KRLemmons African American History

January 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 25 *

1851 – Sojourner Truth addresses the first African American Women’s
Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

1890 – The National Afro-American League is founded at an organizing
meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Joseph Price, the president
of Livingston College, is elected the first president of
what will come to be considered a pioneering African
American protest organization.

1938 – Jamesetta Hawkins is born in Los Angeles, California. She
will become a rhythm and blues singer known as “Etta James.”
She will be described as “one of the great forces in
American Music.” She will become a star scoring her first
national pop hit, “Roll With Me, Henry”, at age sixteen, and
be recognized as a master in the fields of blues, R&B, jazz,
and pop, crossing genres time and again. Between 1955 and
1975, Etta will create a dozen Top-10 Rhythm & Blues hits
and more than 25 chart hits. They will include such soulful
performances as “All I Could Do Was Cry” (1960), “At Last”
(1961), “Trust in Me” (1961), “Stop the Wedding” (1962),
“Tell Mama” (1967), and “Security” (1968). She will be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. She
will be nominated for six Grammy Awards and will win the
award for her 1994 recording of “Mystery Lady,” saluting
Billie Holiday. She will be inducted into the Blues Hall of
Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and
2008. Rolling Stone will ranked her number 22 on their list
of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the
list of the 100 Greatest Artists. She will join the ancestors
on January 20, 2012.

1942 – Carl Eller is born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He will
become a professional football player, spending many of his
years with the Minnesota Vikings. On the Vikings team, he will
play in four Super Bowl games (IV, VIII, IX, XI), in losing
efforts. He will be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
in 2004.

1950 – Gloria Naylor is born in New York City. She will become a
Jehovah Witnesses minister and ‘pioneer’ over a period of
seven years. After leaving the Witnesses and suffering a
nervous breakdown, she will read Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest
Eye”, and be inspired to become a writer. She will complete
her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and become a major writer
and is best known for her work, “The Women of Brewster
Place.”

1966 – Constance Baker Motley becomes the first African American
woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship.

1972 – Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm begins her campaign for
President of the United States. Although she will
ultimately be unsuccessful, she will make known the concerns
of African Americans across the country.

1980 – Black Entertainment Television, better known as BET, begins
broadcasting from Washington, DC. Robert L. Johnson, who
established the company with a $ 15,000 personal loan, will
make BET one of the most successful cable television
networks, with 25 million subscribers by its tenth
anniversary and, in 1991, the first African American-owned
company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

1989 – Michael Jordan scores his 10,000th NBA point in his 5th
season, the second fastest NBA climb to that position behind
Wilt Chamberlain.

1999 – Jury selection begins in Jasper, Texas, in the trial of white
supremacist John William King, charged in the dragging death
of African American James Byrd Jr.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 14 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 14 *

1874 – White Democrats seize the statehouse in a Louisiana coup
d’etat. President Grant orders the revolutionaries to
disperse, and the rebellion collapses. Twenty-seven
persons (sixteen whites and eleven Blacks) are killed in
battles between the Democrats and Republicans.

1891 – John Adams Hyman joins the ancestors in Washington, DC.
He was the first African American congressman from the
state of North Carolina.

1921 – Constance Baker Motley is born in New Haven, Connecticut.
She will achieve many distinctions in her career,
including being the first African American woman elected
to the New York Senate in 1964, the first woman Manhattan
borough president, and the first African American woman to be
named as a federal court judge in 1966. She will later
serve as chief judge of the Southern District of New
York until she joins the ancestors on September 28, 2005.

1940 – African Americans are allowed to enter all branches of
the United States Military Service, when President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Selective Service Act.

1964 – Leontyne Price and A. Philip Randolph are among the
recipients of the Medal of Freedom awarded by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.

1970 – One African American is killed and two whites are injured
in shoot-out between activists and police officers in a
New Orleans housing project.

2003 – Yetunde Price, the oldest sister of tennis stars Venus
and Serena Williams, joins the ancestors at the age of
31 after being killed in a shooting at her place of
business.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 25 *

1851 – Sojourner Truth addresses the first African American Women’s
Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

1890 – The National Afro-American League is founded at an organizing
meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Joseph Price, the president
of Livingston College, is elected the first president of
what will come to be considered a pioneering African
American protest organization.

1938 – Jamesetta Hawkins is born in Los Angeles, California. She
will become a rhythm and blues singer known as “Etta James.”
She will be described as “one of the great forces in
American Music.” She will become a star scoring her first
national pop hit, “Roll With Me, Henry”, at age sixteen, and
be recognized as a master in the fields of blues, R&B, jazz,
and pop, crossing genres time and again. Between 1955 and
1975, Etta will create a dozen Top-10 Rhythm & Blues hits
and more than 25 chart hits. They will include such soulful
performances as “All I Could Do Was Cry” (1960), “At Last”
(1961), “Trust in Me” (1961), “Stop the Wedding” (1962),
“Tell Mama” (1967), and “Security” (1968). She will be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. She
will be nominated for six Grammy Awards and will win the
award for her 1994 recording of “Mystery Lady,” saluting
Billie Holiday. She will be inducted into the Blues Hall of
Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and
2008. Rolling Stone will ranked her number 22 on their list
of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the
list of the 100 Greatest Artists. She will join the ancestors
on January 20, 2012.

1942 – Carl Eller is born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He will
become a professional football player, spending many of his
years with the Minnesota Vikings. On the Vikings team, he will
play in four Super Bowl games (IV, VIII, IX, XI), in losing
efforts. He will be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
in 2004.

1950 – Gloria Naylor is born in New York City. She will become a
Jehovah Witnesses minister and ‘pioneer’ over a period of
seven years. After leaving the Witnesses and suffering a
nervous breakdown, she will read Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest
Eye”, and be inspired to become a writer. She will complete
her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and become a major writer
and is best known for her work, “The Women of Brewster
Place.”

1966 – Constance Baker Motley becomes the first African American
woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship.

1972 – Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm begins her campaign for
President of the United States. Although she will
ultimately be unsuccessful, she will make known the concerns
of African Americans across the country.

1980 – Black Entertainment Television, better known as BET, begins
broadcasting from Washington, DC. Robert L. Johnson, who
established the company with a $ 15,000 personal loan, will
make BET one of the most successful cable television
networks, with 25 million subscribers by its tenth
anniversary and, in 1991, the first African American-owned
company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

1989 – Michael Jordan scores his 10,000th NBA point in his 5th
season, the second fastest NBA climb to that position behind
Wilt Chamberlain.

1999 – Jury selection begins in Jasper, Texas, in the trial of white
supremacist John William King, charged in the dragging death
of African American James Byrd Jr.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 14 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 14 *

1874 – White Democrats seize the statehouse in a Louisiana coup
d’etat. President Grant orders the revolutionaries to
disperse, and the rebellion collapses. Twenty-seven
persons (sixteen whites and eleven Blacks) are killed in
battles between the Democrats and Republicans.

1891 – John Adams Hyman joins the ancestors in Washington, DC.
He was the first African American congressman from the
state of North Carolina.

1921 – Constance Baker Motley is born in New Haven, Connecticut.
She will achieve many distinctions in her career,
including being the first African American woman elected
to the New York Senate in 1964, the first woman Manhattan
borough president, and the first African American woman to be
named as a federal court judge in 1966. She will later
serve as chief judge of the Southern District of New
York until she joins the ancestors on September 28, 2005.

1940 – African Americans are allowed to enter all branches of
the United States Military Service, when President
Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Selective Service Act.

1964 – Leontyne Price and A. Philip Randolph are among the
recipients of the Medal of Freedom awarded by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.

1970 – One African American is killed and two whites are injured
in shoot-out between activists and police officers in a
New Orleans housing project.

2003 – Yetunde Price, the oldest sister of tennis stars Venus
and Serena Williams, joins the ancestors at the age of
31 after being killed in a shooting at her place of
business.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 25 *

1916 – Garrett T. Morgan, inventor of the gas mask, rescues six
persons from a gas-filled tunnel, five miles from shore
under Lake Erie, in Cleveland, Ohio.

1918 – A race riot occurs in Chester, Pennsylvania. Three
African Americans and 2 whites are killed.

1921 – Liberty Life Insurance Company is founded by Frank L.
Gillespie. After a 1926 merger with Supreme Life and
Casualty of Columbus, Ohio, and Northeastern Life of
Newark, New Jersey, the resulting company will be called
Supreme Life Insurance Company and be, at one time, one
of the largest African American insurance companies in
the nation.

1930 – Nineteen-year-old Josh Gibson is called out of the stands
to substitute for the regular catcher for the Pittsburgh
Homestead Grays, one of the best-known all-Negro
professional baseball teams. Gibson will go on to play
15 years with a variety of teams in the Negro leagues.
His lifetime batting average, .423, will earn him
election to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972.

1941 – Nathaniel “Nate” Thurmond is born in Akron, Ohio. He will
become an all-star college basketball player and Hall of
Fame NBA player. Agile and deceptively strong, he will
hone his talents at Bowling Green State University, where
he will average 17.8 ppg and 17.0 rpg and be selected an
All-America his senior year. In 1963, he will be drafted
third in the NBA draft by the San Francisco Warriors and
will play the forward position because Wilt Chamberlain
is the Warriors’ pivot man. When San Francisco trades
Chamberlain to Philadelphia in 1965, he will return to his
natural position and develop into one of the NBA’s truly
dominant centers. He will log 14 NBA seasons with San
Francisco, Golden State, Chicago and Cleveland. He will be
selected to play in seven All-Star Games and be named NBA
All-Defensive First Team twice and Second Team three times.
He will first make NBA history when he grabs 18 rebounds in
one quarter against the Baltimore Bullets in 1965. Then on
opening night in 1974, he will make history again as the
first player to ever record a quadruple double-double
figures in four categories in one game (22 points, 14
rebounds, 13 assists and 12 blocked shots). When he retires,
he will have scored 14,437 points and grabbed 14,464
rebounds (sixth all-time), both 15.0 per game averages. He
will be enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame on July 1,
1985.

1943 – The U.S. Navy launches the “Leonard Roy Harmon’ in Quincy,
Massachusetts, the nation’s first warship named for an
African American. Harmon, a messman, was posthumously
awarded the Navy Cross for heroism.

1954 – Walter Jerry Payton is born in Columbia, Mississippi. He
will be the Chicago Bears’ first-round draft choice and the
fourth player selected in the 1975 National Football League
Draft and will develop into a superstar of unusual
dimensions during his 13-season NFL tenure from 1975 to
1987, all of which he will spend with the Chicago Bears.
The 5-10, 200-pound running back who will rush for 3,563
yards in four seasons at Jackson State University will go
on to dominate the rushing section of the NFL record book
during and long after his career will end. The records he
will hold at the time of his retirement include 16,726
total yards, 10 seasons with 1,000 or more yards rushing,
275 yards rushing in one game against the Minnesota Vikings
(1977), 77 games with more than 100 yards rushing, and 110
rushing touchdowns. He will have 4,368 combined net
attempts and account for 21,803 combined net yards. He will
also score an impressive 750 points on 125 touchdowns. He
will win the NFC rushing title five straight years from
1976 to 1980. He will also lead the NFC with 96 points in
1977 and win the NFL kickoff return championship in his
rookie 1975 campaign. He will be named both All-Pro and
All-NFC seven times and play in nine Pro Bowl games. He
will be selected as the NFL’s Most Valuable Player in 1977
and 1985, the NFL Offensive Player of the Year in 1977 and
1985 and the NFC Most Valuable Player in 1977. An amazing
runner, he will rush for more than 1,000 yards 10 of his
13 seasons. His best season will come in 1977, when he runs
for 1,852 yards, third best in history at that time. His
492 career pass receptions for 4,538 yards and 15
touchdowns will contribute to his exceptional combined net
yard totals. Extremely durable, he will miss one game in
his rookie campaign and then play in 186 consecutive games.
He will be a major factor in the Chicago Bear’s Super Bowl
XX win. He will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of
Fame on July 31, 1993. He will join the ancestors on
November 1, 1999 after succumbing to cancer.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance begins in Rochester, New
York. Subsequent to this civil unrest, the major employers
in the metropolitan area (Kodak, Xerox, Sybron, and Bausch
& Lomb) show marked improvements in their hiring of
African Americans.

1966 – Constance B. Motley becomes the first African American
woman to be appointed a federal judge.

1972 – The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, where African Americans
were used as guinea pigs in syphilis experiments for 40
years, is admitted to by U.S. government health officials.

1981 – Walter Payton signs a contract to play with the Chicago
Bears of the NFL on his 27th birthday. The famed running
back will earn almost $2 million over his three years.
‘Sweetness’, as he is nicknamed (because of his
disposition), becomes the highest paid player in the
National Football League at the time.

1990 – “Black Enterprise” publisher Earl G. Graves and Los Angeles
Lakers star Magic Johnson become the largest minority-
controlled franchise in the country when they sign a $ 60
million agreement to purchase Pepsi-Cola of Washington, DC.

1991 – Dennis Hightower is promoted to president of Disney Consumer
Products-Europe/Middle East. Hightower will have operating
responsibility for all book and magazine publishing,
merchandise licensing, children’s records and music, film
promotion and television sponsorship and will manage the
company’s eight subsidiaries and six offices in Europe and
the Middle East.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 25 *

1851 – Sojourner Truth addresses the first African American Women’s
Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

1890 – The National Afro-American League is founded at an organizing
meeting in Chicago, Illinois. Joseph Price, the president
of Livingston College, is elected the first president of
what will come to be considered a pioneering African
American protest organization.

1938 – Jamesetta Hawkins is born in Los Angeles, California. She
will become a rhythm and blues singer known as “Etta James.”
She will be described as “one of the great forces in
American Music.” She will become a star scoring her first
national pop hit, “Roll With Me, Henry”, at age sixteen, and
be recognized as a master in the fields of blues, R&B, jazz,
and pop, crossing genres time and again. Between 1955 and
1975, Etta will create a dozen Top-10 Rhythm & Blues hits
and more than 25 chart hits. They will include such soulful
performances as “All I Could Do Was Cry” (1960), “At Last”
(1961), “Trust in Me” (1961), “Stop the Wedding” (1962),
“Tell Mama” (1967), and “Security” (1968). She will be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. She
will be nominated for six Grammy Awards and will win the
award for her 1994 recording of “Mystery Lady,” saluting
Billie Holiday. She will be inducted into the Blues Hall of
Fame in 2001, and the Grammy Hall of Fame in both 1999 and
2008. Rolling Stone will ranked her number 22 on their list
of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time and number 62 on the
list of the 100 Greatest Artists. She will join the ancestors
on January 20, 2012.

1942 – Carl Eller is born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He will
become a professional football player, spending many of his
years with the Minnesota Vikings. On the Vikings team, he will
play in four Super Bowl games (IV, VIII, IX, XI), in losing
efforts. He will be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame
in 2004.

1950 – Gloria Naylor is born in New York City. She will become a
Jehovah Witnesses minister and ‘pioneer’ over a period of
seven years. After leaving the Witnesses and suffering a
nervous breakdown, she will read Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest
Eye”, and be inspired to become a writer. She will complete
her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees and become a major writer
and is best known for her work, “The Women of Brewster
Place.”

1966 – Constance Baker Motley becomes the first African American
woman to be appointed to a federal judgeship.

1972 – Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm begins her campaign for
President of the United States. Although she will
ultimately be unsuccessful, she will make known the concerns
of African Americans across the country.

1980 – Black Entertainment Television, better known as BET, begins
broadcasting from Washington, DC. Robert L. Johnson, who
established the company with a $ 15,000 personal loan, will
make BET one of the most successful cable television
networks, with 25 million subscribers by its tenth
anniversary and, in 1991, the first African American-owned
company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

1989 – Michael Jordan scores his 10,000th NBA point in his 5th
season, the second fastest NBA climb to that position behind
Wilt Chamberlain.

1999 – Jury selection begins in Jasper, Texas, in the trial of white
supremacist John William King, charged in the dragging death
of African American James Byrd Jr.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 14 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 14          *

1874 – White Democrats seize the statehouse in a Louisiana coup
        d’etat. President Grant orders the revolutionaries to
        disperse, and the rebellion collapses. Twenty-seven
        persons (sixteen whites and eleven Blacks) are killed in
        battles between the Democrats and Republicans.

1891 – John Adams Hyman joins the ancestors in Washington, DC.
        He was the first African American congressman from the
        state of North Carolina.

1921 – Constance Baker Motley is born in New Haven, Connecticut.
        She will achieve many distinctions in her career,
        including being the first African American woman elected
        to the New York Senate in 1964, the first woman Manhattan
        borough president, and the first African American woman to be
        named as a federal court judge in 1966. She will later
        serve as chief judge of the Southern District of New
        York until she joins the ancestors on September 28, 2005.

1940 – African Americans are allowed to enter all branches of
        the United States Military Service, when President
        Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Selective Service Act.

1964 – Leontyne Price and A. Philip Randolph are among the
        recipients of the Medal of Freedom awarded by President
        Lyndon B. Johnson.

1970 – One African American is killed and two whites are injured
        in shoot-out between activists and police officers in a
        New Orleans housing project.

2003 – Yetunde Price, the oldest sister of tennis stars Venus
        and Serena Williams, joins the ancestors at the age of
        31 after being killed in a shooting at her place of
        business.

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