The CamaraIfe Maktaba

* Today in Black History – June 13 *

1774 – Rhode Island prohibits the importation of slaves, the
first state to do so.

1866 – The House of Representatives passes the 14th Amendment,
guaranteeing civil rights for African Americans.

1868 – Ex-slave Oscar T. Dunn is installed as Lieutenant
Governor of Louisiana. It is the highest executive
office held by an African American at that time.

1870 – Richard T. Greener becomes the first African American
to graduate from Harvard University.

1893 – T.W. Stewart patents a mop.

1937 – Eleanor Holmes (later Norton) is born in Washington,
DC. A graduate of the Yale University School of Law,
Norton will become chairperson of the New York City
Commission on Human Rights, and a Georgetown University
law professor before being elected a non-voting delegate
to Congress representing the District of Columbia.

1967 – President Lyndon Johnson appoints U.S. Court of Appeals
Judge Thurgood Marshall to fill the seat of retiring
Supreme Court Associate Justice Tom C. Clark. On August
30, after a heated debate, the Senate will confirm
Marshall’s nomination by a vote of 69 to 11. Two days
later, he will be sworn in by Chief Justice Earl Warren,
making him the first African American in history to sit
on America’s highest court.

1977 – The convicted assassin of civil rights leader Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., James Earl Ray, is recaptured following
his escape three days earlier from a Tennessee prison.

1989 – Kareem Abdul Jabbar plays in his final NBA game as the
Detroit Pistons sweep the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA
title.

1990 – The United Nations calls on South Africa to free Nelson
Mandela.

1990 – Bernadette Locke becomes the first female on-court men’s
basketball coach when she is named assistant coach of the
University of Kentucky men’s basketball team.

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

* Today in Black History – June 12 *

1826 – Sarah Parker Remond is born in Salem, Massachusetts. She will
become a major abolitionist. She will also be an African
American physician, lecturer and agent of the American
Anti-Slavery Society. She will deliver speeches throughout
the United States on the horrors of slavery. Because of her
eloquence, she will be chosen to travel to England to gather
support for the abolitionist cause in the United States and,
after the American Civil War starts, for support of the
Union Army and the Union blockade of the Confederacy. She
is the sister of orator Charles Lenox Remond. She will join
the ancestors on December 13, 1894.

1840 – The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention convenes in
London, England. Among those in attendance will be
African American Charles Remond, who will refuse to be
seated at the meeting when he and the other delegates
learn that women are being segregated in the gallery.

1876 – A monument is dedicated to Richard Allen in
Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. It is the first known
monument erected by African Americans to honor one of
their heroes.

1904 – William Hendrick Foster is born in Calvert, Texas. He will
become a star in the Negro Baseball League. He will play
for the Chicago American Giants from 1923-1937. A left-hander,
he will win 137 games, more than any other left-handed
pitcher. Throughout his career, he will regularly participate
in post-season play in the California Winter League and with
barnstorming squads of Negro Leagues all-stars. In exhibition
contests against major league stars, he will post a .600+ win
percentage. After his retirement from baseball, he will
pursue various coaching positions, ultimately landing the
post of head baseball coach and dean of men at his alma mater,
Alcorn College in Mississippi. He will join the ancestors on
September 16, 1978. He will be inducted into the Baseball
Hall Of Fame in 1996.

1935 – Ella Fitzgerald records her first record for Brunswick
Records. The songs on the record were “Love and Kisses”
and “I’ll Chase the Blues Away”. She is featured with
Chick Webb and his band. Ella is 17 years old at the
time and will conduct the Webb band for three years
after he joins the ancestors in 1939.

1961 – The Hinds County, Mississippi Board of Supervisors
announces that more than one hundred “Freedom Riders”
had been arrested.

1963 – Medgar Evers, field secretary for the Mississippi
NAACP, joins the ancestors after being killed in the
driveway outside his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
The African American civil rights leader is shot to
death by white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith. During
World War II, Evers volunteered for the U.S. Army and
participated in the Normandy invasion. In 1952, he
joined the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP). As a field worker for the NAACP,
Evers traveled through his home state encouraging poor
African Americans to register to vote and recruiting
them into the civil rights movement. He was instrumental
in getting witnesses and evidence for the Emmitt Till
murder case, which brought national attention to the
+ plight of African Americans in the South. He will be
widely mourned throughout the civil rights movement and
posthumously receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.

1963 – Civil rights group demonstrates at Harlem construction
sites to protest discrimination in the building trade
unions.

1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Virginia
miscegenation law (marriage or cohabitation between
whites and non-whites). This decision establishes that
no state law can prohibit interracial marriages.

1967 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in
Cincinnati, Ohio. Three hundred persons are arrested,
and the National Guard is mobilized.

1972 – The National Black MBA Association is incorporated.
An organization of over 2,000 minority holders of
advanced business degrees, the organization’s mission
is to assist the entry of interested minorities into
the business community.

1981 – Larry Holmes defends his heavyweight boxing title by
earning a third-round TKO (technical knockout) over
Leon Spinks in Detroit, Michigan.

1989 – The U.S. Supreme Court expands the abilities of white
males to challenge court-approved affirmative action
plans, even years after they take effect.

1995 – The Supreme Court deals a potentially crippling blow
to federal affirmative action programs, ruling Congress
was limited by the same strict standards as states in
offering special help to minorities.

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

* Today in Black History – June 11 *

1799 – Richard Allen, the first African American bishop in
the United States, is ordained a deacon of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania by Bishop Francis Asbury.

1915 – Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, the first African American in
the United States to be named a judge, joins the
ancestors in Little Rock, Arkansas at the age of 87.

1920 – Hazel Dorothy Scott is born in Port-of-Spain,
Trinidad and raised in New York City from the age of
four. A child prodigy, she will enroll at New York
City’s Juilliard School of Music and star in
nightclubs, Broadway shows, and films. A fixture in
jazz society uptown and downtown in New York, most
notably for her jazz improvisations on familiar
classical works, she will be credited with putting
the “swing in European classical music.” She will be
the first African American woman to have her own
television show, “The Hazel Scott Show”. The show will
be short-lived because she will publicly oppose
McCarthyism and racial segregation, and the show will be
cancelled in 1950 when she is accused of being a
Communist sympathizer. She will be married to Adam
Clayton Powell, Jr. from 1945 to 1956, with whom she will
have one child before their divorce. She will join the
ancestors after succumbing to cancer at the age of 61 on
October 2, 1981 in New York City.

1930 – Charles Rangel is born in New York City. He will defeat
Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. for the latter’s Congressional
seat in the 16th District and serve on the House Judiciary
Committee hearings on the impeachment of President Richard
M. Nixon. He will also chair the Congressional Black
Caucus and be a strong advocate in the war on drugs and
drug crime as chairman of the House Select Committee on
Narcotics Abuse and Control.

1937 – Amalya Lyle Kearse is born in Vaux Hall, New Jersey. She
will become the first African American woman judge on the
U.S. Court of Appeals, Second District of New York. She
will earn her undergraduate degree at Wellesley College
and her law degree at University of Michigan Law School.
She will be active in legal circles, the National Urban
League, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

1937 – Johnny Brown is born in St. Petersburg, Florida. He will
become a comedian and will be known for his roles on “Good
Times,” and “The Jeffersons,” “Family Matters,” and
“Martin.”

1951 – Mozambique becomes an oversea province of Portugal.

1963 – Vivian Malone and James Hood, accompanied by U.S. Deputy
Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, attempt to register at
the University of Alabama. They are met by Governor George
Wallace, who bodily blocks their entrance to a campus
building. When National Guardsmen return later in the day
with Malone and Hood to enter the building, Wallace steps
aside.

1964 – In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life
imprisonment for allegedly attempting to sabotage the white
South African government.

1967 – A race riot occurs in Tampa, Florida. The Florida National
Guard is mobilized to suppress the violence.

1972 – Hank Aaron, of the Atlanta Braves, ties Gil Hodges of the
Dodgers for the National League record for the most grand-
slam home runs in a career, with 14. The Braves will beat
the Philadelphia Phillies 15-3.

1978 – Joseph Freeman Jr. becomes the first African American
priest in the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
(Mormons).

1982 – Larry Holmes defeats Gerry Cooney to retain the WBC
heavyweight crown.

2003 – William Marshall, actor, joins the ancestors at the age of
78 after succumbing to complications from Alzheimer’s
disease. His roles ranged from Othello and Frederick
Douglas to a vampire in the 1972 movie “Blacula.”

2006 – Dr. James Cameron, who survived an attempted lynching by a
white mob in 1930 and went on to found America’s Black
Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, joins the
ancestors at the age of 92.

2014 – Ruby Dee joins the ancestors, at the age of 91, at her home
in New Rochelle, New York. She was an American actress, poet,
playwright, screenwriter, journalist and activist. She is
perhaps best known for co-starring in the film “A Raisin in
the Sun” (1961) and the film “American Gangster” (2007), for
which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best
Supporting Actress. She was the recipient of Grammy, Emmy,
Obie, Drama Desk, Screen Actors Guild Award, Screen Actors
Guild Lifetime Achievement Awards as well as the National
Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors. She was married
to actor Ossie Davis until he joined the ancestors in 2005.

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

* Today in Black History – June 10 *

1854 – James Augustine Healy is ordained as a Catholic priest in
ceremonies at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France at the
age of 24. He will later become the first African American
Roman Catholic bishop.

1898 – Hattie McDaniel is born in Wichita, Kansas. A vaudevillian,
she will begin her acting career at age 37 in the film ‘The
Golden West.’ She will go on to roles in over 70 films,
including ‘The Little Colonel’, ‘Show Boat’, and most
notably ‘Gone With The Wind’, which will earn her an Oscar
as best supporting actress in 1940. She will also star in
the radio program ‘Beulah’ from 1947 to 1951. She will join
the ancestors on October 26, 1952.

1899 – The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
(I.B.P.O.E.) is founded in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1910 – Chester Arthur Burnett is born in White Station, Mississippi.
He will be better known as ‘Howlin Wolf’, a delta bluesman
whose recordings will inspire English rock bands to adopt
his style and material. He will join the ancestors on
January 10, 1976.

1940 – The famed Cotton Club in Harlem closes. Home to some of the
most important jazz talents of their day, including Duke
Ellington, Lena Horne, and many others, the club falls
victim to changing musical tastes and poor attendance.

1940 – Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey joins the ancestors in London,
England at the age of 52.

1946 – Jack Arthur Johnson, the first African American heavyweight
boxing champion, joins the ancestors after succumbing to
injuries from an automobile accident near Raleigh, North
Carolina at the age of 68. He will be buried in Graceland
Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.

1964 – The U.S. Senate imposes cloture for the first time on a civil
rights measure, ending a southern filibuster by a vote of
71-29.

1972 – Sammy Davis, Jr. earns his place at the top of the popular
music charts for the first time, after years in the
entertainment business with his first number one song, “The
Candy Man”. The song stayed at the top for three consecutive
weeks and stayed on the pop charts for 16 weeks.

1980 – Nelson Mandela, jailed for life by the apartheid government
of South Africa, has his writings smuggled from prison and
made public, continuing to spark the general population.

1985 – Herschel Walker, of the New Jersey Generals, breaks the 2,000
yard mark in rushing during the season as the Generals win
over Jacksonville 31-24. The effort sets a United States
Football League (USFL) record. This feat had only been
reached twice in the National Football League (NFL) — once
by O.J. Simpson in 1973 for 2,003 yards and Eric Dickerson
in 1984 for 2,105 yards.

1997 – Geronimo Pratt, political prisoner and ex-Black Panther, is
released from prison on bail. A judge agrees that had
Pratt’s original jury known that the prosecution key witness
was a FBI and police informant, the outcome may have been
different. In 1999, after winning his appeal of the decision
that ordered his release, charges against Pratt were dropped
by the Los Angeles District Attorney and no new trial was
sought.

2004 – Ray Charles, Keyboardist, Composer, and Singer who won 12
Grammy awards, joins the ancestors after succumbing to liver
disease at the age of 73.

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

* Today in Black History – June 9 *

1877 – Meta Vaux Warwick (later Fuller) is born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. She will become a sculptor who will train at
the Pennsylvania Museum and School for Industrial Arts and
travel to Paris to study with Auguste Rodin. Her sculptures
will be exhibited at the salon in Paris as well as
extensively in the U.S. for 60 years. Her most famous works
will include “Ethiopia Awakening,” “Mary Turner (A Silent
Protest Against Mob Violence),” and “The Talking Skull.” She
will join the ancestors on March 18, 1968.

1934 – Jack Leroy “Jackie” Wilson, entertainer who will be known as “Mr.
Excitement,” is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will be important
in the transition of Rhythm and Blues into Soul. He will be
considered a master showman, and one of the most dynamic and
influential singers and performers in R&B and Rock n’ Roll
history. Gaining fame in his early years as a member of the R&B
vocal group Billy Ward and His Dominoes, he will go solo in 1957
and record over 50 hit singles that span R&B, pop, soul, doo-wop
and easy listening. During a 1975 benefit concert, he will
collapse on stage from a heart attack and subsequently fall into
a coma that persists for nearly nine years until he joins the
ancestors on January 21, 1984, at the age of 49. By this time,
he will be one of the most influential artists of his generation.
A two-time Grammy Hall of Fame Inductee, he will be inducted in
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. In 2004, Rolling Stone
magazine will rank him #69 on their list of the 100 Greatest
Artists of All Time.

1948 – Oliver W. Hill becomes the first African American to be
elected to the Richmond, Virginia City Council.

1963 – Fannie Lou Hamer and five other voter registration workers
were arrested in Winona, Mississippi on their way home from
a workshop in Charleston, SC. They were held in the Winona
jail for four days, during which they were severely beaten
with nightsticks and fists by policemen, and with leather
straps by prison trustees under the direction of police
officers.

1978 – Larry Holmes wins the WBC heavyweight title by defeating Ken
Norton in Las Vegas, Nevada.

1980 – Comedian Richard Pryor suffers almost fatal burns at his San
Fernando Valley, California home, when a mixture of “free-
base” cocaine explodes.

1983 – Scott Joplin, noted jazz musician and composer of ragtime
music, is the sixth African-American depicted in the U.S.
Postal Service’s Black Heritage USA commemorative series of
postage stamps.

1998 – Three white men are charged in Jasper, Texas, with the brutal
dragging death of James Byrd Jr., an African American.

1998 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones joins the ancestors in Washington,
DC.

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

* Today in Black History – June 8 *

1886 – The first Civil Rights Act is passed.

1892 – Homer Adolph Plessy, an African American shoemaker from New
Orleans, Louisiana, is arrested for sitting in a “whites
only” railroad car. Judge John Ferguson will find him
guilty of the crime of refusing to leave the white railroad
car. Plessy will appeal to the Supreme Courts of both
Louisiana and the United States, and both will uphold
Ferguson’s decision and the “separate but equal” doctrine
(Plessy vs. Ferguson).

1924 – George Kirby is born in Chicago, Illinois. He will become a
comedian and, impressionist and delight audiences for more
than 40 years. Kirby will begin his career in Chicago and
will go to Las Vegas in 1952 as part of the Count Basie
show, one of the first African American acts to play Vegas.
He will be best known for impressions of stars such as Jerry
Lewis, John Wayne and Walter Brennan, and for his dead-on
takes of women, notably Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald and
Sarah Vaughan. He will join the ancestors on September 20,
1995.

1928 – Edward Joseph Perkins is born in Sterlington, Louisiana. He
will become the first African American ambassador to South
Africa (1986-1989). A veteran foreign service professional,
he will serve as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Liberia
(1985 – 1986), Director of the Office of West African
Affairs in the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S.
Department of State (1983 – 1985), Deputy Chief of Mission
at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia, Liberia (1981-1983),
Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in
Accra, Ghana (1978 – 1981), and ambassador to the United
Nations.

1939 – Bernie Casey is born in Wyco, West Virginia. He will be the
first-round draft pick for the San Francisco 49ers and play
wide receiver. Before retiring from the NFL, he will also
play for the Los Angeles Rams and be named an NFL All-Pro
wide receiver. After the NFL, he will have his acting debut
in “Guns of the Magnificent Seven,” and have more than 40
roles to his credit, including Mr. Walter in “Once Upon A
Time…When We Were Colored,” Commander Hudson in the TV
series “Star Trek,” “Deep Space Nine” and Commander Harris
in “Under Siege.” He will have his directorial debut with
the film, “The Dinner (1997). He also will become an
accomplished artist with paintings part of permanent
collections at the California Museum of African American
Art and the Ankrum Gallery in Los Angeles. His works will
also appear in The Hirshorn Museum in Washington, DC, the
Lowe Gallery in Atlanta and the John Bolles Gallery in San
Francisco. He will earn a doctoral degree in humanities
from the Savannah College of Art and Design and serve as
chairman of its board of trustees.

1943 – Willie Davenport is born in Troy, Alabama. He will become a
star in track and field events, whose career will span five
Olympic Games from 1964 to 1980, during which he won a gold
and bronze medal. He will be one of only eight U.S. Olympic
athletes to have competed in both the summer and winter
games. Davenport will win the gold medal in the 110-meter
hurdles in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, and the bronze in
the same event in Montreal, Quebec in 1976. After four
Olympic appearances in the hurdles, Davenport will compete
as the first African American member of the U.S. four-man
bobsled team in 1980. Davenport will coach the 1993 and
1994 U.S. Army Track Team to victory in the Armed Forces
Track & Field Championships. He will be the head coach of
the United States Army Track & Field Team for the 1996
Olympics. He will join the ancestors on June 17, 2002.

1953 – The Supreme Court rules that District of Columbia restaurants
cannot refuse to serve African Africans.

1958 – Keenen Ivory Wayans is born in New York City. He will become
a comedian, actor, writer, director, and producer. He will
become best known for his television show, “In Living
Color.”

1963 – Three bullets are fired into the Clarksdale, Mississippi home
of Dr. Aaron Henry, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
candidate for governor.

1968 – James Earl Ray, the alleged assassin of Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., is captured at London’s Heathrow airport.

1969 – Bill Cosby wins an Emmy for a variety special. It is his
fourth Emmy award.

1978 – Through the voice of its president, Spencer W. Kimball, the
Mormon Church reverses a 148-year-long policy of spiritual
discrimination against African American leadership within
the denomination (Official Declaration # 2).

1982 – Leroy “Satchel” Paige, a pitcher in the Negro Leagues and
the first African American pitcher in the American League,
joins the ancestors in Kansas City, Missouri at the age of
75. Paige is heralded as one of the greatest early African
American baseball players in a career that spanned more than
40 years and was enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame in
1971.

1998 – Military dictator of Nigeria, Sani Abacha joins the ancestors
at the age of 54.

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

* Today in Black History – June 7 *

1863 – Three African American regiments and small detachment of white
troops repulse a division of Texans in a hand-to-hand battle
at Milliken’s Bend, Louisiana.

1917 – Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas. She will become the
first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize (1950). She
will win this award for “Annie Allen,” which is about the coming
of age of a young African American and her feelings of loneliness,
loss, death and poverty. In 1963-1969 she will teach poetry and
fiction workshops and also freshman English and 20th century
literature. In 1967, she will organize a poetry writing workshop
for a gang, and her home soon became a meeting place for young
people interested in arts and politics. In 1985, she will become
the first African American woman to take the position of Poetry
Consultant to the Library of Congress. Her job will be to give a
lecture in autumn and a poetry reading in the spring. She will
be the 29th and last Poetry Consultant. In 1988, she will become
the second Poet Laureate of Illinois. She also will be inducted
into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. She will join the ancestors
on December 3, 2000.

1931 – David C. Driskell is born in Eatonton, Georgia. An artist and
professor of art at several universities, Driskell will be acclaimed
as one of the foremost art historians and curators of African
American art exhibits. He will hold a Master of Fine Arts degree from
Catholic University and nine Honorary Doctoral degrees. In 2000, he
will be honored by President Bill Clinton as one of 12 recipients of
the National Humanities Medal. A publication, “David C. Driskell:
Artist and Scholar” by Julie L. McGee, will detail Driskell’s life
and work, wand will be published in 2006. He will be represented by
DC Moore Gallery. His first exhibition at the gallery will be held in
October 2006.

1943 – Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr. is born in Knoxville, Tennessee.
She will become a poet and author that will be known for her
books “Black Feeling”, “Black Talk”, and “Black Judgment,” and the
name “Nikki.” In 1973, she will establish NikTom, Ltd., a
communications company that will edit and publish “Night Comes Softly,”
an anthology of poetry by black women, “Re: Creation,” “Poem of Angela
Yvonne Davis,” and her other prominent works. In the mid 1980’s, her
opposition to the boycott of South Africa will lead to her being
blacklisted by TransAfrica and subsequently to bomb and death threats.
She will receive at least six honorary doctorate degrees and a myriad
of literary awards.

1946 – U.S. Supreme Court bans discrimination in interstate travel.

1950 – U.S. Supreme Court avoids a general ruling on “separate but equal”
doctrine.

1958 – Prince Rogers Nelson is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He
will become a singer and prolific songwriter and producer
known to the public as “Prince.” An incurable movie fan, he
will have a passion for drama (and comedy). His own films
will include “Purple Rain,” “Under the Cherry Moon,”
and “Grafitti Bridge.” “Purple Rain” (1984) will be hailed
by some critics as the best rock movie ever made and earn
Prince an Oscar for best original song score and soundtrack
album. Because of his desire to have complete artistic control
over his music, he will endure several years of a contract
dispute with his label, Warner Brothers, which results in him
appearing in public with the word SLAVE written on his face.
In 1993, he will change his name to “The Artist Formerly Known
As Prince” (TAFKAP or The Artist). He will come out of the
Warner Brothers conflict happily. He will establish a new
relationship with EMI Records that will allow him to record
and produce whatever he wants to release.

1966 – The voter registration march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson,
Mississippi is continued by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other
civil rights groups and will register almost 4,000 African
Americans. The march had been interrupted the previous day by
the shooting of James Meredith, by a white sniper.

1987 – Mae Jemison, becomes the first African American woman astronaut.
Jemison entered Stanford University as a 16-year-old National
Achievement Scholarship student. She majored in Chemical
Engineering and Afro-American Studies, graduating in 1977. She
then went on to Cornell University to get a M.D. in 1981. She
worked as a medical intern in Los Angeles, California in 1981.
Later, she served as a staff doctor with Peace Corps in West
Africa 1983-1985. Then she worked as a general practitioner
for CIGNA Health Plans of California in Los Angeles from 1985
to 1987. After her internship, she joined the Peace Corps for
two years in West Africa giving medical attention to Peace Corps
volunteers and State Department employees in Sierra Leone and
Liberia. Finally, she became an astronaut for the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Houston, Texas
in 1987.

1987 – Lloyd Richards wins a Tony as best director for the August
Wilson play “Fences”. The play wins three other Tony awards,
for best play, best performance by an actor (James Earl Jones),
and best performance by a featured actress (Mary Alice).

1998 – In a crime that shocks the nation, James Byrd Jr., a 49-year-old
African American man, joins the ancestors after being chained to
a pickup truck and dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas. Three
men, white supremacists, are arrested in the case. The atrocity
will prompt President Clinton to issue a press release condemning
the act. Two of the killers will be sentenced to death for the
crime, a third to life in prison.

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

* Today in Black History – June 6 *

1716 – The first slaves arrive in Louisiana.

1779 – Haitian explorer Jean Baptiste-Pointe Du Sable founds the
first permanent settlement at the mouth of a river on the
north bank, that will become Chicago, Illinois.

1831 – The second national Black convention meets in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. There are fifteen delegates from five
states.

1869 – Dillard University is chartered in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1934 – Roy Innis is born in the U.S. Virgin Islands and will be
raised in New York City. He will become a civil rights
activist and will join the Harlem chapter of CORE
(Congress of Racial Equality) in 1963. He will become
chairman of CORE in 1968 and will remain in that position
for over 47 years.

1935 – Jesse Owens is elected Captain of the 1936 track team at
Ohio State University. He is the first African American to
hold such position on any Ohio State Team.

1935 – Robert Cornelius “Bobby” Mitchell is born in Hot Springs,
Arkansas. He will become a professional football player
starting as an eighth round draft selection by the
Cleveland Browns in 1958. He will play in four Pro Bowls
(one with Cleveland and three with Washington) over his
11-year playing career and is considered one of the NFL’s
all-time great multi-purpose players. When he is traded to
the Washington franchise in 1962, he becomes the first
African American to play for the team. He will become an
inductee to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983. He will
be a prominent part of the Washington Redskins
organization for over 41 years until he retires after the
2002-2003 season.

1936 – Levi Stubbless is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will become
a rhythm and blues singer better known as Levi Stubbs. He
will be a member of the group, “The Aims.” The group
will start as a backup group for Levi’s cousin, Jackie
Wilson. The group will change their name to “The Four
Tops” in 1956, to avoid confusion with a band. Berry Gordy
will sign the group in 1963 and launch their first hit,
“Baby, I Need Your Loving.” The group will stay together
over forty years, longer than any other popular group,
with the original personnel intact. He will join the
ancestors on October 17, 2008.

1939 – Marion Wright (later Edelman) is born in Bennettsville,
South Carolina. In addition to becoming the first African
American woman admitted to the bar in Mississippi, she
will direct the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund
in New York and Mississippi and will found the Children’s
Defense Fund in 1973.

1939 – Gary Levone Anderson is born in Jacksonville, Florida. He
will be raised in Norfolk, Virginia where he will become
a singer as a teenager, with a group called The Turks. He
will solo as Gary “U.S.” Bonds in 1960 recording the hit
“New Orleans.” His name will be inspired by a poster in a
Norfolk shop urging Americans to “Carry U. S. Bonds.” In
1961 when Bonds records his version of a local group’s
song, “A Night with Daddy G.,” it will be re-titled
“Quarter to Three” and will be a huge hit. He will record
three additional hits in the next year. After a twenty
year decline in his career, he will make a comeback after
his fan, Bruce Springsteen, begins to use “Quarter to
Three” as his encore.

1944 – The 320th Negro Anti-Aircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion
assists in the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France.

1944 – Tommie Smith is born in Clarksville, Texas. He will become
a track star (sprinter), and Olympic athlete/runner. He
will win the Olympic Gold medal in the 200 meters in the
1968 Olympics. It will be, on the winners platform, that he
and John Carlos will raise clinched fists as the national
anthem is played. He will be inducted into the National
Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1978.

1947 – Harrison Branch is born in New York City. A student at the
San Francisco Art Institute and Yale University School of
Art, he will become a professor of art and photographer
whose works will be exhibited and collected in the U.S.
and in Europe and will appear in the landmark photography
book, “An Illustrated Bio-Bibliography of Black
Photographers,” 1940-1988, edited by Deborah Wills Ryan.

1966 – James Meredith is wounded by a white sniper, as he walked
along U.S. Highway 51 near Hernando, Mississippi, on the
second day of the Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi,
voter registration march. Meanwhile, Stokely Carmichael,
using his newly adopted name of Kwame’ Toure, launches the
Black Power movement. Toure will say that the use of the
term is not anti-white, but a phrase to denote a political
strategy.

1973 – Barry White is awarded a gold record for “I’m Gonna Love
You Just a Little More Baby”. It is his first hit and his
first of five, number one, million sellers. White will
begin recording in 1960. He will form the group, Love
Unlimited, in 1969 and marry one of the group’s singers,
Glodean James. He will also form the 40-piece Love
Unlimited Orchestra which will have the number one hit,
“Love’s Theme.” He will join the ancestors on July 4,
2003 from complications of high blood pressure and kidney
disease.

1977 – Joseph Lawson Howze is installed as bishop of the Roman
Catholic diocese of Biloxi, Mississippi. He becomes the
first African American to head a U.S. diocese in the
Catholic Church in the twentieth century.

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

* Today in Black History – June 5 *

1783 – Oliver Cromwell, an African American soldier who served in
the Revolutionary War, receives an honorable discharge
signed by George Washington. Cromwell, who will claim to
have been with Washington when he crossed the Delaware and
in the battles of Yorktown, Princeton, and Monmouth, is
cited by Washington as having earned “the Badge of Merit
for six years’ faithful service.”

1872 – The Republican National Convention meets in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. The meeting marks the first significant
participation of African American delegates: Robert B.
Elliot (chair of the South Carolina delegation); Joseph
Rainey, and John R. Lynch of Mississippi, who each make
addresses to the convention.

1920 – Marion Motley is born in Leesburg, Georgia. He will become
a NFL running back and all-time AAFC rusher for the
Cleveland Browns, ending his career with the Pittsburgh
Steelers. He will enter the NFL in 1946, making him one
of only four African Americans to desegregate the NFL in
the modern era. One of the largest running backs of his
era, Motley will rush for 4,720 yards in his career and
average an astounding 5.7 yards per carry, the highest in
pro football history. He will also be selected to the first
Pro Bowl in 1951. He will be enshrined in the NFL Hall of
Fame in 1968. He will join the ancestors in Cleveland, Ohio
on June 27, 1999.

1940 – The American Negro Theatre is organized in Harlem by
Frederick O’Neal, Abram Hill, and members of the McClendon
Players. Among the plays it will produce is “Anna Lucasta”,
which will be presented on Broadway in 1944 and feature
Canada Lee, Ossie Davis, and Ruby Dee.

1952 – Jersey Joe Walcott defeats Ezzard Charles for the
heavyweight boxing title.

1956 – A three-judge federal court rules that racial segregation on
Montgomery city buses is unconstitutional, ending the
Montgomery bus boycott.

1959 – U.S. Supreme Court undermines the legal foundations of
segregation in three landmark cases, Sweatt v. Painter,
McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents and Henderson v. United
States.

1969 – A race riot occurs in Hartford, Connecticut.

1973 – Doris A. Davis of Compton, California, becomes the first
African American female to govern a metropolitan city.

1973 – Cardiss R. Collins of Chicago, Illinois is elected to
Congress. She will succeed her late husband and spend over
twenty years in the U.S. House of Representatives.

1983 – Yannick Noah becomes the first Frenchman to win the French
Open since World War II.

1988 – Clarence M. Pendleton, Jr. joins the ancestors at the age of
58. He was the first African American chairman of the
United States Civil Rights Commission (1981-88). Following
President Ronald Reagan’s desires, he led the commission
toward a “color-blind” approach to matters of civil rights.

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

* Today in Black History – June 4 *

1832 – The Third National Black convention meets in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania with twenty-nine delegates from eight states.
Henry Sipkins of New York is elected president.

1922 – Samuel Gravely is born in Richmond, Virginia. He will
become the first African American Admiral in the U.S. Navy,
He also will become the first African American to command a
U.S. warship, the USS Falgout, and will also command the
USS Taussig. He will join the ancestors on October 22, 2004,
at Bethesda Naval Hospital after a short illness.

1946 – Legislation authorizing the establishment of Mississippi
Valley State University in Itta Bena, Mississippi is
enacted.

1961 – Eldra Patrick ‘El’ Debarge is born in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He will become a singer with the family group Debarge. He
will become a solo artist in the mid 1980’s.

1972 – Angela Davis is acquitted by 11 whites and one Mexican
American of murder, kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy
charges brought in connection with a 1970 courthouse shoot-
out in San Rafael, California.

1973 – Arna Bontemps, writer and educator, joins the ancestors in
Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 72.

1987 – Edwin Moses, who had won a total of 122 consecutive victories
in the 400-meter hurdles, is defeated by Danny Harris in
Madrid, Spain. It had been ten years since the last time
Moses lost the event.

1989 – Five African Americans win Tony awards for “Black and Blue,”
a musical revue featuring classic blues and tap-dance
routines. Winners are Ruth Brown (best actress in a musical),
Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang, Frankie Manning, and Fayard
Nicholas (best choreography).

1991 – Baltimore Orioles manager Frank Robinson is named assistant
general manager of the club. He is the third African American
to become an assistant general manager, joining Elaine
Weddington of the Boston Red Sox and Bob Watson of the
Houston Astros.

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