KRLemmons African American History

August 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 1 *

1619 – Twenty African “Negroes” became the first Blacks to land in
Protestant America at Jamestown, Virginia. Surviving
evidence suggests that the twenty Africans were accorded
the status of indentured servants.

1834 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire by the royal
ascent of the King of England after having been voted by
Parliament the previous year.

1838 – British slaves in the Bahamas are emancipated.

1852 – San Francisco Methodists establish the first African
American Zion Methodist Church.

1867 – African Americans vote for the first time in a state
election, in Tennessee, helping the Republicans sweep the
election.

1867 – General Philip H. Sheridan dismisses the board of aldermen
in New Orleans and named new appointees, including several
African Americans.

1868 – Governor Henry C. Warmoth of Louisiana endorses a joint
resolution of the legislature calling for federal military
aid. Warmoth says there had been 150 political
assassinations in June and July.

1874 – Charles Clinton Spaulding is born in Columbus County, North
Carolina. He will become a businessman who will rise to the
presidency of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance
Company. His business acumen will help the company survive
the years of the Great Depression. Also active in the
Durham, North Carolina community where the corporation is
located, he will work to increase the numbers of registered
African American voters and convince the city to hire
African American police officers. He will lead the company
from 1900 until he joins the ancestors on August 1, 1952.

1879 – Mary Eliza Mahoney graduates from the nursing program at the
New England Hospital for Women and Children. She is the
first African American to graduate from a nursing school and
becomes the first African American in history to earn a
professional nursing license.

1894 – Benjamin Elijah Mays is born in Epworth, South Carolina. He
will become a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College in
Maine. He will serve as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church from
1921-1923 in Atlanta, Georgia. Recruited by Morehouse President
John Hope, Mays will join the faculty as a mathematics teacher
and debate coach. He will obtain a master’s degree in 1925 and
in 1935 a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago. In 1934,
he will be appointed dean of the School of Religion at Howard
University and serve until 1940. He will become president of
Morehouse College in 1940 and launch a 27-year tenure that
will shepherd the institution into international prominence. He
will upgrade the faculty, secure a Phi Beta Kappa chapter and
sustain enrollment during World War II. After retiring as the
president of Morehouse, he will be elected to the school board
of Atlanta, Georgia and later serve as its president. In
1982, he will be awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. He
will join the ancestors on March 28, 1984.

1914 – Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Movement
Improvement and Conservation Association and African
Communities’ League, later shortened to UNIA. In New York
City six years later to the day, the UNIA will meet in
Madison Square Garden as Garvey presents his “Back to
Africa” plan and a formal Declaration of Rights for Black
people worldwide.

1918 – Theodore Juson Jemison, Sr. is born in Selma, Alabama. He
will become a Baptist minister and will later be elected
president of the National Baptist Convention USA, serving
from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African American
religious organization. He will oversee the construction of
the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the
headquarters for the Convention. In 1953, while minister of
a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he will help lead
the first civil rights boycott of bus service. The
organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a
model used later by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama,
which started in 1955. He will be one of the founders of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. In
2003 the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott will
be honored with three days of events, organized by a young
resident born two decades after the action.

1920 – The national convention of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro
Improvement Association opens in Liberty Hall in Harlem.
The next night Garvey addresses twenty-five thousand Blacks
in Madison Square Garden. Garvey’s nationalist movement
reaches its height in 1920-21.

1925 – The National Bar Association, dedicated to “advance the
science of jurisprudence, uphold the honor of the legal
profession…and protect the civil and political rights of
all citizens of the several states of the United States,”
is formally organized in Des Moines, Iowa by 12 African
American legal pioneers including George H. Woodson, S.
Joe Brown, and Gertrude E. Rush.

1930 – Geoffrey Holder is born in Polrt of Spain, Trinidad. He will
become a Broadway dancer and actor and will be best known
for his performances in “Annie” and “The Wiz.” He will
teach at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance for two years.
He will be a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera
Ballet in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1955, He will
marry dancer Carmen De Lavallade, whom he met when both
were in the cast of “House of Flowers,” a musical by Harold
Arlen (music and lyrics) and Truman Capote (lyrics and book).
They will be the subject of a 2004 film, “Carmen & Geoffrey.”
He will begin his movie career in the 1962 British film “All
Night Long,” a modern remake of Shakespeare’s Othello. He
will follow that with “Doctor Doolittle” (1967) as Willie
Shakespeare, leader of the natives of Sea-Star Island. This
will be a trying experience for him, as he had to contend
with casual racism from Rex Harrison’s then-wife, Rachel
Roberts, and his entourage. In 1972, he will be cast as the
Sorcerer in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*”
(*But Were Afraid to Ask). The following year he will be a
henchman – Baron Samedi – in the Bond movie “Live and Let Die,”
also contributing to the film’s choreography. In addition to
his movie appearances, he will become a spokesman for the 1970s
7 Up soft drink “uncola” advertising campaign. In 1975, he will
win two Tony Awards for direction and costume design of “The
Wiz,” the all-black musical version of The Wizard of Oz. He
will be the first black man to be nominated in either category.
He also win the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design.
The show will run for 1672 performances over a four-year period,
reviving in 1984. As a choreographer, he will create dance
pieces for many companies, including the Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater, for which he will provide choreography, music
and costumes for “Prodigal Prince” (1967), and the Dance
Theatre of Harlem, for which he provided choreography, music
and costumes for “Dougla” (1974) and designed costumes for
“Firebird” (1982). In 1978, he will direct and choreograph the
Broadway musical “Timbuktu!” His 1957 piece “Bele” is also part
of the Dance Theater of Harlem repertory. In the 1982 film
version of the musical “Annie,” he will play the role of Punjab.
He will also be the voice of Ray in “Bear in the Big Blue House”
and provide narration for Tim Burton’s version of Roald Dahl’s
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” He will reprise his role
as the 7 Up Spokesman in the 2011 season finale of The Celebrity
Apprentice, where he will appear as himself in a commercial for
“7 Up Retro” for Marlee Matlin’s team. He will also be a
prolific painter, ardent art collector, book author and music
composer. As a painter, he will win a Guggenheim Fellowship. A
book of his photography, “Adam,” was published by Viking Press
in 1986.

1940 – Benjamin E. Mays, who has been called “the greatest school
master of his generation,” is named president of Morehouse
College.

1941 – Ronald H. Brown is born in Washington, DC. He will become
the first African American chairman of the Democratic
National Committee and Secretary of Commerce. He will join
the ancestors on April 3, 1996 in Croatia when his plane crashes
while on an official tour of the Balkans for the Department
of Commerce.

1943 – Race-related rioting erupts in New York City’s village of
Harlem, resulting in several deaths.

1944 – Adam Clayton Powell is elected to congress and becomes the
first African American congressman from the East.

1950 – The American Bowling Congress ends its all-white-males rule.

1952 – Charles Clinton Spaulding joins the ancestors in Durham,
North Carolina at the age of 78.

1960 – Benin changes its name to Dahomey and proclaims its
independence from France.

1960 – Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” is released. The song
inspires the dance craze of the ’60s.

1961 – Whitney Young Jr. is named executive director of the
National Urban League.

1964 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to be named
to the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.

1970 – “Black Enterprise” magazine is first published.

1970 – Willie Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, ties the record
of 5 extra base hits in a game.

1973 – Tempestt Bledsoe, actress, “The Cosby Show’s” Vanessa
Huxtable, is born in Chicago, Illinois.

1977 – Benjamin L. Hooks becomes the Executive Director of the
NAACP.

1979 – James Patterson Lyke is installed as auxiliary bishop of
the Cleveland Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

1987 – Mike Tyson defeats Tony Tucker to become undisputed
Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

1992 – The Supreme Court permits the administration to continue
its special interdiction policy by which the U.S. Coast
Guard patrols international waters near Haiti to prevent
Haitian citizens from escaping from their country, and
Haiti is the only country in the world to receive such
treatment by the United States.

1992 – Gail Devers wins the women’s 100 meters at the Barcelona
Summer Games.

1993 – Ronald H. Brown, former chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, is appointed head of the Department
of Commerce by President Bill Clinton.

1994 – Supporters of Haiti’s military rulers declare their
intention to fight back in the face of a U.N. resolution
paving the way for a U.S.-led invasion.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 28 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 28 *

1802 – Alexandre Dumas is born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie in
Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, near Paris, France, the grandson
of the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie.
While his grandfather serves the government of France as
General Commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of
Santo Domingo, (today’s Dominican Republic but at the time
a part of Haiti), he marries Marie-Céssette Dumas, a Black
slave. In 1762, she gives birth to a son, Thomas-Alexandre,
and she joins the ancestors soon thereafter. When the
Marquis and his young son return to Normandy, it is at a
time when slavery still exists, and the boy will suffer as
a result of being half Black. In 1786, Thomas-Alexandre
joins the French army, but to protect the aristocratic
family’s reputation, he enlists using his mother’s maiden
name. Following the Revolution in France, the Marquis loses
his estates but his mulatto son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas,
distinguishes himself as a capable and daring soldier in
Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, rising through the ranks to
become a General by the age of 31. Thomas Alexandre Dumas
will marry Marie Labouret Dumas, a French woman and
Alexandre Dumas is born from this union. He will become an
acclaimed author of the French classics “The Three
Musketeers”, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “The Man in the
Iron Mask”, “The Corsican Brothers,” “Twenty Years After,”
“The Vicomte de Bragelonne,” “The Regent’s Daughter,”
“Queen Margot,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Black Tulip,”
“The Nutcracker,” and “La Dame de Montsoreau.” Despite his
success and aristocratic connections, his being of mixed-
blood will impact on him all of his life. In 1843, he will
write a short story that addresses some of the issues of
race and the effects of colonialism. Nevertheless, inbred
racist attitudes will impact his rightful position in
France’s history long after he joins the ancestors on
December 5, 1870. Buried in the place where he was born,
he will remain in the cemetery at Villers-Cotterêts until
November 30, 2002. Under orders of the French President,
Jacques Chirac, his body will be exhumed and in a
televised ceremony, his new coffin, draped in a blue-
velvet cloth and flanked by four men costumed as the
Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, will
be transported in a solemn procession to the Panthéon of
Paris, the great mausoleum where French luminaries are
interred. In his speech, President Chirac will say: “With
you, we were D’Artagnan, Monte Cristo or Balsamo, riding
along the roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting
palaces and castles — with you, we dream.” In an
interview following the ceremony, President Chirac will
acknowledge the racism that had existed, saying that a
wrong is now righted with Alexandre Dumas enshrined
alongside fellow authors Victor Hugo and Voltaire.

1866 – Congress passes a law that African American regiments
should be part of the regular army, which results in the
organization of the 9th and 10th Cavalry.

1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
guaranteeing due process of law, is declared in effect.
which grants citizenship for African Americans and
provides for federal intervention when state governments
are accused of violating an individual’s constitutional
rights.

1903 – Maggie Lena Walker founds and becomes the first president
of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond,
Virginia. She will be elected at age seventeen to office
in the Independent Order of St. Luke, a Black burial
society. On this date, she will found the Saint Luke
Penny Savings Bank and becomes the first female bank
president in America. St. Luke Penny Savings Bank is
still in operation today as the Consolidated Bank and
Trust Company, the nation’s oldest continuously existing
African American bank.

1914 – Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode is born in Los Angeles,
California. An athlete turned actor, Strode will become a
top-notch decathlete and a football star at UCLA, breaking
the color barrier at the same time as Kenney Washington.
He will meet his wife, an Hawaiian princess and stand-in
for the swim sequences for Hedy Lamarr. Woody will play
for the Cleveland Rams prior to their move to Los Angeles.
He will become part of Hollywood lore after meeting
director John Ford and becoming a part of the Ford
“family”, appearing in almost a dozen Ford westerns.
Strode will also play the powerful gladiator who does
battle with Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus.” He will also be
a professional wrestler, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous
George. Woody will live in a modest home overlooking
Glendora and the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles
about 25 miles. He will join the ancestors on December 31,
1994.

1915 – United States forces invade Haiti and the country becomes
a defacto protectorate. U.S. troops will remain there
until 1924.

1917 – Led by W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson, over 10,000
African Americans march down Fifth Avenue in New York City
to the sound of muffled drums in silent protest of
lynchings and other racial indignities that are rampant in
the United States.

1949 – Vida Blue is born in Mansfield, Louisiana. He will become a
Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher. In his
17-year career, he will play for the Oakland Athletics,
San Francisco Giants, and Kansas City Royals. He will have
a 24-8 record in 1971, striking out 301 batters, and will
win both the Cy Young and American League MVP awards. He
will be the starting pitcher for the American League in
the 1971 All-Star Game, and for the National League in the
1978 All-Star Game. He will win 20 games in 1973 as he
leads the A’s to the World Championship. He will win 22
games in 1975. In 1978, he will win 18 games as he leads
the Giants to 83 wins as they battle all year for the
National League West Division which is won that year by
the Los Angeles Dodgers. His great year is rewarded as he
won the Sporting News National League Pitcher Of The Year.
He will also make a name and career after baseball for
himself in the San Francisco Bay Area by donating his time
to many charitable causes, mostly promoting baseball in
the inner city.

1977 – Roy Wilkins turns over NAACP leadership to Benjamin L Hooks.

1985 – Lou Brock is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, New York.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 11 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 11 *

1865 – President Lincoln recommends suffrage for African American veterans
and African Americans who are “very intelligent.”

1881 – Spelman College is founded with $100 and eleven former slaves
determined to learn to read and write. It is opened as the Atlanta
Baptist Female Seminary. The two female founders, Sophia B. Packard
and Harriet E. Giles are appalled by the lack of educational
opportunities for African American women at the time. They will
return to Boston determined to get support to change that and earned
what will prove to be the lifelong support of John D. Rockefeller,
who considers Spelman to be one of his family’s finest investments.
The name Spelman is adopted later in honor of Mrs. Rockefeller’s
parents.

1933 – William Anthony “Tony” Brown is born in Charleston, West Virginia.
He will become well known as executive producer, host, and moderator
of the Emmy-winning television series “Black Journal.” In 1971 he
will establish and become the first dean of Howard University’s School
of Communications, a post he will hold until 1974. In 2002, he will
be inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences’ Silver Circle. He will become the dean of Hampton
University’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications
in 2004 and hold that position until 2009, when he will step down.

1955 – Roy Wilkins is elected the NAACP’s executive secretary following
the ancestral ascension of Walter White.

1956 – Singer Nat “King” Cole is attacked on the stage of a Birmingham
theater by white supremacists.

1966 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African American major league
umpire, working in the American League. He had been the first
African American professional umpire in the minor leagues in
1951.

1967 – Harlem voters defy Congress and re-elect Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. after he had been expelled by the legislative body.

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs what will become known as the
1968 Housing Act, which outlaws discrimination in the sale,
rental, or leasing of 80% of the housing in the United States.
Passed by the Senate and submitted by the House to Johnson in
the aftermath of the King assassination, the bill also protects
civil rights workers and makes it a federal crime to cross state
lines for the purpose of inciting a riot.

1972 – Benjamin L. Hooks, a Memphis lawyer and Baptist minister, becomes
the first African American to be named to the Federal Communications
Commission.

1979 – Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda. A combined force of
Tanzanian and Ugandan soldiers overthrew the dictator. Amin, who
attained power in 1971 after a coup against socialist-leaning
President Milton Obote, oversaw the killing of at least 100,000
people. It is believed that Idi Amin left Uganda to live in Saudi
Arabia.

1988 – Willie D. Burton becomes the first African American to win the
Oscar for sound when he receives the award for the movie “Bird.”

1997 – The Museum of African American History opens in Detroit. It will
become the largest of its kind in the world.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 15 *

1848 – Sarah Roberts is barred from a white school in Boston,
Massachusetts. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, files the first
school integration suit on her behalf.

1851 – African American abolitionists invade a Boston courtroom and
rescue a fugitive slave from federal authorities. The fugitive,
Shadrach Minkins was about his job as a waiter in Boston when
United States federal officers showed up at his workplace and
arrested him. Minkins had escaped from slavery in Virginia
the previous year. An act passed by Congress in 1850, the
Fugitive Slave Law, had just been enacted, allowing slave
holders to enlist the aid of the federal government in
recapturing runaway slaves. The Minkins case is to be an
early test of the new law. Within a few hours of his arrest,
Minkins is brought before a federal commissioner. But as he
is being led from the courtroom, a group of Boston African
Americans overpower the guards and free him. He immediately
disappears and is never seen in Boston again. With the help
of the Underground Railroad, Minkins will travel north through
New Hampshire and Vermont, crossing into Canada six days after
his rescue. Out of reach of the U.S. government, Minkins will
settle in Montreal, marry an Irish woman and raise two children
before his death in 1875. Minkins’s rescue will come to
symbolize the spirit of resistance to the legal institutions of
the slave system.

1960 – Darrell Ray Green is born in Houston, Texas. He will become a
professional football player with the Washington Redskins. He
will, for 20 years, be a defensive threat and one of the
fastest men in the NFL. He will retire in 2002 at the age of
42, the oldest Redskin, having played for six head coaches.
He will be enshrined into the College Football Hall of Fame in
2004. On February 2, 2008, he will be voted into the NFL Hall
of Fame on his first ballot, and will be inducted with former
Redskins teamate Art Monk on August 2, 2008.

1961 – U.S. and African Nationalists protesting the slaying of Congo
Premier Patrice Lumumba disrupt United Nations sessions.

1964 – Louis Armstrong’s “Hello Dolly,” a song the world-renowned
trumpeter recorded and almost forgot, becomes the number-one
record on Billboard’s Top 40 charts, replacing The Beatles’
“I Want to Hold Your Hand.” It is Armstrong’s first and
only number-one record.

1965 – Nat King Cole, singer and pianist, joins the ancestors in Santa
Monica, California at the age of 45. He succumbs to lung
cancer.

1968 – Henry Lewis becomes the first African American to lead a
symphony orchestra in the United States when he is named
director of the New Jersey Symphony.

1969 – Noted historian John Henrik Clarke, speaking before the Jewish
Currents Conference in New York City, says, “You cannot
subjugate a man and recognize his humanity, his history…so
systematically you must take this away from him. You begin by
telling lies about the man’s role in history.”

1978 – Leon Spinks defeats Muhammad Ali for the world heavyweight
boxing championship in a 15-round decision in Las Vegas,
Nevada.

1992 – At memorial services attended by over 1,600 in Memphis,
Tennessee, author Alex Haley (“Roots,” “Autobiography of
Malcolm X”) is eulogized by his wife, who says, “Thank you,
Alex, you have helped us know who we truly are.”

1992 – NAACP Executive Director, Benjamin L. Hooks, announces that he
would retire from the organization in 1993. He will have
headed the organization for sixteen years.

1999 – The body of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed West African gunned down
by New York City police, is returned to his native Guinea.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 1 *

1619 – Twenty African “Negroes” became the first Blacks to land in
Protestant America at Jamestown, Virginia. Surviving
evidence suggests that the twenty Africans were accorded
the status of indentured servants.

1834 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire by the royal
ascent of the King of England after having been voted by
Parliament the previous year.

1838 – British slaves in the Bahamas are emancipated.

1852 – San Francisco Methodists establish the first African
American Zion Methodist Church.

1867 – African Americans vote for the first time in a state
election, in Tennessee, helping the Republicans sweep the
election.

1867 – General Philip H. Sheridan dismisses the board of aldermen
in New Orleans and named new appointees, including several
African Americans.

1868 – Governor Henry C. Warmoth of Louisiana endorses a joint
resolution of the legislature calling for federal military
aid. Warmoth says there had been 150 political
assassinations in June and July.

1874 – Charles Clinton Spaulding is born in Columbus County, North
Carolina. He will become a businessman who will rise to the
presidency of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance
Company. His business acumen will help the company survive
the years of the Great Depression. Also active in the
Durham, North Carolina community where the corporation is
located, he will work to increase the numbers of registered
African American voters and convince the city to hire
African American police officers. He will lead the company
from 1900 until he joins the ancestors on August 1, 1952.

1879 – Mary Eliza Mahoney graduates from the nursing program at the
New England Hospital for Women and Children. She is the
first African American to graduate from a nursing school and
becomes the first African American in history to earn a
professional nursing license.

1894 – Benjamin Elijah Mays is born in Epworth, South Carolina. He
will become a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College in
Maine. He will serve as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church from
1921-1923 in Atlanta, Georgia. Recruited by Morehouse President
John Hope, Mays will join the faculty as a mathematics teacher
and debate coach. He will obtain a master’s degree in 1925 and
in 1935 a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago. In 1934,
he will be appointed dean of the School of Religion at Howard
University and serve until 1940. He will become president of
Morehouse College in 1940 and launch a 27-year tenure that
will shepherd the institution into international prominence. He
will upgrade the faculty, secure a Phi Beta Kappa chapter and
sustain enrollment during World War II. After retiring as the
president of Morehouse, he will be elected to the school board
of Atlanta, Georgia and later serve as its president. In
1982, he will be awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. He
will join the ancestors on March 28, 1984.

1914 – Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Movement
Improvement and Conservation Association and African
Communities’ League, later shortened to UNIA. In New York
City six years later to the day, the UNIA will meet in
Madison Square Garden as Garvey presents his “Back to
Africa” plan and a formal Declaration of Rights for Black
people worldwide.

1918 – Theodore Juson Jemison, Sr. is born in Selma, Alabama. He
will become a Baptist minister and will later be elected
president of the National Baptist Convention USA, serving
from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African American
religious organization. He will oversee the construction of
the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the
headquarters for the Convention. In 1953, while minister of
a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he will help lead
the first civil rights boycott of bus service. The
organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a
model used later by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama,
which started in 1955. He will be one of the founders of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. In
2003 the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott will
be honored with three days of events, organized by a young
resident born two decades after the action.

1920 – The national convention of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro
Improvement Association opens in Liberty Hall in Harlem.
The next night Garvey addresses twenty-five thousand Blacks
in Madison Square Garden. Garvey’s nationalist movement
reaches its height in 1920-21.

1925 – The National Bar Association, dedicated to “advance the
science of jurisprudence, uphold the honor of the legal
profession…and protect the civil and political rights of
all citizens of the several states of the United States,”
is formally organized in Des Moines, Iowa by 12 African
American legal pioneers including George H. Woodson, S.
Joe Brown, and Gertrude E. Rush.

1930 – Geoffrey Holder is born in Polrt of Spain, Trinidad. He will
become a Broadway dancer and actor and will be best known
for his performances in “Annie” and “The Wiz.” He will
teach at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance for two years.
He will be a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera
Ballet in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1955, He will
marry dancer Carmen De Lavallade, whom he met when both
were in the cast of “House of Flowers,” a musical by Harold
Arlen (music and lyrics) and Truman Capote (lyrics and book).
They will be the subject of a 2004 film, “Carmen & Geoffrey.”
He will begin his movie career in the 1962 British film “All
Night Long,” a modern remake of Shakespeare’s Othello. He
will follow that with “Doctor Doolittle” (1967) as Willie
Shakespeare, leader of the natives of Sea-Star Island. This
will be a trying experience for him, as he had to contend
with casual racism from Rex Harrison’s then-wife, Rachel
Roberts, and his entourage. In 1972, he will be cast as the
Sorcerer in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*”
(*But Were Afraid to Ask). The following year he will be a
henchman – Baron Samedi – in the Bond movie “Live and Let Die,”
also contributing to the film’s choreography. In addition to
his movie appearances, he will become a spokesman for the 1970s
7 Up soft drink “uncola” advertising campaign. In 1975, he will
win two Tony Awards for direction and costume design of “The
Wiz,” the all-black musical version of The Wizard of Oz. He
will be the first black man to be nominated in either category.
He also win the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design.
The show will run for 1672 performances over a four-year period,
reviving in 1984. As a choreographer, he will create dance
pieces for many companies, including the Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater, for which he will provide choreography, music
and costumes for “Prodigal Prince” (1967), and the Dance
Theatre of Harlem, for which he provided choreography, music
and costumes for “Dougla” (1974) and designed costumes for
“Firebird” (1982). In 1978, he will direct and choreograph the
Broadway musical “Timbuktu!” His 1957 piece “Bele” is also part
of the Dance Theater of Harlem repertory. In the 1982 film
version of the musical “Annie,” he will play the role of Punjab.
He will also be the voice of Ray in “Bear in the Big Blue House”
and provide narration for Tim Burton’s version of Roald Dahl’s
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” He will reprise his role
as the 7 Up Spokesman in the 2011 season finale of The Celebrity
Apprentice, where he will appear as himself in a commercial for
“7 Up Retro” for Marlee Matlin’s team. He will also be a
prolific painter, ardent art collector, book author and music
composer. As a painter, he will win a Guggenheim Fellowship. A
book of his photography, “Adam,” was published by Viking Press
in 1986.

1940 – Benjamin E. Mays, who has been called “the greatest school
master of his generation,” is named president of Morehouse
College.

1941 – Ronald H. Brown is born in Washington, DC. He will become
the first African American chairman of the Democratic
National Committee and Secretary of Commerce. He will join
the ancestors on April 3, 1996 in Croatia when his plane crashes
while on an official tour of the Balkans for the Department
of Commerce.

1943 – Race-related rioting erupts in New York City’s village of
Harlem, resulting in several deaths.

1944 – Adam Clayton Powell is elected to congress and becomes the
first African American congressman from the East.

1950 – The American Bowling Congress ends its all-white-males rule.

1952 – Charles Clinton Spaulding joins the ancestors in Durham,
North Carolina at the age of 78.

1960 – Benin changes its name to Dahomey and proclaims its
independence from France.

1960 – Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” is released. The song
inspires the dance craze of the ’60s.

1961 – Whitney Young Jr. is named executive director of the
National Urban League.

1964 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to be named
to the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.

1970 – “Black Enterprise” magazine is first published.

1970 – Willie Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, ties the record
of 5 extra base hits in a game.

1973 – Tempestt Bledsoe, actress, “The Cosby Show’s” Vanessa
Huxtable, is born in Chicago, Illinois.

1977 – Benjamin L. Hooks becomes the Executive Director of the
NAACP.

1979 – James Patterson Lyke is installed as auxiliary bishop of
the Cleveland Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

1987 – Mike Tyson defeats Tony Tucker to become undisputed
Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

1992 – The Supreme Court permits the administration to continue
its special interdiction policy by which the U.S. Coast
Guard patrols international waters near Haiti to prevent
Haitian citizens from escaping from their country, and
Haiti is the only country in the world to receive such
treatment by the United States.

1992 – Gail Devers wins the women’s 100 meters at the Barcelona
Summer Games.

1993 – Ronald H. Brown, former chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, is appointed head of the Department
of Commerce by President Bill Clinton.

1994 – Supporters of Haiti’s military rulers declare their
intention to fight back in the face of a U.N. resolution
paving the way for a U.S.-led invasion.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 11 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 11 *

1865 – President Lincoln recommends suffrage for African American veterans
and African Americans who are “very intelligent.”

1881 – Spelman College is founded with $100 and eleven former slaves
determined to learn to read and write. It is opened as the Atlanta
Baptist Female Seminary. The two female founders, Sophia B. Packard
and Harriet E. Giles are appalled by the lack of educational
opportunities for African American women at the time. They will
return to Boston determined to get support to change that and earned
what will prove to be the lifelong support of John D. Rockefeller,
who considers Spelman to be one of his family’s finest investments.
The name Spelman is adopted later in honor of Mrs. Rockefeller’s
parents.

1933 – Tony Brown is born in Charleston, West Virginia. He will become
well known as executive producer, host, and moderator of the
Emmy-winning television series “Black Journal.” In 1971 he will
establish and become the first dean of Howard University’s School
of Communications, a post he will hold until 1974.

1955 – Roy Wilkins is elected the NAACP’s executive secretary following
the ancestral ascension of Walter White.

1956 – Singer Nat “King” Cole is attacked on the stage of a Birmingham
theater by white supremacists.

1966 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African American major league
umpire, working in the American League. He had been the first
African American professional umpire in the minor leagues in
1951.

1967 – Harlem voters defy Congress and re-elect Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. after he had been expelled by the legislative body.

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs what will become known as the
1968 Housing Act, which outlaws discrimination in the sale,
rental, or leasing of 80% of the housing in the United States.
Passed by the Senate and submitted by the House to Johnson in
the aftermath of the King assassination, the bill also protects
civil rights workers and makes it a federal crime to cross state
lines for the purpose of inciting a riot.

1972 – Benjamin L. Hooks, a Memphis lawyer and Baptist minister, becomes
the first African American to be named to the Federal Communications
Commission.

1979 – Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda. A combined force of
Tanzanian and Ugandan soldiers overthrew the dictator. Amin, who
attained power in 1971 after a coup against socialist-leaning
President Milton Obote, oversaw the killing of at least 100,000
people. It is believed that Idi Amin left Uganda to live in Saudi
Arabia.

1988 – Willie D. Burton becomes the first African American to win the
Oscar for sound when he receives the award for the movie “Bird.”

1997 – The Museum of African American History opens in Detroit. It will
become the largest of its kind in the world.

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