KRLemmons African American History

January 17 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 17 *

1759 – Paul Cuffee is born in Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts. He will
become a successful shipowner, philanthropist, and a force
in the movement for African Americans’ repatriation to
Africa. He was of Aquinnah Wampanoag and African Ashanti
descent and helps to colonize Sierra Leone. He will build a
lucrative shipping empire and establish the first racially
integrated school in Westport, Massachusetts. He will join
the ancestors on September 9, 1817.

1874 – Armed white Democrats seize the Texas government and put an
end to Radical Reconstruction in Texas.

1917 – The United States pays $ 25 million for the Danish Virgin
Islands.

1923 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to George Washington
Carver, head of the department of research, Tuskegee
Institute, for his pioneering work in agricultural
chemistry.

1923 – The first session of the Third Pan-African Congress convenes
in London, England. The second session will be held in
Lisbon.

1924 – Jewel Plummer Cobb is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will
be a prominent cancer research biologist before becoming a
professor and administrator at Connecticut College and
Rutgers University and, in 1990, president of California
State University, Fullerton, the first African American
woman to hold such a position in the CSU system.

1927 – Eartha Mae Keith is born in North, South Carolina. She will
start her career at the age of 16 as a professional dancer
with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, which will take her
to Paris, where she will tour as a nightclub singer. She
will become known as Eartha Kitt. She will eventually
return to the United States and roles on Broadway and in
films. In 1968, her career will take a sudden turn when, at
a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson, she will
speak out against the Vietnam War. For many years
afterward, she will be blacklisted by many in the U.S.
entertainment industry and be forced to work abroad where
her status will remain undiminished. In 2007, She will
celebrate her 80th birthday. This remarkable milestone will
be celebrated with a special performance at New York’s
Carnegie Hall in June. She will join the ancestors on December
25, 2008.

1931 – James Earl Jones is born in Arkabutla, Mississippi. He will
become renowned as an actor, both on the stage and the
screen, earning a Tony award in 1969 for his portrayal of
boxing great Jack Johnson in the “The Great White Hope” as
well as acclaim for his Broadway roles in “A Lesson From
Aloes,” “Fences,” and many others. Among his film and
television credits will be the voice of Darth Vader in
“Star Wars” and leading roles in “Paris” and “Gabriel’s
Fire.”

1931 – Lawrence Douglas Wilder is born in Richmond, Virginia. He
will graduate from Virginia Union University and serve in
the U.S. Army in Korea, where he will receive the Bronze
Star for heroism. He will attend and graduate from, the
Howard University School of Law and become a successful
trial attorney. In 1969, he will be elected as Virginia’s
first African American state senator since Reconstruction.
In 1985, he will become Virginia’s first African American
Lieutenant Governor. He will make history for a third time
on January 13, 1990, when he takes office as the first
elected African American governor in U.S. history.

1942 – Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. is born in Louisville, Kentucky.
Early in his boxing career, Clay converts to Islam. As
Muhammad Ali, he is one of the first African American
athletes to intermingle political and social consciousness
with sports. He will become the dominant heavyweight boxer
of the 1960s and 1970s, winning an Olympic gold medal,
capturing the professional world heavyweight championship
on three separate occasions, and defend his title
successfully 19 times. Ali’s extroverted, colorful style,
both in and out of the ring, will introduce a new mode of
media-conscious athletic celebrity. Through his strong
assertions of Black pride, his conversion to the Muslim
faith, and his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali
will become a highly controversial symbol of the turbulent
1960s.

1961 – Patrice Lumumba, African revolutionary and first Congolese
Premier of the Republic of Congo, joins the ancestors after
being murdered at the age of 36, by the secessionist
Tshombe’s soldiers.

1966 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opens his civil rights campaign
in Chicago, Illinois. This marks the first time, during the
civil rights movement, that the campaign takes place in a
northern city.

1970 – John M. Burgess is installed as bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts.

1978 – Dr. Ronald McNair is named by NASA as a participant on a
space mission.

1989 – The Phoenix Suns/Miami Heat game is cancelled, due to racial
unrest in Miami.

1990 – The Four Tops, Hank Ballard, and The Platters are inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1996 – Former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan joins the ancestors
in Austin, Texas, at the age of 59.

1998 – Louis Stokes, the first African American congressman from the
state of Ohio, announces his retirement from Congress at the
age of 73. He has been a congressman for three decades.

2000 – Nearly 50,000 people march to South Carolina’s Statehouse on
Martin Luther King Day to demand the Confederate battle flag
be taken down. They are protesting the Confederate flag as a
symbol of slavery and racism.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – May 25 *

1878 – Tapdancing legend Bill “Bojangles” (Luther) Robinson is born in
Richmond, Virginia. He will star in vaudeville and in many movies
such as “The Littliest Rebel,” “In Old Kentucky,” “Rebecca of
Sunnybrook Farm,” and “The Little Colonel”. He will join the
ancestors on November 25, 1949.

1905 – Dorothy Burnett (later Porter) is born in Warrenton, Virginia. She
will become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the first African American
woman to receive a Masters of Library Science degree from Columbia
University, and will author several African American historical
works. She will be a long-time librarian at the Howard University
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and will be responsible for
developing it into one of the world’s largest collections of material
authored by and about people of African descent. She will join the
ancestors on December 17, 1995.

1906 – Martin Dihigo is born in Havana, Cuba. He will become a baseball
player in the Negro Leagues and will be considered by some to be the
greatest all-around player of all-time of African descent. He will be
elected to the Cuban and Mexican Halls of Fame during his lifetime, and
will be posthumously elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in
1977. He will join the ancestors on May 20, 1971.

1919 – Millionaire Madame C.J. Walker joins the ancestors at the age of 52 at
Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York. She was the founder of the Madame
C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, the largest African American
haircare company of its time. After her death, a substantial portion
of her business’s proceeds will be donated to African American
organizations and scholarships.

1932 – K.C. Jones is born in San Francisco, California. He will become a member
of the Olympic basketball team and help win the 1956 Olympic Gold Medal.
He will then become a professional basketball player with the Boston
Celtics, where he will help win eight NBA titles. He will then win two
championships as the coach of the Celtics. He will also be the head
coach of the Washington Bullets and the Seattle Supersonics. He will
have 522 wins as a NBA coach and in 1997 will become the coach of
American Basketball League women’s team, the New England Blizzard.
After the league disbands, he will join the coaching staff of the
women’s basketball team at the University of Rhode Island, at the age of
67.

1935 – This is “the greatest day in the history of track,” according to “The
New York Times.” Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks two
world sprint records, ties a third, and breaks a long jump world
record in a meet at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, all in
one hour.

1936 – David Levering Lewis is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He will become
a historian and biographer. Professor Lewis will receive his Ph.D. in
modern European history from the London School of Economics and
Political Science in 1962. His research and publications will focus
on African American history, conceptions of race and racism, and the
dynamics of European colonialism, especially in Africa. He will author
a biography of Du Bois entitled “W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race,”
which will win a Pulitzer prize in 1994. His other works include “King:
A Biography” (1970), “Prisoners of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair” (1975),
“When Harlem Was in Vogue” (1982), “The Race to Fashoda: European
Colonialism and the African Resistance to the Scramble for Africa”
(1987), and “W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader” (1995).

1943 – Leslie Uggams is born in Washington Heights, New York. She will make
her acting debut on television’s “Beulah” and be a regular on The
Mitch Miller Show before achieving acclaim in Broadway’s “Hallelujah
Baby” and TV’s “Roots.”

1943 – A riot, started by white workers, occurs in a Mobile, Alabama shipyard
over the job upgrading of twelve African American workers.

1959 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares a Louisiana law enforcing a ban on
bouts between African American and white boxers to be unconstitutional.

1963 – The first observance of African Liberation Day occurs. It begins at
the founding conference of the Organization of African Unity in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.

1964 – The closing of schools to avoid desegregation is ruled unconstitutional
by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prince Edward County, Virginia will have to
reopen and desegregate its schools.

1965 – A very short heavyweight title fight occurs in Lewiston, Maine. Cassius
Clay (later Muhammad Ali) knocks out challenger, Sonny Liston, in one
minute and 56 seconds of the first round. Liston never sees the punch
coming. Neither did an unbelieving crowd at ringside, nor those in
theatres all over the world watching the fight on closed-circuit TV.

1971 – A young African American woman, Jo Etha Collier, joins the ancestors
after being killed in Drew, Mississippi by a bullet fired from a passing
car. Three whites are arrested on May 26 and charged with the unprovoked
attack.

1994 – The United Nations Security Council lifts a 10-year-old ban on weapons
exports from South Africa, ending the last of its apartheid-era
embargos.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 26 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 26 *

1844 – James Edward O’Hara is born in New York City to an Irish
merchant and a West Indian woman. He will move to North
Carolina after completing his basic education. After studying
law at Howard University, he will be admitted to the North
Carolina bar and become a practicing attorney in Halifax
county and active in state politics. He will later become a
two-term United States Congressman from North Carolina, serving
in the forty-eighth and forty-ninth congress.

1870 – Wyatt Outlaw, Town Commissioner in Graham, North Carolina, joins
the ancestors after being executed (lynched) by the “White
Brotherhood,” The Ku Klux Klan. He was president of the
Alamance County Union League of America (an anti Ku Klux Klan
group), helped to establish the Republican party in North
Carolina and advocated establishing a school for African
Americans. The Klan will hang him from an oak tree near the
Alamance County Courthouse. Dozens of Klansmen will be arrested
for the murders of Outlaw and other African Americans in
Alamance and Caswell Counties. Many of the arrested men will
confess, but, despite protests by Governor William W. Holden,
a federal judge in Salisbury will order them released.

1926 – Dr. Carter G. Woodson starts Negro History Week. This week
will be expanded to Black History Month in 1976.

1926 – Theodore “Tiger”(The Georgia Deacon) Flowers becomes the first
African American middleweight champion of the world. He will
defeat Harry Greb in fifteen rounds to win the title in New
York City.

1928 – Antoine “Fats” Domino is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He
will be a pioneering Rhythm & Blues pianist whose hits will
include “Ain’t That A Shame” and “Blueberry Hill.”

1930 – “The Green Pastures” opens on Broadway at the Mansfield Theater
with Richard B. Harrison as “De Lawd.”

1946 – A race riot in Columbia, Tennessee results in two deaths and
ten injured persons.

1964 – Boxer Cassius Clay converts to Islam, adopting the name
Muhammad Ali, saying, “I believe in the religion of
Islam…believe in Allah and peace…”

1965 – During civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Alabama, that were
designed to get the attention of the Johnson administration in
Washington, DC, police violence erupts against the marchers.
In an effort to protect his mother from a beating, 26 year old
Jimmie Lee Jackson strikes a police officer. He will join the
ancestors after being shot and killed. Civil rights activists,
outraged by his death, will plan a march from the Edmund Pettus
Bridge in Selma to Montgomery.

1966 – Andrew Brimmer becomes the first African American governor of
the Federal Reserve Board when he is appointed by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.

1984 – Rev. Jesse Jackson acknowledges that he referred to New York
City as “Hymietown.”

1985 – At the 27th Grammy Awards, Best Album of the Year for “Can’t
Slow Down”, is presented to Lionel Richie. Tina Turner is a
big winner with Best Song, Best Record and Best Pop Vocal
Performance by a Female for “What’s Love Got to Do with It.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 25 *

1867 – Tennessee Gov. William Gannaway Brownlow issues a proclamation
warning that the unlawful events of the Ku Klux Klan “must and
SHALL cease” and that militia would be immediately organized
against the organization. This is in response to Ku Klux Klan
activities in a nine county area. The Klan’s aim is to
reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South
during the Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican’s party’s
infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish
control of the black labor force, and restore racial
subordination in every aspect of Southern life. (Editor’s Note:
The KKK was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee on December 15, 1865)

1870 – Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi becomes the first African
American Senator. He is elected by the Mississippi legislature
to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jefferson Davis. After the
Senate term expires, he will become the first President of
Alcorn A&M College, in Lorman, Mississippi (the first African
American land-grant institution in the United States).

1948 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is ordained as a Baptist minister.
After graduating from Morehouse College in June, 1948, he will
enter the Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

1964 – Twenty-two year old Cassius Clay becomes world heavyweight
boxing champion when he defeats Sonny Liston in Miami, Florida.
The feared Liston is the favorite, but Clay predicts he will
“float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Soon after his
victory, Clay will assume his Muslim name of Muhammad Ali. He
will be considered by many, the greatest heavyweight champion
of all time.

1978 – Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. joins the ancestors at the age of
58 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. James was an early graduate
of the Tuskegee Institute Flying School and flew more than 100
missions during the Korean War. He was the first African
American to achieve the rank of four-star general.

1980 – Robert E. Hayden, African American poet and former poetry
consultant to the Library of Congress, joins the ancestors in
Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hayden’s most notable works include
“Words in Mourning Time and Angle of Ascent: New and Selected
Poems.”

1991 – Adrienne Mitchell becomes the first African American woman to
die in a combat zone in the Persian Gulf War when she joins
the ancestors after being killed in her military barracks in
Dharan, Saudi Arabia.

1992 – Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, Lisa Fischer, Luther Vandross,
B.B. King, Boyz II Men, and James Brown, among others, win
Grammy awards in ceremonies hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.

1999 – A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentences white supremacist John
William King to death for chaining James Byrd Jr., an African
American man, to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces.

2000 – The killers of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, four
white New York police officers, are acquitted of all charges
by a jury in Albany, New York. Diallo had been fired upon 41
times, with 19 shots hitting him while holding only his wallet
in the vestibule of his own home.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 17 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 17 *

1759 – Paul Cuffee is born in Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts. He will
become a successful shipowner, philanthropist, and a force
in the movement for African Americans’ repatriation to
Africa. He was of Aquinnah Wampanoag and African Ashanti
descent and helps to colonize Sierra Leone. He will build a
lucrative shipping empire and establish the first racially
integrated school in Westport, Massachusetts. He will join
the ancestors on September 9, 1817.

1874 – Armed white Democrats seize the Texas government and put an
end to Radical Reconstruction in Texas.

1917 – The United States pays $ 25 million for the Danish Virgin
Islands.

1923 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to George Washington
Carver, head of the department of research, Tuskegee
Institute, for his pioneering work in agricultural
chemistry.

1923 – The first session of the Third Pan-African Congress convenes
in London, England. The second session will be held in
Lisbon.

1924 – Jewel Plummer Cobb is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will
be a prominent cancer research biologist before becoming a
professor and administrator at Connecticut College and
Rutgers University and, in 1990, president of California
State University, Fullerton, the first African American
woman to hold such a position in the CSU system.

1927 – Eartha Mae Keith is born in North, South Carolina. She will
start her career at the age of 16 as a professional dancer
with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, which will take her
to Paris, where she will tour as a nightclub singer. She
will become known as Eartha Kitt. She will eventually
return to the United States and roles on Broadway and in
films. In 1968, her career will take a sudden turn when, at
a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson, she will
speak out against the Vietnam War. For many years
afterward, she will be blacklisted by many in the U.S.
entertainment industry and be forced to work abroad where
her status will remain undiminished. In 2007, She will
celebrate her 80th birthday. This remarkable milestone will
be celebrated with a special performance at New York’s
Carnegie Hall in June. She will join the ancestors on December
25, 2008.

1931 – James Earl Jones is born in Arkabutla, Mississippi. He will
become renowned as an actor, both on the stage and the
screen, earning a Tony award in 1969 for his portrayal of
boxing great Jack Johnson in the “The Great White Hope” as
well as acclaim for his Broadway roles in “A Lesson From
Aloes,” “Fences,” and many others. Among his film and
television credits will be the voice of Darth Vader in
“Star Wars” and leading roles in “Paris” and “Gabriel’s
Fire.”

1931 – Lawrence Douglas Wilder is born in Richmond, Virginia. He
will graduate from Virginia Union University and serve in
the U.S. Army in Korea, where he will receive the Bronze
Star for heroism. He will attend and graduate from, the
Howard University School of Law and become a successful
trial attorney. In 1969, he will be elected as Virginia’s
first African American state senator since Reconstruction.
In 1985, he will become Virginia’s first African American
Lieutenant Governor. He will make history for a third time
on January 13, 1990, when he takes office as the first
elected African American governor in U.S. history.

1942 – Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. is born in Louisville, Kentucky.
Early in his boxing career, Clay converts to Islam. As
Muhammad Ali, he is one of the first African American
athletes to intermingle political and social consciousness
with sports. He will become the dominant heavyweight boxer
of the 1960s and 1970s, winning an Olympic gold medal,
capturing the professional world heavyweight championship
on three separate occasions, and defend his title
successfully 19 times. Ali’s extroverted, colorful style,
both in and out of the ring, will introduce a new mode of
media-conscious athletic celebrity. Through his strong
assertions of Black pride, his conversion to the Muslim
faith, and his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali
will become a highly controversial symbol of the turbulent
1960s.

1961 – Patrice Lumumba, African revolutionary and first Congolese
Premier of the Republic of Congo, joins the ancestors after
being murdered at the age of 36, by the secessionist
Tshombe’s soldiers.

1966 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opens his civil rights campaign
in Chicago, Illinois. This marks the first time, during the
civil rights movement, that the campaign takes place in a
northern city.

1970 – John M. Burgess is installed as bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts.

1978 – Dr. Ronald McNair is named by NASA as a participant on a
space mission.

1989 – The Phoenix Suns/Miami Heat game is cancelled, due to racial
unrest in Miami.

1990 – The Four Tops, Hank Ballard, and The Platters are inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1996 – Former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan joins the ancestors
in Austin, Texas, at the age of 59.

1998 – Louis Stokes, the first African American congressman from the
state of Ohio, announces his retirement from Congress at the
age of 73. He has been a congressman for three decades.

2000 – Nearly 50,000 people march to South Carolina’s Statehouse on
Martin Luther King Day to demand the Confederate battle flag
be taken down. They are protesting the Confederate flag as a
symbol of slavery and racism.

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

KRLemmons African American History

October 29 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – October 29 *

1902 – The Dinwiddle Quartet from Virginia is the first
African American singing group on record when they
record six single sided discs, including “Down at the
Old Camp Ground,” on the Victory Talking Machine
Company’s Monarch label.

1923 – Runnin’ Wild opens at the Colonial Theater, Broadway.
Miller and Lyles Productions introduced the Charleston
to New York and the world.

1924 – Dixie to Broadway, “the first real revue by Negroes,”
opens at the Broadhurst Theater, New York City, with
Florence Mills in the starring role.

1929 – The collapse of the stock market and the beginning of
the Great Depression. By 1937, 26 per cent of African
American males will be unemployed.

1945 – Beatrice Moore is born in New York, New York. She will
become an actress and singer better known as Melba
Moore. Her big break will come when she joins the cast
of the Broadway musical “Hair.” She will eventually win
the lead role. It will be the first time that an African
American actress replaces a white actress (Diane Keaton)
for a lead role on Broadway. That engagement will be
followed with another Broadway hit, “Purlie,” which
earns her a Tony Award and rave reviews. This success
will be followed by appearances in film and television.
In addition to her success in acting, she will have a
fruitful recording career.

1947 – The President’s Committee on Civil Rights condemns racial
injustices in America in a formal report, “To Secure
These Rights.”

1947 – Texas Southern University is established.

1947 – The NAACP Spingarn Medal is awarded to Dr. Percy L. Julian
for his achievements as a scientist.

1949 – Alonzo G. Moron, from the Virgin Islands, becomes the
first person of African descent to become president of
Hampton Institute (now University) in Hampton, Virginia.

1960 – Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) boxes in his first professional
fight, beating Tunney Hunsaker in 6 rounds.

1961 – Randy Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. He will become a
member of the famed family group, “The Jackson Five.”

1969 – Johnson Products Company of Chicago, Illinois, the largest
African American hair-care products manufacturer, is
incorporated. Founded by George Johnson in 1954, in 1971,
it will become the first African American owned company
listed on the American Stock Exchange.

1969 – The U.S. Supreme Court states that school systems must end
segregation “at once” and “operate now and hereafter only
unitary schools.” In the Mississippi case, Alexander v.
Holmes, the Court abandons the principle of “all
deliberate speed.”

1974 – Muhammad Ali defeats George Foreman in Zaire to regain his
heavyweight crown in a fight billed as “The Rumble in the
Jungle.” In addition to the fight being the first
heavyweight title fight held in Africa, it is the 14th
Anniversary of Ali’s professional boxing debut.

1981 – William Otis Walker, publisher of the “Cleveland Call &
Post,” joins the ancestors at the age of 85. He was the
first African American to hold a post in the Ohio Cabinet
in 1963, and was national chairman for “Black Republicans
for Reagan and Bush” in 1980.

1987 – Thomas Hearns wins an unprecedented 4th boxing title in
different weight classes.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 5 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 5 *

1804 – Absalom Jones is ordained a priest in the Protestant
Episcopal Church.

1846 – John Wesley Cromwell is born into slavery in Portsmouth,
Virginia. After receiving freedom, he and his family
will move to Philadelphia. In 1865, he will return to
Portsmouth to open a private school, which will fail due
to racial harassment. He will enter Howard University in
Washington, DC in 1871. He will receive a law degree and
be admitted to the bar in 1874. He will be the first
African American to practice law for the Interstate
Commerce Commission. He will found the weekly paper, “The
People’s Advocate” in 1876. In 1881, he will be elected
President of Bethel Library and Historical Association in
Washington, DC. He will use this position to generate
interest in African American history. He will inspire the
foundation of the Association for the Study of Negro Life
and History in 1915. He will also be the Secretary of the
American Negro Academy. He will join the ancestors on
April 14, 1927.

1859 – “Our Nig” by Harriet E. Wilson is published. It is the
first novel published in the United States by an African
American woman and will be lost to readers for years
until reprinted with a critical essay by noted African
American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1983.

1877 – African Americans from the Post-Civil-War South, led by
Benjamin ‘Pap’ Singleton, settle in Kansas and establish
towns like Nicodemus, to take advantage of free land
offered by the United States government through the
Homestead Act of 1860.

1895 – George Washington Murray is elected to Congress from South
Carolina.

1916 – Novelist Frank Yerby is born in Augusta, Georgia. A student
at Fisk University and the University of Chicago, Yerby’s
early short story “Health Card” will win the O. Henry
short story award. He will later turn to adventure novels
and become a best-selling author in the 1940’s and 1950’s
with “The Foxes of Harrow”, “The Vixens” and many others.
His later novels will include “Goat Song”, “The Darkness
at Ingraham’s Crest-A Tale of the Slaveholding South”,
and “Devil Seed”. In total, Yerby will publish over 30
novels that sell over 20 million copies. He will leave
the United States in 1955 in protest against racial
discrimination, moving to Spain where he will remain for
the rest of his life. He will join the ancestors on
November 29, 1991, after succumbing to congestive heart
failure in Madrid. He will be interred there in the
Cementerio de la Almudena.

1960 – Cassius Clay of Louisville, Kentucky, wins the gold medal
in light heavyweight boxing at the Olympic Games in Rome,
Italy. Clay will later change his name to Muhammad Ali
and become one of the great boxing champions in the world.
In 1996, at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia,
Muhammad Ali will have the honor of lighting the Olympic
flame.

1960 – Leopold Sedar Senghor, poet, politician, is elected
President of Senegal.

1972 – Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway win a gold record — for
their duet, “Where is the Love”. The song gets to number
five on the pop music charts and is one of two songs for
the duo to earn gold. The other will be “The Closer I Get
To You” (1978).

1995 – O.J. Simpson jurors hear testimony that police detective
Mark Fuhrman had uttered a racist slur, and advocated the
killing of Blacks.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 17 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 17 *

1759 – Paul Cuffee is born in Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts. He will
become a successful shipowner, philanthropist, and a force
in the movement for African Americans’ repatriation to
Africa. He was of Aquinnah Wampanoag and African Ashanti
descent and helps to colonize Sierra Leone. He will build a
lucrative shipping empire and establish the first racially
integrated school in Westport, Massachusetts. He will join
the ancestors on September 9, 1817.

1874 – Armed white Democrats seize the Texas government and put an
end to Radical Reconstruction in Texas.

1917 – The United States pays $ 25 million for the Danish Virgin
Islands.

1923 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to George Washington
Carver, head of the department of research, Tuskegee
Institute, for his pioneering work in agricultural
chemistry.

1923 – The first session of the Third Pan-African Congress convenes
in London, England. The second session will be held in
Lisbon.

1924 – Jewel Plummer Cobb is born in Chicago, Illinois. She will
be a prominent cancer research biologist before becoming a
professor and administrator at Connecticut College and
Rutgers University and, in 1990, president of California
State University, Fullerton, the first African American
woman to hold such a position in the CSU system.

1927 – Eartha Mae Keith is born in North, South Carolina. She will
start her career at the age of 16 as a professional dancer
with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe, which will take her
to Paris, where she will tour as a nightclub singer. She
will become known as Eartha Kitt. She will eventually
return to the United States and roles on Broadway and in
films. In 1968, her career will take a sudden turn when, at
a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson, she will
speak out against the Vietnam War. For many years
afterward, she will be blacklisted by many in the U.S.
entertainment industry and be forced to work abroad where
her status will remain undiminished. In 2007, She will
celebrate her 80th birthday. This remarkable milestone will
be celebrated with a special performance at New York’s
Carnegie Hall in June. She will join the ancestors on December
25, 2008.

1931 – James Earl Jones is born in Arkabutla, Mississippi. He will
become renowned as an actor, both on the stage and the
screen, earning a Tony award in 1969 for his portrayal of
boxing great Jack Johnson in the “The Great White Hope” as
well as acclaim for his Broadway roles in “A Lesson From
Aloes,” “Fences,” and many others. Among his film and
television credits will be the voice of Darth Vader in
“Star Wars” and leading roles in “Paris” and “Gabriel’s
Fire.”

1931 – Lawrence Douglas Wilder is born in Richmond, Virginia. He
will graduate from Virginia Union University and serve in
the U.S. Army in Korea, where he will receive the Bronze
Star for heroism. He will attend and graduate from, the
Howard University School of Law and become a successful
trial attorney. In 1969, he will be elected as Virginia’s
first African American state senator since Reconstruction.
In 1985, he will become Virginia’s first African American
Lieutenant Governor. He will make history for a third time
on January 13, 1990, when he takes office as the first
elected African American governor in U.S. history.

1942 – Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. is born in Louisville, Kentucky.
Early in his boxing career, Clay converts to Islam. As
Muhammad Ali, he is one of the first African American
athletes to intermingle political and social consciousness
with sports. He will become the dominant heavyweight boxer
of the 1960s and 1970s, winning an Olympic gold medal,
capturing the professional world heavyweight championship
on three separate occasions, and defend his title
successfully 19 times. Ali’s extroverted, colorful style,
both in and out of the ring, will introduce a new mode of
media-conscious athletic celebrity. Through his strong
assertions of Black pride, his conversion to the Muslim
faith, and his outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, Ali
will become a highly controversial symbol of the turbulent
1960s.

1961 – Patrice Lumumba, African revolutionary and first Congolese
Premier of the Republic of Congo, joins the ancestors after
being murdered at the age of 36, by the secessionist
Tshombe’s soldiers.

1966 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. opens his civil rights campaign
in Chicago, Illinois. This marks the first time, during the
civil rights movement, that the campaign takes place in a
northern city.

1970 – John M. Burgess is installed as bishop of the Protestant
Episcopal diocese of Massachusetts.

1978 – Dr. Ronald McNair is named by NASA as a participant on a
space mission.

1989 – The Phoenix Suns/Miami Heat game is cancelled, due to racial
unrest in Miami.

1990 – The Four Tops, Hank Ballard, and The Platters are inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1996 – Former U.S. Representative Barbara Jordan joins the ancestors
in Austin, Texas, at the age of 59.

1998 – Louis Stokes, the first African American congressman from the
state of Ohio, announces his retirement from Congress at the
age of 73. He has been a congressman for three decades.

2000 – Nearly 50,000 people march to South Carolina’s Statehouse on
Martin Luther King Day to demand the Confederate battle flag
be taken down. They are protesting the Confederate flag as a
symbol of slavery and racism.

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