KRLemmons African American History

December 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – December 30 *

***********************************************************************
* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #5 – Nia (nee-AH) Purpose: To make as our collective vocation *
* the building and developing of our community in order to restore *
* our people to their traditional greatness. *
***********************************************************************

1842 – Josiah T. Walls is born near Winchester, Virginia. He will
become, in 1871, Florida’s first African American congressman.

1892 – Physician, Dr. Miles V. Lynk, publishes the first African
American medical journal.

1916 – Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, of Brown University, becomes
the first African American running back named to the All-
American team.

1928 – Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel is born in Magnolia, Mississippi. Better
known as Bo Diddley, he will influence a generation of musicians
including such groups as the Rolling Stones and the Doors. A
favorite of President John F. Kennedy, who invited Diddley to
play in the White House in 1962, he will be inducted into the
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He will join the ancestors
on June 2, 2008.

1929 – The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is incorporated.

1929 – The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign begins in Chicago
with picketing of Chain stores on the South Side. The campaign
spread to New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities and
continued throughout the Depression.

1929 – Mordecai W. Johnson receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
work as the first African American president of Howard
University.

1935 – Marian Anderson makes a historic appearance in New York City’s
Town Hall. Fresh from a triumphant tour in Europe, Anderson
will be hailed by New York critics as one of the “great singers
of our time.” Her performance will mark a new era in the
Philadelphian’s long and successful career. Her performance is
described by Howard Taubman, the New York Times reviewer, as
“music-making that probed too deep for words.”

1952 – Tuskegee Institute reports there were no lynchings during the
year for the first time in the 71 years it has been keeping such
records.

1960 – Poet Langston Hughes is presented the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal and
cited as “the poet laureate of the Negro race.”

1960 – Two U.S. courts issues temporary injunctions to prevent eviction
of about seven hundred African American sharecroppers in Haywood
and Fayette counties, Tennessee.

1961 – Ben Johnson is born in Falmouth, Jamaica. He will become a world
class 100 meter runner. He win the Olympic gold medal in 1988
and will be later disqualified for using steroids.

1975 – The constitution of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar comes
into effect.

1975 – Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods is born in Cypress, California. He will
become the first African American or Asian American to win the
Masters Golf tournament. He will accomplish this feat in his
first year on the PGA tour at the age of 21 also making him the
youngest person to win the Masters tournament.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 27 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 27 *

1785 – David Walker, who will become an abolitionist and write
the famous “Walker’s Appeal,” is born free in Wilmington,
North Carolina. He will join the ancestors on June 28, 1830.

1822 – Hiram R. Revels, is born free in Fayetteville, North
Carolina. He will become the first African American U.S.
Senator, elected from Mississippi.

1862 – The First Louisiana Native Guards, the first African
American regiment to receive official recognition, is
mustered into the Union army. The Regiment is composed of
free African Americans from the New Orleans area.

1867 – Louisiana voters endorse the constitutional convention and
elect delegates in the first election under The
Reconstruction Acts. The vote was 75,000 for the
convention and 4,000 against.

1875 – Branch Normal College opens in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. A
segregated unit of the state university, the college is
established by Joseph C. Corbin.

1876 – Edward Mitchell Bannister wins a bronze medal for his
painting “Under the Oaks” at the American Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The award to
Bannister will cause controversy among whites who think
African Americans incapable of artistic excellence.

1877 – John Mercer Langston is named Minister to Haiti.

1934 – Greg Morris is born in Cleveland, Ohio. He will come to
Hollywood in the early 1960s to become an actor after
some minor stage experience in Seattle. He will have
guest roles on such series as “Dr. Kildare,” “The Dick Van
Dyke Show” and “The Twilight Zone” before being cast in
“Mission: Impossible.” He will be one of the first African
American actors to star in a hit series during the 1960s,
playing Barney Collier, the quiet, efficient electronics
expert on “Mission: Impossible,” which ran from 1966 to
1973. In 1979, he will go to Las Vegas to film the
television series “Vega$,” in which he plays Lt. David
Nelson. He will like the city so much he will decide to
make it his home. He will join the ancestors after
succumbing to cancer there in 1996.

1936 – Don Cornelius is born. He will become the creator,
producer, and host of the TV show, “Soul Train” in 1970.
The show will become the longest running program
originally produced for first-run syndication in the
entire history of television. The show’s resounding
success will position it as the cornerstone of the Soul
Train franchise which includes the annual specials: “Soul
Train Music Awards,” the “Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards”
and the “Soul Train Christmas Starfest.”

1940 – African American leaders protest discrimination in the U.S.
Armed Forces and war industries at a White House meeting
with President Roosevelt.

1944 – Stephanie Pogue is born in Shelby, North Carolina. She
will become an artist and art professor whose works will
be collected by New York City’s Whitney Museum of American
Art and the Studio Museum of Harlem while she will exhibit
widely in the United States, Europe, Japan, and South
America.

1950 – Heavyweight champion Ezzard Charles defeats Joe Louis.

1953 – Diane Abbott is born in the working-class neighborhood of
Paddington in London, England. Her mother (a nurse) and
father (a welder) had moved there in 1951 from Jamaica. A
graduate of Cambridge University, she will make history on
June 11, 1987, becoming the first female of African
descent to be a member of the British Parliament. Her
outspoken criticism of racism and her commitment to
progressive politics will make her a controversial figure
in Great Britain’s Labour Party.

1954 – Public school integration begins in Washington, DC and
Baltimore, Maryland.

1961 – Sierre Leone becomes the 100th member of the United Nations.

1967 – Washington, DC’s Anacostia Museum, dedicated to informing
the community of the contributions of African Americans to
United States social, political and cultural history,
opens its doors to the public.

1988 – Several athletes, among them black Canadian sprinter Ben
Johnson, are expelled from the Olympic Games for anabolic
steroid use. Johnson’s gold medal, won in the 100-meter
dash, is awarded to African American Carl Lewis, the
second-place finisher.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 6 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 6 *

1826 – John Brown Russwurm graduates from Bowdoin College. While
many sources consider him to be the first African American
in America to graduate from college, he was preceded by
Edward Jones (B.A. Amherst College – August 23, 1826) and
Alexander Lucius Twilight (B.A. Middlebury College –
1823).

1848 – National Black Convention meets in Cleveland, Ohio with
some seventy delegates. Frederick Douglass is elected
president of the convention.

1865 – Thaddeus Stevens, powerful U.S. congressman, urges
confiscation of estates of Confederate leaders and the
distribution of land to adult freedmen in forty-acre
lots.

1866 – Frederick Douglass becomes the first African American
delegate to a national political convention.

1876 – A race riot occurs in Charleston, South Carolina.

1892 – George “Little Chocolate” Dixon beats Jack Skelly in New
Orleans to win the world featherweight title. While some
African American citizens celebrate for two days, the New
Orleans Times-Democrat says, “It was a mistake to match a
Negro and a white man, to bring the races together on any
terms of equality even in the prize ring.”

1905 – The Atlanta Life Insurance Company is established by A.F.
Herndon.

1930 – Leander Jay Shaw, Jr. is born in Salem, Virginia. He will
become a justice of the Florida State Supreme Court in
1983 and, in 1990, the chief justice, a first in Florida
and the second African American chief justice in any
state supreme court.

1966 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in Atlanta,
Georgia.

1967 – President Lyndon B. Johnson names Walter E. Washington,
commissioner and “unofficial” mayor of Washington, DC.

1968 – The Kingdom of Swaziland achieves full independence from
Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy.

1982 – Willie Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, sees his
uniform, number 8, retired by the Bucs. It is the fourth
Pirate player’s uniform to be so honored. The other
three belonged to Roberto Clemente (#21), Honus Wagner
(#33) and Pie Traynor (#20).

1988 – Lee Roy Young becomes the first African American Texas
Ranger in the police force’s 165-year history. Young is
a 14-year veteran of the Texas Department of Public
Safety.

1989 – The International Amateur Athletic Federation bans Ben
Johnson of Canada from competition, after he tests
positive for steroids. He is also stripped of all of his
track records.

1989 – The National Party, the governing party of South Africa,
loses nearly a quarter of its parliamentary seats to
far-right and anti-apartheid rivals, its worst setback
in four decades.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 30 *

1800 – Jack Bowler and Coachman Gabriel Prosser’s plans for a
slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia, are betrayed by a
pair of house slaves attempting to save their master.
Prosser’s plan, which involved over 1,100 slaves, would
have resulted in the death of all slave-owning whites,
but would have spared Quakers, Frenchmen, elderly women,
and children.

1838 – The first African American magazine “Mirror of Freedom”,
begins publication in New York City by abolitionist
David Ruggles.

1843 – The Liberty Party has the first African American
participation in a national political convention.
Samuel R. Ward leads the convention in prayer — Henry
Highland Garnet, a twenty-seven-year-old Presbyterian
pastor who calls for a slave revolt and a general slave
strike. Amos G. Beman of New Haven, Connecticut is
elected president of the convention.

1856 – Wilberforce University is established in Xenia, Ohio under
the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1863,
the university was transferred to the African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) Church.

1861 – General John C. Fremont issues an order confiscating the
property of Confederates and emancipating their slaves.
The order causes wide-spread protest and is revoked by
President Lincoln.

1892 – S. R. Scottron patents a curtain rod.

1901 – Roy Wilkins is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will become
a civil rights leader, assistant executive secretary of
the NAACP under Walter White and editor of the Crisis
Magazine for 15 years. He will become Executive Secretary
of the NAACP in 1955, a post he will hold for 22 years.
During his tenure, he will be a champion of civil rights
committed to using constitutional arguments to help obtain
full citizenship rights for all African Americans. He will
join the ancestors on September 8, 1981.

1931 – Carrie Saxon Perry is born in Hartford, Connecticut. In
1987, she will be elected mayor of Hartford, becoming the
first African American mayor of a major eastern United
States city.

1953 – Robert Parish is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He will
become a professional basketballplayer. Playing 14 years
with the Boston Celtics from 1980 to 1994, he will win
three NBA titles (1981, 1984 and 1986) teaming with
legendary small forward Larry Bird, and, from 1983 to 1992
with Kevin McHale. The trio will be regarded by many as the
best front court in NBA history.

1956 – A white mob prevents the enrollment of blacks at Mansfield
High School in Texas.

1961 – James Benton Parsons is confirmed as the first African
American judge of a United States District Court in the
continental United States (Northern Illinois). He had
been appointed by President John F. Kennedy on April 18,
1961.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African
American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been
appointed by President Lyndon Johnson on June 13, 1967.

1969 – Racially motivated civil disturbances occur in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida.

1983 – Lt. Colonel Guion S. Bluford is the first African American
in space when he serves as a mission specialist on the
Challenger space shuttle. The space shuttle, launched
from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stayed in orbit
almost six days. This was the Challenger’s third flight
into space.

1987 – Ben Johnson of Canada runs 100 meters in world record time
of 9.83 seconds.

1990 – Ken Griffey & Ken Griffey, Jr. become the first father &
son to play on the same professional sports team (Seattle
Mariners). Both single in the first inning.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 30 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 30 *

***********************************************************************
* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #5 – Nia (nee-AH) Purpose: To make as our collective vocation *
* the building and developing of our community in order to restore *
* our people to their traditional greatness. *
* http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
***********************************************************************

1842 – Josiah T. Walls is born near Winchester, Virginia. He will
become, in 1871, Florida’s first African American congressman.

1892 – Physician, Dr. Miles V. Lynk, publishes the first African
American medical journal.

1916 – Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, of Brown University, becomes
the first African American running back named to the All-
American team.

1928 – Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel is born in Magnolia, Mississippi. Better
known as Bo Diddley, he will influence a generation of musicians
including such groups as the Rolling Stones and the Doors. A
favorite of President John F. Kennedy, who invited Diddley to
play in the White House in 1962, he will be inducted into the
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He will join the ancestors
on June 2, 2008.

1929 – The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is incorporated.

1929 – The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign begins in Chicago
with picketing of Chain stores on the South Side. The campaign
spread to New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities and
continued throughout the Depression.

1929 – Mordecai W. Johnson receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
work as the first African American president of Howard
University.

1935 – Marian Anderson makes a historic appearance in New York City’s
Town Hall. Fresh from a triumphant tour in Europe, Anderson
will be hailed by New York critics as one of the “great singers
of our time.” Her performance will mark a new era in the
Philadelphian’s long and successful career. Her performance is
described by Howard Taubman, the New York Times reviewer, as
“music-making that probed too deep for words.”

1952 – Tuskegee Institute reports there were no lynchings during the
year for the first time in the 71 years it has been keeping such
records.

1960 – Poet Langston Hughes is presented the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal and
cited as “the poet laureate of the Negro race.”

1960 – Two U.S. courts issues temporary injunctions to prevent eviction
of about seven hundred African American sharecroppers in Haywood
and Fayette counties, Tennessee.

1961 – Ben Johnson is born in Falmouth, Jamaica. He will become a world
class 100 meter runner. He win the Olympic gold medal in 1988
and will be later disqualified for using steroids.

1975 – The constitution of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar comes
into effect.

1975 – Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods is born in Cypress, California. He will
become the first African American or Asian American to win the
Masters Golf tournament. He will accomplish this feat in his
first year on the PGA tour at the age of 21 also making him the
youngest person to win the Masters tournament.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 6 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 6 *

1826 – John Brown Russwurm graduates from Bowdoin College. While
many sources consider him to be the first African American
in America to graduate from college, he was preceded by
Edward Jones (B.A. Amherst College – August 23, 1826) and
Alexander Lucius Twilight (B.A. Middlebury College –
1823).

1848 – National Black Convention meets in Cleveland, Ohio with
some seventy delegates. Frederick Douglass is elected
president of the convention.

1865 – Thaddeus Stevens, powerful U.S. congressman, urges
confiscation of estates of Confederate leaders and the
distribution of land to adult freedmen in forty-acre
lots.

1866 – Frederick Douglass becomes the first African American
delegate to a national political convention.

1876 – A race riot occurs in Charleston, South Carolina.

1892 – George “Little Chocolate” Dixon beats Jack Skelly in New
Orleans to win the world featherweight title. While some
African American citizens celebrate for two days, the New
Orleans Times-Democrat says, “It was a mistake to match a
Negro and a white man, to bring the races together on any
terms of equality even in the prize ring.”

1905 – The Atlanta Life Insurance Company is established by A.F.
Herndon.

1930 – Leander Jay Shaw, Jr. is born in Salem, Virginia. He will
become a justice of the Florida State Supreme Court in
1983 and, in 1990, the chief justice, a first in Florida
and the second African American chief justice in any
state supreme court.

1966 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in Atlanta,
Georgia.

1967 – President Lyndon B. Johnson names Walter E. Washington,
commissioner and “unofficial” mayor of Washington, DC.

1968 – The Kingdom of Swaziland achieves full independence from
Great Britain as a constitutional monarchy.

1982 – Willie Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, sees his
uniform, number 8, retired by the Bucs. It is the fourth
Pirate player’s uniform to be so honored. The other
three belonged to Roberto Clemente (#21), Honus Wagner
(#33) and Pie Traynor (#20).

1988 – Lee Roy Young becomes the first African American Texas
Ranger in the police force’s 165-year history. Young is
a 14-year veteran of the Texas Department of Public
Safety.

1989 – The International Amateur Athletic Federation bans Ben
Johnson of Canada from competition, after he tests
positive for steroids. He is also stripped of all of his
track records.

1989 – The National Party, the governing party of South Africa,
loses nearly a quarter of its parliamentary seats to
far-right and anti-apartheid rivals, its worst setback
in four decades.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 30 *

1800 – Jack Bowler and Coachman Gabriel Prosser’s plans for a
slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia, are betrayed by a
pair of house slaves attempting to save their master.
Prosser’s plan, which involved over 1,100 slaves, would
have resulted in the death of all slave-owning whites,
but would have spared Quakers, Frenchmen, elderly women,
and children.

1838 – The first African American magazine “Mirror of Freedom”,
begins publication in New York City by abolitionist
David Ruggles.

1843 – The Liberty Party has the first African American
participation in a national political convention.
Samuel R. Ward leads the convention in prayer — Henry
Highland Garnet, a twenty-seven-year-old Presbyterian
pastor who calls for a slave revolt and a general slave
strike. Amos G. Beman of New Haven, Connecticut is
elected president of the convention.

1856 – Wilberforce University is established in Xenia, Ohio under
the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1863,
the university was transferred to the African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) Church.

1861 – General John C. Fremont issues an order confiscating the
property of Confederates and emancipating their slaves.
The order causes wide-spread protest and is revoked by
President Lincoln.

1892 – S. R. Scottron patents a curtain rod.

1901 – Roy Wilkins is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will become
a civil rights leader, assistant executive secretary of
the NAACP under Walter White and editor of the Crisis
Magazine for 15 years. He will become Executive Secretary
of the NAACP in 1955, a post he will hold for 22 years.
During his tenure, he will be a champion of civil rights
committed to using constitutional arguments to help obtain
full citizenship rights for all African Americans.

1931 – Carrie Saxon Perry is born in Hartford, Connecticut. In
1987, she will be elected mayor of Hartford, becoming the
first African American mayor of a major eastern United
States city.

1953 – Robert Parish is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He will
become a professional basketballplayer. Playing 14 years
with the Boston Celtics from 1980 to 1994, he will win
three NBA titles (1981, 1984 and 1986) teaming with
legendary small forward Larry Bird, and, from 1983 to 1992
with Kevin McHale. The trio will be regarded by many as the
best frontcourt in NBA history.

1956 – A white mob prevents the enrollment of blacks at Mansfield
High School in Texas.

1961 – James Benton Parsons is confirmed as the first African
American judge of a United States District Court in the
continental United States (Northern Illinois). He had
been appointed by President John F. Kennedy on April 18,
1961.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African
American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been
appointed by President Lyndon Johnson on June 13, 1967.

1969 – Racially motivated civil disturbances occur in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida.

1983 – Lt. Colonel Guion S. Bluford is the first African American
in space when he serves as a mission specialist on the
Challenger space shuttle. The space shuttle, launched
from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stayed in orbit
almost six days. This was the Challenger’s third flight
into space.

1987 – Ben Johnson of Canada runs 100 meters in world record time
of 9.83 seconds.

1990 – Ken Griffey & Ken Griffey, Jr. become the first father &
son to play on the same professional sports team (Seattle
Mariners). Both single in the first inning.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 30 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 30 *

***********************************************************************
* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #5 – Nia (nee-AH) Purpose: To make as our collective vocation *
* the building and developing of our community in order to restore *
* our people to their traditional greatness. *
* http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
***********************************************************************

1842 – Josiah T. Walls is born near Winchester, Virginia. He will
become, in 1871, Florida’s first African American congressman.

1892 – Physician, Dr. Miles V. Lynk, publishes the first African
American medical journal.

1916 – Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, of Brown University, becomes
the first African American running back named to the All-
American team.

1928 – Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel is born in Magnolia, Mississippi. Better
known as Bo Diddley, he will influence a generation of musicians
including such groups as the Rolling Stones and the Doors. A
favorite of President John F. Kennedy, who invited Diddley to
play in the White House in 1962, he will be inducted into the
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He will join the ancestors
on June 2, 2008.

1929 – The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is incorporated.

1929 – The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign begins in Chicago
with picketing of Chain stores on the South Side. The campaign
spread to New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities and
continued throughout the Depression.

1929 – Mordecai W. Johnson receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
work as the first African American president of Howard
University.

1935 – Marian Anderson makes a historic appearance in New York City’s
Town Hall. Fresh from a triumphant tour in Europe, Anderson
will be hailed by New York critics as one of the “great singers
of our time.” Her performance will mark a new era in the
Philadelphian’s long and successful career. Her performance is
described by Howard Taubman, the New York Times reviewer, as
“music-making that probed too deep for words.”

1952 – Tuskegee Institute reports there were no lynchings during the
year for the first time in the 71 years it has been keeping such
records.

1960 – Poet Langston Hughes is presented the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal and
cited as “the poet laureate of the Negro race.”

1960 – Two U.S. courts issues temporary injunctions to prevent eviction
of about seven hundred African American sharecroppers in Haywood
and Fayette counties, Tennessee.

1961 – Ben Johnson is born in Falmouth, Jamaica. He will become a world
class 100 meter runner. He win the Olympic gold medal in 1988
and will be later disqualified for using steroids.

1975 – The constitution of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar comes
into effect.

1975 – Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods is born in Cypress, California. He will
become the first African American or Asian American to win the
Masters Golf tournament. He will accomplish this feat in his
first year on the PGA tour at the age of 21 also making him the
youngest person to win the Masters tournament.

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