Lou Brock – The CamaraIfe Maktaba

October 26, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

September 23 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 23 *

1667 – In Williamsburg, Virginia, a law was passed, barring
slaves from obtaining their freedom by converting to
Christianity.

1862 – A draft of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is
published in Northern Newspapers.

1863 – Mary Church (later Terrell) is born in Memphis,
Tennessee. She will become an educator, civil and
woman’s rights advocate, and U.S. delegate to the
International Peace Conference. She will also be the
first African American to serve on the school board in
the District of Columbia. She will join the ancestors
on July 24, 1954.

1926 – John Coltrane, brilliant jazz saxophonist and composer who
will be considered the father of avant-garde jazz, is
born in Hamlet, North Carolina. He will join the ancestors
on July 17, 1967.

1930 – Ray Charles (Robinson) is born in Albany, Georgia. Blind
by the age of six, he will study music and form his own
band at the age of 24. A recorded performance at the
Newport Jazz Festival in 1958 will establish his career
as one of the premier soul singers in the United States.
Among Charles’s achievements will be three Grammys and
Kennedy Center honors in 1986. He will join the ancestors
on June 10, 2004 after succumbing to liver disease.

1952 – Jersey Joe Walcott, loses his heavyweight title in the
13th round, to Rocky Marciano, in Philadelphia
Pennsylvania. Pay Television for sporting events begins
with the Marciano-Walcott fight, coast to coast, in 49
theatres in 31 cities.

1954 – Playwright George Costello Wolfe is born in Frankfort,
Kentucky. He will become critically acclaimed for the
controversial plays, “The Colored Museum”, “Jelly’s Last
Jam”, and “Spunk”.

1957 – Nine African American students, who had entered Little
Rock Central High School in Arkansas, are forced to leave
because of a white mob outside.

1961 – President Kennedy names Thurgood Marshall to the United
States Circuit Court of Appeals.

1962 – Los Angeles Dodger, Maury Wills, steals record setting
base #97 on his way to 104.

1979 – Lou Brock steals record 935th base and becomes the all-
time major league record holder.

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

September 14, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

September 10 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 10 *

1847 – John Roy Lynch is born a slave in Concordia Parish,
Louisiana. Becoming free during the American Civil War,
he will settle in Natchez, Mississippi. There he will
learn the photography business, attend night school, and
enter public life in 1869 as justice of the peace for
Natchez county. In November, 1869 Lynch will be elected
to the Mississippi House of Representatives, and re-
elected in 1871. Although Blacks never will be in the
majority in the Mississippi legislature, Lynch will be
chosen speaker of the House in 1872. He will be elected
to the U.s. House of Representatives in 1873. In 1884,
he will become the first African American to preside
over a national convention of a major U.S. political
party and deliver the keynote address, when he was
appointed temporary chairman. In his book, “The Facts
of Reconstruction” (1913), Lynch will attempt to dispel
the erroneous notion that Southern state governments
after the Civil War were under the control of Blacks.
He will join the ancestors on November 2, 1939 in
Chicago, Illinois.

1886 – Poet Georgia Douglas Johnson is born in Atlanta, Georgia.
(Editor’s Note: Her birth is uncertain, given as early as
1877 and as late as 1886). Among her books will be “Heart
of a Woman”, “Bronze”, “An Autumn Love Cycle”, and “Share
My Love”. She will be anthologized in Arna Bontemps’s
“American Negro Poetry” and Davis and Lee’s “Negro
Caravan,” among others. Her home in Washington, DC, will
become the center for African American literary
gatherings. She will join the ancestors on May 14, 1966.

1913 – George W. Buckner, a physician from Indiana, is named
minister to Liberia.

1913 – The Cleveland Call & Post newspaper is established.

1927 – Jacques E. Leeds in born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will
become a leading African American attorney in Baltimore.
He will become the first African American appointed a
commisioner on the Maryland Worker’s Compensation
Commission in 1991 (by governor William Donald Schaefer).

1930 – Charles E. Mitchell, certified public accountant and banker
from West Virginia, is named minister to Liberia.

1940 – Roy Ayers is born in Los Angeles, California. In high
school Ayers will form his first group, the Latin Lyrics,
and in the early 60s will begin working professionally
with flautist/saxophonist Curtis Amy. He will become a
popular jazz vibraphonist and vocalist, reaching the peak
of his commercial popularity during the mid-70s and early
80s.

1948 – Robert “Bob” Lanier is born in Buffalo, New York. He will
become a professional basketball player and will be a NBA
center for 14 years (10 years with the Detroit Pistons and
4 years with the Milwaukee Bucks). He will be an eight-
time NBA All-Star and will be elected to the Basketball
Hall of Fame in 1991.

1956 – Louisville, Kentucky integrates its public school system.

1960 – Running barefoot, Ethiopian Abebe Bikila wins the marathon
at the Rome Olympic Games.

1961 – Jomo Kenyatta returns to Kenya from exile to lead his
country.

1962 – Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black vacates an order of a
lower court, ruling that the University of Mississippi
had to admit James H. Meredith, an African American Air
Force veteran whose application for admission had been on
file and in the courts for fourteen months.

1963 – 20 African American students enter public schools in
Birmingham, Tuskegee and Mobile, Alabama, following a
standoff between federal authorities and Governor George
C. Wallace.

1965 – Father Divine joins the ancestors in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Divine, born George Baker, was the founder
of the Peace Mission, a religious group whose followers
worshiped Divine as God incarnate on earth.

1972 – Gayle Sayers, of the Chicago Bears, retires from pro
football.

1973 – A commemorative stamp of Henry Ossawa Tanner is issued by
the U.S. Postal Service. Part of its American Arts issue,
the stamp celebrates the work and accomplishments of
Tanner, the first African American artist elected to the
National Academy of Design.

1973 – Muhammad Ali defeats Ken Norton in a championship
heavyweight boxing match in Los Angeles — and avenges a
loss to Norton the previous March in San Diego.

1974 – Guinea-Bissau gains independence from Portugal.

1974 – Lou Brock, of the St. Louis Cardinals, breaks Maury Wills’
major league record for stolen bases in a season.
‘Lighting’ Lou Brock steals his 105th base on his way to
a career total of 938 stolen bases, a record which will
be later broken by Rickey Henderson.

1976 – Mordecai Johnson, the first African American president of
Howard University, joins the ancestors at age 86.

1986 – Sprinter, Evelyn Ashford is defeated for the first time in
eight years. Ashford loses to Valerie Brisco-Hooks in
the 200-meter run held in Rome, Italy.

2000 – At The 52nd Annual Primetime Emmy awards the following
quotes were made as Charles Dutton and Halle Berry
accepted their respective awards – “There goes my acting
career.” – Charles S. Dutton, accepting as outstanding
director of a miniseries or movie for HBO’s “The Corner.”
– “Wherever Dorothy Dandridge is right now, I know she is
standing tall and proud and smiling.” – Halle Berry,
accepting a best actress Emmy for the HBO movie
“Introducing Dorothy Dandridge.”

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

September 1, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

August 29 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 29 *

1920 – Charlie “Bird” (Charles Christopher) Parker is born in
Kansas City, Kansas. The jazz saxophonist will become one
of the leaders of the bebop movement and be noted for his
works “Ko Ko” and “In the Still of the Night,” among
others. He will receive numerous awards from Downbeat
magazine and have the famous jazz club, Birdland, in New
York City named in his honor. He will be commonly
considered one of the greatest jazz musicians, ranked with
such players as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Jazz
critic Scott Yanow speaks for many jazz fans and musicians
when he states that “Parker was arguably the greatest
saxophonist of all time.” A founding father of bebop, his
innovative approaches to melody, rhythm, and harmony were
enormously influential on his contemporaries, and his
music remains an inspiration and resource for musicians in
jazz as well as in other genres. Several of Parker’s songs
have become standards, such as “Billie’s Bounce,”
“Anthropology,” “Ornithology,” and “Confirmation”. He will
join the ancestors on March 12, 1955.

1924 – Ruth Lee Jones is born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She will be
better known as “Dinah Washington.” She will perform with
Lionel Hampton from 1943 to 1946 and become one of the
most popular Rhythm & Blues singers of the 1950’s and
early 1960’s. Her family will move to Chicago while she
is still a child. As a child in Chicago she will play
piano and direct her church choir. She will later study
in Walter Dyett’s renowned music program at DuSable High
School. There will be a period when she both performed in
clubs as Dinah Washington, while singing and playing piano
in Sallie Martin’s gospel choir as Ruth Jones. Her
penetrating voice, excellent timing, and crystal-clear
enunciation added her own distinctive style to every piece
she undertook. While making extraordinary recordings in
jazz, blues, R&B and light pop contexts, she will refuse
to record gospel music despite her obvious talent in
singing it. She believed it wrong to mix the secular and
spiritual, and after she enters the non-religious
professional music world, she will refuse to include
gospel in her repertoire. She will begin performing in
1942 and soon join Lionel Hampton’s band. There is some
dispute about the origin of her name. Some sources say
the manager of the Garrick Stage Bar gave her the name
Dinah Washington, while others say Hampton selected it.
In 1943, she will begin recording for Keynote Records and
release “Evil Gal Blues”, her first hit. By 1955, she will
release numerous hit songs on the R&B charts, including
“Baby, Get Lost”, “Trouble in Mind”, “You Don’t Know What
Love Is” (arranged by Quincy Jones), and a cover of “Cold,
Cold Heart” by Hank Williams. In March of 1957, she
marry tenor saxophonist Eddie Chamblee, (formerly on tour
with Lionel Hampton) who led the band behind her. In 1958,
she will make a well-received appearance at the Newport
Jazz Festival. With “What a Diff’rence a Day Makes” in
1959, she will win a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and
Blues Performance. The song will be her biggest hit,
reaching #8 on the Billboard Hot 100. She will join the
ancestors on December 13, 1963.

1933 – Eloise Gwendolyn Sanford is born in New York City. She
will become an actress better known as Isabel Sanford and
will star as Louise on the long-running sitcom “The
Jeffersons”, “All in the Family”, and will star in many
movies including “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, “Original
Gangstas”, “South Beach”, “Love at First Bite”, “The
Photographer”, “The New Centurions”, “Pendulum”, and
“Buffalo Soldiers”. She will be the first African American
actress to win a Lead Actress Emmy (for Outstanding Lead
Actress in a Comedy Series in 1981), and will receive a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She will join the
ancestors on July 9, 2004, succumbing to cardiac arrest
and heart disease at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los
Angeles at the age of 86.

1945 – Wyomia Tyus, Olympic runner, who will become the first
woman sprinter to win consecutive Olympic gold medals in
the 100 meters (three total), is born in Griffin, Georgia.
She will also become a 10-time AAU National Champion and
an All-American Athlete in both the indoor and outdoor
competition. Tyus will compete in amateur and
professional track and field meets from 1960 – 1975. In
addition to her athletic achievements, Tyus will hold a
special place in Olympic history. At the XXIIIrd Olympic
Games in Los Angeles, Tyus will become the first woman
ever, in the history of the Olympic Games, to bear the
Olympic Flag.

1946 – Robert “Bob” Beamon is born in Jamaica, New York. He
will become a star in track and field, He will specialize
in the long jump and will win the 1968 Olympic gold medal
in the long jump and set the world record of 29 feet, 2
1/2 inches. His record will stand for twenty three years
until it is broken by Mike Powell at the World
Championships in Tokyo in 1991. His jump is still the
Olympic record to date. He will be inducted into the
National Track and Field Hall of Fame, and when the United
States Olympic Hall of Fame starts to induct athletes in
1983, he will be one of the first inductees.

1957 – The Civil Rights Act of 1957 is passed by Congress. It is
the first civil rights legislation since 1875. The bill
establishes a civil rights commission and a civil rights
division in the Justice Department. It also gave the
Justice Department authority to seek injunctions against
voting rights infractions.

1958 – Michael Joseph Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. First
with the family group the Jackson Five and later as a
solo artist, Jackson will be one of pop and Rhythm &
Blues’ foremost stars. His solo album “Off the Wall”
(1979) will sell 7 million copies worldwide, surpassed
only by “Thriller”, his largest-selling album (also the
biggest selling album of all time). He will be commonly
known as “MJ” as well as the “King of Pop”. His successful
career and controversial personal life will be a part of
pop culture for at least 40 years. He will be widely
regarded as one of the greatest entertainers and most
popular recording artists in history, displaying
complicated physical techniques, such as the robot and the
moonwalk, that have redefined mainstream dance and
entertainment. His achievements in the music industry will
include a revolutionary transformation of music videos,
establishing high-profile album releases and sales as a
new trend for record companies to generate profits,
dominating pop music during the 1980s, and becoming the
first Black entertainer to amass a strong following on MTV
while leading the relatively young channel out of
obscurity. His distinctive style, moves, and vocals will
inspire, influence, and spawn a whole generation of hip
hop, pop, and Rhythm & Blues artists. He will join the
ancestors on June 25, 2009.

1962 – Mal Goode becomes the first African American television
news commentator when he begins broadcasting on ABC.

1962 – Carl E. Banks, Jr. is born in Flint, Michigan. He will
become a star NFL linebacker with the New York Giants. He
will play for three teams from 1984 to 1995, the New York
Giants, the Washington Redskins and the Cleveland Browns.
He will make the Pro Bowl in 1987, have 39.5 career
quarterback sacks, and be a member of the NFL’s 1980’s
All-Decade Team. He will attend Michigan State University
and be the 3rd overall pick in the 1984 NFL draft. He will
be a member of the Giants teams that win Super Bowls XXI
and XXV. Banks will be a standout in their Super Bowl XXI
victory in which he records 14 total tackles, including 10
solo tackles.

1970 – Black Panthers confront the police in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. One policeman is killed and six are wounded
in a racial confrontation.

1971 – Hank Aaron becomes the first baseball player in the
National League to drive in 100 or more runs in each of
11 seasons.

1977 – St. Louis Cardinal Lou Brock eclipses Ty Cobb’s 49-year-
old career stolen base record at 893.

1979 – The first completely Black-owned radio network in the
world, “Mutual Black Network” is purchased by the
Sheridan Broadcasting Corporation.

1984 – Edwin Moses wins the 400-meter hurdles in track competition
in Europe. It is the track star’s 108th consecutive
victory.

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

August 18, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

August 13 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 13 *

1881 – The first African American nursing school opens at Spelman
College in Atlanta, Georgia.

1892 – The first issue of the Baltimore Afro-American is
published.

1906 – African American soldiers raid Brownsville, Texas in
retaliation for racial insults. One white man is killed,
two are wounded.

1911 – James B. Parsons is born in Kansas City, Missouri. After
an early career in music, he will become an attorney,
superior court judge in Cook County, Illinois, and
assistant U.S. Attorney, and in 1961, the first African
American appointed to a lifetime federal judgeship in the
continental United States. He will join the ancestors on
June 19, 1993.

1917 – Claudia McNeil is born in Baltimore, Maryland. She will
start her career as a singer and tour with Katherine
Dunham before finding fame as an actress. Among her most
notable roles will be as Lena Younger in both the play
and movie versions of “A Raisin in the Sun.” She will join
the ancestors on November 25, 1993.

1948 – Kathleen Battle is born in Portsmouth, Ohio. She will
become an operatic soprano, winner of Grammy awards in
1987 and 1988, and will be considered by many to be one
of the finest modern opera singers.

1948 – Cleveland Indians rookie pitcher, Satchel Paige, throws
his first complete game in the major leagues at the age
of 42. He allows the Chicago White Sox only five hits in
the 5-0 shutout.

1953 – President Eisenhower establishes the Government Contract
Compliance Committee to supervise anti-discrimination
regulations in government contracts.

1963 – Noted civil rights and labor leader, A. Philip Randolph
strongly protests the AFL-CIO Executive Council’s failure
to endorse the August 28 March on Washington.

1979 – Lou Brock, of the St. Louis Cardinals, gets his 3,000th
career hit while leading the Cardinals past the Chicago
Cubs, 3-2.

1983 – Daley Thompson of Britain wins the decathlon championship
at the World Track and Field Championship in Helsinki,
Finland.

1989 – Searchers in Ethiopia find the wreckage of a plane which
had disappeared almost a week earlier while carrying
Texas Congressman Mickey Leland and 15 other people.
There are no survivors.

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

August 1, 2014August 1, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

July 29 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 29 *

1895 – The First National Convention of Black Women is held in
Boston, Massachusetts.

1909 – Chester Himes is born in Jefferson City, Missouri. He will
become a noted crime novelist whose books will reflect his
encounters with racism. The domination of his dark-skinned
father by his light-skinned mother was a source of deep
resentment that will shape his racial outlook. The family’s
frequent relocations, as well as the accidental blinding of
his brother, will further disrupt his childhood. He will
attend Ohio State University. From 1929 to 1936 he will be
jailed at the Ohio State Penitentiary for armed robbery,
and while there, he will begin to write fiction. A number
of his stories will appear in Esquire and other American
magazines. After his release from prison, he will work at
numerous odd jobs and join the Works Progress
Administration, eventually serving as a writer with the
Ohio Writers’ Project. His first novel, “If He Hollers Let
Him Go” (1945), will detail the fear, anger, and humiliation
of a black employee of a racist defense plant during World
War II. “Lonely Crusade” (1947) will concern racism in the
labor movement. “Cast the First Stone” (1952) will portray
prison life, and “The Third Generation” (1954) will examine
family life. In the mid-1950s, he will move to Paris. There
he will write chiefly murder mysteries set in New York
City’s village of Harlem. These will include “The Crazy Kill
(1959), “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” which describe the
underbelly of the American dream and introduce “Gravedigger
Jones” and “Coffin Ed Johnson” to the reading public (1965;
will be made into a film in 1970), and “Blind Man with a
Pistol” (1969; that will later be retitled “Hot Day, Hot
Night”). Among his other works will be “Run Man, Run” (1966),
a thriller; “Pinktoes” (1961), a satirical work of
interracial erotica; “Come Back Charleston Blue”; and “Black
on Black” (1973), a collection of stories. He will also
publish two volumes of autobiography, “The Quality of Hurt”
(1972) and “My Life As Absurdity” (1976). He will join the
ancestors on November 12, 1984 in Moraira, Spain.

1919 – The first convention of the National Association of Negro
Musicians is held in Chicago. Illinois. NANM’s charter
members include Clarence Cameron White, who will call for
the formation of the association, and R. Nathaniel Dett,
Nora Holt, and Florence Cole Talbert among others. NANM
will be active in furthering African American music and
performers, and will award its first scholarship to a
young Marian Anderson. NANM continues to exist, with
chapters all over the country. Its headquarters will be
located in Chicago, Illinois.

1942 – William Dean, Jr., plans a boycott unless African Americans
are permitted to play on major league baseball teams.

1970 – Six days of racially motivated disturbances start in
Hartford, Connecticut, leaving one person dead.

1974 – Lou Brock of the St. Louis Cardinals steals his 700th base.

1988 – The South African government bans the anti-apartheid film
“Cry Freedom”.

1991 – Physician Bernard A. Harris, Jr. becomes a full-fledged
astronaut. Harris, who will join NASA’s Johnson Space
Center in 1987 as a clinical scientist and flight surgeon,
is now eligible for future flight assignments.

1996 – At the Atlanta Olympics, Carl Lewis wins the gold medal in
the long jump, becoming only the fifth Olympian to win
gold medals in four straight games.

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

July 28, 2014 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.

September 29, 2013 KRLemmons African American History

September 23 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 23 *