Marcus Garvey – The CamaraIfe Maktaba

February 8, 2015 KRLemmons African American History

February 8 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 8 *

***********************************************************************
* Subscribe to the Munirah Chronicle and receive *
* Black Facts every day of the year. *
* To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]> *
* In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name *
***********************************************************************

1865 – The first African American major in the United States Army is a
physician, Dr. Martin Robinson Delany.

1894 – Congress repeals the Enforcement Act, which makes it easier for
some states to disenfranchise African American voters.

1925 – Marcus Garvey is sent to federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia for
mail fraud in connection with the sale of stock in his Black
Star Line. His prosecution was vigorously advocated by several
prominent African American leaders, including Robert Sengstacke
Abbott and others. Garvey was railroaded because of the power
he had amassed over the African American population of America.

1925 – Students stage a strike at Fisk University to protest the
policies of the white administration at the school.

1944 – Harry S. McAlpin of the “Daily World” in Atlanta, Georgia, is
the first African American journalist accredited to attend
White House press conferences.

1965 – Dr. Joseph B. Danquah, Ghanaian political leader, joins the
ancestors. He had been the leader of the United Gold Coast
Convention, a political body which had pressed the British for
a gradual relinquishing of colonial rule.

1968 – Gary Coleman is born in Zion, Ohio. He will become a child
actor portraying “Arnold” in the television series, “Different
Strokes,” which aired from 1978 to 1986. He will join the ancestors
on May 28, 2010.

1968 – Highway Patrol Officers kill three South Carolina State
University students during a demonstration in Orangeburg,
South Carolina. Students are protesting against a whites-only
Orangeburg bowling alley.

1970 – Alonzo Mourning is born in Chesapeake, Virginia. He will become
a basketball star at Georgetown University and will go on to
play for the NBA Miami Heat. He will be praised for his
courage for making a comeback after undergoing a kidney
transplant and years later winning his first NBA Championship
with the Miami Heat in 2006. Prior to the Heat, he will play
for the Charlotte Hornets and New Jersey Nets.

1984 – Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers scores 27 points
while leading his team to a 111-109 victory over the Boston
Celtics. Abdul-Jabbar passes Wilt Chamberlain’s NBA career
record of 12,682 field goals.

1986 – Oprah Winfrey becomes the first African American woman to host
a nationally syndicated talk show.

1986 – 5′ 7″ Spud Webb, of the Atlanta Hawks, wins the NBA Slam Dunk
Competition.

1990 – CBS News suspends resident humorist Andy Rooney for racial
comments he supposedly made to a gay magazine, comments
Rooney denies making.

1995 – The U.N. Security Council approves sending 7,000 peacekeepers
to Angola to cement an accord ending 19 years of civil war.

2000 – Edna Griffin, an Iowa civil-rights pioneer best known for
integrating lunch counters, joins the ancestors at the age of
90. In 1948, Griffin led the fight against Katz Drug Store in
downtown Des Moines, which refused to serve blacks at its
lunch counter. Griffin staged sit-ins, picketed in front of
the store and filed charges against the store’s owner, Maurice
Katz, who was fined. The Iowa Supreme Court then enforced the
law which made it illegal to deny service based on race. She
organized Iowans to attend the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
1963 march on Washington, D.C., and helped start the former
radio station KUCB. On May 15, 1999, Des Moines’ mayor
proclaimed “Edna Griffin Day.” On February 5, 2000, Griffin
was inducted into the Iowa African American Hall of Fame.

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

November 27, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

November 25 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 25 *

1841 – Thirty-five survivors of the “Amistad” return home to
Africa.

1935 – Namahyoke Sokum Curtis, who led a team of 32 African
Americans to nurse yellow fever victims during the
Spanish-American War, joins the ancestors. She will
be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

1941 – Annie Mae Bullock is born in Nutbush, Tennessee. She
will meet Ike Turner in the early 1950’s at a St.
Louis, Missouri club. Soon after, she will begin
singing with his band on occasional engagements, and
in 1959, form the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. After
separating from Ike and the band, she will build an
even more successful career on her own, which will
include the multi-platinum album, “Private Dancer”
and five Grammy awards.

1949 – Dr. Ralph J. Bunche receives the Spingarn Medal for
his contributions to the Myrdal study and his
achievements as UN mediator in the Palestine
conflict.

1949 – The St. Louis chapter of CORE presses a sit-in
campaign designed to end segregation in downtown St.
Louis facilities.

1955 – The Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation
in interstate travel. The law affects buses and
trains as well as terminals and waiting rooms.

1987 – Harold Washington, the first African American mayor
of Chicago, Illinois, joins the ancestors, in office
at the age of 65.

1997 – Legendary Eddie Robinson, of Grambling State University,
coaches his last game as head coach. This will close
out a career spanning 57 years. He has the NCAA record
for wins at 402. The closest to Eddie Robinson’s record
is ‘Bear’ Bryant of the University of Alabama at 323
wins.

1998 – Comedian Flip Wilson joins the ancestors in Malibu,
California, at the age of 64.

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

August 3, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

August 2 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 2 *

1847 – William A. Leidesdorff, born in the Danish West Indies to
a Danish father and a Black native mother, opens the first
commercial steamship service on San Francisco Bay.

1920 – Marcus Garvey presents his “Back To Africa” program in New
York City.

1924 – James Arthur Baldwin is born in New York City. He will
become one of the most prolific and influential African
American authors of fiction. His essays, such as
the collection “Notes of a Native Son” (1955), explore
palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and
class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in
mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if unnameable
tensions with personal identity, assumptions, uncertainties,
yearning, and questing. Some of his essays are book-length,
for instance “The Fire Next Time” (1963), “No Name in the
Street” (1972), and “The Devil Finds Work” (1976). His
novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions
and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures
thwarting the equitable integration of not only blacks, but
also gay men — depicting as well some internalized
impediments to such individuals’ quest for acceptance —
namely in his second novel, “Giovanni’s Room” (1956),
written well before gay equality was widely espoused in
America. His best-known novel is his first, “Go Tell It on
the Mountain” (1953). In 1948, disillusioned by American
prejudice against blacks and gays, He will leave the United
States and depart for Paris, France. He will live as an
expatriate in France for most of his later life. He will
also spend some time in Switzerland and Turkey. He will
join the ancestors on December 1, 1987.

1945 – Jewell Jackson (later McCabe) is born in Washington, DC.
She will become president of the Coalition of 100 Black
Women, whose mission is to develop a forum for African
American women leaders.

1951 – While manning his machine gun during a surprise attack on
his platoon, private first class William Henry Thompson of
Company M, Twenty-fourth Infantry Regiment, becomes the
first African American to earn the Congressional Medal of
Honor in the Korean conflict.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance begins in Jersey City, New
Jersey.

1966 – The Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School, later
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, is
chartered in Los Angeles, California. It is the only
African American-focused medical school west of the
Mississippi.

1967 – “In the Heat of the Night”, starring Sidney Portier and Rod
Steiger, premieres.

1967 – Claude A. Barnett, who founded the Associated Negro Press,
joins the ancestors at the age of 78.

1980 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the WBA Welterweight title.
This is one of five weight classes in which he wins a
boxing title, making him the first African American to win
boxing titles in five different weight classes.

1982 – Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the
color barrier in major league baseball, is honored by a
commemorative stamp issued by the Postal Service, the
fifth in its Black Heritage USA series.

1986 – Jackie Joyner-Kersee (United States) sets record for the
heptathlon (7161 pts).

______________________________________________________________
Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene’ A. Perry

August 1, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

August 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 1 *

1619 – Twenty African “Negroes” became the first Blacks to land in
Protestant America at Jamestown, Virginia. Surviving
evidence suggests that the twenty Africans were accorded
the status of indentured servants.

1834 – Slavery is abolished in the British Empire by the royal
ascent of the King of England after having been voted by
Parliament the previous year.

1838 – British slaves in the Bahamas are emancipated.

1852 – San Francisco Methodists establish the first African
American Zion Methodist Church.

1867 – African Americans vote for the first time in a state
election, in Tennessee, helping the Republicans sweep the
election.

1867 – General Philip H. Sheridan dismisses the board of aldermen
in New Orleans and named new appointees, including several
African Americans.

1868 – Governor Henry C. Warmoth of Louisiana endorses a joint
resolution of the legislature calling for federal military
aid. Warmoth says there had been 150 political
assassinations in June and July.

1874 – Charles Clinton Spaulding is born in Columbus County, North
Carolina. He will become a businessman who will rise to the
presidency of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance
Company. His business acumen will help the company survive
the years of the Great Depression. Also active in the
Durham, North Carolina community where the corporation is
located, he will work to increase the numbers of registered
African American voters and convince the city to hire
African American police officers. He will lead the company
from 1900 until he joins the ancestors on August 1, 1952.

1879 – Mary Eliza Mahoney graduates from the nursing program at the
New England Hospital for Women and Children. She is the
first African American to graduate from a nursing school and
becomes the first African American in history to earn a
professional nursing license.

1894 – Benjamin Elijah Mays is born in Epworth, South Carolina. He
will become a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Bates College in
Maine. He will serve as pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church from
1921-1923 in Atlanta, Georgia. Recruited by Morehouse President
John Hope, Mays will join the faculty as a mathematics teacher
and debate coach. He will obtain a master’s degree in 1925 and
in 1935 a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago. In 1934,
he will be appointed dean of the School of Religion at Howard
University and serve until 1940. He will become president of
Morehouse College in 1940 and launch a 27-year tenure that
will shepherd the institution into international prominence. He
will upgrade the faculty, secure a Phi Beta Kappa chapter and
sustain enrollment during World War II. After retiring as the
president of Morehouse, he will be elected to the school board
of Atlanta, Georgia and later serve as its president. In
1982, he will be awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal. He
will join the ancestors on March 28, 1984.

1914 – Marcus Garvey establishes the Universal Negro Movement
Improvement and Conservation Association and African
Communities’ League, later shortened to UNIA. In New York
City six years later to the day, the UNIA will meet in
Madison Square Garden as Garvey presents his “Back to
Africa” plan and a formal Declaration of Rights for Black
people worldwide.

1918 – Theodore Juson Jemison, Sr. is born in Selma, Alabama. He
will become a Baptist minister and will later be elected
president of the National Baptist Convention USA, serving
from 1982 to 1994. It is the largest African American
religious organization. He will oversee the construction of
the Baptist World Center in Nashville, Tennessee, the
headquarters for the Convention. In 1953, while minister of
a large church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he will help lead
the first civil rights boycott of bus service. The
organization of free rides, coordinated by churches, was a
model used later by the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama,
which started in 1955. He will be one of the founders of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. In
2003 the 50th anniversary of the Baton Rouge bus boycott will
be honored with three days of events, organized by a young
resident born two decades after the action.

1920 – The national convention of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro
Improvement Association opens in Liberty Hall in Harlem.
The next night Garvey addresses twenty-five thousand Blacks
in Madison Square Garden. Garvey’s nationalist movement
reaches its height in 1920-21.

1925 – The National Bar Association, dedicated to “advance the
science of jurisprudence, uphold the honor of the legal
profession…and protect the civil and political rights of
all citizens of the several states of the United States,”
is formally organized in Des Moines, Iowa by 12 African
American legal pioneers including George H. Woodson, S.
Joe Brown, and Gertrude E. Rush.

1930 – Geoffrey Holder is born in Polrt of Spain, Trinidad. He will
become a Broadway dancer and actor and will be best known
for his performances in “Annie” and “The Wiz.” He will
teach at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance for two years.
He will be a principal dancer with the Metropolitan Opera
Ballet in New York from 1955 to 1956. In 1955, He will
marry dancer Carmen De Lavallade, whom he met when both
were in the cast of “House of Flowers,” a musical by Harold
Arlen (music and lyrics) and Truman Capote (lyrics and book).
They will be the subject of a 2004 film, “Carmen & Geoffrey.”
He will begin his movie career in the 1962 British film “All
Night Long,” a modern remake of Shakespeare’s Othello. He
will follow that with “Doctor Doolittle” (1967) as Willie
Shakespeare, leader of the natives of Sea-Star Island. This
will be a trying experience for him, as he had to contend
with casual racism from Rex Harrison’s then-wife, Rachel
Roberts, and his entourage. In 1972, he will be cast as the
Sorcerer in “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex*”
(*But Were Afraid to Ask). The following year he will be a
henchman – Baron Samedi – in the Bond movie “Live and Let Die,”
also contributing to the film’s choreography. In addition to
his movie appearances, he will become a spokesman for the 1970s
7 Up soft drink “uncola” advertising campaign. In 1975, he will
win two Tony Awards for direction and costume design of “The
Wiz,” the all-black musical version of The Wizard of Oz. He
will be the first black man to be nominated in either category.
He also win the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Costume Design.
The show will run for 1672 performances over a four-year period,
reviving in 1984. As a choreographer, he will create dance
pieces for many companies, including the Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theater, for which he will provide choreography, music
and costumes for “Prodigal Prince” (1967), and the Dance
Theatre of Harlem, for which he provided choreography, music
and costumes for “Dougla” (1974) and designed costumes for
“Firebird” (1982). In 1978, he will direct and choreograph the
Broadway musical “Timbuktu!” His 1957 piece “Bele” is also part
of the Dance Theater of Harlem repertory. In the 1982 film
version of the musical “Annie,” he will play the role of Punjab.
He will also be the voice of Ray in “Bear in the Big Blue House”
and provide narration for Tim Burton’s version of Roald Dahl’s
“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” He will reprise his role
as the 7 Up Spokesman in the 2011 season finale of The Celebrity
Apprentice, where he will appear as himself in a commercial for
“7 Up Retro” for Marlee Matlin’s team. He will also be a
prolific painter, ardent art collector, book author and music
composer. As a painter, he will win a Guggenheim Fellowship. A
book of his photography, “Adam,” was published by Viking Press
in 1986.

1940 – Benjamin E. Mays, who has been called “the greatest school
master of his generation,” is named president of Morehouse
College.

1941 – Ronald H. Brown is born in Washington, DC. He will become
the first African American chairman of the Democratic
National Committee and Secretary of Commerce. He will join
the ancestors on April 3, 1996 in Croatia when his plane crashes
while on an official tour of the Balkans for the Department
of Commerce.

1943 – Race-related rioting erupts in New York City’s village of
Harlem, resulting in several deaths.

1944 – Adam Clayton Powell is elected to congress and becomes the
first African American congressman from the East.

1950 – The American Bowling Congress ends its all-white-males rule.

1952 – Charles Clinton Spaulding joins the ancestors in Durham,
North Carolina at the age of 78.

1960 – Benin changes its name to Dahomey and proclaims its
independence from France.

1960 – Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” is released. The song
inspires the dance craze of the ’60s.

1961 – Whitney Young Jr. is named executive director of the
National Urban League.

1964 – Arthur Ashe becomes the first African American to be named
to the U.S. Davis Cup tennis team.

1970 – “Black Enterprise” magazine is first published.

1970 – Willie Stargell, of the Pittsburgh Pirates, ties the record
of 5 extra base hits in a game.

1973 – Tempestt Bledsoe, actress, “The Cosby Show’s” Vanessa
Huxtable, is born in Chicago, Illinois.

1977 – Benjamin L. Hooks becomes the Executive Director of the
NAACP.

1979 – James Patterson Lyke is installed as auxiliary bishop of
the Cleveland Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church.

1987 – Mike Tyson defeats Tony Tucker to become undisputed
Heavyweight Boxing Champion.

1992 – The Supreme Court permits the administration to continue
its special interdiction policy by which the U.S. Coast
Guard patrols international waters near Haiti to prevent
Haitian citizens from escaping from their country, and
Haiti is the only country in the world to receive such
treatment by the United States.

1992 – Gail Devers wins the women’s 100 meters at the Barcelona
Summer Games.

1993 – Ronald H. Brown, former chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, is appointed head of the Department
of Commerce by President Bill Clinton.

1994 – Supporters of Haiti’s military rulers declare their
intention to fight back in the face of a U.N. resolution
paving the way for a U.S.-led invasion.

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

June 23, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

June 21 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 21 *

1821 – The African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) Church is
formally constituted in New York City at its first annual
conference. Nineteen clergymen were present, representing
six African American churches from New York City,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Haven, Connecticut and
Newark, New Jersey. They voted to separate from the
white-controlled Methodist Episcopal Church, which had
insisted on ultimate control of the church’s leadership and
property. To distinguish between the two African Methodist
Episcopal organizations, as well as to honor their original
congregation, in 1848 they will vote to add Zion to their
name.

1832 – Joseph Haynes Rainey is born in Georgetown, South Carolina.
He will become the first African American elected to the
U.S. House of Representatives, where he will serve five
terms. He will join the ancestors on August 1, 1887.

1859 – Henry Ossawa Tanner is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Son
of AME bishop Benjamin Tanner, young Tanner will forgo the
ministry to take up painting. Constantly facing the tension
between racial stereotypes and his art, Tanner will
eventually emigrate to France to pursue his art, considered
by many the finest produced by an African American. He will
be known for his commanding use of light and color in his
seascapes, scenes of everyday life, and religious paintings.
He will join the ancestors in Paris, France on May 25, 1937.

1868 – John Hope is born in Augusta, Georgia. He will become the
first African American president of Atlanta Baptist (later
Morehouse) College in 1906. He will be a pioneer in the
field of education. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown
University, He will encourage an intellectual climate
comparable to what he had known at his alma mater and will
openly challenge Booker T. Washington’s view that education
for African Americans should emphasize vocational and
agricultural skills. He will join the ancestors on February
22, 1936.

1923 – Marcus Garvey is sentenced by the U.S. government to 5 years
in prison for using the U.S. mail to defraud. He is
railroaded by a government that is terrified by the control
that one magnificent orator had over African Americans.
They did not want their major source of cheap labor in
America to leave for Africa.

1927 – Carl B. Stokes, the first African American elected mayor of
a major American city is born. Stokes will be elected to
two terms as mayor of Cleveland, Ohio at a time of urban
riots and racial unrest in many major U.S. cities. Civil
rights leaders said his election was an advance, both
symbolic and genuine, for the cause of black political
empowerment. He is instrumental in getting through a law
requiring city contractors to have minority employment
programs. President Clinton will appoint him, in 1994, as
ambassador to the Seychelles, an island nation in the
Indian Ocean. He will join the ancestors on April 3, 1996.

1945 – Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. becomes the first African
American to command a U.S. Army Air Force base when he
takes command of the 477th Composite Group of Godman Field
in Kentucky.

1951 – PFC William H. Thompson is posthumously awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor. He is the first African
American recipient since the Spanish-American War.

1964 – In Neshoba County in central Mississippi, three civil rights
field workers disappear after investigating the burning of
an African American church by the Ku Klux Klan. Michael
Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, both white New Yorkers, had
traveled to heavily segregated Mississippi in 1964 to help
organize civil rights efforts on behalf of the Congress of
Racial Equality (CORE). The third man, James Chaney, was a
local African American man who had joined CORE in 1963. The
disappearance of the three young men garnered national
attention and led to a massive FBI investigation that was
code-named MIBURN, for “Mississippi Burning.” They are later
found murdered.

1965 – Arthur Ashe leads UCLA to the NCAA tennis championship.

1990 – Little Richard gets a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

1997 – Patrice Rushen receives an NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award
for her contributions in the field of music.

2001 – Famed blues man John Lee Hooker joins the ancestors at the
age of 83 of natural causes in Los Altos, California. The
veteran blues singer from the Mississippi Delta estimated
that he recorded more than 100 albums over nearly seven
decades. He won a Grammy Award for a version of “I’m In The
Mood,” was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1991 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2000
Grammys. Through it all, Hooker’s music remained hypnotic
and unchanged — his rich and sonorous voice, full of
ancient hurt, coupled with a brooding, rhythmic guitar. He
sang of loneliness and confusion. Neither polished nor
urbane, his music was raw, primal emotion.

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

June 15, 2014 KRLemmons African American History

June 10 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 10 *

1854 – James Augustine Healy is ordained as a Catholic priest in
ceremonies at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France at the
age of 24. He will later become the first African American
Roman Catholic bishop.

1898 – Hattie McDaniel is born in Wichita, Kansas. A vaudevillian,
she will begin her acting career at age 37 in the film ‘The
Golden West.’ She will go on to roles in over 70 films,
including ‘The Little Colonel’, ‘Show Boat’, and most
notably ‘Gone With The Wind’, which will earn her an Oscar
as best supporting actress in 1940. She will also star in
the radio program ‘Beulah’ from 1947 to 1951. She will join
the ancestors on October 26, 1952.

1899 – The Improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks
(I.B.P.O.E.) is founded in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1910 – Chester Arthur Burnett is born in White Station, Mississippi.
He will be better known as ‘Howlin Wolf’, a delta bluesman
whose recordings will inspire English rock bands to adopt
his style and material. He will join the ancestors on
January 10, 1976.

1940 – The famed Cotton Club in Harlem closes. Home to some of the
most important jazz talents of their day, including Duke
Ellington, Lena Horne, and many others, the club falls
victim to changing musical tastes and poor attendance.

1940 – Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey joins the ancestors in London,
England at the age of 52.

1946 – Jack Arthur Johnson, the first African American heavyweight
boxing champion, joins the ancestors after succumbing to
injuries from an automobile accident near Raleigh, North
Carolina at the age of 68. He will be buried in Graceland
Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois.

1964 – The U.S. Senate imposes cloture for the first time on a civil
rights measure, ending a southern filibuster by a vote of
71-29.

1972 – Sammy Davis, Jr. earns his place at the top of the popular
music charts for the first time, after years in the
entertainment business with his first number one song, “The
Candy Man”. The song stayed at the top for three consecutive
weeks and stayed on the pop charts for 16 weeks.

1980 – Nelson Mandela, jailed for life by the apartheid government
of South Africa, has his writings smuggled from prison and
made public, continuing to spark the general population.

1985 – Herschel Walker, of the New Jersey Generals, breaks the 2,000
yard mark in rushing during the season as the Generals win
over Jacksonville 31-24. The effort sets a United States
Football League (USFL) record. This feat had only been
reached twice in the National Football League (NFL) — once
by O.J. Simpson in 1973 for 2,003 yards and Eric Dickerson
in 1984 for 2,105 yards.

1997 – Geronimo Pratt, political prisoner and ex-Black Panther, is
released from prison on bail. A judge agrees that had
Pratt’s original jury known that the prosecution key witness
was a FBI and police informant, the outcome may have been
different. In 1999, after winning his appeal of the decision
that ordered his release, charges against Pratt were dropped
by the Los Angeles District Attorney and no new trial was
sought.

2004 – Ray Charles, Keyboardist, Composer, and Singer who won 12
Grammy awards, joins the ancestors after succumbing to liver
disease at the age of 73.

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

February 15, 2014 KRLemmons African American History