KRLemmons African American History

February 1 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 1 *

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1810 – Charles Lenox Remond is born in Salem, Massachusetts to free
parents. He will become one of the most prominent of the
African American abolitionist crusaders. Charles Remond will
begin his activism in opposition to slavery while in his
twenties as an orator speaking at public gatherings and
conferences in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York
and Pennsylvania. In 1838 the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society, will choose him as one of its agents. As a delegate
from the American Anti-Slavery Society, he will go with William
Lloyd Garrison to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London
in 1840. He will have a reputation as an eloquent lecturer and
reported to be the first Black public speaker on abolition.
He will recruit Black soldiers in Massachusetts for the Union
Army during the Civil War, particularly for the famed 54th and
55th Massachusetts Infantry. He will also be active in recruiting
for the U.S. Colored Troops. After the Civil War ends, he will
work as a clerk in the Boston Customs House, and as a street lamp
inspector. He will later purchase a farm in South Reading (now
Wakefield), Massachusetts. He will join the ancestors on December
22, 1873.

1810 – The first insurance company managed by African Americans, the
American Insurance Company of Philadelphia, is established.

1833 – Henry McNeal Turner is born in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina.
He will become one of the first Bishops in the African American
Episcopal Church. He will also be an army chaplain, political
organizer, magazine editor, and college chancellor. He will be
inspired by a Methodist revival and swear to become a pastor. In
1858, he will transfer his membership to the African Methodist
Church and study the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity
College. In 1880, he will become a bishop in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church. During the American Civil War, he will be
appointed a Chaplain to one of the first Federal regiments of Black
troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops). He
will be the first of only 14 Black Chaplains to be appointed during
the Civil War. This appointment will come directly from President
Abraham Lincoln in 1863. He will also be appointed by President
Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman’s Bureau in Georgia during
Reconstruction. Following the Civil War, he will become steadily
more disenchanted with the lack of progress in the status of the
country’s African Americans. During this time, he will move to the
state of Georgia. It is here that he will become involved in Radical
Republican politics. He will help found the Republican Party of
Georgia. After attempts to overcome certain Supreme Court decisions,
he will become disgusted and end his attempts to bring equality to
the United States. Instead, he will become a proponent of the “back
to Africa” and “African American colonization” movements. He will
travel to Africa and be impressed by the differences in the attitude
of Africans who have never known the degradation of slavery. He will
organize four annual conferences in Africa. He will write extensively
about the Civil war and about the condition of his parishioners. He
will join the ancestors while visiting Windsor, Ontario on May 15, 1915.
He will be highly regarded in the Afro-American and the Afro-Canadian
community and a large number of churches will be named in his honor.
He will join the ancestors on May 8, 1915 while visiting Windsor,
Ontario, Canada.

1865 – John S. Rock becomes the first African American attorney
allowed to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
Due to his poor health, he never actually argued a case
before the court, succumbing to tuberculosis at the age of
41.

1870 – Jonathan Jasper Wright is elected to the South Carolina
Supreme Court. He is the first African American to hold a
major judicial position.

1871 – Jefferson Franklin Long, Republican congressman from Georgia,
makes the first speech by an African American on the floor
of Congress. His text is to oppose leniency to former
Confederates.

1902 – Langston Hughes is born in Joplin, Missouri. He will be
known as one of the most prolific American poets of the
20th century and a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance.
In addition to his poetry, Hughes will achieve success as
an anthologist and juvenile author, write plays and
librettos, found theater groups, and be a widely read
columnist and humorist. Among his honors will be the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1960. He will join the ancestors
on May 22, 1967.

1938 – Sherman Hemsley is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become an actor and will known for his roles in the TV
shows “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Amen.” He
will join the ancestors on July 24, 2012.

1948 – James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. is born in Buffalo, New York. He
will become a singer, songwriter, producer, and musician
working under the name “Rick James.” He will be best known
for his recording of “Super Freak” and produce Teena Marie,
the gold-certified Mary Jane Girls, Eddie Murphy, and others.
He will join the ancestors on August 6, 2004.

1957 – P.H. Young becomes the first African American pilot, flying on
an United States scheduled passenger airline.

1960 – Four African American college students from North Carolina A&T
College in Greensboro, North Carolina sit at a “whites-only”
Woolworth’s lunch counter and refuse to leave when denied
service, beginning a sit-in protest.

1963 – Nyasaland (now Malawi) becomes a self-governing nation.

1965 – More than seven hundred demonstrators, including Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., are arrested in Selma, Alabama.

1965 – Ruby Dee becomes the first African American thespian to play a
major role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford,
Connecticut.

1978 – The first stamp of the United States Postal Service’s Black
Heritage USA series honors Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist
and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

1982 – The nations of Senegal & Gambia form a loose confederation
named Senegambia.

1991 – President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, states that he will
repeal all apartheid laws.

1992 – Barry Bonds signs baseball’s highest single year contract to
date ($4.7 million).

1997 – BET Holdings and Encore Media Corp. launch BET Movie/Starz,
the first 24 hour African American movie channel.

2003 – Lt. Colonel Michael P. Anderson, NASA astronaut, joins the
ancestors at the age of 43, when the Space Shuttle Columbia
explodes during re-entry.

2003 – Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, joins the ancestors in Miami,
Florida from stroke complications at the age of 85. He had
been considered one of the most influential percussionists of
his generation.

2012 – Don Cornelius, the founder of the “Soul Train” television show,
joins the ancestors, succumbing to an apparent self-inflicted
gunshot wound to his head, at the age of 75.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – December 25 *

***HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM BRO. MOSI HOJ AND THE MUNIRAH CHRONICLE***

1760 – Jupiter Hammon, a New York slave who was probably the
first African American poet, publishes “An Evening
Thought:Salvation by Christ”.

1776 – Oliver Cromwell and Prince Whipple are among soldiers who
cross the Delaware River with George Washington to
successfully attack the Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey,
during the Revolutionary War.

1807 – Charles B. Ray is born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. He
will enter Wesleyan University in Connecticut and be
forced to withdraw due to objections from northerners
and southerners. He will later become a prominent
African American leader.

1835 – Benjamin Tucker Tanner is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Father of famous painter Henry O. Tanner,
he will become an A.M.E. bishop and editor of the
“Christian Recorder” and founder in 1884 of the A.M.E.
Church Review,” a leading magazine of the day.

1837 – Cheyney University is established in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. It will be first known as the “Institute
for Colored Youth”. The school will be moved to George
Cheyney’s farm, 24 miles west of Philadelphia, in 1902.
It will be renamed in 1913 to “The Cheyney Training
School for Teachers.” Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
is the first historically Black institution of learning
in America. It is also the first college in the United
States to receive official state certification as an
institution of higher academic education for African
Americans.

1837 – Charles Lenox Remond begins his career as an antislavery
agent. Remond will be one of the first African Americans
employed as a lecturer by the antislavery movement. He
will work many years for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society.

1865 – Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, Shaw University
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Virginia Union University
in Richmond, Virginia are founded.

1875 – Charles Caldwell joins the ancestors after being
assassinated in Clinton, Mississippi. He was the first
African American in the state of Mississippi to be accused
of the murder of a white man and found “not guilty” by an
all-white jury. He was later elected to the state senate.

1907 – Cabell “Cab” Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. A
versatile jazz bandleader and singer who will popularize
scat singing, his song “Minnie the Moocher” will be the
first million-selling jazz record. Calloway will also
appear in the movie “Porgy and Bess” as well as perform as
a singer in the touring companies of “Porgy” and “Hello
Dolly.” He will join the ancestors on November 18, 1994.

1951 – Harry T. Moore, a Florida NAACP official, joins the
ancestors after being killed by a bomb in his home in Mims,
Florida. Active in expanding the African American vote in
Florida and in desegregating the University of Florida,
Moore will be posthumously awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn
Medal in 1952.

1951 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Mabel K. Staupers
for her leadership in the field of nursing.

1956 – The home of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a Birmingham,
Alabama protest leader, is destroyed by a dynamite bomb.

1958 – Rickey Henley Henderson is born in Chicago, Illinois. He
will grow up to become a baseball player with the Oakland
Athletics and New York Yankees and will become the stolen
base king. In 1982, Henderson will shatter Lou Brock’s
modern major league record by stealing 130 bases. He will
have 23 consecutive seasons in which he will steal more
than 20 bases. He will rank 4th all-time in games played
(3,081), 10th in at-bats (10,961), 20th in hits (3,055),
and first in runs scored (2,295) and stolen bases (1,406).

1959 – Michael P. Anderson is born in Plattsburgh, New York. He
will be raised in Spokane, Washington. He will graduate
from the University of Washington in 1981 and be
commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF. He will
become Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015
Communication Squadron and later be Director of
Information System Maintenance for the 1920 Information
System Group. In 1986 he will be selected to attend
Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. He
will serve as an aircraft commander and instructor pilot
in the 920th Air Refueling Squadron, Wurtsmith AFB
Michigan. He will be selected as an astronaut by NASA in
December 1994, and will become qualified for flight crew
assignment as a mission specialist. He will be initially
assigned technical duties in the Flight Support Branch of
the Astronaut Office. He will fly on the crew of STS-89
(Shuttle Endeavour to Space Station Mir) and will log
over 211 hours in space in 1998. Lt. Colonel Anderson
will be assigned to the crew of STS-107 (Shuttle Columbia)
and will join the ancestors when Columbia explodes during
re-entry on February 1, 2003.

1965 – The Congress of Racial Equality announces that its national
director, Dr. James Farmer, would resign on March 1.

2006 – James Brown, the dynamic “Godfather of Soul,” whose
revolutionary rhythms, rough voice and flashing footwork
influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap,
joins the ancestors early Christmas morning at the age of
73. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory
Crawford Long Hospital on 12/24 and succumbed to heart
failure around 1:45 a.m. He was one of the major musical
influences of the past 50 years. From Mick Jagger to
Michael Jackson, David Bowie to Public Enemy, his rapid-
footed dancing, hard-charging beats and heartfelt yet
often unintelligible vocals changed the musical landscape.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 22 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – December 22 *

1873 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond joins the ancestors.
He was the first African American lecturer employed by
the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

1883 – Arthur Wergs Mitchell is born near Lafayette, Alabama.
He will become the first African American Democrat
elected to Congress, representing Illinois for four
terms. In 1937, after being forced from first-class
train accommodations in Arkansas to ride in a shabby
Jim Crow car, Mitchell will sue the railroad and
eventually argue unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court
that interstate trains be exempt from Arkansas’
“separate but equal” laws. He will join the ancestors
on May 9, 1968.

1898 – Chancellor Williams is born in Bennettsville, South
Carolina. He will become a historian and author of
“Destruction of Black Civilization.” He will join the
ancestors on December 7, 1992.

1905 – James A. Porter is born in Baltimore, Maryland. An
artist, chairperson of the department of art at Howard
University and one of the earliest scholars of African
American art, Porter will exhibit his works widely in the
United States, Europe, and Africa. He will join the
ancestors on February 28, 1970.

1938 – Mateo Rojas (Matty) Alou is born in Haina, Dominican Republic.
He will spend fifteen seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB)
with the San Francisco Giants (1960–1965), Pittsburgh Pirates
(1966–1970), St. Louis Cardinals (1971–1972, 1973), Oakland
Athletics (1972), New York Yankees (1973) and San Diego
Padres (1974). He will also play in Nippon Professional
Baseball (NPB) with the Taiheiyo Club Lions from 1974 through
1976. He will be the middle of a trio of baseball-playing
brothers that include the older Felipe and Jesús. They will
be the first set of three siblings to play together in the
same outfield (on September 15), and all bat in the same half-
inning in the majors (September 10), accomplishing both with
the Giants in 1963. Matty will be teammates with Felipe during
the prior three campaigns, and will be likewise with Jesús for
the following two. Matty and Felipe will later reunite with
the Yankees in 1973. His best years as a player will be spent
with the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he ill win the National
League (NL) batting title in 1966 and be a two-time All-Star
in 1968 and 1969. He will be a member of the World Series
Champion Oakland Athletics in 1972 and a NL pennant winner
with the New York Giants in 1962. On June 23, 2007, the
Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame will induct him
into their Hall of Fame. He will join the ancestors in Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic on November 3, 2011 after
succumbing to complications of diabetes.

1939 – Jerry Pinkney is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become an award-winning illustrator of children’s
books and numerous U.S. postage stamps featuring notable
African Americans. He will win the 2010 Caldecott Medal
for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing “The Lion
& the Mouse,” a version of Aesop’s fable that he will
also write. He will also receive five Caldecott Honors,
five Coretta Scott King Awards, four New York Times Best
Illustrated Awards (most recently in 2006 for Little Red
Hen), four Gold and four Silver medals from the Society
of Illustrators, and the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award
(John Henry, 1994). In 2000 he will be given the Virginia
Hamilton Literary award from Kent State University and in
2004 the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion for
outstanding contributions in the field of children’s
literature. For his contribution as a children’s
illustrator, he will be the U.S. nominee in 1998 for the
biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award,
the highest international recognition for creators of
children’s books.

1943 – W.E.B. Du Bois is elected as the first African American
member of the National Institute of Arts & Letters.

1980 – Samuel R. Pierce, Jr., a New York City lawyer and former
judge, is named to President Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet as
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

1984 – Four African American youths on a New York City subway
train, are shot by Bernhard Goetz. The white man shoots
because he thought they were going to rob him. He claims
he was seconds from becoming a mugging victim when he
opened fire, and will be acquitted of attempted murder in
1987 but will serve 8 months on a weapons charge. In
1996, he will lose a civil case brought against him by
one of the youths that he shot and paralyzed. The civil
judgment brought against him will be $ 43 million.

1988 – South Africa signs an accord granting independence to South
-West Africa.

1989 – The art exhibit “Afro-American Artists in Paris: 1919-1939”
closes at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery on the
Hunter College campus in New York City. The exhibit of
eight artists including William Harper, Lois Mailou Jones,
Archibald Motley, Jr., Henry O. Tanner, and Hale Woodruff,
among others, powerfully illustrates the results achieved
by African American artists when they were able to leave
the confines and restrictions imposed upon them by race in
the United States.

1996 – Kordell Stewart of the Pittsburgh Steelers runs 80 yards
for a touchdown in the first half of an 18-14 loss to the
Carolina Panthers, the longest scoring run to date by a
quarterback in NFL history.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 1*

1810 – Charles Lenox Remond is born in Salem, Massachusetts to free
parents. He will become one of the most prominent of the
African American abolitionist crusaders. Charles Remond will
begin his activism in opposition to slavery while in his
twenties as an orator speaking at public gatherings and
conferences in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York
and Pennsylvania. In 1838 the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society, will choose him as one of its agents. As a delegate
from the American Anti-Slavery Society, he will go with William
Lloyd Garrison to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London
in 1840. He will have a reputation as an eloquent lecturer and
reported to be the first Black public speaker on abolition.
He will recruit Black soldiers in Massachusetts for the Union
Army during the Civil War, particularly for the famed 54th and
55th Massachusetts Infantry. He will also be active in recruiting
for the U.S. Colored Troops. After the Civil War ends, he will
work as a clerk in the Boston Customs House, and as a street lamp
inspector. He will later purchase a farm in South Reading (now
Wakefield), Massachusetts. He will join the ancestors on December
22, 1873.

1810 – The first insurance company managed by African Americans, the
American Insurance Company of Philadelphia, is established.

1833 – Henry McNeal Turner is born in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina.
He will become one of the first Bishops in the African American
Episcopal Church. He will also be an army chaplain, political
organizer, magazine editor, and college chancellor. He will be
inspired by a Methodist revival and swear to become a pastor. In
1858, he will transfer his membership to the African Methodist
Church and study the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity
College. In 1880, he will become a bishop in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church. During the American Civil War, he will be
appointed a Chaplain to one of the first Federal regiments of Black
troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops). He
will be the first of only 14 Black Chaplains to be appointed during
the Civil War. This appointment will come directly from President
Abraham Lincoln in 1863. He will also be appointed by President
Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman’s Bureau in Georgia during
Reconstruction. Following the Civil War, he will become steadily
more disenchanted with the lack of progress in the status of the
country’s African Americans. During this time, he will move to the
state of Georgia. It is here that he will become involved in Radical
Republican politics. He will help found the Republican Party of
Georgia. After attempts to overcome certain Supreme Court decisions,
he will become disgusted and end his attempts to bring equality to
the United States. Instead, he will become a proponent of the “back
to Africa” and “African American colonization” movements. He will
travel to Africa and be impressed by the differences in the attitude
of Africans who have never known the degradation of slavery. He will
organize four annual conferences in Africa. He will write extensively
about the Civil war and about the condition of his parishioners. He
will join the ancestors while visiting Windsor, Ontario on May 15, 1915.
He will be highly regarded in the Afro-American and the Afro-Canadian
community and a large number of churches will be named in his honor.

1865 – John S. Rock becomes the first African American attorney
allowed to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
Due to his poor health, he never actually argued a case
before the court, succumbing to tuberculosis at the age of
41.

1870 – Jonathan Jasper Wright is elected to the South Carolina
Supreme Court. He is the first African American to hold a
major judicial position.

1871 – Jefferson Franklin Long, Republican congressman from Georgia,
makes the first speech by an African American on the floor
of Congress. His text is to oppose leniency to former
Confederates.

1902 – Langston Hughes is born in Joplin, Missouri. He will be
known as one of the most prolific American poets of the
20th century and a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance.
In addition to his poetry, Hughes will achieve success as
an anthologist and juvenile author, write plays and
librettos, found theater groups, and be a widely read
columnist and humorist. Among his honors will be the NAACP’s
Spingarn Medal in 1960. He will join the ancestors on May 22, 1967.

1938 – Sherman Hemsley is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become an actor and will known for his roles in the TV
shows “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Amen.”

1948 – James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. is born in Buffalo, New York. He
will become a singer, songwriter, producer, and musician
working under the name “Rick James.” He will be best known
for his recording of “Super Freak” and produce Teena Marie,
the gold-certified Mary Jane Girls, Eddie Murphy, and others.
He will join the ancestors on August 6, 2004.

1957 – P.H. Young becomes the first African American pilot, flying on
an United States scheduled passenger airline.

1960 – Four African American college students from North Carolina A&T
College in Greensboro, North Carolina sit at a “whites-only”
Woolworth’s lunch counter and refuse to leave when denied
service, beginning a sit-in protest.

1963 – Nyasaland (now Malawi) becomes a self-governing nation.

1965 – More than seven hundred demonstrators, including Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., are arrested in Selma, Alabama.

1965 – Ruby Dee becomes the first African American thespian to play a
major role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford,
Connecticut.

1978 – The first stamp of the United States Postal Service’s Black
Heritage USA series honors Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist
and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

1982 – The nations of Senegal & Gambia form a loose confederation
named Senegambia.

1991 – President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, states that he will
repeal all apartheid laws.

1992 – Barry Bonds signs baseball’s highest single year contract to
date ($4.7 million).

1997 – BET Holdings and Encore Media Corp. launch BET Movie/Starz,
the first 24 hour African American movie channel.

2003 – Lt. Colonel Michael P. Anderson, NASA astronaut, joins the
ancestors at the age of 43, when the Space Shuttle Columbia
explodes during re-entry.

2003 – Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, joins the ancestors in Miami,
Florida from stroke complications at the age of 85. He had
been considered one of the most influential percussionists of
his generation.

2012 – Don Cornelius, the founder of the “Soul Train” television show,
joins the ancestors, succumbing to an apparent self-inflicted
gunshot wound to his head, at the age of 75.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 25 *

***HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM BRO. MOSI HOJ AND THE MUNIRAH CHRONICLE***

1760 – Jupiter Hammon, a New York slave who was probably the
first African American poet, publishes “An Evening
Thought:Salvation by Christ”.

1776 – Oliver Cromwell and Prince Whipple are among soldiers who
cross the Delaware River with George Washington to
successfully attack the Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey,
during the Revolutionary War.

1807 – Charles B. Ray is born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. He
will enter Wesleyan University in Connecticut and be
forced to withdraw due to objections from northerners
and southerners. He will later become a prominent
African American leader.

1835 – Benjamin Tucker Tanner is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Father of famous painter Henry O. Tanner,
he will become an A.M.E. bishop and editor of the
“Christian Recorder” and founder in 1884 of the A.M.E.
Church Review,” a leading magazine of the day.

1837 – Cheyney University is established in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. It will be first known as the “Institute
for Colored Youth”. The school will be moved to George
Cheyney’s farm, 24 miles west of Philadelphia, in 1902.
It will be renamed in 1913 to “The Cheyney Training
School for Teachers.” Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
is the first historically Black institution of learning
in America. It is also the first college in the United
States to receive official state certification as an
institution of higher academic education for African
Americans.

1837 – Charles Lenox Remond begins his career as an antislavery
agent. Remond will be one of the first African Americans
employed as a lecturer by the antislavery movement. He
will work many years for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society.

1865 – Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, Shaw University
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Virginia Union University
in Richmond, Virginia are founded.

1875 – Charles Caldwell joins the ancestors after being
assassinated in Clinton, Mississippi. He was the first
African American in the state of Mississippi to be accused
of the murder of a white man and found “not guilty” by an
all-white jury. He was later elected to the state senate.

1907 – Cabell “Cab” Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. A
versatile jazz bandleader and singer who will popularize
scat singing, his song “Minnie the Moocher” will be the
first million-selling jazz record. Calloway will also
appear in the movie “Porgy and Bess” as well as perform as
a singer in the touring companies of “Porgy” and “Hello
Dolly.” He will join the ancestors on November 18, 1994.

1951 – Harry T. Moore, a Florida NAACP official, joins the
ancestors after being killed by a bomb in his home in Mims,
Florida. Active in expanding the African American vote in
Florida and in desegregating the University of Florida,
Moore will be posthumously awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn
Medal in 1952.

1951 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Mabel K. Staupers
for her leadership in the field of nursing.

1956 – The home of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a Birmingham,
Alabama protest leader, is destroyed by a dynamite bomb.

1958 – Rickey Henley Henderson is born in Chicago, Illinois. He
will grow up to become a baseball player with the Oakland
Athletics and New York Yankees and will become the stolen
base king. In 1982, Henderson will shatter Lou Brock’s
modern major league record by stealing 130 bases. He will
have 23 consecutive seasons in which he will steal more
than 20 bases. He will rank 4th all-time in games played
(3,081), 10th in at-bats (10,961), 20th in hits (3,055),
and first in runs scored (2,295) and stolen bases (1,406).

1959 – Michael P. Anderson is born in Plattsburgh, New York. He
will be raised in Spokane, Washington. He will graduate
from the University of Washington in 1981 and be
commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF. He will
become Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015
Communication Squadron and later be Director of
Information System Maintenance for the 1920 Information
System Group. In 1986 he will be selected to attend
Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. He
will serve as an aircraft commander and instructor pilot
in the 920th Air Refueling Squadron, Wurtsmith AFB
Michigan. He will be selected as an astronaut by NASA in
December 1994, and will become qualified for flight crew
assignment as a mission specialist. He will be initially
assigned technical duties in the Flight Support Branch of
the Astronaut Office. He will fly on the crew of STS-89
(Shuttle Endeavour to Space Station Mir) and will log
over 211 hours in space in 1998. Lt. Colonel Anderson
will be assigned to the crew of STS-107 (Shuttle Columbia)
and will join the ancestors when Columbia explodes during
re-entry on February 1, 2003.

1965 – The Congress of Racial Equality announces that its national
director, Dr. James Farmer, would resign on March 1.

2006 – James Brown, the dynamic “Godfather of Soul,” whose
revolutionary rhythms, rough voice and flashing footwork
influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap,
joined the ancestors early Christmas morning at the age of
73. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory
Crawford Long Hospital on 12/24 and succumbed to heart
failure around 1:45 a.m. He was one of the major musical
influences of the past 50 years. From Mick Jagger to
Michael Jackson, David Bowie to Public Enemy, his rapid-
footed dancing, hard-charging beats and heartfelt yet
often unintelligible vocals changed the musical landscape.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 22 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 22 *

1873 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond joins the ancestors.
He was the first African American lecturer employed by
the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

1883 – Arthur Wergs Mitchell is born near Lafayette, Alabama.
He will become the first African American Democrat
elected to Congress, representing Illinois for four
terms. In 1937, after being forced from first-class
train accommodations in Arkansas to ride in a shabby
Jim Crow car, Mitchell will sue the railroad and
eventually argue unsuccessfully before the Supreme Court
that interstate trains be exempt from Arkansas’
“separate but equal” laws. He will join the ancestors
on May 9, 1968.

1898 – Chancellor Williams is born in Bennettsville, South
Carolina. He will become a historian and author of
“Destruction of Black Civilization.” He will join the
ancestors on December 7, 1992.

1905 – James A. Porter is born in Baltimore, Maryland. An
artist, chairperson of the department of art at Howard
University and one of the earliest scholars of African
American art, Porter will exhibit his works widely in the
United States, Europe, and Africa. He will join the
ancestors on February 28, 1970.

1939 – Jerry Pinckney is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become an award-winning illustrator of children’s
books and numerous U.S. postage stamps featuring notable
African Americans.

1943 – W.E.B. Du Bois is elected as the first African American
member of the National Institute of Arts & Letters.

1980 – Samuel R. Pierce, Jr., a New York City lawyer and former
judge, is named to President Ronald Reagan’s Cabinet as
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

1984 – Four African American youths on a New York City subway
train, are shot by Bernhard Goetz. The white man shoots
because he thought they were going to rob him. He claims
he was seconds from becoming a mugging victim when he
opened fire, and will be acquitted of attempted murder in
1987 but will serve 8 months on a weapons charge. In
1996, he will lose a civil case brought against him by
one of the youths that he shot and paralyzed. The civil
judgment brought against him will be $ 43 million.

1988 – South Africa signs an accord granting independence to South
-West Africa.

1989 – The art exhibit “Afro-American Artists in Paris: 1919-1939”
closes at the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Gallery on the
Hunter College campus in New York City. The exhibit of
eight artists including William Harper, Lois Mailou Jones,
Archibald Motley, Jr., Henry O. Tanner, and Hale Woodruff,
among others, powerfully illustrates the results achieved
by African American artists when they were able to leave
the confines and restrictions imposed upon them by race in
the United States.

1996 – Kordell Stewart of the Pittsburgh Steelers runs 80 yards
for a touchdown in the first half of an 18-14 loss to the
Carolina Panthers, the longest scoring run by a quarterback
in NFL history.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 1 African American Historical Events

1810 – Charles Lenox Remond is born in Salem, Massachusetts to free
parents. He will become one of the most prominent of the
African American abolitionist crusaders. Charles Remond will
begin his activism in opposition to slavery while in his
twenties as an orator speaking at public gatherings and
conferences in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New York
and Pennsylvania. In 1838 the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society, will choose him as one of its agents. As a delegate
from the American Anti-Slavery Society, he will go with William
Lloyd Garrison to the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London
in 1840. He will have a reputation as an eloquent lecturer and
reported to be the first Black public speaker on abolition.
He will recruit Black soldiers in Massachusetts for the Union
Army during the Civil War, particularly for the famed 54th and
55th Massachusetts Infantry. He will also be active in recruiting
for the U.S. Colored Troops. After the Civil War ends, he will
work as a clerk in the Boston Customs House, and as a street lamp
inspector. He will later purchase a farm in South Reading (now
Wakefield), Massachusetts. He will join the ancestors on December
22, 1873.

1810 – The first insurance company managed by African Americans, the
American Insurance Company of Philadelphia, is established.

1833 – Henry McNeal Turner is born in Newberry Courthouse, South Carolina.
He will become one of the first Bishops in the African American
Episcopal Church. He will also be an army chaplain, political
organizer, magazine editor, and college chancellor. He will be
inspired by a Methodist revival and swear to become a pastor. In
1858, he will transfer his membership to the African Methodist
Church and study the classics, Hebrew and divinity at Trinity
College. In 1880, he will become a bishop in the African Methodist
Episcopal Church. During the American Civil War, he will be
appointed a Chaplain to one of the first Federal regiments of Black
troops (Company B of the First United States Colored Troops). He
will be the first of only 14 Black Chaplains to be appointed during
the Civil War. This appointment will come directly from President
Abraham Lincoln in 1863. He will also be appointed by President
Andrew Johnson to work with the Freedman’s Bureau in Georgia during
Reconstruction. Following the Civil War, he will become steadily
more disenchanted with the lack of progress in the status of the
country’s African Americans. During this time, he will move to the
state of Georgia. It is here that he will become involved in Radical
Republican politics. He will help found the Republican Party of
Georgia. After attempts to overcome certain Supreme Court decisions,
he will become disgusted and end his attempts to bring equality to
the United States. Instead, he will become a proponent of the “back
to Africa” and “African American colonization” movements. He will
travel to Africa and be impressed by the differences in the attitude
of Africans who have never known the degradation of slavery. He will
organize four annual conferences in Africa. He will write extensively
about the Civil war and about the condition of his parishioners. He
will join the ancestors while visiting Windsor, Ontario on May 15, 1915.
He will be highly regarded in the Afro-American and the Afro-Canadian
community and a large number of churches will be named in his honor.

1865 – John S. Rock becomes the first African American attorney
allowed to practice before the United States Supreme Court.
Due to his poor health, he never actually argued a case
before the court, succumbing to tuberculosis at the age of
41.

1870 – Jonathan Jasper Wright is elected to the South Carolina
Supreme Court. He is the first African American to hold a
major judicial position.

1871 – Jefferson Franklin Long, Republican congressman from Georgia,
makes the first speech by an African American on the floor
of Congress. His text is to oppose leniency to former
Confederates.

1902 – Langston Hughes is born in Joplin, Missouri. He will be
known as one of the most prolific American poets of the
20th century and a leading voice of the Harlem Renaissance.
In addition to his poetry, Hughes will achieve success as
an anthologist and juvenile author, write plays and
librettos, found theater groups, and be a widely read
columnist and humorist. Among his honors will be the NAACP’s
Spingarn Medal in 1960. He will join the ancestors on May 22, 1967.

1938 – Sherman Hemsley is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He
will become an actor and will known for his roles in the TV
shows “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Amen.”

1948 – James Ambrose Johnson, Jr. is born in Buffalo, New York. He
will become a singer, songwriter, producer, and musician
working under the name “Rick James.” He will be best known
for his recording of “Super Freak” and produce Teena Marie,
the gold-certified Mary Jane Girls, Eddie Murphy, and others.
He will join the ancestors on August 6, 2004.

1957 – P.H. Young becomes the first African American pilot, flying on
an United States scheduled passenger airline.

1960 – Four African American college students from North Carolina A&T
College in Greensboro, North Carolina sit at a “whites-only”
Woolworth’s lunch counter and refuse to leave when denied
service, beginning a sit-in protest.

1963 – Nyasaland (now Malawi) becomes a self-governing nation.

1965 – More than seven hundred demonstrators, including Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., are arrested in Selma, Alabama.

1965 – Ruby Dee becomes the first African American thespian to play a
major role at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford,
Connecticut.

1978 – The first stamp of the United States Postal Service’s Black
Heritage USA series honors Harriet Tubman, famed abolitionist
and “conductor” on the Underground Railroad.

1982 – The nations of Senegal & Gambia form a loose confederation
named Senegambia.

1991 – President F.W. de Klerk of South Africa, states that he will
repeal all apartheid laws.

1992 – Barry Bonds signs baseball’s highest single year contract to
date ($4.7 million).

1997 – BET Holdings and Encore Media Corp. launch BET Movie/Starz,
the first 24 hour African American movie channel.

2003 – Lt. Colonel Michael P. Anderson, NASA astronaut, joins the
ancestors at the age of 43, when the Space Shuttle Columbia
explodes during re-entry.

2003 – Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, joins the ancestors in Miami,
Florida from stroke complications at the age of 85. He had
been considered one of the most influential percussionists of
his generation.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 25 *

1760 – Jupiter Hammon, a New York slave who was probably the
first African American poet, publishes “An Evening
Thought:Salvation by Christ”.

1776 – Oliver Cromwell and Prince Whipple are among soldiers who
cross the Delaware River with George Washington to
successfully attack the Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey,
during the Revolutionary War.

1807 – Charles B. Ray is born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. He
will enter Wesleyan University in Connecticut and be
forced to withdraw due to objections from northerners
and southerners. He will later become a prominent
African American leader.

1835 – Benjamin Tucker Tanner is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. Father of famous painter Henry O. Tanner,
he will become an A.M.E. bishop and editor of the
“Christian Recorder” and founder in 1884 of the A.M.E.
Church Review,” a leading magazine of the day.

1837 – Cheyney University is established in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. It will be first known as the “Institute
for Colored Youth”. The school will be moved to George
Cheyney’s farm, 24 miles west of Philadelphia, in 1902.
It will be renamed in 1913 to “The Cheyney Training
School for Teachers.” Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
is the first historically Black institution of learning
in America. It is also the first college in the United
States to receive official state certification as an
institution of higher academic education for African
Americans.

1837 – Charles Lenox Remond begins his career as an antislavery
agent. Remond will be one of the first African Americans
employed as a lecturer by the antislavery movement. He
will work many years for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society.

1865 – Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, Shaw University
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Virginia Union University
in Richmond, Virginia are founded.

1875 – Charles Caldwell joins the ancestors after being
assassinated in Clinton, Mississippi. He was the first
African American in the state of Mississippi to be accused
of the murder of a white man and found “not guilty” by an
all-white jury. He was later elected to the state senate.

1907 – Cabell “Cab” Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. A
versatile jazz bandleader and singer who will popularize
scat singing, his song “Minnie the Moocher” will be the
first million-selling jazz record. Calloway will also
appear in the movie “Porgy and Bess” as well as perform as
a singer in the touring companies of “Porgy” and “Hello
Dolly.” He will join the ancestors on November 18, 1994.

1951 – Harry T. Moore, a Florida NAACP official, joins the
ancestors after being killed by a bomb in his home in Mims,
Florida. Active in expanding the African American vote in
Florida and in desegregating the University of Florida,
Moore will be posthumously awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn
Medal in 1952.

1951 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Mabel K. Staupers
for her leadership in the field of nursing.

1956 – The home of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a Birmingham,
Alabama protest leader, is destroyed by a dynamite bomb.

1958 – Rickey Henley Henderson is born in Chicago, Illinois. He
will grow up to become a baseball player with the Oakland
Athletics and New York Yankees and will become the stolen
base king. In 1982, Henderson will shatter Lou Brock’s
modern major league record by stealing 130 bases. He will
have 23 consecutive seasons in which he will steal more
than 20 bases. He will rank 4th all-time in games played
(3,081), 10th in at-bats (10,961), 20th in hits (3,055),
and first in runs scored (2,295) and stolen bases (1,406).

1959 – Michael P. Anderson is born in Plattsburgh, New York. He
will be raised in Spokane, Washington. He will graduate
from the University of Washington in 1981 and be
commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF. He will
become Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015
Communication Squadron and later be Director of
Information System Maintenance for the 1920 Information
System Group. In 1986 he will be selected to attend
Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. He
will serve as an aircraft commander and instructor pilot
in the 920th Air Refueling Squadron, Wurtsmith AFB
Michigan. He will be selected as an astronaut by NASA in
December 1994, and will become qualified for flight crew
assignment as a mission specialist. He will be initially
assigned technical duties in the Flight Support Branch of
the Astronaut Office. He will fly on the crew of STS-89
(Shuttle Endeavour to Space Station Mir) and will log
over 211 hours in space in 1998. Lt. Colonel Anderson
will be assigned to the crew of STS-107 (Shuttle Columbia)
and will join the ancestors when Columbia explodes during
re-entry on February 1, 2003.

1965 – The Congress of Racial Equality announces that its national
director, Dr. James Farmer, would resign on March 1.

2006 – James Brown, the dynamic “Godfather of Soul,” whose
revolutionary rhythms, rough voice and flashing footwork
influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap,
joined the ancestors early Christmas morning at the age of
73. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory
Crawford Long Hospital on 12/24 and succumbed to heart
failure around 1:45 a.m. He was one of the major musical
influences of the past 50 years. From Mick Jagger to
Michael Jackson, David Bowie to Public Enemy, his rapid-
footed dancing, hard-charging beats and heartfelt yet
often unintelligible vocals changed the musical landscape.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – December 3 *

1841 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond returns to the United
States after a year and a half in Great Britain. He
had been serving as a delegate to the world Anti-
Slavery Convention in London. He brings with him an
“Address from the People of Ireland” including 60,000
signatures urging Irish-Americans to “oppose slavery by
peaceful means and to insist upon liberty for all
regardless of color, creed, or country.”

1843 – The Society of Colored People in Baltimore, is the first
African American Catholic association whose
documentation has been preserved. Their notebook will
begin today and continue until September 7, 1845.

1847 – Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney begin the
publication of “The North Star” newspaper, one of the
leading abolitionist newspapers of its day.

1864 – The Twenty-Fifth Corps, the largest all African American
unit in the history of the U.S. Army, is established by
General Order # 297 of the War Department, Adjutant
General’s Office. The Colored Troops of the Department
of Virginia and North Carolina were organized into the
Twenty-Fifth Corps under the command of Major General G.
Weitzel.

1866 – John Swett Rock, a Massachusetts lawyer and dentist joins
the ancestors. He had become the first African American
certified to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase appointed Dr. Rock to
present cases before the Supreme Court on December 31,
1865.

1868 – The trial of ex-Confederacy president, Jefferson Davis
starts, marking the first United States trial with
African Americans included in the jury.

1883 – The Forty-Eighth Congress (1883-85) convenes. Only Two
African Americans are included as representatives. They
are James E. O’Hara of North Carolina and Robert Smalls
of South Carolina.

1883 – George L. Ruffin is appointed a city judge in Boston,
Massachusetts.

1922 – Ralph Alexander Gardner-Chavis is born in Cleveland, Ohio.
He will become a pioneer chemist whose research into
plastics leads to the development of so-called “hard
plastics.” His innovations in the manipulation of
catalytic chemicals will lead to the products for the
petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries as well as
plastics.

1951 – President Truman names a committee to monitor compliance
with anti-discrimination provisions in U.S. government
contracts and sub-contracts.

1956 – Wilt Chamberlain plays in his first collegiate basketball
game and scores 52 points.

1962 – Edith Spurlock Sampson is sworn in as the first African
American woman judge.

1964 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to NAACP executive
secretary Roy Wilkins for his contribution to “the
advancement of the American people and the national
purpose.”

1964 – The Independence Bank of Chicago is organized.

1964 – J. Raymond Jones is elected leader of the New York
Democratic organization (Tammany Hall).

1970 – Jennifer Josephine Hosten become the first African
American Miss World.

1979 – An University of Southern California running back,
Charles White, is named the Heisman Trophy winner for
1979. White, who gained a career regular season total
of 5,598 yards, will play professionally for the Los
Angeles Rams.

1982 – Thomas Hearns unifies the world boxing titles in the
junior middleweight division by capturing the WBC title
over Wilfredo Benitez.

1988 – Barry Sanders wins the Heisman Trophy.

1988 – In South Africa, 11 black funeral mourners are slain in
Natal Province in an attack blamed on security forces.

1990 – “Black Art – Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in
African American Art” opens at the Dallas Museum of Art.
United States and Caribbean artists represented among
the more than 150 works include Richmond Barthe’, John
Biggers, Aaron Douglas, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent
Johnson, and Houston Conwill.

1997 – President Clinton hosts his first town hall meeting on
America’s race relations in Akron, Ohio.

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