James Weldon Johnson – Page 2 – The CamaraIfe Maktaba

November 11, 2013 KRLemmons African American History

November 6 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 6 *

1746 – Absalom Jones, a major leader of the African American Pioneer
period, is born into slavery in Sussex, Delaware. Jones will
become a friend of Richard Allen and together they will found
the Free African Society, which would serve as a protective
society and social organization for free African Americans.
.
1844 – Spain grants the Dominican Republic its independence.

1868 – Jonathan Gibbs, minister and educator, is appointed Secretary
of State by the governor of Florida.

1884 – Author and abolitionist William Wells Brown joins the ancestors
in Chelsea, Massachusetts. An escaped slave, Brown’s
autobiography sold 10,000 copies, a record in his day. Brown
also wrote the first known travelogue by an African American
and authored the 1853 work “Clotel”; “Or The President’s
Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States”, the
first fictional work published by an African American.

1900 – James Weldon Johnson and J. Rosamond Johnson compose “Lift
Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” It will become known as the “Negro
National Anthem.”

1920 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to W.E.B. Du Bois for
“the founding and calling of the Pan African Congress.”

1920 – James Weldon Johnson becomes the first African American
executive secretary of the NAACP.

1928 – Oscar DePriest is elected to the Seventy-First Congress from
Illinois’ First Congressional District (Chicago). Before
becoming a U.S. Representative, DePriest was the first African
American to serve on the Chicago City Council, having been
elected alderman of the Second Ward in 1915. He is the first
African American to win a seat in the United States House of
Representatives in the twentieth century.

1928 – The Atlanta “Daily World” is founded by W.A. Scott Jr. The
newspaper will become a daily in 1933.

1928 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Charles W. Chestnutt,
the first African American to receive widespread critical
recognition as a novelist. He was cited for his “pioneer work
as a literary artist depicting the life and struggle of
Americans of Negro descent.”

1937 – Eugene Pitt is born in Brooklyn, New York. He will become a
rhythm and blues singer with The Genies – “Who’s that Knockin'”
and lead singer for The Jive Five – “Never Never,” “What Time is
It?,” “I’m a Happy Man” and “My True Story”.

1962 – Edward W. Brooke is elected Attorney General of Massachusetts,
Gerald Lamb is elected Treasurer of Connecticut, and 5 African
Americans are elected to the House of Representatives. Augustus
“Gus” F. Hawkins, becomes the first African American congressman
from the West (Los Angeles, California).

1962 – The U.N. General Assembly adopts a resolution condemning South
Africa for its apartheid policies and recommends member states
apply economic sanctions.

1973 – Coleman Young is elected as the first African American mayor
of Detroit, Michigan.

1973 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Wilson C. Riles,
the superintendent of public instruction in California, “in
recognition of the stature he has attained as a national leader
in the field of education.”

1973 – The Symbionese Liberation Army ambushes Marcus A. Foster,
superintendent of public schools in Oakland, California, after
a Board of Education meeting. Two members of the group, were
convicted of the slaying, but one of the men has his conviction
overturned, based on a legal technicality.

1973 – Thomas Bradley is elected as the first African American mayor
of Los Angeles, California. His political success was due to
his masterful use of multi-racial coalition. African Americans
at this time were not a large segment of the Los Angeles
population.

1976 – FCC Commissioner Benjamin Hooks is elected NAACP executive
director by the organization’s board of directors, succeeding
Roy Wilkins. He will serve the organization for 16 years,
retiring in 1992. Of his tenure he says, “We have maintained
the integrity of this organization and kept our name out front
and on the minds of those who would turn back the clock.”

1983 – Sgt. Farley Simon, a native of Grenada, becomes the first Marine
to win the Marine Corps Marathon.

1990 – Harvey Gantt, former mayor of Charlotte, NC, loses his Senate
race to incumbent Jesse Helms and the opportunity to become the
first African American senator from the South since
Reconstruction. Barbara-Rose Collins and Maxine Waters are
elected to Congress from their home districts in Michigan and
California, respectively, while Eleanor Holmes Norton is elected
as a non-voting delegate from the District of Columbia.

1990 – Arsenio Hall gets a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

1992 – Vernon Jordan, along with Warren Christopher, is asked to lead
the White House transition team, by President-elect William
Jefferson Clinton.

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

July 28, 2013 KRLemmons African American History

July 28 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 28 *

1802 – Alexandre Dumas is born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie in
Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, near Paris, France, the grandson
of the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie.
While his grandfather serves the government of France as
General Commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of
Santo Domingo, (today’s Dominican Republic but at the time
a part of Haiti), he marries Marie-Céssette Dumas, a Black
slave. In 1762, she gives birth to a son, Thomas-Alexandre,
and she joins the ancestors soon thereafter. When the
Marquis and his young son return to Normandy, it is at a
time when slavery still exists, and the boy will suffer as
a result of being half Black. In 1786, Thomas-Alexandre
joins the French army, but to protect the aristocratic
family’s reputation, he enlists using his mother’s maiden
name. Following the Revolution in France, the Marquis loses
his estates but his mulatto son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas,
distinguishes himself as a capable and daring soldier in
Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, rising through the ranks to
become a General by the age of 31. Thomas Alexandre Dumas
will marry Marie Labouret Dumas, a French woman and
Alexandre Dumas is born from this union. He will become an
acclaimed author of the French classics “The Three
Musketeers”, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “The Man in the
Iron Mask”, “The Corsican Brothers,” “Twenty Years After,”
“The Vicomte de Bragelonne,” “The Regent’s Daughter,”
“Queen Margot,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Black Tulip,”
“The Nutcracker,” and “La Dame de Montsoreau.” Despite his
success and aristocratic connections, his being of mixed-
blood will impact on him all of his life. In 1843, he will
write a short story that addresses some of the issues of
race and the effects of colonialism. Nevertheless, inbred
racist attitudes will impact his rightful position in
France’s history long after he joins the ancestors on
December 5, 1870. Buried in the place where he was born,
he will remain in the cemetery at Villers-Cotterêts until
November 30, 2002. Under orders of the French President,
Jacques Chirac, his body will be exhumed and in a
televised ceremony, his new coffin, draped in a blue-
velvet cloth and flanked by four men costumed as the
Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, will
be transported in a solemn procession to the Panthéon of
Paris, the great mausoleum where French luminaries are
interred. In his speech, President Chirac will say: “With
you, we were D’Artagnan, Monte Cristo or Balsamo, riding
along the roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting
palaces and castles — with you, we dream.” In an
interview following the ceremony, President Chirac will
acknowledge the racism that had existed, saying that a
wrong is now righted with Alexandre Dumas enshrined
alongside fellow authors Victor Hugo and Voltaire.

1866 – Congress passes a law that African American regiments
should be part of the regular army, which results in the
organization of the 9th and 10th Cavalry.

1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
guaranteeing due process of law, is declared in effect.
which grants citizenship for African Americans and
provides for federal intervention when state governments
are accused of violating an individual’s constitutional
rights.

1903 – Maggie Lena Walker founds and becomes the first president
of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond,
Virginia. She will be elected at age seventeen to office
in the Independent Order of St. Luke, a Black burial
society. On this date, she will found the Saint Luke
Penny Savings Bank and becomes the first female bank
president in America. St. Luke Penny Savings Bank is
still in operation today as the Consolidated Bank and
Trust Company, the nation’s oldest continuously existing
African American bank.

1914 – Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode is born in Los Angeles,
California. An athlete turned actor, Strode will become a
top-notch decathlete and a football star at UCLA, breaking
the color barrier at the same time as Kenney Washington.
He will meet his wife, an Hawaiian princess and stand-in
for the swim sequences for Hedy Lamarr. Woody will play
for the Cleveland Rams prior to their move to Los Angeles.
He will become part of Hollywood lore after meeting
director John Ford and becoming a part of the Ford
“family”, appearing in almost a dozen Ford westerns.
Strode will also play the powerful gladiator who does
battle with Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus.” He will also be
a professional wrestler, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous
George. Woody will live in a modest home overlooking
Glendora and the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles
about 25 miles. He will join the ancestors on December 31,
1994.

1915 – United States forces invade Haiti and the country becomes
a defacto protectorate. U.S. troops will remain there
until 1924.

1917 – Led by W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson, over 10,000
African Americans march down Fifth Avenue in New York City
to the sound of muffled drums in silent protest of
lynchings and other racial indignities that are rampant in
the United States.

1949 – Vida Blue is born in Mansfield, Louisiana. He will become a
Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher. In his
17-year career, he will play for the Oakland Athletics,
San Francisco Giants, and Kansas City Royals. He will have
a 24-8 record in 1971, striking out 301 batters, and will
win both the Cy Young and American League MVP awards. He
will be the starting pitcher for the American League in
the 1971 All-Star Game, and for the National League in the
1978 All-Star Game. He will win 20 games in 1973 as he
leads the A’s to the World Championship. He will win 22
games in 1975. In 1978, he will win 18 games as he leads
the Giants to 83 wins as they battle all year for the
National League West Division which is won that year by
the Los Angeles Dodgers. His great year is rewarded as he
won the Sporting News National League Pitcher Of The Year.
He will also make a name and career after baseball for
himself in the San Francisco Bay Area by donating his time
to many charitable causes, mostly promoting baseball in
the inner city.

1977 – Roy Wilkins turns over NAACP leadership to Benjamin L Hooks.

1985 – Lou Brock is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, New York.

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

July 3, 2013 KRLemmons African American History

June 26 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – June 26 *

1893 – William Lee Conley “Big Bill” Broonzy, blues singer,
is born in Scott, Mississippi.

1894 – The American Railway Union, led by Eugene Debs, calls
a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

1934 – W.E.B. Du Bois resigns from the NAACP over the
association’s policies and strategies. Du Bois had
been editor of the association’s “Crisis” magazine and
director of publicity and research. The resignation
brings control of the magazine under the leadership of
chief executive Walter White and its new editor and
NAACP assistant secretary, Roy Wilkins.

1938 – James Weldon Johnson, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to injuries received in an automobile
accident near his summer home in Wiscosset, Maine.

1940 – Billy Davis Jr., singer with the 5th Dimension, is
born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will later leave the
group with his wife, Marilyn McCoo, with whom he will
enjoy continued success as a duo.

1950 – The American Medical Association seats the first
African American delegates at its convention.

1952 – The African National Congress begins its Defiance of
Unjust Laws campaign in South Africa.

1956 – Jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown joins the ancestors
after being killed in an auto accident on the
Pennsylvania Turnpike. Founder of the Brown-Roach
Quintet with Max Roach two years earlier, Brown had
built a reputation as one of the finest jazz
trumpeters of his day as a major proponent of hard bop.

1959 – Prince Edward County, Virginia, abandons (closes) the
public school system in an attempt to prevent school
desegregation.

1959 – Floyd Paterson loses the Heavyweight Boxing
Championship to Ingemar Johansson of Sweden.

1966 – The 220-mile voter registration march from Memphis,
Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi ends with a rally of
some thirty thousand at the Mississippi state capitol.

1970 – Frank Robinson hits 2 grand slams as Baltimore Orioles
beat the Washington Senators 12-2.

1960 – Madagascar becomes independent from France.

1978 – “Girl,” a single-sentence two page short story of a
mother’s preachy advice to her daughter, appears in the
“New Yorker” magazine. Written by Jamaica Kincaid, the
story will make her a literary celebrity and will be
followed by short story collections and the novels
“Annie John” and “Lucy”.

1979 – Muhammad Ali announces that he was retiring as world
heavyweight boxing champion. The 37-year-old fighter
said, “Everything gets old, and you can’t go on like
years ago.” The “Float like a butterfly, sting like a
bee” act was no more.

1990 – African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela
addresses the U.S. Congress, asking for “material
resources” to hasten the end of white-led rule in South
Africa.

1995 – During a state visit to Ethiopia, Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak escapes an attempt on his life.

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

February 12, 2013 KRLemmons African American History

February 12 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 12 *

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History Month.’ Black History Month needs to be a 12-MONTH THING.
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accomplished while being handicapped with RACISM, it can only
inspire us to greater heights, knowing we’re on the giant shoulders
of our ANCESTORS.” Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive
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1793 – Congress makes it a crime to hide or protect a runaway slave
by passing the first fugitive slave law.

1865 – Henry Highland Garnet, preacher and abolitionist, becomes the
first African American to preach in the rotunda of the
Capitol to the House of Representatives. It is on the
occasion of a Lincoln birthday memorial.

1896 – Isaac Burns Murphy, considered the greatest American jockey
of all time, joins the ancestors. He was the first jockey
to win the Kentucky Derby two years in a row and became the
first jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times. In
1955, Isaac Murphy was the first jockey voted into the
Jockey Hall of Fame at the National Museum of Racing, in
Saratoga Springs, New York.

1900 – For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson
writes the lyrics for “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” With
music by his brother, J. Rosamond, the song is first sung
by 500 children in Jacksonville, Florida. It will become
known as the “Negro National Anthem.”

1909 – When six African Americans were killed and 200 others driven
out of town in race riots in Springfield, Illinois in the
summer of 1908, many Americans were shocked, because they
associated such violence only with racism in the south.
Springfield was not only a northern city, but the home of
Abraham Lincoln. Three people, Mary Ovington, William E.
Walling, and Dr. Henry Moskowitz, alarmed at the
deterioration of race relations, decided to open a campaign
to oppose the pervasive discrimination against racial
minorities. They issue a call for a national conference
on “the Negro question”, and for its symbolic value, they
will choose the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln,
February 12, 1909, as the date for the conference. Held in
New York City, it will draw an interracial group of 60
distinguished citizens, who will formulate plans for a
permanent organization devoted to fighting all forms of
racial discrimination. That organization will be the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
The NAACP will be the oldest and largest civil rights
organization in the U.S. With more than 2,200 branches
across the country, it will be in the forefront of the
struggle for voting rights, and an end to discrimination in
housing, employment, and education.

1934 – William Felton “Bill” Russell is born in Monroe, Louisiana.
He will become a star basketball player and high jumper at
the University of San Francisco. After college, he will
win a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics, as a member of the
United States basketball team. He will then play
professional basketball for the Boston Celtics for thirteen
seasons, winning eight straight NBA titles and eleven
championships. At the end of the 1965-66 season, he will
become the coach of the Boston Celtics.

1983 – Eubie Blake joins the ancestors at the age of 100 in Brooklyn,
New York. Blake was one of the last ragtime pianists and
composers whose most famous songs included “I’m Just Wild
About Harry.” With Noble Sissle, Blake was the composer of
the first all-African American Broadway musical, “Shuffle
Along,” which opened on Broadway in 1921.

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

December 21, 2012 KRLemmons African American History

December 19 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 19 *

1798 – Portrait painter Joshua Johnston places an ad in the
“Baltimore Intelligencer” describing himself as “a self-
taught genius.” Johnston, a freeman, will paint portraits
of some of the most successful merchant families in
Maryland and Virginia. Only three of his subjects will
be African American, among them “Portrait of an Unknown
Man” and “Reverend Daniel Coker.”

1875 – Carter G. Woodson is born in New Canton, Virginia. A
founder of the Association for the Study of Negro Life
and History, of the “Journal of Negro History,” and Negro
History Week, Woodson will write many books on African
American history. The most popular of his books will be,
“The Negro in Our History,” which will be used extensively
in high schools throughout the United States. He will join
the ancestors on April 3, 1950.

1886 – Clementine Rubin (later Hunter) is born in Clourtierville,
Louisiana. Because there were no birth certificates
issued in rural Louisiana during this time, there is much
controversy about her exact date of birth. Sources mention
her birth in December 1886 and January 1887. The only
real documentation of her earliest existence is a
christening document dated March, 1887. She will become a
painter in the 1930’s after spending years working on the
Melrose Plantation, a haven for many rural Southern
artists. Her first artistic medium will be quilt making,
and her first piece will be in 1938 exhibiting the
hardships of plantation life. Her first painting will be
completed in 1939. In 1955, she will become the first
African American artist to have a one person show at the
Delgado Museum (now known as the New Orleans Museum of
Art). Her folk-art style will earn her the nickname “the
Black Grandma Moses.” By the time she joins the ancestors
on January 1, 1988, she will be considered one of the
twentieth century’s leading folk artists.

1891 – Charles Randolph Uncles becomes the first African American
Catholic priest ordained in the United States. He is
ordained in Baltimore, Maryland.

1910 – The first city ordinance requiring white and black
residential areas is passed by the Baltimore City Council.
Similar laws will be passed in Norfolk, Richmond, Roanoke,
Greensboro, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, Dallas and
Louisville.

1910 – The Pittsburgh Courier newspaper is founded.

1910 – North Carolina College is founded in Durham, North Carolina.

1910 – The Norfolk Journal and Guide is established under the
leadership of P. B. Young Sr.

1930 – James Weldon Johnson resigns as executive secretary of
NAACP citing health reasons.

1930 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is awarded to Henry A. Hunt,
Principal, Fort Valley High and Industrial School, Fort
Valley, Georgia, for his pioneering work as an educator.

1930 – Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, founded at Howard University in
1913, is incorporated.

1933 – Cicely Tyson is born in the Village of Harlem in New York
City. She will pursue a modeling career, appearing on the
covers of both “Vogue” and “Harper’s Bazaar at the age of
23. She will later pursue acting and win acclaim for her
roles on the stage and on television, as well as in the
movie, Sounder (for which she will be named best actress
by the National Society of Film Critics and receive an
Academy Award nomination) and “The Autobiography of Miss
Jane Pittman,” for which she will win two Emmys.

1941 – Maurice White is born. He will become a singer, musician
(drummer) and founder of Earth, Wind & Fire. Some of his
hits include “Shining Star,” “Sing a Song,” “Got to Get
You into My Life,” “After the Love Has Gone,” and “Best of
My Love”.

1944 – Timothy Reid is born in Norfolk, Virginia. He will become
a comedian and known for his role as “Venus Flytrap” on
“WKRP in Cincinnati, as well as “Frank’s Place.”

1961 – Reggie White is born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He will
become an all-pro defensive lineman for the NFL
Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers. He will play
with Green Bay as they win the 1997 Super Bowl. He will
hold the NFL record of 198 sacks until it is broken by
Bruce Smith of the Washington Redskins in 2003. He will
retire from football at the end of the 1998-1999 season.
He will join the ancestors on December 26, 2004, after
succumbing to a cardiac arrhythmia caused by cardiac and
pulmonary sarcoidosis.

1962 – Nyasaland secedes from Rhodesia.

1977 – Jimmy Rogers, a bluesman who played guitar for the original
Muddy Waters band and who will be inducted into the Blues
Hall of Fame in 1994, joins the ancestors in Chicago at the
age of 73. He succumbs to colon cancer. He recorded a
string of solo hits beginning in the 1950s, including
“Walking by Myself,” “Chicago Bound” and “Sloppy Drunk.”
He played with Water’s Band in Chicago clubs and in the
studio for about a decade. In 1996, he won the W.C. Handy
award for male traditional blues artist.

1989 – Police in Jacksonville, Florida, disarm a parcel bomb at the
local NAACP office, the fourth in a series of mail bombs to
turn up in the Deep South. One bomb kills a Savannah,
Georgia, alderman, and another a federal judge in Alabama.
Walter L. Moody Jr. will be convicted in both bombings.

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

November 6, 2012 KRLemmons African American History

November 6 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 6 *