* 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.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 