January 4 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 4 *

1787 – Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic
lodge, and others petition the Massachusetts legislature for
funds to return to Africa. The plan is the first recorded
effort by African Americans to return to their homeland.

1832 – A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.

1901 – Cyril Lionel Richard James is born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. He
will become a writer, historian, Marxist social critic, and
activist who deeply influenced the intellectual underpinnings
of West Indian and African movements for independence. He was
born into an educated family in colonial Trinidad. At the age
of nine He earned a scholarship to Queen’s Royal College, in
Port of Spain, Trinidad, and graduated in 1918. In 1932 James
left Trinidad for England. He will become involved in socialist
politics, gravitating toward a faction of anti-Stalinist
Marxists. He applied Leon Trotsky’s views about a worldwide
workers’ revolution to his colonial home. The result, in part,
was “The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British
Government in the West Indies” (1932), in which he called for
Caribbean independence. For a time in the 1970s he taught at
Federal City College in Washington, D.C. He lived the last
years of his life in London. Three volumes of his collected
works appeared as “The Future in the Present” (1977), “Spheres
of Existence” (1980), and “At the Rendezvous of Victory”
(1984). He will join the ancestors on May 31, 1989 in London,
England.

1920 – Andrew “Rube” Foster organizes the Negro National Baseball
League.

1935 – Floyd Patterson is born in Waco, North Carolina. He will become
a boxer, winning a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympic Games
in the middleweight class. He will become the first gold
medalist to win a world professional title. He will join the
ancestors on May 11, 2006.

1937 – Grace Ann Bumbry is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will grow
up at 1703 Goode Avenue in the city. She will join the Union
Memorial Methodist Church’s choir at eleven, and sing at Sumner
High School. She will be a 1954 winner on the “Arthur Godfrey
Talent Scouts” show. After her concert debut in London in 1959,
Bumbry debuts with the Paris Opera the next year. In 1961,
Richard Wagner’s grandson features her in Bayreuth, Germany’s
Wagner Festival. The first person of African descent to sing
there, Bumbry will be an international sensation and win the
Wagner Medal. A mezzo-soprano who also successfully sang the
soprano repertoire, Grace Bumbry will record on four labels and
sing in concerts world wide. Her honors will include induction
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, the UNESCO Award, the
Distinguished Alumna Award from the Academy of Music of the
West, Italy’s Premio Giuseppe Verdi, and being named Commandeur
des Arts et Lettres by the French government.

1944 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is appointed the first African American
official in the U.S. State Department.

1971 – Dr. Melvin H. Evans is inaugurated as the first elected governor
of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1985 – Congressman William H. Gray is elected chairman of the House
Budget Committee, the highest congressional post, to date, held
by an African American.

1986 – David Robinson blocks a N.C.A.A. record 14 shots while playing
for the U.S. Naval Academy.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Mr. Rene’ A. Perry.

September 17 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 17 *

1787 – The U.S. Constitution is approved at the Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with three
clauses protecting slavery.

1861 – The first day-school for ex-slaves is opened in Fortress
Monroe, Virginia under the tutelage of an African
American schoolteacher, Mary S. Peake. The school will
later become Hampton Institute (now University) in 1868.

1879 – Andrew “Rube” Foster is born in Calvert, Texas. He will
become an American baseball player, manager, and
executive in the Negro Leagues. He will be considered by
historians to have been perhaps the best African American
pitcher of the 1900s. He will also found and manage the
Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful Black
baseball teams of the pre-integration era. Most notably,
he will organize the Negro National League, the first
lasting professional league for African American ball
players, which will operate from 1920 to 1931. He will
adopted his longtime nickname “Rube” as his official
middle name later in life. He will join the ancestors on
December 9, 1930 and will be posthumously elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1953 – Ernie Banks becomes the first African American baseball
player to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform. Banks is also
quick to say “Let’s play two!” Banks will be the Cubs’
outstanding shortstop from 1954 to 1960. In 1961 he will
be moved to left field, then to first base, where he will
spend the rest of his career. In 1969, Ernie Banks will
be voted the Cub’s best player ever by Chicago fans. ‘Mr.
Cub’ will retire in 1971. He will elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1977, the first year of his eligibility.

1956 – African American students are admitted to a Clay, Kentucky
elementary school under National Guard protection. They
had previously been barred by local authorities on
September 12.

1962 – The Justice Department files the first suit to end racial
segregation in public schools. The fourth African American
church is burned near Dawson, Georgia. Three white men
later admitted burning the church. They were sentenced to
seven year prison terms.

1967 – Abdul-Malik Kashie Yoba is born in the Bronx, New York. He
will become an actor best known for his role as the star
of the popular Fox Television police drama “New York
Undercover” from 1994 to 1998. He will also appear in
films such as “Cool Runnings” and “Criminal.” He will
make appearances on the Fox television series “Arrested
Development” as Ice, a bounty hunter and party planner.
He will also be a recurring character, Brock Harris, on
the UPN sitcom “Girlfriends.” He will also appear in the
FX Networks crime drama “Thief.” In 2007, he will appear
in NBC’s crime drama “Raines” alongside Jeff Goldblum.

1968 – “Julia” premieres on NBC with Diahann Carroll in the title
role. It is the first television show to star an African
American woman since “Beulah” in the 1950’s.

1970 – “The Flip Wilson Show” premieres on NBC. Starring the New
Jersey comedian born as Clerow Wilson, it is the first
prime-time variety show starring an African American male
since “The Nat King Cole Show”.

1973 – Illinois becomes the first state to honor Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s birthday as a holiday.

1983 – Vanessa Williams, Miss New York State, is named Miss
America in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first African
American winner in the history of the pageant. Williams
will relinquish her crown after a 1984 scandal and later
stage a remarkable comeback through a stellar recording
career, which will include her multimillion-selling album,
“The Right Stuff”.

1984 – New York Met’s, Dwight Goodin, becomes the 2nd person to
strike out 32 batters over 2 consecutive games.

1990 – “The Content of Our Character” is published by San Jose
State University professor Shelby Steele. The book will
attract controversy because of its provocative positions
on affirmative action and race relations and win a 1992
National Book Award.

1991 – Ground is broken for the Harold Washington wing of the
DuSable Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by artist
and poet Margaret T. Burroughs in 1961, the DuSable is
one of the oldest African American museums in the United
States.

1994 – As some 20 warships sit off the coast of Haiti, former
President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and
retired Gen. Colin Powell arrive in the Caribbean nation
in an 11th-hour bid to avert a U.S.-led invasion.

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

February 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 13 *

1818 – The first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the
United States, Absalom Jones, joins the ancestors in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was an instrumental force in
the development of the early African American church and
benevolent society movements.

1882 – Henry Highland Garnet, abolitionist, preacher, diplomat and
protest leader, joins the ancestors in Monrovia, Liberia at
the age of 66.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 4 *

1787 – Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic
lodge, and others petition the Massachusetts legislature for
funds to return to Africa. The plan is the first recorded
effort by African Americans to return to their homeland.

1832 – A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.

1901 – Cyril Lionel Richard James is born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. He
will become a writer, historian, Marxist social critic, and
activist who deeply influenced the intellectual underpinnings
of West Indian and African movements for independence. He was
born into an educated family in colonial Trinidad. At the age
of nine He earned a scholarship to Queen’s Royal College, in
Port of Spain, Trinidad, and graduated in 1918. In 1932 James
left Trinidad for England. He will become involved in socialist
politics, gravitating toward a faction of anti-Stalinist
Marxists. He applied Leon Trotsky’s views about a worldwide
workers’ revolution to his colonial home. The result, in part,
was “The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British
Government in the West Indies” (1932), in which he called for
Caribbean independence. For a time in the 1970s he taught at
Federal City College in Washington, D.C. He lived the last
years of his life in London. Three volumes of his collected
works appeared as “The Future in the Present” (1977), “Spheres
of Existence” (1980), and “At the Rendezvous of Victory”
(1984). He will join the ancestors on May 31, 1989 in London,
England.

1920 – Andrew “Rube” Foster organizes the Negro National Baseball
League.

1935 – Floyd Patterson is born in Waco, North Carolina. He will become
a boxer, winning a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympic Games
in the middleweight class. He will become the first gold
medalist to win a world professional title. He will join the
ancestors on May 11, 2006.

1937 – Grace Ann Bumbry is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will grow
up at 1703 Goode Avenue in the city. She will join the Union
Memorial Methodist Church’s choir at eleven, and sing at Sumner
High School. She will be a 1954 winner on the “Arthur Godfrey
Talent Scouts” show. After her concert debut in London in 1959,
Bumbry debuts with the Paris Opera the next year. In 1961,
Richard Wagner’s grandson features her in Bayreuth, Germany’s
Wagner Festival. The first person of African descent to sing
there, Bumbry will be an international sensation and win the
Wagner Medal. A mezzo-soprano who also successfully sang the
soprano repertoire, Grace Bumbry will record on four labels and
sing in concerts world wide. Her honors will include induction
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, the UNESCO Award, the
Distinguished Alumna Award from the Academy of Music of the
West, Italy’s Premio Giuseppe Verdi, and being named Commandeur
des Arts et Lettres by the French government.

1944 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is appointed the first African American
official in the U.S. State Department.

1971 – Dr. Melvin H. Evans is inaugurated as the first elected governor
of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1985 – Congressman William H. Gray is elected chairman of the House
Budget Committee, the highest congressional post, to date, held
by an African American.

1986 – David Robinson blocks a N.C.A.A. record 14 shots while playing
for the U.S. Naval Academy.

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

September 17 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 17 *

1787 – The U.S. Constitution is approved at the Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with three
clauses protecting slavery.

1861 – The first day-school for ex-slaves is opened in Fortress
Monroe, Virginia under the tutelage of an African
American schoolteacher, Mary S. Peake. The school will
later become Hampton Institute (now University) in 1868.

1879 – Andrew “Rube” Foster is born in Calvert, Texas. He will
become an American baseball player, manager, and
executive in the Negro Leagues. He will be considered by
historians to have been perhaps the best African American
pitcher of the 1900s. He will also found and manage the
Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful Black
baseball teams of the pre-integration era. Most notably,
he will organize the Negro National League, the first
lasting professional league for African American ball
players, which will operate from 1920 to 1931. He will
adopted his longtime nickname “Rube” as his official
middle name later in life. He will join the ancestors on
December 9, 1930 and will be posthumously elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1953 – Ernie Banks becomes the first African American baseball
player to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform. Banks is also
quick to say “Let’s play two!” Banks will be the Cubs’
outstanding shortstop from 1954 to 1960. In 1961 he will
be moved to left field, then to first base, where he will
spend the rest of his career. In 1969, Ernie Banks will
be voted the Cub’s best player ever by Chicago fans. ‘Mr.
Cub’ will retire in 1971. He will elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1977, the first year of his eligibility.

1956 – African American students are admitted to a Clay, Kentucky
elementary school under National Guard protection. They
had previously been barred by local authorities on
September 12.

1962 – The Justice Department files the first suit to end racial
segregation in public schools. The fourth African American
church is burned near Dawson, Georgia. Three white men
later admitted burning the church. They were sentenced to
seven year prison terms.

1967 – Abdul-Malik Kashie Yoba is born in the Bronx, New York. He
will become an actor best known for his role as the star
of the popular Fox Television police drama “New York
Undercover” from 1994 to 1998. He will also appear in
films such as “Cool Runnings” and “Criminal.” He will
make appearances on the Fox television series “Arrested
Development” as Ice, a bounty hunter and party planner.
He will also be a recurring character, Brock Harris, on
the UPN sitcom “Girlfriends.” He will also appear in the
FX Networks crime drama “Thief.” In 2007, he will appear
in NBC’s crime drama “Raines” alongside Jeff Goldblum.

1968 – “Julia” premieres on NBC with Diahann Carroll in the title
role. It is the first television show to star an African
American woman since “Beulah” in the 1950’s.

1970 – “The Flip Wilson Show” premieres on NBC. Starring the New
Jersey comedian born as Clerow Wilson, it is the first
prime-time variety show starring an African American male
since “The Nat King Cole Show”.

1973 – Illinois becomes the first state to honor Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s birthday as a holiday.

1983 – Vanessa Williams, Miss New York State, is named Miss
America in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first African
American winner in the history of the pageant. Williams
will relinquish her crown after a 1984 scandal and later
stage a remarkable comeback through a stellar recording
career, which will include her multimillion-selling album,
“The Right Stuff”.

1984 – New York Met’s, Dwight Goodin, becomes the 2nd person to
strike out 32 batters over 2 consecutive games.

1990 – “The Content of Our Character” is published by San Jose
State University professor Shelby Steele. The book will
attract controversy because of its provocative positions
on affirmative action and race relations and win a 1992
National Book Award.

1991 – Ground is broken for the Harold Washington wing of the
DuSable Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by artist
and poet Margaret T. Burroughs in 1961, the DuSable is
one of the oldest African American museums in the United
States.

1994 – As some 20 warships sit off the coast of Haiti, former
President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and
retired Gen. Colin Powell arrive in the Caribbean nation
in an 11th-hour bid to avert a U.S.-led invasion.

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

February 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 13 *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 4 *

1787 – Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic
lodge, and others petition the Massachusetts legislative for
funds to return to Africa. The plan is the first recorded
effort by African Americans to return to their homeland.

1832 – A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.

1901 – Cyril Lionel Richard James is born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. He
will become a writer, historian, Marxist social critic, and
activist who deeply influenced the intellectual underpinnings
of West Indian and African movements for independence. He was
born into an educated family in colonial Trinidad. At the age
of nine He earned a scholarship to Queen’s Royal College, in
Port of Spain, Trinidad, and graduated in 1918. In 1932 James
left Trinidad for England. He will become involved in socialist
politics, gravitating toward a faction of anti-Stalinist
Marxists. He applied Leon Trotsky’s views about a worldwide
workers’ revolution to his colonial home. The result, in part,
was “The Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British
Government in the West Indies” (1932), in which he called for
Caribbean independence. For a time in the 1970s he taught at
Federal City College in Washington, D.C. He lived the last
years of his life in London. Three volumes of his collected
works appeared as “The Future in the Present” (1977), “Spheres
of Existence” (1980), and “At the Rendezvous of Victory”
(1984). He will join the ancestors on May 31, 1989 in London,
England.

1920 – Andrew “Rube” Foster organizes the Negro National Baseball
League.

1935 – Floyd Patterson is born in Waco, North Carolina. He will become
a boxer, winning a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympic Games
in the middleweight class. He will become the first gold
medalist to win a world professional title. He will join the
ancestors on May 11, 2006.

1937 – Grace Ann Bumbry is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will grow
up at 1703 Goode Avenue in the city. She will join the Union
Memorial Methodist Church’s choir at eleven, and sing at Sumner
High School. She will be a 1954 winner on the “Arthur Godfrey
Talent Scouts” show. After her concert debut in London in 1959,
Bumbry debuts with the Paris Opera the next year. In 1961,
Richard Wagner’s grandson features her in Bayreuth, Germany’s
Wagner Festival. The first person of African descent to sing
there, Bumbry will be an international sensation and win the
Wagner Medal. A mezzo-soprano who also successfully sang the
soprano repertoire, Grace Bumbry will record on four labels and
sing in concerts world wide. Her honors will include induction
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, the UNESCO Award, the
Distinguished Alumna Award from the Academy of Music of the
West, Italy’s Premio Giuseppe Verdi, and being named Commandeur
des Arts et Lettres by the French government.

1944 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is appointed the first African American
official in the U.S. State Department.

1971 – Dr. Melvin H. Evans is inaugurated as the first elected governor
of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1985 – Congressman William H. Gray is elected chairman of the House
Budget Committee, the highest congressional post, to date, held
by an African American.

1986 – David Robinson blocks a N.C.A.A. record 14 shots while playing
for the U.S. Naval Academy.

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

September 17 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 17         *

1787 – The U.S. Constitution is approved at the Constitutional
Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with three
clauses protecting slavery.

1861 – The first day-school for ex-slaves is opened in Fortress
Monroe, Virginia under the tutelage of an African
American schoolteacher, Mary S. Peake.  The school will
later become Hampton Institute (now University) in 1868.

1879 – Andrew “Rube” Foster is born in Calvert, Texas. He will
become an American baseball player, manager, and
executive in the Negro Leagues. He will be considered by
historians to have been perhaps the best African American
pitcher of the 1900s. He will also found and manage the
Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful Black
baseball teams of the pre-integration era. Most notably,
he will organize the Negro National League, the first
lasting professional league for African American ball
players, which will operate from 1920 to 1931. He will
adopted his longtime nickname “Rube” as his official
middle name later in life. He will join the ancestors on
December 9, 1930 and will be posthumously elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1953 – Ernie Banks becomes the first African American baseball
player to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform.  Banks is also
quick to say “Let’s play two!”  Banks will be the Cubs’
outstanding shortstop from 1954 to 1960.  In 1961 he will
be moved to left field, then to first base, where he will
spend the rest of his career. In 1969, Ernie Banks will
be voted the Cub’s best player ever by Chicago fans. ‘Mr.
Cub’ will retire in 1971. He will elected to the Baseball
Hall of Fame in 1977, the first year of his eligibility.

1956 – African American students are admitted to a Clay, Kentucky
elementary school under National Guard protection. They
had previously been barred by local authorities on
September 12.

1962 – The Justice Department files the first suit to end racial
segregation in public schools. The fourth African American
church is burned near Dawson, Georgia. Three white men
later admitted burning the church. They were sentenced to
seven year prison terms.

1967 – Abdul-Malik Kashie Yoba is born in the Bronx, New York. He
will become an actor best known for his role as the star
of the popular Fox Television police drama “New York
Undercover” from 1994 to 1998. He will also appear in
films such as “Cool Runnings” and “Criminal.” He will
make appearances on the Fox television series “Arrested
Development” as Ice, a bounty hunter and party planner.
He will also be a recurring character, Brock Harris, on
the UPN sitcom “Girlfriends.” He will also appear in the
FX Networks crime drama “Thief.” In 2007, he will appear
in NBC’s crime drama “Raines” alongside Jeff Goldblum.

1968 – “Julia” premieres on NBC with Diahann Carroll in the title
role. It is the first television show to star an African
American woman since “Beulah” in the 1950’s.

1970 – “The Flip Wilson Show” premieres on NBC.  Starring the New
Jersey comedian born as Clerow Wilson, it is the first
prime-time variety show starring an African American male
since “The Nat King Cole Show”.

1973 – Illinois becomes the first state to honor Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s birthday as a holiday.

1983 – Vanessa Williams, Miss New York State, is named Miss
America in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the first African
American winner in the history of the pageant. Williams
will relinquish her crown after a 1984 scandal and later
stage a remarkable comeback through a stellar recording
career, which will include her multimillion-selling album,
“The Right Stuff”.

1984 – New York Met’s, Dwight Goodin, becomes the 2nd person to
strike out 32 batters over 2 consecutive games.

1990 – “The Content of Our Character” is published by San Jose
State University professor Shelby Steele. The book will
attract controversy because of its provocative positions
on affirmative action and race relations and win a 1992
National Book Award.

1991 – Ground is broken for the Harold Washington wing of the
DuSable Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by artist
and poet Margaret T. Burroughs in 1961, the DuSable is
one of the oldest African American museums in the United
States.

1994 – As some 20 warships sit off the coast of Haiti, former
President Jimmy Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and
retired Gen. Colin Powell arrive in the Caribbean nation
in an 11th-hour bid to avert a U.S.-led invasion.

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