KRLemmons African American History

November 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 30 *

1869 – John Roy Lynch is elected to the Mississippi House of
Representatives.

1912 – Gordon Parks, Sr. is born in Fort Scott, Kansas. In the
late 1930’s, while working as a railroad porter, he
will become interested in photography and launch his
career as a photographer and photojournalist. From
1943 to 1945, he will be a correspondent for the Office
of War Information, giving national exposure to his
work. This will lead to him becoming a staff
photographer for Life magazine in 1948. He will branch
off into film and television in the 1950’s and in 1968
will produce, direct, and write the script and music
for the production of his book, “The Learning Tree.”
He will also direct and write the music scores for the
movies “Shaft,” “Shaft’s Big Score,” The Super Cops,”
“Leadbelly,” “Odyssey of Solomon Northrup” and “Moments
Without Proper Names.” He will also direct “Superfly,”
“Three The Hard Way,” “Aaron Loves Angela,” and be
called a “Twentieth Century Renaissance Man” by the
NAACP, who will award him its Spingarn Medal in 1972.
The Library of Congress will honor him in 1982 with the
National Film Registry Classics designation for his
film, “The Learning Tree.” He will join the ancestors
on March 7, 2006.

1924 – Shirley Anita St. Hill (later Chisholm) is born in
Brooklyn, New York. While an education consultant for New
York City’s day-care division, she will become active in
community and political activities that included the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and her district’s Unity Democratic Club. She
will begin her political career at the age of 40, when she
is elected to the state assembly. In 1968, she will be the
first African American woman elected to Congress,
defeating civil-rights leader James Farmer, who had
asserted in his campaign that African American voters
needed “a man’s voice in Washington.” She will run for
President in 1972 and continue her Congressional duties
until 1982.

1933 – Sam Gilliam is born in Tupelo, Mississippi. He will become
an artist known for his unique manipulation of materials
that result in painted sculpture or suspended paintings.
His work will be shown at the 36th Venice Miennale as well
as in the exhibit “African-American Artists 1880-1987.”

1937 – Robert Guillaume (Williams) is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
He will become an actor and be best known for his roles in
the sit-coms “Soap” and “Benson”.

1944 – Luther Ingram is born in Jackson, Mississippi. He will
become a rhythm and blues musician and singer and will be
best known for the song, “(If Lovin’ You is Wrong) I Don’t
Want to be Right.”

1948 – The Negro National League (Professional Baseball) officially
disbands. Although black teams will continue to play for
several years, they will no longer be major league caliber.
The demise of the Negro Leagues was inevitable as the
younger black players were signed by the white major league
franchises.

1953 – Albert Michael Espy is born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. In
1987, he will be sworn in as the state’s first African
American congressman since John Roy Lynch more than 100
years before. He will become Secretary of Agriculture
during the Bill Clinton administration. Leaving the
cabinet under fire and indicted for corruption, he will
later be vindicated when he is found not guilty.

1956 – Archie Moore is defeated by Floyd Patterson, as Patterson
wins the heavyweight boxing title vacated by the retired
Rocky Marciano. At the age of 21, Patterson becomes the
youngest boxer to be named heavyweight champion.

1962 – Bo Jackson is born in Bessemer, Alabama. The 1985 Heisman
Trophy winner will be one of the few professional athletes
to play in two sports – football and baseball.

1965 – Judith Jamison makes her debut with Alvin Ailey’s American
Dance Theatre in Chicago, dancing in Talley Beaty’s Congo
Tango Palace. Jamison will rejoin the company in 1988 as
artistic associate due to the failing health of Alvin
Ailey. she will become the company’s artistic director in
1989 upon Ailey’s death.

1966 – Barbados gains its independence from Great Britain.

1975 – The state of Dahomey becomes the People’s Republic of
Benin.

1981 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Coleman A. Young
“in recognition of his singular accomplishments as mayor
of the City of Detroit.”

1990 – Ruth Washington, long-time publisher of the Los Angeles
Sentinel, joins the ancestors. Following the death of
her husband Chester, Washington acted as publisher of the
weekly newspaper, founded in 1933, for sixteen years.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 3 *

1868 – John W. Menard, of Louisiana, is elected as the African
American representative to Congress. Menard defeats a 
white candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in 
Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an 
unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress.

1874 – James Theodore Holly, an African American who emigrated 
to Haiti in 1861, is elected bishop of Haiti.

1883 – Race riots occur in Danville, Virginia, resulting in the 
death of four African Americans.

1896 – South Carolina State College is established.

1905 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones is born in Boston, Massachusetts. 
She will win her first award in 1926 and have major 
exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation, the Salon des 
Artistes Francais in Paris, the National Academy of 
Design, and many others. Despite her long career, she 
will not have a major retrospective of her work until 
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mounts a show in her 
honor in 1973. She will join the ancestors on June 9,
1998. 

1920 – “Emperor Jones” opens at the Provincetown Theater with 
Charles Gilpin in the title role.

1933 – Louis Wade Sullivan is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will 
become the founder and first dean of the Morehouse 
School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, the highest-ranking African American in the 
Bush Administration.

1942 – William L. Dawson is elected to Congress from Chicago. 

1942 – Black and white advocates of direct, nonviolent action 
organized the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago. 
Three CORE members stage a sit-in at Stoner’s Restaurant
in Chicago’s Loop.

1942 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to Asa Philip Randolph 
“for organizing the Sleeping Car Porters under the 
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and securing 
recognition for them; and because of his fearless, 
determined mobilization of mass opinion that resulted 
in… Executive Order No. 8802, which banned racial 
discrimination in defense industries and government work.”

1945 – Irving C. Mollison, a Chicago Republican, is sworn in as 
U.S. Customs Court judge in New York City.

1945 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Paul Robeson 
“for his outstanding achievement in the theater, on the 
concert stage, and in the general field of racial 
welfare.”

1949 – Larry Holmes is born in Easton, Pennsylvania. He will 
become a professional boxer and world heavyweight 
champion from 1978 to 1985. During his reign, he will 
defend his title more times than any other heavyweight 
in history, with the exception of Joe Louis.

1953 – Jeffrey Banks is born in Washington, DC. He will become 
an influential fashion designer and the youngest designer 
to win the prestigious Coty Award, for his outstanding 
fur designs. 

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain of the NBA San Francisco Warriors, scores 
72 points vs the Los Angeles Lakers.

1964 – John Conyers, Jr. is elected to the House of 
Representatives from Detroit, Michigan.

1970 – Twelve African Americans are elected to the Ninety-second 
Congress, including five new congressmen: Ralph H. 
Metcalfe (Illinois), George Collins (Illinois), Charles 
Rangel (New York), Ronald Dellums (California), and 
Parren Mitchell (Maryland).

1970 – Wilson Riles is elected as the first African American 
superintendent of Public Instruction in California. 

1970 – Richard Austin is elected as the first African American 
secretary of state in Michigan.

1974 – Harold G. Ford is elected U.S. Congressman from Tennessee. 

1978 – Dominica is granted its independence by Great Britain.

1979 – Klansmen fire on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North 
Carolina, and kill five persons.

1981 – Coleman Young is re-elected mayor of Detroit. Thurman L. 
Milner is elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. James 
Chase is elected mayor of Spokane, Washington. 

1983 – Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for 
President of the United States. Although unsuccessful in 
this and a later 1988 campaign, Jackson will win many 
Democratic state primaries. His candidacy will win him 
national attention and a platform for increased 
representation by African Americans in the Democratic
Party. 

1992 – Carol Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to
be elected to the U.S. Senate. 

1992 – James Clyburn is the first African American to represent 
South Carolina since Reconstruction. He had previously 
served for 18 years as South Carolina’s Human Affairs 
Commissioner.

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

KRLemmons African American History

June 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 30 *

1881 – Henry Highland Garnet, former abolitionist leader and
Presbyterian minister, is named Minister to Liberia.
He will join the ancestors in Monrovia shortly after
his arrival.

1906 – John Hope becomes the first African American president
of Morehouse College.

1917 – Lena Horne is born in Brooklyn, New York. She will
begin her career at 16 as a chorus girl at the Cotton
Club in Harlem, appear in the movies “Cabin in the Sky”
and “Stormy Weather” and have a successful Broadway
career culminating in her one-woman show. Horne will
also be a strong civil rights advocate, refusing to
perform in clubs where African Americans are not
admitted and marching during the civil rights movement
in the 1960s. She will join the ancestors on May 9, 2010.

1921 – Charles S. Gilpin becomes the first actor to receive the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his portrayal of Emperor
Jones in the Eugene O’Neill play of the same name.

1940 – John T. Scott is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will
become a professor of art and a sculptor whose works will
be exhibited widely in the U.S. and at the exhibit of
“Art of Black America in Japan, Afro-American Modernism:
1937-1987.”

1958 – Alabama courts fined the NAACP $ 100,000 for contempt, for
refusing to divulge membership. The U.S. Supreme Court
will reverse the decision.

1960 – Zaire proclaims its independence from Belgium.

1966 – Michael Gerard “Mike” Tyson, former heavyweight champion of
the world and youngest (at age 19) to win that title (WBC
in 1986), is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1967 – Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. becomes the first African
American astronaut. He will join the ancestors after
being killed during a training flight accident on December
8, 1967.

1969 – Jacob Lawrence receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal “in
testimony to his eminence among American painters.”

1974 – Alberta King, mother of the late Martin Luther King Jr.,
joins the ancestors after being assassinated during a
church service in Atlanta, Georgia. The assailant, Marcus
Chennault of Dayton, Ohio, is later convicted and sentenced
to death.

1978 – Larry Doby becomes the manager of the Chicago White Sox
baseball team. He will have a win-loss record of 37-50 and
will be fired at the end of the season (October 19).

1980 – Coleman A. Young is awarded the Spingarn Medal for his
“singular accomplishment as Mayor of the City of Detroit,”a
position he had held since 1973.

2001 – Saxophonist Joe Henderson joins the ancestors in San
Francisco. His improvisational style and compositions have
influenced jazz musicians everywhere. He had been suffering
from emphysema, and became ill at his home in San Francisco,
but did not go to the hospital until the following day, where
he died of heart failure.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 30 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 30 *

1869 – John Roy Lynch is elected to the Mississippi House of
Representatives.

1912 – Gordon Parks, Sr. is born in Fort Scott, Kansas. In the
late 1930’s, while working as a railroad porter, he
will become interested in photography and launch his
career as a photographer and photojournalist. From
1943 to 1945, he will be a correspondent for the Office
of War Information, giving national exposure to his
work. This will lead to him becoming a staff
photographer for Life magazine in 1948. He will branch
off into film and television in the 1950’s and in 1968
will produce, direct, and write the script and music
for the production of his book, “The Learning Tree.”
He will also direct and write the music scores for the
movies “Shaft,” “Shaft’s Big Score,” The Super Cops,”
“Leadbelly,” “Odyssey of Solomon Northrup” and “Moments
Without Proper Names.” He will also direct “Superfly,”
“Three The Hard Way,” “Aaron Loves Angela,” and be
called a “Twentieth Century Renaissance Man” by the
NAACP, who will award him its Spingarn Medal in 1972.
The Library of Congress will honor him in 1982 with the
National Film Registry Classics designation for his
film, “The Learning Tree.”

1924 – Shirley Anita St. Hill (later Chisholm) is born in
Brooklyn, New York. While an education consultant for New
York City’s day-care division, she will become active in
community and political activities that included the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and her district’s Unity Democratic Club. She
will begin her political career at the age of 40, when she
is elected to the state assembly. In 1968, she will be the
first African American woman elected to Congress,
defeating civil-rights leader James Farmer, who had
asserted in his campaign that African American voters
needed “a man’s voice in Washington.” She will run for
President in 1972 and continue her Congressional duties
until 1982.

1933 – Sam Gilliam is born in Tupelo, Mississippi. He will become
an artist known for his unique manipulation of materials
that result in painted sculpture or suspended paintings.
His work will be shown at the 36th Venice Miennale as well
as in the exhibit “African-American Artists 1880-1987.”

1937 – Robert Guillaume (Williams) is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
He will become an actor and be best known for his roles in
the sit-coms “Soap” and “Benson”.

1944 – Luther Ingram is born in Jackson, Mississippi. He will
become a rhythm and blues musician and singer and will be
best known for the song, “(If Lovin’ You is Wrong) I Don’t
Want to be Right.”

1948 – The Negro National League (Professional Baseball) officially
disbands. Although black teams will continue to play for
several years, they will no longer be major league caliber.
The demise of the Negro Leagues was inevitable as the
younger black players were signed by the white major league
franchises.

1953 – Albert Michael Espy is born in Yazoo City, Mississippi. In
1987, he will be sworn in as the state’s first African
American congressman since John Roy Lynch more than 100
years before. He will become Secretary of Agriculture
during the Bill Clinton administration. Leaving the
cabinet under fire and indicted for corruption, he will
later be vindicated when he is found not guilty.

1956 – Archie Moore is defeated by Floyd Patterson, as Patterson
wins the heavyweight boxing title vacated by the retired
Rocky Marciano. At the age of 21, Patterson becomes the
youngest boxer to be named heavyweight champion.

1962 – Bo Jackson is born in Bessemer, Alabama. The 1985 Heisman
Trophy winner will be one of the few professional athletes
to play in two sports – football and baseball.

1965 – Judith Jamison makes her debut with Alvin Ailey’s American
Dance Theatre in Chicago, dancing in Talley Beaty’s Congo
Tango Palace. Jamison will rejoin the company in 1988 as
artistic associate due to the failing health of Alvin
Ailey. she will become the company’s artistic director in
1989 upon Ailey’s death.

1966 – Barbados gains its independence from Great Britain.

1975 – The state of Dahomey becomes the People’s Republic of
Benin.

1981 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Coleman A. Young
“in recognition of his singular accomplishments as mayor
of the City of Detroit.”

1990 – Ruth Washington, long-time publisher of the Los Angeles
Sentinel, joins the ancestors. Following the death of
her husband Chester, Washington acted as publisher of the
weekly newspaper, founded in 1933, for sixteen years.

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