KRLemmons African American History

January 23 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 23 *

1837 – Amanda Berry Smith is born into slavery in Long Green,
Maryland. She will be widowed twice, after which she will
attempt to minister to her people. Unable to preach in the
AME Church, which did not ordain women ministers, Smith
will become an independent missionary and travel throughout
the United States and three continents. She will publish
her autobiography, “Amanda Smith’s Story – The Story of the
Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, The Colored
Evangelist,” in 1893. She will join the ancestors on
February 24, 1915.

1891 – Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, the first African
American hospital, is founded by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.
He also establishes the Provident Hospital School of Nursing
around the same time, because Emma Reynolds, an African
American, had been denied admission to every school of
nursing in the city of Chicago.

1941 – Richard Wright is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
book, “Native Son.”

1943 – Duke Ellington’s band plays for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie
Hall in New York City. It is the first of what will become
an annual series of concerts for ‘The Duke’.

1945 – The Army Nurse Corps discontinues its color barrier and
starts admitting nurses without regard to race. This is due
primarily to the pressure applied by the National
Association of Colored Nursing Graduates (NACGN) and other
groups.

1962 – Demonstrations against discrimination in off-campus housing
are staged by students at the University of Chicago for
fourteen days. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
charges that the university operates segregated apartment
houses.

1964 – The 24th amendment to the United States’ Constitution,
abolishing the poll tax in federal elections, is ratified.
The poll tax had been used extensively in the South as a
means of preventing African Americans from voting.

1976 – Paul Robeson joins the ancestors, as the result of a stroke,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had been a world-renown
actor and singer. He was perhaps the best known and most
widely respected African American of the 1930s and 1940s.
Robeson was also a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union,
and a man, later in his life, widely vilified and censored
for his frankness and unyielding views on issues to which
public opinion ran contrary. As a young man, Robeson was
virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He learned to
speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the
barriers of race and ignorance throughout the world, and
yet, as Sterling Stuckey pointed out in the “New York Times
Book Review,” for the last 25 years of his life, his was “a
great whisper and a greater silence in Black America.”

1977 – The first episode of “Roots,” adapted from the “New York
Times” bestseller by Alex Haley, is aired on ABC. Over the
next several nights, 130 million Americans will be
transfixed before their televisions as the story of Kunta
Kinte is told.

1985 – O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner to be
inducted into pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, another Heisman
winner, is also elected, but is after O.J. in the sequence
of induction.

1986 – The first annual induction ceremony for the Rock ‘N’ Roll
Hall of Fame is held in New York City. Among those inducted
were Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Fats Domino.

1989 – In “City of Richmond vs. J.A. Croson Co.,” the United States
Supreme Court invalidates the city’s minority set-aside
program, a major setback for the concept’s proponents.

2003 – Nell Carter, Tony Award winner and television star, joins the
ancestors at the age of 54. She had suffered from diabetes
for years and underwent brain surgery in 1992 to remove an
aneurysm. She recovered and continued to perform, mostly on
stage.

2015 – Ernie Banks, an American professional baseball player nicknamed “Mr. Cub” and “Mr. Sunshine”, joins the ancestors at the age of 83. He died of a heart attack at a Chicago hospital on January 23, 2015, shortly before his 84th birthday.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 27 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 27 *

1879 – African American publisher Robert Lee Vann is born in
Ahoskie, North Carolina. He will become an African
American publisher, lawyer and the nurturing editor of
the Black newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier. He will
attend Western University of Pennsylvania. He will
graduate from Law School in June, 1909. In 1910, he will
become the Pittsburgh Courier’s editor and publisher.
Under his leadership, The Courier will develop into one
of the leading Black newspapers of the era. By the 1930s,
it will be one of the highest circulated Black newspapers
in the United States. As many as 14 different editions
will be circulated throughout the country. He will become
involved in politics throughout his association with The
Courier. In 1918, he will be appointed the fourth
assistant city solicitor in Pittsburgh, the highest
position held by an African American in the city
government. Initially a Republican, he will grow
disillusioned with the party and convert to the
Democratic Party. On September 11, 1932, he will deliver
a famous speech at the St. James Literary Forum in
Cleveland, Ohio entitled “The Patriot and the Partisan”
and will urge African Americans throughout the nation to
turn away from the Republican party which had failed them,
and support the Democratic party of Franklin D. Roosevelt
in the 1932 election. He will support Franklin D.
Roosevelt in the 1932 election, and will subsequently be
named special assistant to the U.S. attorney general. In
1935, he will help campaign for the enactment of an equal
rights law in the State of Pennsylvania. He will serve as
editor and publisher of The Pittsburgh Courier until he
joins the ancestors on October 24, 1940.

1909 – Lester Young is born into a musical family in Woodville,
Mississippi. Young was taught several instruments by
his father. As a child he played drums in the family’s
band, but around 1928 he quit the group and switched to
tenor saxophone. His first engagements on this
instrument were with Art Bronson, in Phoenix, Arizona.
He stayed with Bronson until 1930, with a brief side
trip to play again with the family, then worked in and
around Minneapolis, Minnesota, with various bands. In
the spring of 1932 he joined the Original Blue Devils,
under the leadership of Walter Page, and was one of
several members of the band who joined Bennie Moten in
Kansas City towards the end of 1933. During the next
few years Young played in the bands of Moten, George E.
Lee, King Oliver, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Andy
Kirk and others. He will join the ancestors on March 15,
1959.

1918 – Dr. Joseph L. Johnson is named minister to Liberia.

1963 – W.E.B. DuBois joins the ancestors at age 95 in Accra,
Ghana. He was one of America’s foremost scholars, a
militant civil rights activist, founding father of the
NAACP, and leading proponent of Pan-Africanism.

1963 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his “I Have A Dream”
speech in Washington, DC during the 1963 March on
Washington.

1966 – A racially motivated civil disobedience riot occurs in
Waukegan, Illinois.

1975 – Haile Selassie, “Lion of Judah” and deposed Ethiopian
emperor, joins the ancestors at age 83 in Addis Ababa.

1982 – Rickey Henderson steals 119th base of season breaking Lou
Brock’s mark.

1983 – The second “March on Washington for Jobs, Peace, and
Freedom” is held.

1989 – ‘Johnny B Goode’ is performed by Chuck Berry for NASA
engineers and scientists in celebration of Voyager II’s
encounter with the planet Neptune.

1991 – Central Life Insurance Company, the last surviving
African American owned insurance company in the state of
Florida, is ordered liquidated by a Florida circuit
court judge.

2000 – Tiger Woods becomes the first male golfer since Johnny
Miller in 1975 to successfully defend three titles in
one year when he wins the NEC World Invitational.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 31 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – May 31 *

1870 – The first civil rights Enforcement Act, which protects the
voting and civil rights of African Americans, is passed by
Congress. It provides stiff penalties for public officials
and private citizens who deprive citizens of the suffrage
and civil rights. The measure authorizes the use of the
U.S. Army to protect these rights.

1909 – The first NAACP conference is held at the United Charities
Building in New York City with 300 African Americans and
whites in attendance. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, while speaking
at the conference, condemns lynching as a “blight upon our
nation, mocking our laws and disgracing our Christianity.”

1917 – One of the first jazz records, “The Darktown Strutter’s
Ball,” is released. It was written by songwriter and
musician, Shelton Brooks. It will become Brooks’ most
famous song.

1931 – Shirley Verrett is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. She will
become an operatic mezzo-soprano known worldwide for her
compelling performance in Carmen. She will be a star at the
world’s great opera houses, including the Metropolitan
Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the
Bolshoi Opera, the Paris Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the
Vienna Staatsoper, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She will
appear at the Metropolitan opera for more than two decades.
She will be the recipient of many honors and awards, among
them the Marian Anderson Award, Naumburg Award, and the
Sullivan Award; and fellowships from numerous foundations
including Ford, John Hay Whitney, and Martha Baird
Rockefeller. She will receive honorary doctorates from Holy
Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Northeastern
University in Boston. She will join the faculty at the
University of Michigan in 1996, becoming the James Earl
Jones Distinguished University Professor of Music. She will
join the ancestors on November 5, 2010.

1955 – The U.S. Supreme Court passes a second desegregation ruling,
demanding “all deliberate speed” be used in the
desegregation of public schools.

1961 – Judge Irving Kaufman orders the Board of Education of New
Rochelle, New York to integrate their schools.

1961 – Chuck Berry’s amusement park, Berryland, opens near Saint
Louis, Missouri.

1979 – Zimbabwe proclaims its independence.

1987 – John Dotson is named publisher of the Boulder, Colorado,
“Daily Camera.” It is one of many distinctions for the
noted journalist, including being the first African
American reporter for Newsweek magazine and founding, in
the mid-1970’s, the Institute for Journalism Education,
dedicated to training minority journalists.

1989 – Cito Gaston is named manager of the Toronto Blue Jays of
baseball’s American League.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 21 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – May 21 *

1833 – Oberlin College is founded in Ohio “to train teachers and other
Christian leaders for the boundless most desolate fields in the
West.” After almost going bankrupt in 1835, Oberlin will become
one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African
Americans. Arthur and Lewis Tappan, wealthy New York merchants
and abolitionists, will insist that Oberlin admit students
regardless of their color, as a condition of their financial
support. As a result of this decision, by 1900, nearly half of
all the African American college graduates in the United States
— 128 to be exact — will be graduated from Oberlin.

1862 – Mary Jane Patterson becomes the first African American woman to
earn an B.A degree from the four-year gentleman’s course at
Oberlin College in Ohio.

1904 – Thomas “Fats” Waller, is born in New York City. He will become a
celebrated jazz pianist, organist, and composer. Early in the
1920s, Waller will become the protege of the famous pianist James
P. Johnson and later will accompany such important vocalists as
Florence Mills and Bessie Smith. His hundreds of recordings,
including some early piano rolls, encompass ragtime, boogie
woogie, dixieland, and swing, although in his hands these styles
are deftly recomposed into a unique Waller sound that will
influence most of the jazz pianists of the following generation.
His appearances on radio and in several motion pictures (notably
“Stormy Weather,” 1943) will bring Waller’s talents to a wide
audience. A major jazz creator, he will write complete scores
for such all-African-American shows as “Keep Shufflin'” (1928)
and “Hot Chocolates” (1929) as well as many single pieces,
especially the now-classic “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Ain’t
Misbehavin’,” and “Black and Blue.” He will join the ancestors on
December 15, 1943.

1921 – Christopher Perry, who founded the Philadelphia Tribune in 1884,
joins the ancestors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of
65.

1934 – Robert ‘Bob’ Northern is born in Kinston, North Carolina. He will
become a jazz musician, known professionally as “Brother Ah”. His
specialty will be the French horn. He will be raised in the Bronx,
New York City. He will study at the Manhattan School of Music, the
Vienna State Academy in the 1950s and is a graduate of Howard
University. He will be best known as a session musician, working
extensively in the 1950s and 1960s with Donald Byrd, John Coltrane,
Gil Evans, Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Roland Kirk and the Jazz Composers
Orchestra. He will also work with Don Cherry, Thelonious Monk,
Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Dolphy, Charlie
Haden, and John Lewis. He will live in New York City from 1963 to
1971, and after a period of increasing interest in non-Western
music, will visit and study in Africa (Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania)
during seven consecutive summers (1972-1977). In the 1970s he will
release several albums as a bandleader. His 1974 release, “Sound
Awareness” will feature Max Roach and M’Boom. These albums will be
reissued on CD on the IKEF Records label in the 2000s. His
classical performances will include the New York Metropolitan Opera
(stage band); the Symphony of the Air; Radio City Music Hall
Orchestra; symphony orchestras in Vienna, Austria, West Germany and
Broadway Theatre orchestras in New York City. In addition to horn
playing, he will also branch into percussion and flute performance
later in his career. He will establish The World Community School
of Music, Inc. in 1992 and offer instrumental and vocal music
classes to students of all ages from “3 to 93”. As a lecturer and
instructor he will teach at the Levine School of Music, Sewell
Music Conservatory, District of Columbia Public and private schools,
as well as lectures at Howard University, University of the District
of Columbia, University of Maryland, Smithsonian Institution and
the Kennedy Center. He will also teach at Brown University (9 years),
Dartmouth College (3 years), Talledega College, the New York City
Public Schools, and the African Learning Center in Washington, DC
and privately. He will also establish the “World Music Ensemble,”
a group which explores African, Japanese, Spanish, East Indian,
Native American and American musical traditions and “The Sounds of
Awareness Ensemble” which explores the sounds of nature and music.
The World Music Ensemble will release its first compact disc
entitled “Celebration” in 1993. As Brother Ah, he will host a weekly
jazz oriented radio program, “The Jazz Collectors,” on station WPFW
in Washington, DC. His web site is http://www.ahnorthern.com.

1941 – Ronald Isley is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a singer
and with his brothers O’Kelly, Rudolph and Vernon Isley will form
the group, The Isley Brothers. They will leave Cincinnati in
1956 and go to New York City to pursue their musical career.
Ronald and his brothers will obtain fame and success nationally
and internationally earning numerous platinum and gold albums
which contain such classic hits as “Shout,” “Twist and Shout,”
“It’s Your Thing,” “Who’s That Lady,” “Fight the Power,” “For the
Love of You,” “Harvest For The World,” “Live It Up,” “Footsteps
in the Dark,” “Work to Do,” “Don’t Say Good Night” and many
others.

1955 – After being introduced to Leonard Chess, by bluesman Muddy Waters,
Chuck Berry goes into a recording session for Chess Records,
performing a restyled version of his song “Ida Red”. What comes
out of that hot session will be Ida Red’s new name and Chuck
Berry’s first hit, “Maybellene”. “Maybellene” will top the
Rhythm & Blues charts at #1, and the pop charts at #5.

1961 – Freedom Riders are attacked in Montgomery, Alabama. The third
city in which the CORE-sponsored group is attacked, the incident
prompts Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to send U.S. marshals
to keep the peace while Governor Patterson of Alabama declares
martial law and dispatches the National Guard to the troubled
area.

1964 – Edler Garnet Hawkins is elected by the 176th General Assembly and
becomes the first African American moderator of the United
Presbyterian Church. Born in the Bronx, New York on June 13, 1908,
he received his bachelor’s degree in 1935 at Bloomfield College in
Bloomfield, New Jersey and his Bachelor of Divinity degree from
Union Theological Seminary in 1938. He built his church from
nine African American members to an integrated congregation of
more than 1,000. He also became the first moderator of the
Presbyterian Church to visit the Roman Catholic Pope. He will
join the ancestors on December 18, 1977.

1969 – Police and National Guardsmen fire on demonstrators at North
Carolina A&T College. One student is killed and five policemen
are injured.

1970 – The National Guard is mobilized to stop widespread demonstrations
and violence at Ohio State University. The interracial student
demonstrators demand an end to ROTC programs and greater
admissions for African-American students.

1971 – Riots in Chattanooga, Tennessee, result in one death and 400
arrests as National Guard troops are called to put down the
racially motivated disturbances.

1973 – The sensual, “Pillow Talk”, by Sylvia (Sylvia Vanderpool), earns a
gold record. The artist first recorded with Hot Lips Page for
Columbia Records back in 1950 and was known as Little Sylvia.
She was also half of the singing duo Mickey & Sylvia, who
recorded “Love Is Strange” in 1957. “Pillow Talk” is her only
solo major hit and will make it to number three on the pop music
charts.

1975 – Lowell W. Perry is confirmed as chairman of the Equal Opportunity
Commission (EEOC).

1985 – Marvin Gaye’s last album is released. “Dream of a Lifetime”
features songs that critics consider too offensive such as the
controversial, pop version of “The Lord’s Prayer”. Three of the
songs from the album are completed after Gaye’s joins the
ancestors. Marvin Gaye will be inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1987.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 23 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 23 *

1837 – Amanda Berry Smith is born into slavery in Long Green,
Maryland. She will be widowed twice, after which she will
attempt to minister to her people. Unable to preach in the
AME Church, which did not ordain women ministers, Smith
will become an independent missionary and travel throughout
the United States and three continents. She will publish
her autobiography, “Amanda Smith’s Story – The Story of the
Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, The Colored
Evangelist,” in 1893. She will join the ancestors on
February 24, 1915.

1891 – Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, the first African
American hospital, is founded by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.
He also establishes the Provident Hospital School of Nursing
around the same time, because Emma Reynolds, an African
American, had been denied admission to every school of
nursing in the city of Chicago.

1941 – Richard Wright is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
book, “Native Son.”

1943 – Duke Ellington’s band plays for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie
Hall in New York City. It is the first of what will become
an annual series of concerts for ‘The Duke’.

1945 – The Army Nurse Corps discontinues its color barrier and
starts admitting nurses without regard to race. This is due
primarily to the pressure applied by the National
Association of Colored Nursing Graduates (NACGN) and other
groups.

1962 – Demonstrations against discrimination in off-campus housing
are staged by students at the University of Chicago for
fourteen days. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
charges that the university operates segregated apartment
houses.

1964 – The 24th amendment to the United States’ Constitution,
abolishing the poll tax in federal elections, is ratified.
The poll tax had been used extensively in the South as a
means of preventing African Americans from voting.

1976 – Paul Robeson joins the ancestors, as the result of a stroke,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had been a world-renown
actor and singer. He was perhaps the best known and most
widely respected African American of the 1930s and 1940s.
Robeson was also a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union,
and a man, later in his life, widely vilified and censored
for his frankness and unyielding views on issues to which
public opinion ran contrary. As a young man, Robeson was
virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He learned to
speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the
barriers of race and ignorance throughout the world, and
yet, as Sterling Stuckey pointed out in the “New York Times
Book Review,” for the last 25 years of his life, his was “a
great whisper and a greater silence in Black America.”

1977 – The first episode of “Roots,” adapted from the “New York
Times” bestseller by Alex Haley, is aired on ABC. Over the
next several nights, 130 million Americans will be
transfixed before their televisions as the story of Kunta
Kinte is told.

1985 – O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner to be
inducted into pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, another Heisman
winner, is also elected, but is after O.J. in the sequence
of induction.

1986 – The first annual induction ceremony for the Rock ‘N’ Roll
Hall of Fame is held in New York City. Among those inducted
were Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Fats Domino.

1989 – In “City of Richmond vs. J.A. Croson Co.,” the United States
Supreme Court invalidates the city’s minority set-aside
program, a major setback for the concept’s proponents.

2003 – Nell Carter, Tony Award winner and television star, joins the
ancestors at the age of 54. She had suffered from diabetes
for years and underwent brain surgery in 1992 to remove an
aneurysm. She recovered and continued to perform, mostly on
stage.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 31 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – May 31 *

1870 – The first civil rights Enforcement Act, which protects the
voting and civil rights of African Americans, is passed by
Congress. It provides stiff penalties for public officials
and private citizens who deprive citizens of the suffrage
and civil rights. The measure authorizes the use of the
U.S. Army to protect these rights.

1909 – The first NAACP conference is held at the United Charities
Building in New York City with 300 African Americans and
whites in attendance. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, while speaking
at the conference, condemns lynching as a “blight upon our
nation, mocking our laws and disgracing our Christianity.”

1917 – One of the first jazz records, “The Darktown Strutter’s
Ball,” is released. It was written by songwriter and
musician, Shelton Brooks. It will become Brooks’ most
famous song.

1931 – Shirley Verrett is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. She will
become an operatic mezzo-soprano known worldwide for her
compelling performance in Carmen. She will be a star at the
world’s great opera houses, including the Metropolitan
Opera, La Scala, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the
Bolshoi Opera, the Paris Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the
Vienna Staatsoper, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She will
appear at the Metropolitan opera for more than two decades.
She will be the recipient of many honors and awards, among
them the Marian Anderson Award, Naumburg Award, and the
Sullivan Award; and fellowships from numerous foundations
including Ford, John Hay Whitney, and Martha Baird
Rockefeller. She will receive honorary doctorates from Holy
Cross College in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Northeastern
University in Boston. She will join the faculty at the
University of Michigan in 1996, becoming the James Earl
Jones Distinguished University Professor of Music. She will
join the ancestors on November 5, 2010.

1955 – The U.S. Supreme Court passes a second desegregation ruling,
demanding “all deliberate speed” be used in the
desegregation of public schools.

1961 – Judge Irving Kaufman orders the Board of Education of New
Rochelle, New York to integrate their schools.

1961 – Chuck Berry’s amusement park, Berryland, opens near Saint
Louis, Missouri.

1979 – Zimbabwe proclaims its independence.

1987 – John Dotson is named publisher of the Boulder, Colorado,
“Daily Camera.” It is one of many distinctions for the
noted journalist, including being the first African
American reporter for Newsweek magazine and founding, in
the mid-1970’s, the Institute for Journalism Education,
dedicated to training minority journalists.

1989 – Cito Gaston is named manager of the Toronto Blue Jays of
baseball’s American League.

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

KRLemmons African American History

May 21 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – May 21 *

1833 – Oberlin College is founded in Ohio “to train teachers and other
Christian leaders for the boundless most desolate fields in the
West.” After almost going bankrupt in 1835, Oberlin will become
one of the first colleges in the United States to admit African
Americans. Arthur and Lewis Tappan, wealthy New York merchants
and abolitionists, will insist that Oberlin admit students
regardless of their color, as a condition of their financial
support. As a result of this decision, by 1900, nearly half of
all the African American college graduates in the United States
— 128 to be exact — will be graduated from Oberlin.

1862 – Mary Jane Patterson becomes the first African American woman to
earn an B.A degree from the four-year gentleman’s course at
Oberlin College in Ohio.

1904 – Thomas “Fats” Waller, is born in New York City. He will become a
celebrated jazz pianist, organist, and composer. Early in the
1920s, Waller will become the protege of the famous pianist James
P. Johnson and later will accompany such important vocalists as
Florence Mills and Bessie Smith. His hundreds of recordings,
including some early piano rolls, encompass ragtime, boogie
woogie, dixieland, and swing, although in his hands these styles
are deftly recomposed into a unique Waller sound that will
influence most of the jazz pianists of the following generation.
His appearances on radio and in several motion pictures (notably
“Stormy Weather,” 1943) will bring Waller’s talents to a wide
audience. A major jazz creator, he will write complete scores
for such all-African-American shows as “Keep Shufflin'” (1928)
and “Hot Chocolates” (1929) as well as many single pieces,
especially the now-classic “Honeysuckle Rose,” “Ain’t
Misbehavin’,” and “Black and Blue.” He will join the ancestors on
December 15, 1943.

1921 – Christopher Perry, who founded the Philadelphia Tribune in 1884,
joins the ancestors in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of
65.

1941 – Ronald Isley is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a singer
and with his brothers O’Kelly, Rudolph and Vernon Isley will form
the group, The Isley Brothers. They will leave Cincinnati in
1956 and go to New York City to pursue their musical career.
Ronald and his brothers will obtain fame and success nationally
and internationally earning numerous platinum and gold albums
which contain such classic hits as “Shout,” “Twist and Shout,”
“It’s Your Thing,” “Who’s That Lady,” “Fight the Power,” “For the
Love of You,” “Harvest For The World,” “Live It Up,” “Footsteps
in the Dark,” “Work to Do,” “Don’t Say Good Night” and many
others.

1955 – After being introduced to Leonard Chess, by bluesman Muddy Waters,
Chuck Berry goes into a recording session for Chess Records,
performing a restyled version of his song “Ida Red”. What comes
out of that hot session will be Ida Red’s new name and Chuck
Berry’s first hit, “Maybellene”. “Maybellene” will top the
Rhythm & Blues charts at #1, and the pop charts at #5.

1961 – Freedom Riders are attacked in Montgomery, Alabama. The third
city in which the CORE-sponsored group is attacked, the incident
prompts Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy to send U.S. marshals
to keep the peace while Governor Patterson of Alabama declares
martial law and dispatches the National Guard to the troubled
area.

1964 – Elder Garnet Hawkins is elected by the 176th General Assembly and
becomes the first African American moderator of the United
Presbyterian Church. Born in New York City on June 13, 1908, he
received his bachelor’s degree in 1935 at Bloomfield College in
Bloomfield, New Jersey and his Bachelor of Divinity degree from
Union Theological Seminary in 1938. He built his church from
nine African American members to an integrated congregation of
more than 1,000. He also became the first moderator of the
Presbyterian Church to visit the Roman Catholic Pope. He will
join the ancestors in 1977.

1969 – Police and National Guardsmen fire on demonstrators at North
Carolina A&T College. One student is killed and five policemen
are injured.

1970 – The National Guard is mobilized to stop widespread demonstrations
and violence at Ohio State University. The interracial student
demonstrators demand an end to ROTC programs and greater
admissions for African-American students.

1971 – Riots in Chattanooga, Tennessee, result in one death and 400
arrests as National Guard troops are called to put down the
racially motivated disturbances.

1973 – The sensual, “Pillow Talk”, by Sylvia (Sylvia Vanderpool), earns a
gold record. The artist first recorded with Hot Lips Page for
Columbia Records back in 1950 and was known as Little Sylvia.
She was also half of the singing duo Mickey & Sylvia, who
recorded “Love Is Strange” in 1957. “Pillow Talk” is her only
solo major hit and will make it to number three on the pop music
charts.

1975 – Lowell W. Perry is confirmed as chairman of the Equal Opportunity
Commission (EEOC).

1985 – Marvin Gaye’s last album is released. “Dream of a Lifetime”
features songs that critics consider too offensive such as the
controversial, pop version of “The Lord’s Prayer”. Three of the
songs from the album are completed after Gaye’s joins the
ancestors. Marvin Gaye will be inducted into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1987.

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