Tag: African American History

* Today in Black History – July 12 *

1864 – George Washington Carver, African American botanist is born
in Diamond Grove, Missouri. He will receive a B.S. from
the Iowa Agricultural College in 1894 and a M.S. in 1896.
He will become a member of the faculty of Iowa State
College of Agriculture and Mechanics in charge of the
school’s bacterial laboratory work in the Systematic Botany
department. His work with agricultural products develops
industrial applications from farm products, called chemurgy
in technical literature in the early 1900s. His research
will develop 325 products from peanuts, 108 applications
for sweet potatoes, and 75 products derived from pecans. He
will move to Tuskegee, Alabama in 1896 to accept a position
as an instructor at the Tuskegee Institute of Technology
and remain on the faculty until he joins the ancestors on
January 5, 1943. His work in developing industrial
applications from agricultural products will derive 118
products, including a rubber substitute and over 500 dyes
and pigments from 28 different plants. He will receive the
Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1923. He will be
responsible for the invention in 1927 of a process for
producing paints and stains from soybeans, for which three
separate patents were issued. George Washington Carver will
be bestowed with an honorary doctorate from Simpson College
in 1928. He will be made a member of the Royal Society of
Arts in London, England. Dr. Carver will be honored by U.S.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on July 14, 1943 when
$30,000 is committed for a national monument to be
dedicated to his accomplishments. The area of Carver’s
childhood near Diamond Grove, Missouri will be preserved as
a park, with a bust of the agricultural researcher,
instructor, and chemical investigator. This park will be
the first national monument dedicated to an African
American in the United States. He will be inducted
posthumously into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in
1990.

1887 – Mound Bayou, an all African American town in Mississippi, is
founded by Isaiah Montgomery.

1936 – Actress Rose McClendon joins the ancestors after succumbing
to pneumonia in New York City. A student at the American
Academy of Dramatic Art in Carnegie Hall, McClendon won
fame for her roles in the plays “Deep River”, “In Abraham’s
Bosom”, and “Porgy.” She also founded, with Dick Campbell,
the Negro People’s Theater and with Campbell and Muriel
Rahn, the Rose McClendon Players.

1936 – Cornelius Johnson sets the world record in the high jump.

1937 – William Henry “Bill” Cosby is born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He will become one of the most popular African
American entertainers, first in comedy, where his albums
will earn him five Grammy awards, then in Las Vegas and
elsewhere. He will later star in the television series “I
Spy”, which will be the first of several successful
television series. These series will include “The Bill Cosby
Show,” “The New Bill Cosby Show,” and “The Cosby Show.” “The
Cosby Show” will hold the number one rating for three years.
He will also author numerous books, including “Fatherhood,”
and “Love and Marriage.” His successes will reward him with
financial success and he will become a leading
philanthropist.

1944 – Donna Denise Nicholas is born in Detroit, Michigan. After
graduating from the University of Michigan, she will become
an actress starring in “Room 222” as Liz McIntyre, “In the
Heat of the Night” as Harriet DeLong, “Baby, I’m Back”, and
“Ghost Dad.” After appearing in a variety of televion shows
from the 1960s through the 2000s, she will write her first
novel, “Freshwater Road,” published by Agate Publishing in
August, 2005.

1949 – Frederick M. Jones patents an air conditioning unit.

1951 – Governor Adlai Stevenson, calls out the Illinois National
Guard to stop rioting in Cicero, Illinois. A mob of 3,500
racists try to keep an African American family from moving
into the all-white city.

1958 – “Yakety Yak”, by The Coasters, becomes the number one song
in the country, according to “Billboard” magazine. It is
the first stereo record to reach the top of the chart.

1959 – Rolonda Watts is born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She
will become an African American actress and television
talk show host. She will be the host of “The Rolonda Show,”
a syndicated talk show that will run for four seasons
during the 1990s.

1960 – Congo, Chad & The Central African Republic declare their
independence.

1963 – Maryland National Guard troops impose limited martial law in
Cambridge, Maryland after open confrontations between civil
rights demonstrators and white segregationists.

1966 – A racially motivated disturbance begins in the city of
Chicago, prompting the governor to call in the Illinois
National Guard.

1967 – Five days of racially motivated disturbances begin in Newark,
New Jersey. Over twenty three persons are killed. The
racial uprising involves ten of the city’s twenty-three
square miles. More than 1,500 persons are injured and 1,300
are arrested. Police report 300 fires. The Newark
rebellion, the worst outbreak of racial violence since the
Watts riots (in Los Angeles), spread to other New Jersey
communities, including New Brunswick, Englewood, Paterson,
Elizabeth, Palmyra, Passaic, and Plainfield. The New Jersey
National Guard is mobilized.

1975 – São Tomé and Príncipe declare independence from Portugal.

1979 – Minnie Ripperton, a singer best known for her recording of
“Lovin’ You,” joins the ancestors after succumbing to breast
cancer at the age of 32.

1980 – John W. Davis, civil rights activist and former president of
West Virginia State College, joins the ancestors in
Englewood, New Jersey at the age of 92.

1991 – “Boyz in the Hood”, a film written and directed by John
Singleton, premieres. A coming-of-age film set in gang-and-
violence-ridden South Central Los Angeles, its positive
message will earn Singleton critical acclaim and two Academy
Award nominations.

1992 – In an emotional farewell speech, Benjamin Hooks, outgoing
executive director of the NAACP, urges the group’s
convention in Nashville, Tennessee, to show the world that
it remains vital.

2001 – Abner Louima, the Haitian immigrant tortured in a New York
City police station, agrees to an $8.7 million settlement.

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

* Today in Black History – July 11 *

1836 – Antônio Carlos Gomes is born in Campinas, Brazil. He will
become the most distinguished nineteenth-century
Brazilian opera composer, who will also achieve
considerable success in Europe. Gomes will be the second
son of Fabiana Maria J. Cardoso and Manuel José Gomes, a
composer and bandleader born to a black freedwoman and
an unknown father. Manuel José also taught piano and
violin in Campinas and will introduce his two young sons
to the rudiments of music. Antônio Carlos will debut
publicly at the age of 11, playing the triangle in his
father’s orchestra in a ceremony honoring Emperor Pedro
II. He will study clarinet, violin, and piano, for which
he will compose his first pieces. His brother José Pedro
de Santana Gomes will study violin and viola and later
became Brazil’s most important late-nineteenth-century
violinist. In 1859 Antônio Carlos Gomes will enroll in
the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory of Music. He had already
composed his first mass (1854) and will soon be
commissioned to write a cantata by the conservatory’s
director, Francisco Manuel da Silva.The reigning master of
Brazilian opera, Antônio Carlos Gomes will achieve world
renown in 1870 when his opera Il Guarany premiers at La
Scala in Milan, Italy. Although he will adhere to the
conventions of mid-nineteenth-century Italian opera, he
will look to Afro-Brazilian themes for some of his operas
and instrumental works. Following the premiere of his
cantata The Last Hour at Calvary (1859), Gomes will be
appointed conductor at the Imperial Academy of Music and
National Opera. Gomes will write two operas Il Guarany
(1870) and Lo Schiavo (1889) which drew on Brazilian
subjects. In 1893 Gomes will tour the United States, where
he will conduct some of his works at Chicago’s Columbia
Universal Exhibition. Appointed to head the Conservatory
of Music in Belém, he will return to Brazil in 1895, but
will succumb to cancer three months after assuming the
directorship on September 16, 1896 in Belém, Brazil.

1905 – Niagara Movement meetings begin in Buffalo, New York.
Started by 29 intellectuals including W.E.B. Du Bois, the
Niagara Movement will renounce Booker T. Washington’s
accommodation policies set forth in his famed “Atlanta
Compromise” speech ten years earlier. The Niagara
Movement’s manifesto is, in the words of Du Bois, “We want
full manhood suffrage and we want it now….We are men!
We want to be treated as men. And we shall win.” The
movement will be a forerunner of the NAACP.

1915 – Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a multitalented lawyer, politician,
and entrepreneur, joins the ancestors in Little Rock,
Arkansas. Active in the Underground Railroad, he worked
with Frederick Douglass and after success as a clothing
retailer, became the publisher and editor of “Mirror of
the Times,” the first African American newspaper in
California. The first African American elected a
municipal judge, Gibbs was also active in Republican
politics, serving as a delegate to national conventions
and as U.S. consul to Madagascar.

1925 – Mattiwilda Dobbs is born in Atlanta, Georgia. She will
become a coloratura (a soprano specializing in florid
ornamental trills & runs) in the 1950’s, making her
operatic debut at La Scala in Milan in 1953 and her U.S.
debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1955. She will
become the first African American to sing at La Scala and
the second African American woman to sing at the
Metropolitan Opera House in New York. Although Marian
Anderson, a Black opera singer from Pennsylvania, will
precede her to that stage in 1955, Dobbs will be the first
African American woman to be offered a long-term contract
by the Met. She will sing twenty-nine performances, in
six roles, over eight seasons. Following the example set
by African American performer and activist Paul Robeson,
she will refuse to perform for segregated audiences. In
Atlanta, she could perform in African American churches or
colleges, but she will not be able to perform for a large
integrated audience until the Atlanta City Auditorium is
desegregated in 1962, when she will be joined onstage and
given a key to the city by Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. It will be
the first of many performances in her home city. Before
the organization of the Atlanta Opera in 1985, she will
perform in operas produced and directed by the acclaimed
opera singer Blanche Thebom, and in 1974, she will sing at
the gala marking the inauguration of her nephew, Maynard
Jackson, as mayor of Atlanta. After retiring from the
stage, she will begin a teaching career at the University
of Texas, where she will be the first African American
artist on the faculty. She will spend the 1974-75 school
year as artist-in-residence at Spelman College, giving
recitals and teaching master classes. In 1979, Spelman
will award honorary doctorate degrees to both Dobbs and
Marian Anderson. She will continue her teaching career as
professor of voice at Howard University, in Washington,
D.C. She will serve on the board of the Metropolitan Opera
and on the National Endowment of the Arts Solo Recital
Panel. She will continue to give recitals until as late as
1990 before retiring to Arlington, Virginia. She will move
to a retirement center in Atlanta in 2013.

1931 – Thurston Theodore Harris is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.
He will become a rhythm and blues vocalist. He will be
best known for his recordings of “Little Bitty Pretty One,”
and “Over and Over.” He will join the ancestors in Pomona,
California after succumbing to a heart attack on April 14,
1990.

1948 – Earnest Lee “Ernie” Holmes is born in Jamestown, Texas. He
will become a professional football player and will be a
defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He will be
part of the “Steel Curtain” front four and help Pittsburgh
in winning Super Bowls IX and X. He will join the ancestors
after being killed in an automobile accident on January 17,
2008.

1950 – Patricia Eva “Bonnie” Pointer is born in Oakland, California.
She will become a singer and member of the vocal group,
The Pointer Sisters. The four sisters will begin their
career singing gospel music and will eventually debut in
1973 as a secular group recording for ABC/Blue Thumb
Records. In 1974, the Pointer Sisters will perform at the
Grand Ole Opry, becoming the first African American female
group to do so. They also will become the first African
American female group to be number one on Billboard’s
country and western chart. They will change to a trio in
1977 when sister Bonnie signs as a solo act with Motown
Records. The group will be best known for their hits
“Slow Hand” (1981), “What a Surprise” (1981), “Excited”
(1982), “I Need You” (1983), and the Grammy Award-winning
“Jump” (1983) and “Automatic” (1984).

1953 – Leon Spinks is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will win the
Olympic Light Heavyweight Gold Medal in 1976 and go on to
become a professional boxer. He will win his first nine
professional bouts, becoming the World Heavyweight Champion,
defeating Muhammad Ali. After losing to Ali in a rematch,
his career will decline and he will not be able to duplicate
his earlier successes.

1954 – The first White Citizens Council organizes in Indianola,
Mississippi. Reminiscent of the end of Reconstruction, the
Klan, the White Citizens’ Council, and other White
supremacist groups will attempt to prevent any further
progress in the civil rights movement.

1958 – Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine, African-American youths
who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas, receive the Spingarn Medal for their “heroism and
pioneering roles in upholding the basic ideals of American
democracy in the face of continuing harassment and constant
threats of bodily injury.”

1960 – Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper Volta & Niger declare
independence from their European colonial rulers.

1977 – The Medal of Freedom is awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin
Luther King, Jr. in a White House ceremony.

1987 – Bo Jackson signs a $7.4 million contract to play football
for the Los Angeles Raiders for five years. Jackson becomes
a two-sport player as he continues to play baseball with
the Kansas City Royals.

1992 – Undeclared presidential hopeful Ross Perot, addressing the
NAACP convention in Nashville, Tennessee, startles and
offends his listeners by referring to the predominantly
African American audience as “you people.”

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

* Today in Black History – July 10 *

1775 – General Horatio Gates, George Washington’s adjutant
general issues an order excluding African Americans from
serving in the Continental Army.

1875 – Mary McLeod Bethune is born in Mayesville, South Carolina.
She will become a noted educator and founder of Daytona
Normal and Industrial Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida
in 1904 (now Bethune-Cookman College). With the help of
benefactors, she will attend college hoping to become a
missionary in Africa. When that did not materialize, she
will establish a school for African American girls in
Daytona Beach, Florida. From six students it will grow
and merge with an institute for African American boys and
eventually became the Bethune-Cookman School. Its quality
far surpassed the standards of education for African
American students, and rivaled those of schools for white
students. She will work tirelessly to ensure funding for
the school, and use it as a showcase for tourists and
donors, to exhibit what educated African Americans could
do. She will be president of the college from 1923 to 1942
and 1946 to 1947, one of the few women in the world who
will serve as a college president at that time. She will
also be active in women’s clubs, and her leadership in
them will allow her to become nationally prominent. She
will work for the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1932, and become a member of Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,”
sharing the concerns of Black people with the Roosevelt
administration while spreading Roosevelt’s message to
Blacks, who had been traditionally Republican voters. Upon
her ascension to the ancestors on May 18, 1955, columnist
Louis E. Martin will say, “She gave out faith and hope as
if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.” Her home
in Daytona Beach will become a National Historic Landmark,
and her house in Washington, D.C., in Logan Circle, will
be preserved by the National Park Service as a National
Historic Site. A stature will be placed in Lincoln Park
in Washington, D.C.

1927 – David Norman Dinkins is born in Trenton, New Jersey. He
will move as a child to Harlem. He will serve as a marine
during World War II and will attend and graduate from
Howard University after the war. He will receive his law
degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1956. He was in private
practice until 1975, even though he was active in politics
and held some office. He began full time elective office
in New York City that year and held the offices of City
Clerk and Manhattan Borough President. In 1989 he will be
elected as the first African American mayor of the city of
New York, defeating three-time mayor Ed Koch. He will
serve one term, being defeated in 1993 by Rudolph Giuliani.

1936 – Billie Holiday records “Billie’s Blues” for Okeh Records in
New York. Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw and Cozy Cole supported
Holiday, instrumentally, on the track.

1941 – Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton joins the ancestors in Los
Angeles, California at age 56. The innovative piano
soloist, composer, and arranger claims to have invented
jazz and makes a series of recordings for the Library of
Congress that immortalizes his style. Fifty years after
his death, playwright George C. Wolfe will present a well-
regarded play on Morton’s life, “Jelly’s Last Jam.”

1943 – Arthur Ashe is born in Richmond, Virginia. He will become a
professional tennis player winning 33 career titles. In
winning his titles, he will become the first African
American male to win Wimbledon (1975) and the U.S. Open
(1968) and will be the first African American enshrined in
the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He will also be the
author of “A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-
American Athlete,” and “Days of Grace.” During a second
heart surgery in 1983, it is likely that he was given blood
tainted with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which
causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). After
acknowledging his disease, he became an active fundraiser
and speaker on behalf of AIDS research. He will join the
ancestors on February 6, 1993.

1945 – Ronald E. ‘Ron’ Glass is born in Evansville, Indiana. He will
graduate from the University of Evansville with a major in
Drama and Literature. His acting career will begin at the
Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He will move to
Hollywood after four years in Minneapolis. He will be best
known for his television role as Sgt. Harris on the long-
running series, “Barney Miller.” His other television credits
will be roles in “The New Odd Couple,” “Rhythm & Blues,” “All
in the Family,” “Sanford & Sons,” “Streets of San Francisco,”
“Family Matters,” and “Murder, She Wrote.” His feature film
credits include “It’s My Party” and “House Guest.”

1949 – Frederick M. Jones patents a starter generator.

1951 – Sugar Ray Robinson is defeated for only the second time in
133 fights as Randy Turpin takes the middleweight crown.

1960 – Roger Timothy Craig is born in Davenport, Iowa. He will
become a professional football player, being drafted in the
second round of the 1983 NFL Draft out of the University of
Nebraska by the San Francisco 49ers. He will play for the
49ers eight years, claiming three Super Bowl titles and
selected for the Pro Bowl four times. In 1985, he will
become the first player to surpass 1,000 yards rushing and
receiving in the same season. By the end of his career, he
will become the 49ers’ second leading rusher all-time with
7,064 yards. He will also become co-Super Bowl record holder
for Most Points Per Game (18 vs. Miami, 1985) and Most TDs
Per Game (3).

1962 – Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested during a civil rights
demonstration in Albany, Georgia.

1966 – Martin Luther King, Jr. begins a Chicago campaign for fair
housing. It is his first foray into a northern city for
desegregation activities.

1972 – The Democratic convention opens in Miami Beach, Florida.
African Americans constitute 15 per cent of the delegates.
Representative Shirley Chisholm receives 151.95 of 2,000-
plus ballots on the first roll call.

1973 – The Bahamas attain full independence within the British
Commonwealth having been a British colony almost
uninterruptedly since 1718.

1984 – Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden of the New York Mets becomes the youngest
player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. Gooden is
19 years, 7 months and 24 days old. He leads the National
League to a 3-1 win at Candlestick Park in San Francisco,
California.

1993 – Kenyan runner Yobes Ondieki becomes the first human to run 10
km (6.25 miles) in less than 27 minutes. Ondieki, known for
his extremely arduous training sessions, will say after
setting his world record, “My world-record race actually felt
easier than my tough interval workouts.”

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

* Today in Black History – July 8 *

1753 – Lemuel Haynes is born in West Hartford, Connecticut. He is
born to a African American father he never knew and a
white mother who refused to acknowledge him. As a child,
he will be made an indentured servant to a white family in
Granville, Massachusetts, who will treat him as one of
their children. His indenture will end in 1774, when he
will become a Minuteman in the Continental Army. During
the Revolutionary War, he will fight at the siege of Boston
and Fort Ticonderoga. After the war, he will study Latin and
Greek with local ministers and be ordained by the
Congregationalists, becoming the first African American
ordained by a mainstream white denomination. Throughout the
next five decades he ministered to white congregations in
New England and New York. Haynes also received considerable
attention for a sermon he preached rebutting Hosea Ballou’s
theory of universal salvation from a Calvinist perspective.
Haynes’s book “Universal Salvation, A Very Ancient Doctrine”,
ran some 70 editions. In 1804, Middlebury College awarded
Haynes an honorary master’s degree becoming the first
African American to receive that honor from any institution.
He will join the ancestors on September 28, 1833.

1876 – White terrorists attack African American Republicans in
Hamburg, South Carolina, killing five.

1910 – Govan Archibald Munyelwa Mbeki is born in Nqamakwe, Transkei,
South Africa. He will become a political activist, leading
member of the African National Congress (ANC) and a member
of the South African Communist Party (SACP). After attending
a mission school, he will attend the University of Fort Hare,
in Alice, and will obtain his bachelor of arts degree in
1937. He will join the ANC while a student in 1935. While
teaching at Adams College, he will be dismissed for political
activity. He will then manage a cooperative store and edit
the Territorial Magazine from 1938 to 1944. In 1943 he will
be elected to the United Transkeian General Council, or
Bunga. In the same year, Mbeki will assist the ANC prepare a
document called African Claims, which will be a response to
the Atlantic Charter, the declaration of human rights issued
during World War II (1939-1945) by the United States and
Great Britain. African Claims became the basis for the ANC
Freedom Charter of 1955. After returning to teaching, Mbeki
will be dismissed again for political activity, and will
become the Port Elizabeth editor of New Age, a left-wing
paper, in 1955 and will make no secret of his left-wing
sympathies. Mbeki will become deeply involved in ANC politics
and stand trial with Nelson Mandela and others for treason,
charged with conspiring to overthrow the government. In 1964,
he will be sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.
The same year, his book “The Peasants’ Revolt” is published
in Great Britain and banned in South Africa. In 1977, while
on Robben Island, Mbeki will have an honorary doctorate of
social sciences conferred on him by the University of
Amsterdam for the publication. After being released on
November 5, 1987 by the South African government, he will
continue to be a member of both the ANC and the SACP. He will
resume his place on the executive committee of the ANC in
1990. In May, 1994, Mbeki will be elected deputy president of
the Senate. His son Thabo Mbeki, the future president of
South Africa, will be elected deputy president of South
Africa. He will join the ancestors on August 30, 2001.

1914 – William Clarence (“Billy”) Eckstine is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. He will become famous in the 1950s as the
smooth-voiced baritone singer of such hits as “Fools Rush In”
and “Skylark,” but music critics and serious jazz fans know
him as the man whose big-band launched such renowned
performers as Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker,
Dexter Gordon, and Sarah Vaughan. He will begin his musical
career on a piano his father had bought for his two sisters.
After attending Howard University, he will begin singing with
various groups, touring in the Midwest before settling in
Chicago in 1939, where he will join the band led by Earl
“Fatha” Hines. It was with Hines that he will have his first
hit, the blues song “Jelly Jelly,” which he will write and
sing. In 1944, he will form his own big-band. The band,
always a favorite with other musicians, will help to pioneer
the then-new bebop sound. Its avant-garde musicianship often
overshadowed his more traditional vocals, and the band
suffered from being badly recorded. His solo career will take
off after the band dissolves in 1947. With his deep, romantic
voice, elegant presence, and matinee-idol good looks, he
becomes a popular performer. Often referred to as “Mr. B,” he
will also garner several film roles in the following decades,
and many will refer to him as the first Black sex symbol. He
will join the ancestors on March 8, 1993.

1938 – Julia Mae Porter (later Carson) is born in Louisville,
Kentucky. She will be raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1965,
while working as a secretary for the United Auto Workers union,
she will be hired by Indiana congressman Andrew Jacobs Jr. She
will work on his staff for eight years. In 1972, she will be
elected to the Indiana House of Representatives, and in 1976,
she will be elected to the Indiana Senate, where she will serve
on the Finance Committee and the Health Committee. In 1990, she
will be elected trustee of Center Township and direct an agency
that provides assistance to the needy. After congressman Jacobs
retires in 1996, Carson will run successfully for his position.
She will win 52 percent of the vote and become the first African
American to represent Indianapolis. She will represent Indiana’s
Tenth Congressional District. It is located in the city of
Indianapolis and includes a mixture of African American and
white neighborhoods. In 1997, Carson will be assigned seats on
the Banking and Financial Services Committee and the Veterans’
Affairs Committee. She will also be a member of the
Congressional Black Caucus. She will be a member of the United
States House of Representatives for Indiana’s 7th congressional
district from 1997 until she joins the ancestors on December 15,
2007.

1943 – Alyce Faye Wattleton is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will
become the youngest and first African American president of
Planned Parent Federation of America in 1978 and be known for
almost 14 years as an outspoken champion of women’s
reproductive rights. She will use her position in Planned
Parenthood to advocate reproductive rights. Along with other
abortion-rights groups, she will fight to secure federal
funding for birth control and prenatal programs; to forbid
states from restricting abortions; and to legalize the sale
in the United States of RU-486, the French-made pill that
induces abortions. Her efforts and the efforts of others
encounter a number of setbacks, including the Supreme Court’s
1989 decision in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services to
allow states to restrict abortions. She will use such defeats
to further mobilize activists and donors. She will leave
Planned Parenthood in 1992 to develop her own talk show, in
Chicago, Illinois, devoted to discussions of women’s issues.
She will be a 1993 inductee into the National Women’s Hall of
Fame. In 1996, she will publish her autobiography, Life on the
Line. She will later serve as the President of the Center for
the Advancement of Women. At this time, she is the managing
director at an international consulting firm.

1943 – Nebraska’s first African American newspaper, “The Omaha Star”,
is founded by Mildred Brown.

1966 – King Mwambutsa IV Bangiriceng of Burundi is deposed by his son
Prince Charles Ndizi.

1966 – John H. Johnson wins the Spingarn Medal for his “contributions
to the enhancement of the Negro’s self-image” through his
publications including “Negro Digest”, “Ebony”, and “Jet”
magazines, and books such as “Before the Mayflower”, written
by historian Lerone Bennett, Jr.

1982 – Senegalese Trotskyist political party LCT is legally recognized.

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

* Today in Black History – July 7 *

1781 – James Armistead, an American slave, infiltrates the
headquarters of General Cornwallis and becomes a servant
hired to spy on the Americans. In reality, Armistead is
a cunning double agent working for the French ally
General Lafayette and reports on the movements and troop
strength of the British. His reports are critical to the
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

1791 – The nondenominational African Church is founded by Richard
Allen, Absalom Jones, and Benjamin Rush.

1851 – Charles Albert Tindley, African American Methodist preacher
and songwriter is born in Berlin, Maryland. He will be
is known as one of the “founding fathers of American
Gospel music.” The son of slaves, he will teach himself to
read and write at the age of 17. He will be a driven young
man, working as a janitor while attending night school,
and earning his divinity degree through a correspondence
course. In 1902, he will become pastor of the Calvary
Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
the church where he had earlier been the janitor.
Tindley’s “I’ll Overcome Some Day” was the basis for the
American civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome,”
popularized in the 1960’s. His most enduring gospel hymns
include ‘Stand By Me,’ ‘Nothing Between,’ ‘Leave It There’
and ‘By and By.’ He will compose over 47 gospel standards.
At the time he joins the ancestors in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania on July 26, 1933, his church will have 12,500
members. The Tindley Temple United Methodist Church in
Philadelphia will be named after him.

1906 – Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige, baseball pitcher, (Negro
League and American League) is born in Mobile, Alabama.
(His birth year is an estimate) He will become a right-handed
pitcher, first playing for the semi-professional Mobile
Tigers from 1924 to 1926. He will begin his professional
baseball career in 1926 with the Chattanooga Black Lookouts
of the Negro Southern League and become one of the most
famous and successful players from the Negro leagues. At the
age of 42 in 1948, he will become the oldest major league
rookie while playing for the Cleveland Indians. He will play
with the St. Louis Browns until age 47, and represent them in
the All-Star Game in 1952 and 1953. He will be the first
player from the Negro leagues to pitch in the World Series
(1948). In 1965, 59 years after his birthday, he will take the
mound for the last time in the big leagues, throwing three
shut-out innings for the Kansas City Athletics. He will play
his last professional game on June 21, 1966, for the Peninsula
Grays of the Carolina League. He will be the first player from
the Negro leagues to be inducted into the National Baseball
Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York in 1971. He will join
the ancestors on June 8, 1982 in Kansas City, Missouri.

1915 – Margaret Abigail Walker (later Alexander) is born in
Birmingham, Alabama. In 1935, She will receive her
Bachelors of Arts Degree from Northwestern University and
in 1936 she will begin work with the Federal Writers’
Project under the Works Progress Administration. In 1942,
she will receive her master’s degree in creative writing
from the University of Iowa. Encouraged by Langston Hughes
and others, Walker will become a writer best known for her
volume of poetry ‘For My People,’ her novel ‘Jubilee,’ and
a biography of novelist Richard Wright. In 1965, she will
return to the University of Iowa to earn her Ph.D. She will
serve for a time as a professor at Jackson State College
(now University). She will join the ancestors on November
30, 1998 after succumbing to breast cancer.

1921 – Ezzard Mack Charles is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will
become a boxer and will be undefeated as an amateur,
winning the 1939 AAU National middleweight title before
turning professional in 1940. After military service during
World War II, he will defeat Hall-of-Famer Archie Moore and
avenge losses to Lloyd Marshall and Jimmy Bivins to earn a
No. 2 ranking at light heavyweight in 1946. He will fight
five light heavyweight champions, beating four of them, but
will never challenge for the light heavyweight crown. He
will finally win the vacant NBA heavyweight title by
defeating Jersey Joe Walcott in 1949. He will earn worldwide
recognition as heavyweight king the next year by decisioning
an aged Joe Louis. After three successful defenses of the
undisputed crown, he will lose the title in a third battle
with Walcott. Charles will announce his retirement from the
ring on December 1, 1956. He will join the ancestors on May
28, 1975 after succumbing to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
(ALS) also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He will be
enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.

1941 – Vernard R. Gray is born in Washington, DC. He will become a
pioneer in the Black Arts Movement. He will begin in the
1960’s as a photographer/videographer documenting African
American culture in the Washington, DC metropolitan area
and around the world. He will found the Miya Gallery in
downtown DC in 1976, introducing the community to various
manifestations of African culture over twenty-five years
and from 1996 will serve as an Internet developer for many
artists, small businesses and non-profit organizations at
Vernard Gray Technology Services at :
http://www.connectdc.com.

1945 – Fern Logan is born in Jamaica (Queens), New York. A graduate
of Pratt Institute, she will study photography in the mid
1970’s with master photographer Paul Caponigro. She will
also receive a Bachelor’s Degree fro State University of
New York and a Masters in Fine Arts Degree from the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago. Among her best-known works
will be the renowned “Artists Portrait Series” of African
American artists such as Romare Bearden, Roy deCarava, and
Jacob Lawrence as well as commanding landscapes and scenes
of nature. She is currently retired (Emerita) from
Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois and
resides in the Greater St. Louis, MO area.

1948 – The Cleveland Indians sign Leroy “Satchel” Paige at the age
of 42. He will become the American League ‘Rookie of the Year’.

1948 – Edna Griffin, her infant daughter Phyllis, John Bibbs and
Leonard Hudson, will enter the Katz Drug Store in downtown
Des Moines, Iowa, sit at the lunch counter and order ice
cream. They will be refused service and Griffin will soon
organize a protest against the drugstore’s policy of
refusing service to blacks. Criminal charges will be filed
against Katz for violating Iowa’s 1884 Civil Rights Act.
The law prohibits discrimination in public accommodation.
Katz will be found guilty and will appeal the verdict to
the Iowa Supreme Court, which affirms the decision a year
later. The case will be settled with Griffin receiving a
one dollar settlement and the drugstore forced to change
its ways.

1960 – Ralph Lee Sampson is born in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He
will become arguably the most heavily recruited (for both
college and the NBA) basketball prospect of his generation.
Playing for the University of Virginia, he will become one
of only two male players in the history of college
basketball to receive the Naismith Award as the National
Player of the Year three times. He will be the only player
to win the Wooden award twice. He will become a
professional basketball player with the Houston Rockets. In
the 1985-86 NBA season, Sampson will (in his third season
with the Rockets) lift the Rockets from 14-68 in the
1982-83 season before his arrival to one of the best in the
NBA. In Game 5 of the 1986 NBA Western Conference Finals,
his last second tip-in at the buzzer will beat the Los
Angeles Lakers and send the Rockets to only their 2nd NBA
Finals appearance in franchise history. His NBA career will
quickly deteriorate as he becomes burdened with numerous
knee injuries. In 1988, by the time he is traded to the
Golden State Warriors, the rest of his career will become
very limited. In 1989, he will be traded to the Sacramento
Kings where he will basically be a third-string player. He
will average 4.2 points per game and 3.0 points per game
for the 1989-90 and 1990-91 seasons respectively. He will
play one final season with the Washington Bullets in
1991-92 where he averages two points per game. He will
win numerous individual awards in the short period of time
he was healthy, but will never win a national or NBA
championship.

1975 – “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the
Rainbow is Not Enuf,” a play by 26-year-old Ntozake Shange,
premieres in New York City.

1994 – Panama withdraws its offer to the United States to accept
thousands of Haitian refugees.

1997 – Harvey Johnson is sworn in as the first African American
mayor in Jackson, Mississippi.

1998 – Imprisoned Nigerian opposition leader Moshood Abiola joins
the ancestors before he can be released from his political
imprisonment. The government indicates that he succumbed
from an apparent heart attack.

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

* Today in Black History – June 30 *

1881 – Henry Highland Garnet, former abolitionist leader and
Presbyterian minister, is named Minister to Liberia.
He will join the ancestors in Monrovia shortly after
his arrival.

1906 – John Hope becomes the first African American president
of Morehouse College.

1917 – Lena Horne is born in Brooklyn, New York. She will
begin her career at 16 as a chorus girl at the Cotton
Club in Harlem, appear in the movies “Cabin in the Sky”
and “Stormy Weather” and have a successful Broadway
career culminating in her one-woman show. Horne will
also be a strong civil rights advocate, refusing to
perform in clubs where African Americans are not
admitted and marching during the civil rights movement
in the 1960s. She will join the ancestors on May 9, 2010.

1921 – Charles S. Gilpin becomes the first actor to receive the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his portrayal of Emperor
Jones in the Eugene O’Neill play of the same name.

1940 – John T. Scott is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will
attend Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans and
receive a Bachelor of Arts degree. He will receive his
Master of Fine Arts degree from Michigan State University
in East Lansing, Michigan in 1965, after which he will
return to Xavier to become a professor of art. In 1995,
he will receive an honorary Doctor of Humanities from
Michigan State University and a Doctor of Humanities from
Tulane University in 1997. In 1992, he will be awarded
the exclusive MacArthur Grant (also known as the “Genius
Grant”) from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation. He will also become a sculptor whose works
will be exhibited widely in the United States and at the
exhibit of “Art of Black America in Japan, Afro-American
Modernism: 1937-1987.” He will be best known for creating
large woodcut prints and for his African-Caribbean-New
Orleans-inspired kinetic sculptures. In 2005, he will be
the subject of a major retrospective exhibit at the New
Orleans Museum of Art entitled “Circle Dance: The Art of
John T. Scott.” He will also be commissioned to create
several pieces that will be placed throughout the City of
New Orleans. These public works in New Orleans include
Spirit Gates at the DeSaix Boulevard traffic circle (at
St. Bernard and Gentilly Boulevards) in the Seventh Ward
and River Spirit at Woldenberg Park along the Mississippi
River near the Port of New Orleans. He will join the
ancestors on September 1, 2007.

1958 – Alabama courts fined the NAACP $ 100,000 for contempt, for
refusing to divulge membership. The U.S. Supreme Court
will reverse the decision.

1960 – Zaire proclaims its independence from Belgium.

1966 – Michael Gerard “Mike” Tyson is born in Brooklyn, New York.
He will become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the
world and hold the record as the youngest boxer to win the
WBC, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles at 20 years, 4 months,
and 22 days old. He will win his first 19 professional
bouts by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. He will
win the WBC title in 1986 after defeating Trevor Berbick
by a TKO in the second round. In 1987, he will add the
WBA and IBF titles after defeating James Smith and Tony
Tucker. He will be the first heavyweight boxer to
simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles, and the
only heavyweight to successively unify them.

1967 – Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. becomes the first African
American astronaut. He will join the ancestors after
being killed during a training flight accident on December
8, 1967.

1969 – Jacob Lawrence receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal “in
testimony to his eminence among American painters.”

1974 – Alberta King, mother of the late Martin Luther King Jr.,
joins the ancestors after being assassinated during a
church service in Atlanta, Georgia. The assailant, Marcus
Chennault of Dayton, Ohio, is later convicted and sentenced
to death.

1978 – Larry Doby becomes the manager of the Chicago White Sox
baseball team. He will have a win-loss record of 37-50 and
will be fired at the end of the season (October 19).

1980 – Coleman A. Young is awarded the Spingarn Medal for his
“singular accomplishment as Mayor of the City of Detroit,”a
position he had held since 1973.

2001 – Saxophonist Joe Henderson joins the ancestors in San
Francisco. His improvisational style and compositions have
influenced jazz musicians everywhere. He had been suffering
from emphysema, and became ill at his home in San Francisco,
but did not go to the hospital until the following day, where
he died of heart failure.

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

* Today in Black History – June 29 *

1868 – The Louisiana legislature meets in New Orleans. The
temporary chairman of the house is an African American
representative, R.H. Isabelle. Oscar J. Dunn presides
over the senate. Seven of the thirty-six senators are
African American. Thirty-five of the 101
representatives are African American.

1886 – James Van Der Zee is born in Lenox, Massachusetts. He
will become one of America’s foremost photographers and
a major chronicler of the visual history of the Harlem
Renaissance. His photographic subjects will include
Marcus Garvey, Madame C.J. Walker, Bill “Bojangles”
Robinson, Countee Cullen, Daddy Grace and many others.
He will obtain national recognition at age 82 when his
collection of 75,000 photographs, spanning a period of
six decades of African American life, is discovered by
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His photos will be
featured in 1969 as part of the “Harlem on my Mind”
exhibition. From the 1970s until he joins the ancestors
on May 15, 1983, Van Der Zee will photograph many
celebrities who had come across his work and promoted
him throughout the country.

1919 – Lloyd Richards is born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His
family will move to Detroit, Michigan soon after he is
born. After graduating from Wayne State University, he
will start a theater group in Detroit with a handful of
friends and classmates. At that time, the American theater
will be entirely centered in New York City. Richards will
move there in 1947 to pursue an acting career. Roles for
African American actors will be hard to come by, but he
will work on Broadway in “Freight and The Egghead” and on
radio throughout the 1950s. He will also teach acting and
direct off-Broadway productions. In 1958, he will become
the first person of African descent to direct a Broadway
play in modern times when he galvanizes Broadway with his
production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.”
This production, a realistic portrayal of a contemporary
Black working class family in Chicago, will begin a new era
in the representation of African Americans on the American
stage. In the 1960s, he will direct the Broadway productions
“The Long Dream,” “The Moon Besieged,” “I Had a Ball” and
“The Yearling.” In 1966, he will become head of the actor
training program at New York University’s School of the Arts.
He will be Professor of Theater and Cinema at Hunter College
in New York City when he is tapped to become dean of the
prestigious Yale University School of Drama in 1979. At the
same time he will become Artistic Director of the highly
influential Yale Repertory theater. Throughout his career,
he will seek to discover and develop new plays and
playwrights, as Artistic Director of the National Playwrights
Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theatre Center, as
a member of the Playwrights’ selection committee of the
Rockefeller Foundation and of the New American Plays program
of the Ford Foundation. His long search for a major new
American playwright will bear fruit with the 1984 production
of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” by August Wilson. Throughout
the 1980s and into the ’90s, he will direct the Yale Rep and
New York productions of the successive installments of August
Wilson’s multi-part chronicle of African American life. The
plays in this cycle will include “Fences,” “Joe Turner’s Come
and Gone,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Two Trains Running” and “Seven
Guitars.” His productions for television include segments of
“Roots: The Next Generation,” “Bill Moyers’ Journal” and
“Robeson,” a presentation on the life of the African American
actor and activist Paul Robeson, who will be an early
inspiration for the young Lloyd Richards. He will also deal
with Robeson’s life and legacy in the 1977 theatrical
production “Paul Robeson.” He will be the recipient of the
Pioneer Award of AUDELCO, the Frederick Douglass Award and,
in 1993, will be awarded the National Medal of the Arts. He
will also serve as President of the Society of Stage Directors
and Choreographers. In 1991, he will retire from his posts as
Dean of the Yale University School of Drama and as Artistic
Director of Yale Rep, but he will remain Professor Emeritus at
Yale University, and continue to teach, direct, and search for
new plays and playwrights. He will be inducted into the Academy
of Achievement in 1987. He will join the ancestors on June 29,
2006.

1943 – Eva Narcissus Boyd is born in Belhaven, North Carolina. She will
move to Brighton Beach, New York at a young age. As a teenager,
she will work as a babysitter for songwriters Carole King and
Gerry Goffin. Amused by Eva’s individual dancing style they
wrote “The Loco-Motion” with Dee Dee Sharp in mind. She
will record it as a demo and music producer Don Kirshner will
be impressed by the song and Eva’s voice and will release it
as is. This will be the birth of “Little Eva”. The song will
become an instant hit after Little Eva demonstrates the song
and dance steps on American Bandstand. It will reach #1 in the
U.S. in 1962. After the success of “The Loco-Motion”, Eva will
be unfortunately stereotyped as a dance-craze singer and will
be given limited material. The notorious 1962 single “He Hit Me
(And It Felt Like a Kiss)” was inspired by the abuse Eva
suffered from her then-boyfriend. She will continue to tour and
record throughout the sixties, but her commercial potential
will plummet after 1964. Little Eva’s other hits will be “Keep
Your Hands Of My Baby”, “Somekind Of Wonderful” and “Let’s
Turkey Trot”. She will retire from the music business in 1971.
She will return to live performing with other artists of her era
on the cabaret and oldies circuits in the 1990’s. She will
continue performing until cervical cancer stops her in October
of 2001. She will join the ancestors after succumbing to the
illness on April 10, 2003 in Kinston, North Carolina.

1949 – South Africa begins its apartheid policy of racial segregation.
This includes a ban against racially-mixed marriages.

1950 – Mabel Keaton Staupers of the National Association of Colored
Graduate Nurses receives the Spingarn Medal in honor of her
advocacy of integration of African American graduate nurses
into the American workplace.

1964 – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is passed.

1968 – Marlin Briscoe becomes the first African American quarterback
to play professional football in the modern NFL.

1970 – NAACP chairman Stephen Gill Spottswood tells the NAACP annual
convention that the Nixon administration is “anti-Negro” and
is pressing “a calculated Policy” inimical to “the needs and
aspirations of the large majority” of citizens.

1972 – U.S. Supreme Court rules, in a five to four decision, that the
death penalty is cruel and unusual punishment which violates
the Eighth Amendment. African Americans and members of other
minority groups constitute 483 of the 600 persons awaiting
execution.

1972 – The NAACP Annual Report states the unemployment of “urban Blacks
in 1971 was worse than at anytime since the great depression
of the thirties.” The report also says that more school
desegregation occurred in 1971 than in any other year since
the 1954 school decision.

1983 – The Apollo Theatre, in Harlem, New York, is declared a cultural
landmark.

1988 – Motown Records is sold for $ 61 million to an investment group
that includes a venture-capital firm, record executive Jheryl
Busby, and others. The company, which was founded by Berry
Gordy in 1959, produced some of the biggest rhythm and blues
performers of all time including the Supremes, the Temptations,
the Four Tops and Marvin Gaye.

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

Today in Black History – June 27 *

1833 – The operator of an academy for African American females
in Canterbury, Connecticut, Prudence Crandall – a white
woman, is arrested for providing this service.

1872 – Paul Laurence Dunbar, short story writer, is born in
Dayton, Ohio. He will be so talented and versatile that he
will succeed in two worlds. He will be so adept at
writing verse in Black English that he will become known
as the “poet of his people,” while also cultivating a white
audience that appreciated the brilliance and value of his
work. “Majors and Minors” (1895), Dunbar’s second
collection of verse, will be a remarkable work containing
some of his best poems in both Black and standard English.
When the country’s reigning literary critic, William Dean
Howells reviews “Majors and Minors” favorably, Dunbar
becomes famous. And Howells’ introduction in “Lyric of
Lowly Life” (1896) will help make Dunbar the most popular
African American writer in America at the time. Dunbar will
join the ancestors after succumbing to tuberculosis on
February 9, 1906. The U.S. Postal Service will issue a
commemorative stamp in his honor on May 1, 1975.

1890 – George Dixon, a Canadian, becomes the first person of
African descent to win a world boxing championship. He
defeats Nunc Wallace to win the bantamweight title. He will
also become the first person of African descent to win an
American title in any sport, when he knocks out Cal McCarthy
in 1891.

1914 – The United States signs a treaty of commerce with Ethiopia.

1919 – Archibald H. Grimke’, noted lawyer and civil rights advocate
who had served as U.S. Consul in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic and president of the American Negro Academy among
his accomplishments, receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.
An original member of the “Committee of Forty” that helped
establish the NAACP, Grimke’ is honored for his “years of
distinguished service to his race and country.”

1941 – Richard Wright is awarded the Spingarn Medal. He is cited
for the power of his books “Uncle Tom’s Children” and
“Native Son” in depicting “the effects of proscription,
segregation and denial of opportunities on the American
Negro.”

1960 – British Somaliland becomes part of Somalia.

1967 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Buffalo, New York.
200 persons are arrested. The disturbance will last four
days.

1970 – The Jackson Five: Marlon, Tito, Jackie, Jermaine and Michael,
jump to number one on the music charts with “The Love You
Save”. The song will stay at the top of the charts for a
two week run. It will be the third of four number-one hits
in a row for the group. The other three are: “I Want You
Back”, “ABC” and “I’ll Be There”. In 15 years, from 1969
to 1984, The Jackson Five/Jacksons will have 23 hits, score
two platinum singles (“Enjoy Yourself” and “Shake Your Body
[Down To The Ground]”) and one gold record (“State of
Shock”).

1972 – Patricia Roberts Harris, the first African American U.S.
Ambassador, is named permanent chairman of the Democratic
National Convention. The Mattoon, Illinois native will
later break new ground as Secretary of Health and Human
Services and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

1977 – Djibouti gains independence from France. Djibouti is located
in East Africa, bordered by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and
the Gulf of Aden.

1978 – Henry Rono of Kenya sets a world record for 3,000 meters,
running in 7 minutes 32 and 1/10 seconds.

1979 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules, in Weber v. Kaiser Aluminum
and Chemical Corporation, that employers and unions can
establish voluntary programs, including the use of quotas,
to aid minorities in employment.

1988 – Mike Tyson knocks out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the
first round, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1989 – The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays 16-6. Each
team is coached by an African American, Frank Robinson of
the Orioles and Cito Gaston of the Blue Jays. Robinson,
who will direct his team to an 87-75 season, will be named
manager of the year by both the Associated Press and the
United Press International.

1991 – Justice Thurgood Marshall, 82, the first African American on
the U.S. Supreme Court, announces his retirement after 24
years service, citing “advancing age and medical condition.”
As chief counsel for the NAACP, Marshall had played a major
role in the legal fight that led to the Brown v. Board of
Education decision, overturning legal segregation. In his
final dissent on the court on June 27, Marshall says that
the court’s conservative majority was recklessly overturning
decisions protecting the right of African Americans and
minorities.

1994 – U.S. Coast Guard cutters intercept 1,330 Haitian boat people
on the high seas in one of the busiest days since refugees
began leaving Haiti following a 1991 military coup.

2014 – Bobby Womack, the legendary soul singer whose career spanned
seven decades, joins the ancestors at age 70. He was in the
first rank of songwriters, penning classics such as “It’s All
Over Now,” which became the Rolling Stones’ first Number One
single in the UK. He was a top-notch guitarist, backing up
everyone from Ray Charles to Aretha Franklin. And when he sang
on his own records, he could compel you to get on your feet
(“Looking for a Love”), reinvent standards as Rhythm & Blues
anthems (“Fly Me to the Moon”) or express yearning like nobody
else (“Across 110th Street”). In 2009, he was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by his old friend and collaborator
Ron Wood, who described him as “a great inspiration to my band
and all of the musicians that I know.” In his acceptance speech,
he remembered playing guitar for Sam Cooke, cited Cooke’s civil
rights anthem “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and astonished by how
society had changed, addressed his dead friend: “Sam, we have
our first black president.”

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