Aretha Franklin – The CamaraIfe Maktaba

February 4, 2015February 4, 2015 KRLemmons African American History

January 31 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 31 *

1863 – The first African American Civil War regiment, the South
Carolina Volunteers, are mustered into the United States
Army.

1865 – Congress abolishes slavery with the 13th Amendment to the
Constitution. The vote in the House is 121 to 24.

1914 – Arnold Raymond Cream is born in Merchantville, New Jersey.
He will become “Jersey Joe Walcott” and World Heavyweight
Champion at the age of 37. After retiring from boxing, he
will stay active in boxing as a referee and later will
become chairman of the New Jersey Athletic Commission. He
will be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame
in 1990. He will join the ancestors on February 25, 1994.

1919 – Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson, the first African American
to break racial barriers in modern major league baseball,
is born in Cairo, Georgia. He will start playing baseball
in the Negro Leagues in preparation for a career as a
physical education coach. His major league baseball career
with the Brooklyn Dodgers will begin in 1947 and he will
play for nine years before leaving baseball to become a bank
official, land developer, and director of programs to
fight drug addiction. Among his honors will be the NAACP’s
Spingarn Medal in 1956. He will join the ancestors
on October 24, 1972 in Stamford, Connecticut after succumbing
to complications of diabetes.

1920 – Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity is incorporated at Howard
University.

1925 – Benjamin Hooks is born in Memphis, Tennessee. He will
become a public defender and minister after graduating
from DePaul University Law School. Through this work, he
will become a prominent leader in the civil rights
movement. In 1965, he will become the first African
American criminal court judge in Tennessee. He will also
become the first African American to become a commissioner
on the Federal Communications Commission. In 1977, he will
become the executive director of the NAACP. He will join the
ancestors on April 15, 2010.

1928 – Harold “Chuck” Willis is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
become a rhythm and blues singer and be best known for his
recording of “C.C. Rider” in 1957. He will join the
ancestors in 1958 after succumbing to peritonitis.

1931 – Ernest “Ernie” Banks is born in Dallas, Texas. He will
become the first African American baseball player to wear
a Chicago Cubs uniform (September 17, 1953). Banks will
also be 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 be elected to the
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1977. He will join the ancestors on January 23, 2015 after succumbing to a heart attack at the age of 83.

1934 – Etta Moten sings for President and Mrs. Franklin D.
Roosevelt at a White House dinner for family and friends.
Moten, a stage and screen star, sings songs from her role
in the movie “Golddiggers of 1933 and “Swing Low Sweet
Chariot.” It is the first time an African American
actress performs at the White House.

1962 – Lt. Commander Samuel L. Gravely assumes command of the
destroyer escort, USS Falgout. The Navy reports that he
is the first African American to command a U.S. warship.

1963 – James Baldwin’s influential collection of essays “The Fire
Next Time” is published.

1972 – Aretha Franklin sings “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” at
Mahalia Jackson’s funeral. Over 40,000 mourners view the
coffin.

1988 – Washington Redskins quarterback Doug Williams is named Most
Valuable Player for leading his team to a 42-10 win over
the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. He is the first
African American quarterback to play in a Super Bowl game.

2006 – Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
joins the ancestors after succumbing to complications of a
stroke and heart attack at the age of seventy eight.

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

May 15, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

May 13 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – May 13 *

1865 – Two white regiments and an African American regiment, the
Sixty-second U.S. Colored Troops, fight in the last action
of the civil war at White’s Ranch, Texas.

1871 – Alcorn A&M College (now Alcorn A&M University) opens in
Lorman, Mississippi.

1888 – Princess Isabel of Brazil signs the “Lei Aurea” (Golden
Law) which abolishes slavery. Slavery is ended in part to
appease the efforts of abolitionists, but mostly because
it is less expensive for employers to hire wageworkers
than to keep slaves. Plantation owners oppose the law
because they are not compensated for releasing their
slaves. The passage of the law hastens the fall of the
Brazilian monarchy.

1891 – Isaac Murphy becomes the first jockey to win three Kentucky
Derbys as he wins the fabled race astride Kingman.
Kingman was trained by Dud Allen, an African American
trainer.

1914 – Joseph Louis Barrow is born in Lexington, Alabama. He will
be better known as Joe Louis. “The Brown Bomber” will
hold the heavyweight crown from his 1937 title match with
James J. Braddock until his first retirement in 1949. In
his 71 professional fights, he will amass a record of 68
victories, 54 by knockouts. He will join the ancestors on
April 12, 1981.

1933 – John Junior “Johnny” Roseboro is born in Ashland, Ohio. He
will become a professional baseball player in 1957 and will
play as a catcher for the Dodgers from 1957-1967, Minnesota
Twins from 1968 to 1969, and the Washington Senators in
1970. He will join the ancestors on August 16, 2002.

1938 – Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra record the New Orleans’
jazz standard, “When The Saints Go Marching In”, on Decca
Records making it extremely popular.

1943 – Mary Wells is born in Detroit, Michigan. She will become a
singer for the Motown label and record the hits, “My Guy,”
“Two Lovers,” “You Beat Me to the Punch,” and “The One Who
Really Loves You.” She will join the ancestors on July 26,
1992 after succumbing to pneumonia and complications of
larynx cancer.

1949 – Franklin Ajaye is born in Brooklyn, New York. He will
become a comedy writer, comedian and actor. He will appear
in the movies “The Jazz Singer,” “Car Wash,” “Hysterical,”
“The Wrong Guys,” and “Jock Jokes.”

1950 – Steveland Judkins Morris is born in Saginaw, Michigan. As
12-year-old Little Stevie Wonder, he will become a singing
and musical sensation notable for “Fingertips, Part 2.”
Wonder will continue to record through-out adulthood, with
the albums “Talking Book,” “Songs in the Key of Life,” “The
Woman in Red,” and the soundtrack to the movie “Jungle
Fever.” Among other awards he will win more than 16 Grammys
and a 1984 best song Oscar for “I Just Called to Say I Love
You.” He will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame in 1989.

1961 – Dennis Rodman is born in Texas. He will become a
professional basketball player and will help two different
teams win multiple NBA championships.

1966 – Federal education funding is denied to 12 school districts
in the South because of violations of the 1964 Civil Rights
Act.

1971 – (James) Charles Evers becomes the first African American
mayor of Fayette, Mississippi.

1971 – Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, receives a gold record
for her version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, originally
a Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel tune.

1978 – Henry Rono of Kenya sets the record for the 3,000 meter
steeplechase (8:05.4). The record will stand for eleven
years.

1979 – Max Robinson becomes the first African American network news
anchor when he anchors ABC’s World News Tonight.

1983 – Reggie Jackson becomes the first major leaguer to strike out
2,000 times.

1985 – Philadelphia Police bomb a house held by the group “Move”,
killing eleven persons. Ramona Africa and a 13-year-old
boy are the only people to escape the inferno that the
blast caused inside 6221 Osage Street. The heat from the
blast also ignites a fire that destroys 60 other homes and
leaves 250 people homeless, angry and heartbroken in a
working-class section of West Philadelphia.

1990 – George Stallings is ordained as the first bishop of the
newly established African American Catholic Church.
Stallings broke from the Roman Catholic Church in 1989,
citing the church’s failure to meet the needs of African
American Catholics.

1995 – Army Captain Lawrence Rockwood is convicted at his court-
martial in Fort Drum, New York, of conducting an
unauthorized investigation of reported human rights abuses
at a Haitian prison (the next day, Rockwood is dismissed
from the military, but receives no prison time).

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

March 29, 2014April 2, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

March 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 25 *

1807 – The British Parliament abolishes the African slave trade.
Although slavery was abolished within England in 1772, it
was still allowed in the British colonies, as was the slave
trade. The continued slave trade was not only accepted, but
considered essential to the power and prosperity of the
British Empire. English slave-merchants made fortunes
carrying slaves from Africa to the British colonies in
North America and the Caribbean, and many of England’s
industries, notably textiles and sugar refining, depended
on raw materials produced by slave labor on colonial
plantations. Still, there were opponents, and in 1787, they
launched a nationwide campaign to seek the abolition of the
slave trade.

1843 – African American explorer Dodson sets out in search of the
Northwest Passage.

1910 – The Liberian Commission recommends financial aid to Liberia
and the establishment of a U.S. Navy coaling station in the
African country.

1931 – Ida B. Wells-Barnett, journalist, militant African American
rights and anti-lynching advocate, and a founder of the
NAACP, joins the ancestors in Chicago at the age of 78.

1931 – Nine African American youths are arrested in Scottsboro,
Alabama, for allegedly raping two white women. Although
they will be quickly convicted, in a trial that outraged
African Americans and much of the nation, the case will be
appealed and the “Scottsboro Boys” will be retried several
times.

1939 – Toni Cade Bambara is born in New York City. She will become
a noted writer of such fiction as “Gorilla, My Love,” and
“The Salt Eaters.”

1942 – Aretha Louise Franklin is born in Memphis, Tennessee. She
will be abandoned by her mother when she was 6, and raised
by her father, the Reverend C. L. Franklin, who is one of
the most famous Black ministers in the North, and her aunt,
the legendary gospel singer Clara Ward. She will grow up
singing in her father’s New Bethel Baptist Church in
Detroit, Michigan. Family friends Mahalia Jackson and Sam
Cooke will encourage her recording career, and when Columbia
Records producer John Hammond first hears the 18-year-old,
he calls her “an untutored genius, the best natural singer
since Billie Holiday.” It will not be until her move from
Columbia’s pop/jazz orchestrations to Atlantic Records’
soulful, Rhythm and Blues style, in 1966, that her career
skyrockets. Under the auspices of Jerry Wexler, she will
sing fierce, frantic hits like “I Never Loved a Man,”
“Respect,” “Natural Woman,” and “Chain of Fools.” In 1968,
she will make the cover of Time magazine. From her first
singing experiences in her father’s church through a singing
career and 21 gold records, she will earn the title, “Queen
of Soul.” She will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of
Fame in 1987.

1965 – The Selma-to-Montgomery march ended with rally of some fifty
thousand at Alabama capitol. One of the marchers, a white
civil rights worker named Viola Liuzzo, is shot to death on
U.S. Highway 80 after the rally by white terrorists. Three
Klansmen are convicted of violating her civil rights and
sentenced to ten years in prison.

1967 – Debi Thomas is born. After being raised in San Jose,
California by her mother(who shuttled her back and forth
between home, school and practice at the rate of 3,000 miles
per month), she will become the first African American to
win the world figure skating championship (1986). She will
later become the first African American to win a medal in
the Winter Olympics (Bronze Medal in Figure Skating –
February 27, 1988).

1975 – Salem Poor, who fought alongside other colonists during the
Battle of Bunker Hill, is honored as one of four
“Contributors to the Cause,” a commemorative issue of the
U.S. Postal Service.

1991 – Whoopi Goldberg wins the Academy Award for best actress in a
supporting role for “Ghost.” Also winning an Oscar is
Russell Williams II, for best sound editing for the movie
“Dances with Wolves.” It is Williams’s second Oscar in a
row (the first was for “Glory”), a record for an African
American.

1994 – American troops complete their withdrawal from Somalia.

2000 – Character actress Helen Martin, who played the little old
lady next door in the mid-1980s television series “227” and
Halle Berry’s matriarch in the political comedy “Bulworth,”
joins the ancestors at the age of 90. An original member
of Harlem’s American Negro Theater, Martin was one of the
first African American actresses to appear on Broadway when
Orson Welles cast her in his production of “Native Son.”
She worked primarily as a stage actress early in her career,
but was perhaps best known for appearing as grandmotherly
characters in television series about African American
families.

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

January 7, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

January 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 3 *

1621 – William Tucker is born in Jamestown, Virginia. He is the first
African American child, on record, born in the American
colonies.

1945 – The Albany Institute of History and Art in New York State opens
its exhibit “The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of
Contemporary American Artists.” The show includes works by
Aaron Douglas, William H. Johnson, Palmer Hayden, Eldzier
Cortor, Lois Mailou Jones, and others and will run for five weeks.

1947 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s
annual report calls 1946 “one of the grimmest years in the
history of the NAACP.” The report details violence and
atrocities heaped on “Negro veterans freshly returned from a
war to end torture and racial extermination,” and said “Negroes
in America have been disillusioned over the wave of lynchings,
brutality and official recession from all of the flamboyant
promises of post war democracy and decency.”

1947 – William Dawson becomes the first African American to head a
congressional committee; Congressional proceedings are televised
for the first time as viewers in Washington, Philadelphia and
New York got to see some of the opening ceremonies of the 80th
Congress.

1956 – The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, established in 1870,
officially changes its name to the Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church. The denomination is headquartered today in Memphis,
Tennessee, and comprises a membership of nearly 500,000.

1961 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. is elected Chairman of The House
Education and Labor Committee.

1966 – Floyd B. McKissick, a North Carolina attorney, is named national
director of The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

1969 – Louis Stokes is sworn in as the first African American
congressman from the state of Ohio. He will serve more that ten
terms in Congress and be distinguished by his leadership of the
1977 Select Committee on Assassinations and chairmanship of the
House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics
Committee).

1969 – Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. is seated by Congress
after being expelled by Congress in 1967, and re-elected by the
voters in his Harlem district.

1983 – Tony Dorsett sets an NFL record with a 99-yd rush, in a game
between the Dallas Cowboys and the Minnesota Vikings.

1984 – Syria frees captured U.S. pilot Robert Goodman, shot down over
Damascus, after a personal appeal from Rev. Jesse Jackson.

1985 – Soprano, Leontyne Price bids adieu to the Metropolitan Opera in
New York. She sings the title role of “Aida”. Price had been
part of the Metropolitan Opera since 1961.

1985 – The Israeli government confirms the resettlement of 10,000
Ethiopian Jews.

1987 – The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducts its first female artist –
“Lady Soul,” Aretha Franklin.

1989 – “The Arsenio Hall Show” premieres. It is the first regularly
scheduled nightly talk show to star an African American.

1997 – Bryant Gumbel co-hosts his final “Today” show on NBC.

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

May 14, 2013 KRLemmons African American History

May 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – May 13 *