana.
He will become a star basketball player and high jumper at
the University of San Francisco. After college, he will
win a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics, as a member of the
United States basketball team. He will then play
professional basketball for the Boston Celtics for thirteen
seasons, winning eight straight NBA titles and eleven
championships. At the end of the 1965-66 season, he will
become the coach of the Boston Celtics.

1983 – Eubie Blake joins the ancestors at the age of 100 in Brooklyn,
New York. Blake was one of the last ragtime pianists and
composers whose most famous songs included “I’m Just Wild
About Harry.” With Noble Sissle, Blake was the composer of
the first all-African American Broadway musical, “Shuffle
Along,” which opened on Broadway in 1921.

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