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 and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 