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.

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.

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.

1926 – John Coltrane, brilliant jazz saxophonist and composer who
will be considered the father of avant-garde jazz, is
born in Hamlet, North Carolina.

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 C. 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.