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

January 18 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 18 *

1856 – Dr. Daniel Nathan Hale Williams is born in Hollidaysburg,
Pennsylvania. He will graduate from Chicago Medical
College in 1883 and begin his practice on Chicago’s South
Side. After 8 years of frustration, not being able to use
the facilities at the white hospitals in Chicago, he will
found Provident Hospital in 1891 and open it to patients of
all races. He will make his mark in medical history on
July 10, 1893, when he performs the world’s first successful
open heart surgery.

1948 – The first courses begin at the University of Ibadan in
Nigeria.

1949 – Congressman William Dawson is elected chairman of the House
Expenditure Committee. He is the first African American to
head a standing committee of Congress.

1958 – Willie Eldon O’Ree becomes the first person of African
descent to play in the NHL, when he debuts with the Boston
Bruins in a 3-0 win over Montreal in the Forum.

1961 – Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi party wins 1 seat by a single vote
and control Parliament by a single seat.

1962 – Southern University is closed because of demonstrations
protesting the expulsion of student sit-in activists.

1966 – Robert C. Weaver takes the oath of office as Secretary of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development. Appointed by
President Lyndon B. Johnson, Weaver becomes the first
African American to serve in a U.S. President’s Cabinet.

1975 – “The Jeffersons,” one of the first TV shows about an African
American family, is seen for the first time. The Jeffersons,
who move to Manhattan’s posh East Side, are the former
neighbors of the Bunkers in the sitcom “All in the Family.”
The Jeffersons will be the first show to introduce the
subject of mixed marriages humorously and tastefully in
prime time TV. Sherman Hemsley plays George Jefferson and
Isabelle Sanford the role of Louise, his wife.

1989 – Otis Redding, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder are inducted
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

1990 – The South African government announces that it is
reconsidering a ban on the African National Congress.

1990 – Washington, DC mayor Marion Barry is arrested for allegedly
purchasing and using crack cocaine in a Washington, DC hotel
room. The circumstances surrounding his arrest, trial, and
conviction on one count of misdemeanor cocaine possession
will be hotly debated by African American and white citizens
of the District and elsewhere.

1995 – South African President Nelson Mandela’s cabinet denies
amnesty sought by 3,500 police officers in apartheid’s
waning days.

2000 – Jester Hairston, who appeared on radio and TV’s “Amos ‘n’
Andy,” but who was better known to younger fans as the wise
old church member Rolly on the sitcom “Amen,” joins the
ancestors in Los Angeles, California at the age of 98.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 13 *

1839 – The first anti-slavery political party (Liberty Party) is
organized and convenes in Warsaw, New York. Samuel
Ringgold Ward and Henry Highland Garnet are two of the
earliest supporters of the new political party.

1910 – Painter and printmaker, Wilmer Angier Jennings, is born in
Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of Morehouse College and
student of Hale Woodruff, Jennings will be employed by the
Public Works for Art Project and Works Progress
Administration in the 1930’s, where he will paint murals
and landscape paintings, and produce prints.

1913 – Dr Daniel Hale Williams, the first physician to perform
open heart surgery, becomes a member of the American
College of Surgeons.

1940 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Hansberry vs. Lee
that whites cannot bar African Americans from white
neighborhoods. The Supreme Court’s ruling in the case
brought by wealthy real-estate broker Carl Hansberry of
Chicago, allows the Hansberry family, including 10-year-
old daughter Lorraine, to move into a white neighborhood.

1949 – Caryn Johnson is born in New York City. She will grow up
in the ghettos of New York, overcome drug addiction and
poverty, and become known as Whoopi Goldberg, multi-
talented comedian and actress and Academy Award winner
for her supporting role performance in “Ghost” in 1991.

1951 – Janet Collins, becomes the first African American ballerina
to appear with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

1956 – The Supreme Court upholds a lower court decision banning
segregation on city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The
Court establishes grounds for challenging bus segregation
in nine states that have violated the 15th Amendment.

1956 – Dancer Geoffrey Holder begins a contract with the
Metropolitan Opera. Holder will dance in 26 performances,
including “Aida” and “La Perichole”, and his career will
include dance, acting, and art collecting.

1967 – Carl Stokes becomes the first African American mayor of a
major U.S. city when he is inaugurated mayor of Cleveland,
Ohio.

1973 – Reggie Jackson, of the Oakland Athletics, unanimously wins
the American League MVP award.

1985 – Dwight Gooden, the youngest 20 game winner in Major League
baseball history, wins the Cy Young award.

1992 – Riddick Bowe wins the undisputed heavyweight boxing title
in Las Vegas with a unanimous decision over Evander
Holyfield.

1996 – A grand jury in St. Petersburg, Florida, declines to indict
police officer Jim Knight, who had shot African American
motorist TyRon Lewis to death the previous month. The
decision prompts angry mobs to return to the streets.

1996 – An all-white jury in Pittsburgh acquits a suburban police
officer, John Vojtas, in the death of African American
motorist Johnny Gammage in a verdict that angers African
American activists.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 4 *

1810 – Robert Purvis is born in Charleston, South Carolina to a
wealthy white cotton merchant father, William Purvis and
a mulatto mother, Harriet Judah. After graduating from
Amherst College in Massachusetts, he will move to
Pennsylvania. In 1833, he will help William Lloyd
Garrison establish the American Anti-Slavery Society,
sign its Declaration of Sentiments and will be on the
first board of managers. In the same year, he will help
establish the Library Company of Colored People. In 1838,
he will draft “Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens
Threatened with Disfranchisement,” which supports the
repeal of a new state statute barring African Americans
from voting. As a supporter of the Underground Railroad,
he will serve as chairman of the General Vigilance
Committee from 1852 until 1857. According to records that
he will keep, from 1831 until 1861, he estimates that he
helped one slave achieve freedom per day. According to
these figures, he helped 9,000 slaves achieve freedom.
He will join the ancestors on April 15, 1898.

1870 – White conservatives suppress the African American vote and
capture the Tennessee legislature in an election marred
by assassinations and widespread violence. The campaign
effectively ends Radical Reconstruction in North Carolina.
The conservative legislature will impeach Governor Holden
on December 14.

1875 – The Convention of Colored Newspapermen is held in
Cincinnati, Ohio. The meeting is attended by J. Sella
Martin of the “True Republican”, Mifflin W. Gibbs, former
publisher of California’s “Mirror of the Times”
representing the “Pacific Appeal”, Henry McNeal Turner of
Philadelphia’s “Christian Recorder”, the San Francisco
“Elevator’s” L. H. Douglass, and Henry Scroggins of the
“American Citizen” (Lexington, Kentucky). Chairman P.B.S.
Pinchback states the aim of the national organization: “to
make colored people’s newspapers self-sustaining.” At the
time of the convention, Martin’s “New Era” and Frederick
Douglass’ “North Star” are among eight African American
newspaper failures.

1885 – W.C. Carter invents the umbrella stand.

1890 – Sam T. Jack’s play “Creoles” opens in Haverhill,
Massachusetts. It is the first time African American women
are featured as performers on the stage.

1891 – George Washington Williams joins the ancestors in Blackpool,
England at the age of 41. He was the first major African
American historian and published his major work, “History
of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880” in 1883.

1896 – W.S. Grant patents a curtain rod support.

1897 – Henry Rucker is appointed collector of Internal Revenue for
Georgia.

1901 – Daniel Louis Armstrong is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
He will become a jazz musician specializing in the cornet
and trumpet. He will win a Grammy Award for his rendition
of “Hello, Dolly!” in 1964. He will be awarded the
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1971. Some of his other hits
will be “It’s a Wonderful World,” “Mack the Knife,” and
“Blueberry Hill.” He will also be featured in films: “The
Five Pennies,” “The Glenn Miller Story,” “Hello Dolly!,”
and “High Society.” He will be referred to as the American
ambassador of good will and will be inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Throughout his life, he will
resent the nickname “Satchmo”, short for satchel mouth. He
will join the ancestors on July 6, 1971.

1916 – The United States purchases the Danish Virgin Islands for
$25 million.

1931 – Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, heart surgeon, founder of
Chicago’s Provident Hospital, joins the ancestors.

1936 – “Long” John Woodruff, of the University of Pittsburgh, wins
a gold medal in the 800-meter run at the Olympic Summer
Games in Berlin, Germany. He, like Jesse Owens (who had won
his second medal earlier in the day), will be snubbed by
Adolph Hitler, who believes that blacks are incapable of
athletic achievement.

1936 – Jesse Owens sets a new Olympic running broad jump record by
leaping 26′ 5 5/16″.

1953 – The movement of African American families into the Trumbull
Park housing project in Chicago, Illinois, triggers
virtually continuous riot conditions which will last more
than three years and require the assignment of more than
one thousand policemen to keep order.

1962 – Nelson Mandela is captured and jailed by South African
police.

1964 – James E. Chaney and two other civil rights workers’ bodies
are found in an earthen dam on a farm in Philadelphia,
Mississippi. They had been missing since June 21. The FBI
says that they had been murdered on the night of their
disappearance by segregationists. Eighteen whites,
including several police officers, were charged with
conspiracy to deprive the victims of their civil rights.

1969 – Willie Stargell is the first to hit a home run out of Dodger
Stadium.

1980 – Maury Wills is named manager of the Seattle Mariners. He is
the third African American to be named a major league
manager.

1985 – California Angel Rod Carew gets his 3,000th base hit.

1996 – On the final day of the Atlanta Olympics, Josia Thugwane
became the first Black South African to win a gold medal as
he finished first in the marathon.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 9 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – July 9 *

1863 – Union troops enter Port Hudson, Louisiana. With the fall of
Vicksburg (on July 4) and Port Hudson, Union troops
control the Mississippi River and The Confederacy is
cut into two sections. Eight African American regiments
play important roles in the siege of Port Hudson.

1868 – Francis L. Cardozo is installed as secretary of the
state of South Carolina and becomes the first African
American cabinet officer on the state level.

1893 – Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the world’s first
open-heart surgery at Chicago’s Provident Hospital
(which he founded in 1891) on James Cornish, who had
been stabbed in the chest and was dying from blood
accumulation around the heart. Dr. Williams brought Mr.
Cornish to surgery, where he proceeded to open his
chest, drain the blood and successfully sutured the
pericardium.

1901 – Jester Hairston is born in Belew’s Creek, North Carolina,
and will move at a very early age to the Homestead
section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he will grow
up. He will attend the Massachusetts Agriculture College
(now University of Massachusetts), dropping out in the
1920s due to lack of money. After impressing a
benefactor with his singing, he will be sponsored at
Tufts University, graduating in 1929. He will move to New
York and will meet Hall Johnson, who will teach him to
respect Negro spirituals. He will begin his Hollywood
career in 1935 when Warner Brothers purchases the show,
“Green Pastures.” His early acting roles, will include
long-running parts on the radio and television versions
of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” as well as bit parts in Tarzan films.
Although many of his early acting jobs will portray less
than flattering images of Blacks, he will never apologize
for playing racial stereotypes. “We had a hard time then
fighting for dignity,” he will say years later. “We had
no power. We had to take it, and because we took it the
young people today have opportunities.” In addition to
his roles in television’s “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and “Amen,”
Hairston will excel as a musician, first with the Eva
Jessye Choir and later as assistant conductor of the Hall
Johnson Choir. He will also arrange choral music for
more than 40 film soundtracks. He will also become the
first African American to direct The Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. His film credits will include “The Alamo,” “To
Kill a Mockingbird,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Lady
Sings the Blues,” “The Last Tycoon” and “Lilies of the
Field,” for which he will compose the song “Amen.” That
song, which he dubbed for Sidney Poitier in the movie,
will reflect Hairston’s lifelong dedication to preserving
old Negro spirituals. He will be a sought-after choral
director who will organize Hollywood’s first integrated
choir and compose more than 300 spirituals. In his later
years, when working with students at college workshops,
Hairston will tell them, “You can’t sing legato when the
master’s beatin’ you across your back.” He will join the
ancestors in Los Angeles, California on January 18, 2000.

1927 – Attorney William T. Francis is named minister to Liberia.

1936 – June Millicent Jordan is born in the village of Harlem, New
York City. She will become a poet and author of books for
children and young adults and will be nominated for the
National Book Award in 1972 for “His Own Where.” Her
teaching career will begin in 1967 at the City College of
New York. Between 1968 and 1978 she will teach at Yale
University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Connecticut College.
She then will become the director of The Poetry Center and
be an English professor at SUNY at Stony Brook from 1978 to
1989. From 1989 to 2002 she was a full professor in the
departments of English, Women Studies, and African American
Studies at the University of California Berkeley. At
Berkeley, she will found Poetry for the People in 1991. The
program inspires and empowers students to use poetry as a
means of artistic expression. Reflecting on how she began
with the concept of the program, she said: “I did not wake
up one morning ablaze with a coherent vision of Poetry for
the People! The natural intermingling of my ideas and my
observations as an educator, a poet, and the African
American daughter of poorly documented immigrants did not
lead me to any limiting ideological perspectives or resolve.
Poetry for the People is the arduous and happy outcome of
practical, day-by-day, classroom failure and success”.
She will compose three guideline points that embody the
program, which will be published with a set of her students’
writings in 1995, entitled June Jordan’s Poetry for the
People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. She will join the
ancestors on June 14, 2002 after succumbing to breast cancer.

1947 – O.J. (Orenthal James) Simpson is born in San Francisco,
California. He will become a professional football player
after winning the Heisman Trophy – USC – in 1968. He will
be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after playing
for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. He will
then become an actor and be known for his roles in the
“Naked Gun” series, “The Towering Inferno,” “Roots,” and
“Capricorn One.” He will be charged with, and acquitted
of the murder of ex-wife, Nicole and Ron Goldman in 1995.

1951 – Dave Parker is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a
professional baseball player and will replace Roberto
Clemente as the right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates
after Clemente’s death. In 1978, he will become the first
Pirate to become Most Valuable Player since Clemente. He
will win three Gold Glove awards. His career will diminish
after he suffers from weight and knee problems, eventually
leading to drug problems. He will be traded to Cincinnati
and then to the Athletics, where he will contribute to their
1988 and 1989 pennants as a Designated Hitter and team
leader.

1955 – E. Frederick Morrow is appointed an administrative aide to
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is the first African
American to hold an executive position on a White House
staff.

1971 – Clergyman and activist Leon H. Sullivan is awarded the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his achievements in transmitting
“the social gospel into economic progress for his people.”

1978 – Larry Holmes wins a decision over Ken Norton for the WBC
crown.

1979 – Dr. Walter Massey is named director of the Argonne National
Laboratory.

1987 – Percy E. Sutton, former New York State legislator, president
of the Borough of Manhattan, founder of Inner City
Broadcasting and owner of the Apollo Theatre, receives the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.

2006 – Milan B. Williams, one of the original members of the Rhythm &
Blues group, The Commodores, joins the ancestors at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas, after a long battle with cancer at the age of 58.
He was one of the founding members of the Commodores, which
formed in 1968 while all the members were in college at the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The group, whose best known
member was singer Lionel Richie, had a series of hits during
the 1970s and 1980s, including “Brick House,” “Easy” and
“Three Times A Lady.” He wrote the band’s first hit, “Machine
Gun.”

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

January 18 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 18 *

1856 – Dr. Daniel Nathan Hale Williams is born in Hollidaysburg,
Pennsylvania. He will graduate from Chicago Medical
College in 1883 and begin his practice on Chicago’s South
Side. After 8 years of frustration, not being able to use
the facilities at the white hospitals in Chicago, he will
found Provident Hospital in 1891 and open it to patients of
all races. He will make his mark in medical history on
July 10, 1893, when he performs the world’s first successful
open heart surgery.

1948 – The first courses begin at the University of Ibadan in
Nigeria.

1949 – Congressman William Dawson is elected chairman of the House
Expenditure Committee. He is the first African American to
head a standing committee of Congress.

1958 – Willie Eldon O’Ree becomes the first person of African
descent to play in the NHL, when he debuts with the Boston
Bruins in a 3-0 win over Montreal in the Forum.

1961 – Zanzibar’s Afro-Shirazi party wins 1 seat by a single vote
and control Parliament by a single seat.

1962 – Southern University is closed because of demonstrations
protesting the expulsion of student sit-in activists.

1966 – Robert C. Weaver takes the oath of office as Secretary of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development. Appointed by
President Lyndon B. Johnson, Weaver becomes the first
African American to serve in a U.S. President’s Cabinet.

1975 – “The Jeffersons,” one of the first TV shows about an African
American family, is seen for the first time. The Jeffersons,
who move to Manhattan’s posh East Side, are the former
neighbors of the Bunkers in the sitcom “All in the Family.”
The Jeffersons will be the first show to introduce the
subject of mixed marriages humorously and tastefully in
prime time TV. Sherman Hemsley plays George Jefferson and
Isabelle Sanford the role of Louise, his wife.

1989 – Otis Redding, The Temptations, and Stevie Wonder are inducted
into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

1990 – The South African government announces that it is
reconsidering a ban on the African National Congress.

1990 – Washington, DC mayor Marion Barry is arrested for allegedly
purchasing and using crack cocaine in a Washington, DC hotel
room. The circumstances surrounding his arrest, trial, and
conviction on one count of misdemeanor cocaine possession
will be hotly debated by African American and white citizens
of the District and elsewhere.

1995 – South African President Nelson Mandela’s cabinet denies
amnesty sought by 3,500 police officers in apartheid’s
waning days.

2000 – Jester Hairston, who appeared on radio and TV’s “Amos ‘n’
Andy,” but who was better known to younger fans as the wise
old church member Rolly on the sitcom “Amen,” joins the
ancestors in Los Angeles, California at the age of 98.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 13 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 13 *

1839 – The first anti-slavery political party (Liberty Party) is
organized and convenes in Warsaw, New York. Samuel
Ringgold Ward and Henry Highland Garnet are two of the
earliest supporters of the new political party.

1910 – Painter and printmaker, Wilmer Angier Jennings, is born in
Atlanta, Georgia. A graduate of Morehouse College and
student of Hale Woodruff, Jennings will be employed by the
Public Works for Art Project and Works Progress
Administration in the 1930’s, where he will paint murals
and landscape paintings, and produce prints.

1913 – Dr Daniel Hale Williams, the first physician to perform
open heart surgery, becomes a member of the American
College of Surgeons.

1940 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Hansberry vs. Lee
that whites cannot bar African Americans from white
neighborhoods. The Supreme Court’s ruling in the case
brought by wealthy real-estate broker Carl Hansberry of
Chicago, allows the Hansberry family, including 10-year-
old daughter Lorraine, to move into a white neighborhood.

1949 – Caryn Johnson is born in New York City. She will grow up
in the ghettos of New York, overcome drug addiction and
poverty, and become known as Whoopi Goldberg, multi-
talented comedian and actress and Academy Award winner
for her supporting role performance in “Ghost” in 1991.

1951 – Janet Collins, becomes the first African American ballerina
to appear with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

1956 – The Supreme Court upholds a lower court decision banning
segregation on city buses in Montgomery, Alabama. The
Court establishes grounds for challenging bus segregation
in nine states that have violated the 15th Amendment.

1956 – Dancer Geoffrey Holder begins a contract with the
Metropolitan Opera. Holder will dance in 26 performances,
including “Aida” and “La Perichole”, and his career will
include dance, acting, and art collecting.

1967 – Carl Stokes becomes the first African American mayor of a
major U.S. city when he is inaugurated mayor of Cleveland,
Ohio.

1973 – Reggie Jackson, of the Oakland Athletics, unanimously wins
the American League MVP award.

1985 – Dwight Gooden, the youngest 20 game winner in Major League
baseball history, wins the Cy Young award.

1992 – Riddick Bowe wins the undisputed heavyweight boxing title
in Las Vegas with a unanimous decision over Evander
Holyfield.

1996 – A grand jury in St. Petersburg, Florida, declines to indict
police officer Jim Knight, who had shot African American
motorist TyRon Lewis to death the previous month. The
decision prompts angry mobs to return to the streets.

1996 – An all-white jury in Pittsburgh acquits a suburban police
officer, John Vojtas, in the death of African American
motorist Johnny Gammage in a verdict that angers African
American activists.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 4 *

1810 – Robert Purvis is born in Charleston, South Carolina to a
wealthy white cotton merchant father, William Purvis and
a mulatto mother, Harriet Judah. After graduating from
Amherst College in Massachusetts, he will move to
Pennsylvania. In 1833, he will help William Lloyd
Garrison establish the American Anti-Slavery Society,
sign its Declaration of Sentiments and will be on the
first board of managers. In the same year, he will help
establish the Library Company of Colored People. In 1838,
he will draft “Appeal of Forty Thousand Citizens
Threatened with Disfranchisement,” which supports the
repeal of a new state statute barring African Americans
from voting. As a supporter of the Underground Railroad,
he will serve as chairman of the General Vigilance
Committee from 1852 until 1857. According to records that
he will keep, from 1831 until 1861, he estimates that he
helped one slave achieve freedom per day. According to
these figures, he helped 9,000 slaves achieve freedom.
He will join the ancestors on April 15, 1898.

1870 – White conservatives suppress the African American vote and
capture the Tennessee legislature in an election marred
by assassinations and widespread violence. The campaign
effectively ends Radical Reconstruction in North Carolina.
The conservative legislature will impeach Governor Holden
on December 14.

1875 – The Convention of Colored Newspapermen is held in
Cincinnati, Ohio. The meeting is attended by J. Sella
Martin of the “True Republican”, Mifflin W. Gibbs, former
publisher of California’s “Mirror of the Times”
representing the “Pacific Appeal”, Henry McNeal Turner of
Philadelphia’s “Christian Recorder”, the San Francisco
“Elevator’s” L. H. Douglass, and Henry Scroggins of the
“American Citizen” (Lexington, Kentucky). Chairman P.B.S.
Pinchback states the aim of the national organization: “to
make colored people’s newspapers self-sustaining.” At the
time of the convention, Martin’s “New Era” and Frederick
Douglass’ “North Star” are among eight African American
newspaper failures.

1885 – W.C. Carter invents the umbrella stand.

1890 – Sam T. Jack’s play “Creoles” opens in Haverhill,
Massachusetts. It is the first time African American women
are featured as performers on the stage.

1891 – George Washington Williams joins the ancestors in Blackpool,
England at the age of 41. He was the first major African
American historian and published his major work, “History
of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880” in 1883.

1896 – W.S. Grant patents a curtain rod support.

1897 – Henry Rucker is appointed collector of Internal Revenue for
Georgia.

1901 – Daniel Louis Armstrong is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
He will become a jazz musician specializing in the cornet
and trumpet. He will win a Grammy Award for his rendition
of “Hello, Dolly!” in 1964. He will be awarded the
Lifetime Achievement Award in 1971. Some of his other hits
will be “It’s a Wonderful World,” “Mack the Knife,” and
“Blueberry Hill.” He will also be featured in films: “The
Five Pennies,” “The Glenn Miller Story,” “Hello Dolly!,”
and “High Society.” He will be referred to as the American
ambassador of good will and will be inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Throughout his life, he will
resent the nickname “Satchmo”, short for satchel mouth. He
will join the ancestors on July 6, 1971.

1916 – The United States purchases the Danish Virgin Islands for
$25 million.

1931 – Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, heart surgeon, founder of
Chicago’s Provident Hospital, joins the ancestors.

1936 – “Long” John Woodruff, of the University of Pittsburgh, wins
a gold medal in the 800-meter run at the Olympic Summer
Games in Berlin, Germany. He, like Jesse Owens (who had won
his second medal earlier in the day), will be snubbed by
Adolph Hitler, who believes that blacks are incapable of
athletic achievement.

1936 – Jesse Owens sets a new Olympic running broad jump record by
leaping 26′ 5 5/16″.

1953 – The movement of African American families into the Trumbull
Park housing project in Chicago, Illinois, triggers
virtually continuous riot conditions which will last more
than three years and require the assignment of more than
one thousand policemen to keep order.

1962 – Nelson Mandela is captured and jailed by South African
police.

1964 – James E. Chaney and two other civil rights workers’ bodies
are found in an earthen dam on a farm in Philadelphia,
Mississippi. They had been missing since June 21. The FBI
says that they had been murdered on the night of their
disappearance by segregationists. Eighteen whites,
including several police officers, were charged with
conspiracy to deprive the victims of their civil rights.

1969 – Willie Stargell is the first to hit a home run out of Dodger
Stadium.

1980 – Maury Wills is named manager of the Seattle Mariners. He is
the third African American to be named a major league
manager.

1985 – California Angel Rod Carew gets his 3,000th base hit.

1996 – On the final day of the Atlanta Olympics, Josia Thugwane
became the first Black South African to win a gold medal as
he finished first in the marathon.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 9 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 9 *

1863 – Union troops enter Port Hudson, Louisiana. With the fall of
Vicksburg (on July 4) and Port Hudson, Union troops
control the Mississippi River and The Confederacy is
cut into two sections. Eight African American regiments
play important roles in the siege of Port Hudson.

1868 – Francis L. Cardozo is installed as secretary of the
state of South Carolina and becomes the first African
American cabinet officer on the state level.

1893 – Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the world’s first
open-heart surgery at Chicago’s Provident Hospital
(which he founded in 1891) on James Cornish, who had
been stabbed in the chest and was dying from blood
accumulation around the heart. Dr. Williams brought Mr.
Cornish to surgery, where he proceeded to open his
chest, drain the blood and successfully sutured the
pericardium.

1901 – Jester Hairston is born in Belew’s Creek, North Carolina,
and will move at a very early age to the Homestead
section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he will grow
up. He will attend the Massachusetts Agriculture College
(now University of Massachusetts), dropping out in the
1920s due to lack of money. After impressing a
benefactor with his singing, he will be sponsored at
Tufts University, graduating in 1929. He will move to New
York and will meet Hall Johnson, who will teach him to
respect Negro spirituals. He will begin his Hollywood
career in 1935 when Warner Brothers purchases the show,
“Green Pastures.” His early acting roles, will include
long-running parts on the radio and television versions
of “Amos ‘n’ Andy” as well as bit parts in Tarzan films.
Although many of his early acting jobs will portray less
than flattering images of Blacks, he will never apologize
for playing racial stereotypes. “We had a hard time then
fighting for dignity,” he will say years later. “We had
no power. We had to take it, and because we took it the
young people today have opportunities.” In addition to
his roles in television’s “Amos ‘n’ Andy” and “Amen,”
Hairston will excel as a musician, first with the Eva
Jessye Choir and later as assistant conductor of the Hall
Johnson Choir. He will also arrange choral music for
more than 40 film soundtracks. He will also become the
first African American to direct The Mormon Tabernacle
Choir. His film credits will include “The Alamo,” “To
Kill a Mockingbird,” “In the Heat of the Night,” “Lady
Sings the Blues,” “The Last Tycoon” and “Lilies of the
Field,” for which he will compose the song “Amen.” That
song, which he dubbed for Sidney Poitier in the movie,
will reflect Hairston’s lifelong dedication to preserving
old Negro spirituals. He will be a sought-after choral
director who will organize Hollywood’s first integrated
choir and compose more than 300 spirituals. In his later
years, when working with students at college workshops,
Hairston will tell them, “You can’t sing legato when the
master’s beatin’ you across your back.” He will join the
ancestors in Los Angeles, California on January 18, 2000.

1927 – Attorney William T. Francis is named minister to Liberia.

1936 – June Millicent Jordan is born in the village of Harlem, New
York City. She will become a poet and author of books for
children and young adults and will be nominated for the
National Book Award in 1972 for “His Own Where.” Her
teaching career will begin in 1967 at the City College of
New York. Between 1968 and 1978 she will teach at Yale
University, Sarah Lawrence College, and Connecticut College.
She then will become the director of The Poetry Center and
be an English professor at SUNY at Stony Brook from 1978 to
1989. From 1989 to 2002 she was a full professor in the
departments of English, Women Studies, and African American
Studies at the University of California Berkeley. At
Berkeley, she will found Poetry for the People in 1991. The
program inspires and empowers students to use poetry as a
means of artistic expression. Reflecting on how she began
with the concept of the program, she said: “I did not wake
up one morning ablaze with a coherent vision of Poetry for
the People! The natural intermingling of my ideas and my
observations as an educator, a poet, and the African
American daughter of poorly documented immigrants did not
lead me to any limiting ideological perspectives or resolve.
Poetry for the People is the arduous and happy outcome of
practical, day-by-day, classroom failure and success”.
She will compose three guideline points that embody the
program, which will be published with a set of her students’
writings in 1995, entitled June Jordan’s Poetry for the
People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. She will join the
ancestors on June 14, 2002 after succumbing to breast cancer.

1947 – O.J. (Orenthal James) Simpson is born in San Francisco,
California. He will become a professional football player
after winning the Heisman Trophy – USC – in 1968. He will
be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame after playing
for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. He will
then become an actor and be known for his roles in the
“Naked Gun” series, “The Towering Inferno,” “Roots,” and
“Capricorn One.” He will be charged with, and acquitted
of the murder of ex-wife, Nicole and Ron Goldman in 1995.

1951 – Dave Parker is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He will become a
professional baseball player and will replace Roberto
Clemente as the right fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates
after Clemente’s death. In 1978, he will become the first
Pirate to become Most Valuable Player since Clemente. He
will win three Gold Glove awards. His career will diminish
after he suffers from weight and knee problems, eventually
leading to drug problems. He will be traded to Cincinnati
and then to the Athletics, where he will contribute to their
1988 and 1989 pennants as a Designated Hitter and team
leader.

1955 – E. Frederick Morrow is appointed an administrative aide to
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He is the first African
American to hold an executive position on a White House
staff.

1971 – Clergyman and activist Leon H. Sullivan is awarded the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his achievements in transmitting
“the social gospel into economic progress for his people.”

1978 – Larry Holmes wins a decision over Ken Norton for the WBC
crown.

1979 – Dr. Walter Massey is named director of the Argonne National
Laboratory.

1987 – Percy E. Sutton, former New York State legislator, president
of the Borough of Manhattan, founder of Inner City
Broadcasting and owner of the Apollo Theatre, receives the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.

2006 – Milan B. Williams, one of the original members of the Rhythm &
Blues group, The Commodores, joins the ancestors at the
University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas, after a long battle with cancer at the age of 58.
He was one of the founding members of the Commodores, which
formed in 1968 while all the members were in college at the
Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The group, whose best known
member was singer Lionel Richie, had a series of hits during
the 1970s and 1980s, including “Brick House,” “Easy” and
“Three Times A Lady.” He wrote the band’s first hit, “Machine
Gun.”

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