* Today in Black History – September 24 *
1825 – Frances Ellen Watkins Harper is born free in Baltimore,
Maryland. She will grow up to be one of the most famous
African American poets. Harper’s mother will join the
ancestors before she is three years old, leaving her an
orphan. Harper will be raised by her uncle, William
Watkins, a teacher at the Academy for Negro Youth and a
radical political figure in civil rights. Watkins will
be a major influence on Harper’s political, religious,
and social views. Harper will attend the Academy for
Negro Youth and the rigorous education she will receive,
along with the political activism of her uncle, will
affect and influence her poetry. In 1850, she will
become the first female to teach at Union Seminary in
Wilberforce, Ohio. After new laws pass in 1854, state
that African Americans entering through Maryland’s
northern border could be sold into slavery, Harper will
become an active abolitionist and writer. She will be
known for her writings, “Forest Leaves,” “Poems on
Miscellaneous Subjects,” “Moses: A Story of the Nile,”
“Achan’s Sin,” “Sketches of Southern Life,” “Light
Beyond the Darkness,” “Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted,”
“The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems,” “Atlanta
Offering Poems,” and “Idylls of the Bible.” She will join
the ancestors on February 22, 1911.
1883 – The National Black convention meets in Louisville,
Kentucky.
1894 – Sociologist and professor at Morehouse College, Fisk
University, and Howard University, E.(Edward) Franklin
Frazier is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will organize
the Atlanta University School of Social Work (for African
Americans), later becoming its director. He will write
the controversial publication (1927) “The Pathology of
Race Prejudice” in Forum Magazine. His writings will
include “The Negro Family in the United States” (1939),
among the first sociological works on African Americans
researched and written by an African American. He will
also write “Negro Youth at the Crossways” (1940) and
“Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World” (1957),
which deals with African studies. Frazier will have a
distinguished career at Howard University as chairman of
its sociology department as well as serving as the first
African American president of the American Sociological
Society. He will join the ancestors on May 17, 1962.
1931 – Cardiss Robertson (later Collins) is born in St. Louis,
Missouri. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1973
after the death of her husband, George, she will serve in
a leadership capacity often in her Congressional career,
most notably as chairman of the Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and
Competitiveness.
1935 – World Heavyweight Champion, Joe Louis, becomes the first
African American boxer to draw a million dollar gate.
1941 – John Mackey is born in New York City. He will become a
football player in the National Football League in 1963
and will play all but one of his pro years with the
Baltimore Colts. His career record will include 331
catches, 5,236 yards, and 38 touchdowns. He will be
enshrined in the Football Hall of Fame in 1992 (the
second tight end to be so honored).
1946 – Charles Edward “Mean Joe” Greene is born in Temple, Texas.
He will become a star football player for North Texas
State and will be a number one draft pick in the National
Football League in 1969 and will play his entire career
(1969-1981) with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He will become
the “cornerstone of franchise” that dominated the NFL in
the 1970s. He will be an exceptional team leader,
possessing size, speed, quickness, strength, and
determination. He will be NFL Defensive Player of The
Year twice (1972 and 1974). He will be All-Pro or All-
AFC nine years and will play in four Super Bowls (won
all four), six AFC title games, and 10 Pro Bowls. He
will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in
1987. He will become a defensive line coach with
Pittsburgh after his retirement as an active player.
1953 – “Take a Giant Step”, a drama by playwright Louis Peterson,
opens on Broadway.
1954 – Patrick Kelly is born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. A
fashion design student, Kelly will move to Paris, where
his innovative and outrageous women’s fashion designs,
featuring multiple buttons, bows and African American
baby dolls, will win him wide acclaim and make him the
first and only American designer admitted to an
exclusive organization of French fashion designers.
1957 – President Eisenhower makes an address on nationwide TV and
radio to explain why troops are being sent to Little Rock,
Arkansas. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, earlier in the
day sends 1,000 U.S. government paratroopers to Little
Rock to aid in the desegregation of the public schools.
The troops will escort nine school children to Central
High School in the first federally supported effort to
integrate the nation’s public schools. The nine Black
students who had entered Little Rock Central High School
in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white
mob outside.
1962 – United States Circuit Court of Appeals orders the
Mississippi Board of Higher Education to admit James
Meredith to the University of Mississippi or be held in
contempt of court.
1973 – Leaders of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea
and Cape Verde (PAIGC) declare the independence of
Guinea-Bissau from Portugal. Portugal will recognize this
independence the following year. The PAIGC was formed by
Amilcar Cabral and Raphael Barbosa in 1956. Luis Cabral,
Amilcar’s half-brother, will become Guinea-Bissau’s first
president.
1977 – Rev. John T. Walker is installed as the sixth — and first
African American bishop of the Episcopal Church when he
is installed in the diocese of Washington, DC.
1988 – Jackie Joyner-Kersee of the United States sets the
heptathlon woman’s record (7,291).
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 