KRLemmons African American History

June 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 30 *

1881 – Henry Highland Garnet, former abolitionist leader and
Presbyterian minister, is named Minister to Liberia.
He will join the ancestors in Monrovia shortly after
his arrival.

1906 – John Hope becomes the first African American president
of Morehouse College.

1917 – Lena Horne is born in Brooklyn, New York. She will
begin her career at 16 as a chorus girl at the Cotton
Club in Harlem, appear in the movies “Cabin in the Sky”
and “Stormy Weather” and have a successful Broadway
career culminating in her one-woman show. Horne will
also be a strong civil rights advocate, refusing to
perform in clubs where African Americans are not
admitted and marching during the civil rights movement
in the 1960s. She will join the ancestors on May 9, 2010.

1921 – Charles S. Gilpin becomes the first actor to receive the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his portrayal of Emperor
Jones in the Eugene O’Neill play of the same name.

1940 – John T. Scott is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will
become a professor of art and a sculptor whose works will
be exhibited widely in the U.S. and at the exhibit of
“Art of Black America in Japan, Afro-American Modernism:
1937-1987.”

1958 – Alabama courts fined the NAACP $ 100,000 for contempt, for
refusing to divulge membership. The U.S. Supreme Court
will reverse the decision.

1960 – Zaire proclaims its independence from Belgium.

1966 – Michael Gerard “Mike” Tyson, former heavyweight champion of
the world and youngest (at age 19) to win that title (WBC
in 1986), is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1967 – Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. becomes the first African
American astronaut. He will join the ancestors after
being killed during a training flight accident on December
8, 1967.

1969 – Jacob Lawrence receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal “in
testimony to his eminence among American painters.”

1974 – Alberta King, mother of the late Martin Luther King Jr.,
joins the ancestors after being assassinated during a
church service in Atlanta, Georgia. The assailant, Marcus
Chennault of Dayton, Ohio, is later convicted and sentenced
to death.

1978 – Larry Doby becomes the manager of the Chicago White Sox
baseball team. He will have a win-loss record of 37-50 and
will be fired at the end of the season (October 19).

1980 – Coleman A. Young is awarded the Spingarn Medal for his
“singular accomplishment as Mayor of the City of Detroit,”a
position he had held since 1973.

2001 – Saxophonist Joe Henderson joins the ancestors in San
Francisco. His improvisational style and compositions have
influenced jazz musicians everywhere. He had been suffering
from emphysema, and became ill at his home in San Francisco,
but did not go to the hospital until the following day, where
he died of heart failure.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 15 *

1644 – A Dutch land grant is issued to Lucas Santomee, son of
Peter Santomee, one of the first 11 Africans brought to
Manhattan. Among the land granted to Santomee and the
original Africans is property in Brooklyn and Greenwich
Village.

1706 – A slave named Onesimus arrives in the home of Cotton
Mather. The slave’s experience and explanation of
African inoculation will result in Mather’s encouragement
of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to inoculate for smallpox in
1721.

1864 – In one of the decisive battles of the Civil War, two
brigades of African American troops help crush one of the
South’s finest armies at the Battle of Nashville.
African American troops open the battle on the first day
and successfully engage the right flank of the rebel line.
On the second day Col. Charles R. Thompson’s African
American brigade makes a brilliant charge up Overton Hill.
The Thirteenth U.S. Colored Troops will sustain more
casualties than any other regiment involved in the battle.

1896 – Julia Terry Hammonds receives a patent for the apparatus
for holding yarn skeins.

1934 – Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman to head a bank, joins
the ancestors at the age of 69.

1934 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Award is awarded to William Taylor
Burwell Williams, Tuskegee dean and agent of the Jeanes
and Slater funds, for his achievements as an educator.

1939 – Cynthia Ann “Cindy” Birdsong is born in Mount Holly
Township, New Jersey. She will become a singer with Patti
LaBelle and the Bluebells and Diana Ross and the Supremes.

1941 – Lena Horne records the torch classic for Victor Records,
that will become her signature song: “Stormy Weather.”

1943 – Thomas W. “Fats” Waller joins the ancestors, outside Kansas
City, Missouri at the age of 39, from pneumonia. The self-
taught piano player began recording as a teenager and
became one of a small group of African American pianists to
make piano rolls for the growing player piano industry.
Waller’s first solo recording in 1926 led to his own radio
show and three tours of France. Waller was known for such
popular songs as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “I’m Gonna Sit Right
Down and Write Myself a Letter,” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”
He also wrote music for the stage and the movies, most
notably “Stormy Weather.”

1943 – The San Francisco Sun-Reporter is established. Its co-
founder, Thomas Fleming will be its editor and a working
journalist into his nineties.

1943 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to William H. Hastie
“for his distinguished career as a jurist and as an
uncompromising champion of equal justice.”

1950 – Ezzard Charles knocks out Nick Barone to retain his
heavyweight boxing title.

1954 – The Netherlands Antilles become a co-equal part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands.

1961 – Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, psychologist and educator, is awarded
the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for pioneering studies that
influenced the Supreme Court decision on school
desegregation.

1961 – Police use tear gas and leashed dogs to stop a mass
demonstration by fifteen hundred African Americans in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.

1980 – Dave Winfield signs a ten-year contract with the New York
Yankees, for somewhere between $1.3 and $1.5 million. He
will become the wealthiest player in the history of U.S.
team sports. The total package for the outfielder is said
to be worth over $22 million dollars.

1985 – Businessman J. Bruce Llewellyn and former basketball star
Julius Erving become owners of Philadelphia Coca-Cola
Bottling, the fourth-largest African American business in
the United States.

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

KRLemmons African American History

June 30 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – June 30 *

1881 – Henry Highland Garnet, former abolitionist leader and
Presbyterian minister, is named Minister to Liberia.
He will join the ancestors in Monrovia shortly after
his arrival.

1906 – John Hope becomes the first African American president
of Morehouse College.

1917 – Lena Horne is born in Brooklyn, New York. She will
begin her career at 16 as a chorus girl at the Cotton
Club in Harlem, appear in the movies “Cabin in the Sky”
and “Stormy Weather” and have a successful Broadway
career culminating in her one-woman show. Horne will
also be a strong civil rights advocate, refusing to
perform in clubs where African Americans are not
admitted and marching during the civil rights movement
in the 1960s. She will join the ancestors on May 9, 2010.

1921 – Charles S. Gilpin becomes the first actor to receive the
NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his portrayal of Emperor
Jones in the Eugene O’Neill play of the same name.

1940 – John T. Scott is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will
become a professor of art and a sculptor whose works will
be exhibited widely in the U.S. and at the exhibit of
“Art of Black America in Japan, Afro-American Modernism:
1937-1987.”

1958 – Alabama courts fined the NAACP $ 100,000 for contempt, for
refusing to divulge membership. The U.S. Supreme Court
will reverse the decision.

1960 – Zaire proclaims its independence from Belgium.

1966 – Michael Gerard “Mike” Tyson, former heavyweight champion of
the world and youngest (at age 19) to win that title (WBC
in 1986), is born in Brooklyn, New York.

1967 – Maj. Robert H. Lawrence Jr. becomes the first African
American astronaut. He will join the ancestors after
being killed during a training flight accident on December
8, 1967.

1969 – Jacob Lawrence receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal “in
testimony to his eminence among American painters.”

1974 – Alberta King, mother of the late Martin Luther King Jr.,
joins the ancestors after being assassinated during a
church service in Atlanta, Georgia. The assailant, Marcus
Chennault of Dayton, Ohio, is later convicted and sentenced
to death.

1978 – Larry Doby becomes the manager of the Chicago White Sox
baseball team. He will have a win-loss record of 37-50 and
will be fired at the end of the season (October 19).

1980 – Coleman A. Young is awarded the Spingarn Medal for his
“singular accomplishment as Mayor of the City of Detroit,”a
position he had held since 1973.

2001 – Saxophonist Joe Henderson joins the ancestors in San
Francisco. His improvisational style and compositions have
influenced jazz musicians everywhere. He had been suffering
from emphysema, and became ill at his home in San Francisco,
but did not go to the hospital until the following day, where
he died of heart failure.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 15 *

1644 – A Dutch land grant is issued to Lucas Santomee, son of
Peter Santomee, one of the first 11 Africans brought to
Manhattan. Among the land granted to Santomee and the
original Africans is property in Brooklyn and Greenwich
Village.

1706 – A slave named Onesimus arrives in the home of Cotton
Mather. The slave’s experience and explanation of
African inoculation will result in Mather’s encouragement
of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to inoculate for smallpox in
1721.

1864 – In one of the decisive battles of the Civil War, two
brigades of African American troops help crush one of the
South’s finest armies at the Battle of Nashville.
African American troops open the battle on the first day
and successfully engage the right flank of the rebel line.
On the second day Col. Charles R. Thompson’s African
American brigade makes a brilliant charge up Overton Hill.
The Thirteenth U.S. Colored Troops will sustain more
casualties than any other regiment involved in the battle.

1896 – Julia Terry Hammonds receives a patent for the apparatus
for holding yarn skeins.

1934 – Maggie Lena Walker, the first woman to head a bank, joins
the ancestors at the age of 69.

1934 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Award is awarded to William Taylor
Burwell Williams, Tuskegee dean and agent of the Jeanes
and Slater funds, for his achievements as an educator.

1939 – Cynthia Ann “Cindy” Birdsong is born in Mount Holly
Township, New Jersey. She will become a singer with Patti
LaBelle and the Bluebells and Diana Ross and the Supremes.

1941 – Lena Horne records the torch classic for Victor Records,
that will become her signature song: “Stormy Weather.”

1943 – Thomas W. “Fats” Waller joins the ancestors, outside Kansas
City, Missouri at the age of 39, from pneumonia. The self-
taught piano player began recording as a teenager and
became one of a small group of African American pianists to
make piano rolls for the growing player piano industry.
Waller’s first solo recording in 1926 led to his own radio
show and three tours of France. Waller was known for such
popular songs as “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” “I’m Gonna Sit Right
Down and Write Myself a Letter,” and “Honeysuckle Rose.”
He also wrote music for the stage and the movies, most
notably “Stormy Weather.”

1943 – The San Francisco Sun-Reporter is established. Its co-
founder, Thomas Fleming will be its editor and a working
journalist into his nineties.

1943 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to William H. Hastie
“for his distinguished career as a jurist and as an
uncompromising champion of equal justice.”

1950 – Ezzard Charles knocks out Nick Barone to retain his
heavyweight boxing title.

1954 – The Netherlands Antilles become a co-equal part of the
Kingdom of the Netherlands.

1961 – Dr. Kenneth B. Clark, psychologist and educator, is awarded
the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for pioneering studies that
influenced the Supreme Court decision on school
desegregation.

1961 – Police use tear gas and leashed dogs to stop a mass
demonstration by fifteen hundred African Americans in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana.

1980 – Dave Winfield signs a ten-year contract with the New York
Yankees, for somewhere between $1.3 and $1.5 million. He
will become the wealthiest player in the history of U.S.
team sports. The total package for the outfielder is said
to be worth over $22 million dollars.

1985 – Businessman J. Bruce Llewellyn and former basketball star
Julius Erving become owners of Philadelphia Coca-Cola
Bottling, the fourth-largest African American business in
the United States.

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