KRLemmons African American History

September 20 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 20 *

1664 – Maryland enacts the first anti-amalgamation law to prevent
widespread intermarriage of English women and African
American men. Other colonies passed similar laws:
Virginia, 1691; Massachusetts 1705; North Carolina, 1715;
South Carolina, 1717; Delaware, 1721; Pennsylvania, 1725.

1830 – The National Negro Convention, a group of 38 free African
Americans from eight states, meets in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, at the Bethel A.M.E. Church, with the
express purpose of abolishing slavery and improving the
social status of African Americans. They will elect
Richard Allen president and agree to boycott slave-
produced goods.

1847 – William A. Leidesdorff is elected to San Francisco town
council receiving the third highest vote. Leidesdorff,
who was one of the first African American elected
officials, becomes the town treasurer in 1848.

1850 – Slave trade is abolished in Washington, DC, but slavery
will be allowed to continue until 1862.

1890 – Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe (“Jelly Roll” Morton) is born
in Gulfport (New Orleans), Louisiana. He will become a
renown jazz pianist and composer. Morton, whose fabulous
series of 1938 recordings for the Library of Congress are
a gold mine of information about early jazz, was a
complex man. Vain, ambitious, and given to exaggeration,
he was a pool shark, hustler and gambler, as well as a
brilliant pianist and composer. His greatest talent,
perhaps was for organizing and arranging. The series of
records he made with his “Red Hot Peppers” between 1926
and 1928 stands, alongside King Oliver’s as the crowning
glory of the New Orleans tradition and one of the great
achievements in Jazz. He will join the ancestors on
July 10, 1941

1915 – Hughie Lee-Smith is born in Eustis, Florida. He will
become a painter known for such surrealistic landscapes
as “Man with Balloons”, “Man Standing on His Head” and
“Big Brother”. He will join the ancestors on February 23,
1999.

1943 – Sani Abacha is born in Kano, Nigeria. After being educated
in his home state, will become a soldier and go to England
for advanced military education. He will achieve many
promotions as a soldier and by the mid-1980s, will enter
Nigeria’s military elite. In 1983 he will be among those
who will overthrow Shehu Shagari, leader of the Second
Republic, in a coup which led to the military rule of
Muhammadu Buhari. In 1985, Abacha will participate in a
second coup, which will replace Buhari with General
Ibrahim Babangida. As head of state, Babangida will
announce that free elections will be held in the early
1990s. In 1993, however, after Babangida nullifies the
results of these belated free elections, Abacha will
stage a third coup and oust his former ally. His regime
will be characterized by a concern with security that
verges on paranoia. Abacha will schedule elections for
August, 1998, but months beforehand, all five legal
parties nominate him as their “consensus candidate.” On
June 8, 1998, he will join the ancestors when he succumbs
unexpectedly to a heart attack.

1958 – Martin Luther King Jr. is stabbed in the chest by a
deranged African American woman while he is autographing
books in a Harlem department store. The woman is placed
under mental observation.

1962 – Mississippi’s governor, Ross Barnett, personally refuses
to admit James Meredith to University of Mississippi as
its first African American student. (Meredith is later
admitted.)

1962 – The Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) is banned in an
order issued by Sir Edgar Whitehead, the prime minister of
Southern Rhodesia.

1973 – Willie Mays announces his retirement from major league
baseball at the end of the 1973 baseball season.

1979 – A bloodless coup overthrows Jean-Bedel Bokassa, self-styled
head of the Central African Empire, in a French-supported
coup while he is visiting Libya.

1984 – NBC-TV debuts “The Cosby Show”. Bill Cosby plays Dr.
Heathcliff (Cliff) Huxtable. His lovely wife, Clair, is
played by Phylicia Rashad. The Huxtable kids were Sondra,
age 20 (Sabrina Le Beauf), Denise, age 16 (Lisa Bonet),
Theodore, age 14 (Malcom-Jamal Warner), Vanessa, age 8
(Tempestt Bledsoe) and Rudy, age 5 (Keshia Knight Pulliam).
The premiere is the most watched show of the week and the
show goes on to become an Emmy Award-winner and one of the
most popular on television for eight years. The series,
which had been rejected by other network television
executives, will become one of the most popular in
television history.

1987 – Alfre Woodard wins an Emmy for outstanding guest performance
in the dramatic series “L.A. Law”. It is her second Emmy
award, her first having been for a supporting role in “Hill
Street Blues” in 1984.

1987 – Walter Payton scores the NFL record 107th rushing touchdown.

1999 – Lawrence Russell Brewer becomes the second white supremacist
to be convicted in the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in
Jasper, Texas. He will be later sentenced to death.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 5 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 5 *

1763 – William Richmond is born in Cuckold’s Town, near,
Richmond, Virginia. He will relocate to Staten Island,
New York, where will he will become a freedman and the
first black professional boxer from America. He will
work as a shipyard laborer and be noticed by a British
commander named Hugh Percy on the docks having a fight
with a dock sailor. Percy convinced Richmond’s parents
to let him travel to England where he could establish a
better life. He will become a cabinetmaker, and learned
boxing for self-defense. Known as “Black Terror,” he will
knock out his first Englishman in just 25 seconds. By
1800, he will become a recognized semi-professional
boxer. After enough wins, he will be booked to fight the
English champion Tom Cribb. The Richmond/Cribb fight will
bring in thousands of English fans, including dukes and
nobles. The hype of the fight on October 8, 1805 will be
immediately publicized as Cribb and Richmond (The Black).
He will be 41 at the time, lose his fight to Cribb, and
“the crowd was pleased that a Black man had been put in
his place.” One of the first African Americans to attempt
winning a title in any sport, he will continue boxing
until he was 52. He will join the ancestors on Dec. 28,
1829.

1864 – John Lawson, an African American gunner on the flagship of
Admiral David Farragut, exhibits marked courage in the
Battle of Mobile Bay and wins the Congressional Medal of
Honor.

1865 – President Andrew Johnson moves to reverse the policy of
distributing abandoned land to freedmen.

1892 – Harriet Tubman receives a pension from Congress for her
work as a nurse, spy, and scout during the Civil War.
She, along with Sojourner Truth, Susie King and almost
200 other African American women, served as nurses during
the war at 11 hospitals in three states.

1900 – James Augustine Healy, the first African American Roman
Catholic bishop, joins the ancestors in Portland, Maine.
He is the brother of Patrick Francis Healy, the first
African American to receive a Ph.D. and first African
American president of a predominantly white university
(Georgetown University).

1936 – Jesse Owens wins his third gold medal by running a 200-
meter race in 20.7 seconds at the Olympic Games held in
Berlin, Germany.

1938 – James Hal Cone is born in Fordyce, Arkansas. He will
become a theologian, best known for his advocacy of Black
liberation theology. His 1969 book “Black Theology and
Black Power” provides a new way to articulate the
distinctiveness of theology in the black Church. His work
will become influential from the time of the book’s
publication and remain influential today. His work has
been both utilized and critiqued inside and outside of the
African American theological community. He will become the
Charles Augustus Briggs “Distinguished Professor of
Systematic Theology” at Union Theological Seminary in the
City of New York and is currently in that position, at this
time.

1945 – Jeannette (Ja’net) DuBois born in Brooklyn, New York. She
will become an actress and singer. In the late 1960’s, she
will perform in the original Broadway production of “Golden
Boy” with Sammy Davis, Jr. and Lou Gossett. This will be
her introduction to live theatre. She will go on to appear
in some of the biggest shows on Broadway, including “A
Raisin in the Sun” and “Nobody Loves An Albatross.” A role
on the soap opera, “Love of Life”, will give her
recognition as the first black female to regularly appear
on a serial. A pivotal point in her career will occur when
she relocates to the West Coast. During a performance of
“Hot L. Baltimore” in Los Angeles, she will capture the
attention of Norman Lear, creator of “Good Times.” She and
Lear will develop the vivacious and independent “Willona,”
for the popular sitcom, which will air on CBS from 1971 to
1979. She will usually find herself playing roles which
make her seem much older than she her actual age. For
example, when “Good Times” premiered in 1974, she was a
few years older than Jimmie Walker, while the show made
her out to be much closer in age to Esther Rolle, who was
53 at the time. In 1970, she will play the part of a
quarrelsome laundress alongside Carrie Snodgrass in the
cult classic, “Diary of a Mad Housewife”. She will co-star
in the movie “I’m Gonna Git You Sucka” and the sitcoms
“Moesha” and “The Steve Harvey Show.” She will play the
grandmother on the hit show, “The Wayans Bros.”. She will
appear in the 2003 movie “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.”
Among her other credits, she will appear in the 1969 made-
for-TV holiday film “J.T.”. She will also appear in former
“Good Times” co-star Janet Jackson’s “Control” music video
as her mother. She will also appear in “Love of Life”
between 1970-1972 as Loretta Allen, years prior to
starring in “Good Times.” She will win an CableACE Award
for her work on the TV movie “Other Women’s Children”,
based on the novel by Perri Klass, and she will also win
two Emmy Awards for her voiceover work on the animated
program “The PJs.”

1962 – Nelson Mandela is charged with incitement and illegally
leaving South Africa.

1962 – Patrick Aloysius Ewing is born in Kingston, Jamaica. He
will star in cricket and soccer. He will be 13 years old
when he arrives in the United States with his family,
settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he will learn
to play basketball at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, a public
high school. He will attend Georgetown University in
Washington, DC. In the 1984 season, he and Georgetown will
win the NCAA title with an 84-75 win over the University of
Houston. He will be one of the best college basketball
players of his era, as Georgetown will reach the
championship game of the NCAA tournament three out of four
years. He will be a first team All-American in 1983, 1984,
and 1985. Although injuries will mar his first year in the
NBA, he will be named NBA Rookie of the Year, averaging 20
points, 9 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game. Soon after he
will be considered one of the premier centers in the
league. He will enjoy a successful career, eleven times
named a NBA All-Star, an All-NBA First Team selection once,
a member of the All-NBA Second Team six times and the NBA
All-Defensive Second Team three times. He will be a member
of the original Dream Team at the 1992 Olympic Games,
winning a second gold medal. In 1996, he will also be given
the honor of being named one of the 50 greatest players in
NBA history. While he will enjoy a stellar career in the
NBA, he will never win a title as a professional.

1966 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is stoned by hecklers during a
Chicago, Illinois civil rights march.

1968 – Senator Edward Brooke is named the temporary chairman of
the Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida.

1984 – Track and field stars Evelyn Ashford and Edwin Moses win
Gold medals in the Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles,
California.

1992 – Federal civil rights charges are filed against four Los
Angeles police officers acquitted of state charges in the
videotaped beating of Rodney King. Two of the officers
will be convicted later of federal charges of violating
King’s civil rights.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 27 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 27 *

1816 – “Negro Fort”, a former British fort built during the War of
1812 in Spanish-held Florida, is attacked by U.S. troops.
This battle will help to precipitate the First Seminole War.
The British will evacuate Florida in the spring of 1815,
leaving the well-constructed and fully-armed fort on the
Apalachicola River in the hands of their allies, about 300
fugitive slaves, including members of the disbanded Corps
of Colonial Marines, and 30 Seminole and Choctaw Indians.
News of “Negro Fort” (as it will come to be called) will
attract as many as 800 fugitive slaves, from as far away
as Tennessee and the Mississippi Territory, to seek refuge
at the fort. They will eventually settle in the surrounding
area. Under the command of a Black man named Garson and a
Choctaw chief (whose name is unknown), the inhabitants of
“Negro Fort” will launch raids across the Georgia border.
In March of 1816, under mounting pressure from Georgia
slaveholders, General Andrew Jackson will petition the
Spanish Governor of Florida to destroy the settlement. At
the same time, he will instruct Major General Edmund P.
Gaines, commander of U.S. military forces “in the Creek
nation,” to destroy the fort and “restore the stolen
negroes and property to their rightful owners.” On this
date, following a series of skirmishes in which they will
be routed by “Negro Fort” defenders, the American forces
and their 500 Lower Creek allies will launch an all-out
attack under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Duncan
Clinch, with support from a naval convoy commanded by
Sailing Master Jairus Loomis. A plaque will mark the
location of the fort’s powder magazine. The two sides will
exchange cannon fire, but the shots of the inexperienced
Black gunners will fail to hit their targets. A cannon
ball from the American forces will enter the opening to
the fort’s powder magazine, igniting an explosion that
will destroy the fort and kill all but 30 of 300 occupants.
Garson and the Choctaw chief, among the few who will
survive the carnage, are handed over to the Creeks, who
will shoot Garson and scalp the chief. Other survivors will
be returned to slavery. The U.S. Army will build
Fort Gadsden on this site in 1818 and occupy it until 1821,
when Spain cedes Florida to the United States. Fort Gadsden
is a National Historic Landmark, maintained by the National
Park Service, located six miles southwest of Sumatra,
Florida and is National Register Number: 72000318.

1880 – Inventor, Alexander P. Ashbourne, is awarded a patent for
refining coconut oil.

1919 – Chicago race riots kill 23 African Americans, 15 whites, and
injure more than 500, despite the warnings of Ida B.
Wells-Barnett to city officials to improve conditions for
African Americans in the city.

1937 – Woodie King, Jr. is born in Baldwin Springs, Alabama. He
will attend high school in Detroit and go on to attend
Leman College in New York and earn his M.F.A. from Brooklyn
College. In 1965, he will join Mobilization for Youth,
where he will spend the next five years working as the
cultural director. In 1970, he will found the New Federal
Theatre and the National Black Touring Circuit in New York
City, where he will be producing director. He will produce
shows both on and off Broadway, and will directed
performances across the country in venues like the New York
Shakespeare Festival, Cleveland Playhouse, Center Stage of
Baltimore and the Pittsburgh Public Theatre. His work will
earn him numerous nominations and awards, including a 1988
NAACP Image Award for his direction of “Checkmates”
(featuring Denzel Washington and 1993 Audelco Awards for
Best Director and Best Play for his production of “Robert
Johnson: Trick The Devil.” He will also receive an Obie
Award for Sustained Achievement. He will have an honorary
doctorate in humane letters conferred by Wayne State
University and a doctorate of fine arts by the College of
Wooster. In addition to his directing and producing of
theater, he will find time to write extensively about it.
He will contribute to numerous magazines, such as “Black
World,” “Variety” and “The Tulane Drama Review,” and will
also write a number of books.

1950 – Albert L. Hinton joins the ancestors, becoming the first
African American reporter to lose his life in a theater of
military operation, when an Army transport plane carrying
him crashes into the Sea of Japan while enroute to Korea.

1962 – Martin Luther King, Jr., is jailed in Albany, Georgia for
participating in a civil rights demonstration.

1967 – In the wake of urban rioting, President Johnson appoints
the Kerner Commission to assess the causes of the violence,
the same day Black militant H. Rap Brown said in Washington
that violence was “as American as cherry pie.”

1968 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Gary, Indiana.

1984 – Reverend C.L. Franklin joins the ancestors in Detroit,
Michigan, after a long coma sustained after being shot by
a burglar in his home. He was the founder of the New
Bethel Baptist Church, where his radio sermons drew a
nationwide audience and where the singing career of his
daughter, Aretha, began.

1999 – Harry “Sweets” Edison, a master of the jazz trumpet who was
a mainstay of the Count Basie band, joins the ancestors in
Columbus, Ohio at the age of 83. In a career spanning more
than 60 years, Edison had that rarest of qualities, an
utterly individual style. Although his sound was not
especially unique, his articulation, his ability to invest
each note with a driving sense of swing, was completely
his own. It didn’t matter whether he was playing with
Basie, with Frank Sinatra or Oscar Peterson, or on any of
his innumerable recording sessions; his solos, stamped with
his singular phrasing, always popped out of the mix.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 10 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 10 *

1775 – General Horatio Gates, George Washington’s adjutant
general issues an order excluding African Americans from
serving in the Continental Army.

1875 – Mary McLeod Bethune is born in Mayesville, South Carolina.
She will become a noted educator and founder of Daytona
Normal and Industrial Institute in Daytona Beach, Florida
in 1904 (now Bethune-Cookman College). With the help of
benefactors, she will attend college hoping to become a
missionary in Africa. When that did not materialize, she
will establish a school for African American girls in
Daytona Beach, Florida. From six students it will grow
and merge with an institute for African American boys and
eventually became the Bethune-Cookman School. Its quality
far surpassed the standards of education for African
American students, and rivaled those of schools for white
students. She will work tirelessly to ensure funding for
the school, and use it as a showcase for tourists and
donors, to exhibit what educated African Americans could
do. She will be president of the college from 1923 to 1942
and 1946 to 1947, one of the few women in the world who
will serve as a college president at that time. She will
also be active in women’s clubs, and her leadership in
them will allow her to become nationally prominent. She
will work for the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1932, and become a member of Roosevelt’s “Black Cabinet,”
sharing the concerns of Black people with the Roosevelt
administration while spreading Roosevelt’s message to
Blacks, who had been traditionally Republican voters. Upon
her ascension to the ancestors on May 18, 1955, columnist
Louis E. Martin will say, “She gave out faith and hope as
if they were pills and she some sort of doctor.” Her home
in Daytona Beach will become a National Historic Landmark,
and her house in Washington, D.C., in Logan Circle, will
be preserved by the National Park Service as a National
Historic Site. A stature will be placed in Lincoln Park
in Washington, D.C.
1927 – David Norman Dinkins is born in Trenton, New Jersey. He
will move as a child to Harlem. He will serve as a marine
during World War II and will attend and graduate from
Howard University after the war. He will receive his law
degree from Brooklyn Law School in 1956. He was in private
practice until 1975, even though he was active in politics
and held some office. He began full time elective office
in New York City that year and held the offices of City
Clerk and Manhattan Borough President. In 1989 he will be
elected as the first African American mayor of the city of
New York, defeating three-time mayor Ed Koch. He will
serve one term, being defeated in 1993 by Rudolph Giuliani.

1936 – Billie Holiday records “Billie’s Blues” for Okeh Records in
New York. Bunny Berigan, Artie Shaw and Cozy Cole supported
Holiday, instrumentally, on the track.

1941 – Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton joins the ancestors in Los
Angeles, California at age 56. The innovative piano
soloist, composer, and arranger claims to have invented
jazz and makes a series of recordings for the Library of
Congress that immortalizes his style. Fifty years after
his death, playwright George C. Wolfe will present a well-
regarded play on Morton’s life, “Jelly’s Last Jam.”

1943 – Arthur Ashe is born in Richmond, Virginia. He will become a
professional tennis player winning 33 career titles. In
winning his titles, he will become the first African
American male to win Wimbledon (1975) and the U.S. Open
(1968) and will be the first African American enshrined in
the International Tennis Hall of Fame. He will also be the
author of “A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African-
American Athlete,” and “Days of Grace.” During a second
heart surgery in 1983, it is likely that he was given blood
tainted with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which
causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). After
acknowledging his disease, he became an active fundraiser
and speaker on behalf of AIDS research. He will join the
ancestors on February 6, 1993.

1945 – Ronald E. ‘Ron’ Glass is born in Evansville, Indiana. He will
graduate from the University of Evansville with a major in
Drama and Literature. His acting career will begin at the
Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He will move to
Hollywood after four years in Minneapolis. He will be best
known for his television role as Sgt. Harris on the long-
running series, “Barney Miller.” His other television credits
will be roles in “The New Odd Couple,” “Rhythm & Blues,” “All
in the Family,” “Sanford & Sons,” “Streets of San Francisco,”
“Family Matters,” and “Murder, She Wrote.” His feature film
credits include “It’s My Party” and “House Guest.”

1949 – Frederick M. Jones patents a starter generator.

1951 – Sugar Ray Robinson is defeated for only the second time in
133 fights as Randy Turpin takes the middleweight crown.

1960 – Roger Timothy Craig is born in Davenport, Iowa. He will
become a professional football player, being drafted in the
second round of the 1983 NFL Draft out of the University of
Nebraska by the San Francisco 49ers. He will play for the
49ers eight years, claiming three Super Bowl titles and
selected for the Pro Bowl four times. In 1985, he will
become the first player to surpass 1,000 yards rushing and
receiving in the same season. By the end of his career, he
will become the 49ers’ second leading rusher all-time with
7,064 yards. He will also become co-Super Bowl record holder
for Most Points Per Game (18 vs. Miami, 1985) and Most TDs
Per Game (3).

1962 – Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested during a civil rights
demonstration in Albany, Georgia.

1966 – Martin Luther King, Jr. begins a Chicago campaign for fair
housing. It is his first foray into a northern city for
desegregation activities.

1972 – The Democratic convention opens in Miami Beach, Florida.
African Americans constitute 15 per cent of the delegates.
Representative Shirley Chisholm receives 151.95 of 2,000-
plus ballots on the first roll call.

1973 – The Bahamas attain full independence within the British
Commonwealth having been a British colony almost
uninterruptedly since 1718.

1984 – Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden of the New York Mets becomes the youngest
player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. Gooden is
19 years, 7 months and 24 days old. He leads the National
League to a 3-1 win at Candlestick Park in San Francisco,
California.

1993 – Kenyan runner Yobes Ondieki becomes the first human to run 10
km (6.25 miles) in less than 27 minutes. Ondieki, known for
his extremely arduous training sessions, will say after
setting his world record, “My world-record race actually felt
easier than my tough interval workouts.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 12 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 12 *

1787 – Richard Allen and Absalom Jones organize Philadelphia’s
Free African Society which W.E.B. Du Bois refers to,
over a century later, “the first wavering step of a
people toward a more organized social life.”

1825 – Richard Harvey Cain is born in Greenbrier, Virginia. He
will become an AME minister, an AME bishop, publisher,
member of the House of Representatives, and a founder
of Paul Quinn College in Waco, Texas.

1861 – The Civil War begins as Confederate troops attack Fort
Sumter, South Carolina.

1864 – Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest captures Fort
Pillow, Tennessee, and massacres the inhabitants,
sparing, the official report says, neither soldier nor
civilian, African American nor white, male or female.
The fort is defended by a predominantly African
American force.

1869 – The North Carolina legislature passes anti-Klan
legislation.

1898 – Sir Grantley H. Adams is born in Barbados. He will become
a political leader and will found the Barbados
Progressive League. The league will later become the
Barbados Labour Party. The B.L.P. will win the general
election of 1947 and Adams will be elected the first
premier of Barbados.

1940 – Herbert Jeffrey “Herbie” Hancock is born in Chicago,
Illinois. After graduating from college at age 20, he
will go to New York with Donald Byrd, who had heard him
perform in Chicago. While in New York, Byrd will
introduce Hancock to Blue Note Records executives. This
will lead to work with various established jazz
artists and later Hancock’s first solo album, “Taking
Off,” which includes appearances by Freddie Hubbard and
Dexter Gordon. Contained on this album is Hancock’s
first top 10 hit, “Watermelon Man.” It will not be long
before Hancock gets the attention of the legendary
Miles Davis, who will extend an invitation to Hancock
to join his new group. After working with Davis for
several years Herbie will decide to form his own band,
a sextet which will include Julian Priester, Buster
Williams, and Eddie Henderson. He will become one of
the most popular jazz artists, known for his
compositions “Watermelon Man” and “Chameleon,” as well
as his musical score for the movie “‘Round Midnight,”
for which he will win an Oscar in 1986.

1960 – Martin Luther King, Jr. denounces the Vietnam War which
he says is “rapidly degenerating into a sordid military
adventure.”

1968 – African American students occupy the administration
building at Boston University and demand Afro-American
history courses and additional African American
students.

1980 – Liberian President William R. Tolbert Jr. and twenty-
seven others join the ancestors after being killed in
a coup d’etat by army enlisted men led by Master
Sergeant Samuel K. Doe.

1983 – The people of Chicago, Illinois elect Harold Washington
as the city’s first African American mayor.

1989 – Former middleweight boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson
joins the ancestors in Culver City, California, at age
67.

1990 – August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” wins the Pulitzer
Prize for drama. It is the second Pulitzer Prize for
Wilson, who also won one for “Fences” in 1987 and was
awarded the New York Drama Critics’ Award for “Fences,”
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and “Joe Turner’s Come and
Gone.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 9 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 9 *

1816 – The African Methodist Episcopal Church is organized at a
general convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1865 – Nine African American regiments of Gen. John Hawkins’s
division help to smash the Confederate defenses at Fort
Blakely, Alabama. Capture of the fort will lead to the
fall of Mobile. The 68th U.S. Colored Troops will have
the highest number of casualties in the engagement.

1865 – Robert E. Lee surrenders Army of Northern Virginia to
Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, ending the
Civil War.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE CONFEDERACY: The Confederacy is
the first to recognize that African Americans are major
factors in the war. The South impresses slaves to work
in mines, repair railroads and build fortifications,
thereby releasing a disproportionately large percentage
of able-bodied whites for direct war service. A handful
of African Americans enlisted in the rebel army, but few,
if any, fired guns in anger. A regiment of fourteen
hundred free African Americans received official
recognition in New Orleans, but was not called into
service. It later became, by a strange mutation of
history, the first African American regiment officially
recognized by the Union army.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNION NAVY: One out of every
four Union sailors was an African American. Of the
118,044 sailors in the Union Navy, 29,511 were African
Americans. At least four African American sailors won
Congressional Medals of Honor.
AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE UNION ARMY: The 185,000 Black
soldiers in the Union army were organized into 166 all
Black regiments (145 infantry, 7 cavalry, 12 heavy
artillery, 1 light artillery, 1 engineer). The largest
number of African American soldiers came from Louisiana
(24,052), followed by Kentucky (23,703) and Tennessee
(20,133). Pennsylvania contributed more African
American soldiers than any other Northern state (8,612).
African American soldiers participated in 449 battles,
39 of them major engagements. Sixteen Black soldiers
received Congressional Medals of Honor for gallantry in
action. Some 37,638 African American soldiers lost
their lives during the war. African American soldiers
generally received poor equipment and were forced to do
a large amount of fatigue duty. Until 1864, African
American soldiers (from private to chaplain) received
seven dollars a month whereas white soldiers received
from thirteen to one hundred dollars a month. In 1863
African American units, with four exceptions (Fifth
Massachusetts Cavalry, Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth
Massachusetts Volunteers and Twenty-ninth Connecticut
Volunteers), were officially designated United States
Colored Troops (USCT). Since the War Department
discouraged applications from African Americans, there
were few commissioned officers. The highest ranking of
the seventy-five to one hundred African American
officers was Lt. Col. Alexander T. Augustana, a surgeon.
Some 200,000 African American civilians were employed
by the Union army as laborers, cooks, teamsters and
servants.

1866 – The Civil Rights Bill of 1866 is passed over the
president’s veto. The bill will confer citizenship on
African Americans and give them “the same right, in
every State and Territory… as is enjoyed by white
citizens.”

1870 – The American Anti-Slavery Society is dissolved.

1898 – Paul Leroy Robeson is born in Princeton, New Jersey. The
son of an ex-slave turned Methodist minister, Robeson
will attend Rutgers University on a full scholarship,
where he will excel and obtain 12 letters in four sports,
be named to the All-American football team twice, be a
member of the debate team, and earn a Phi Beta Kappa key.
He will study law at Columbia University in New York and
receive his degree in 1923. There he will meet and marry
Eslanda Cardozo Goode, who will be the first African
American woman to head a pathology laboratory. He will
work as a law clerk in New York, but once again will
face discrimination and leave the practice when a white
secretary refuses to take dictation from him. He will
later become one of America’s foremost actors and singers.
He will make 14 films including “The Emperor Jones,”
“King Solomon’s Mines,” and “Showboat.” During the 1940’s
he will continue to have success on the stage, in film,
and in concert halls, but will remain face to face with
prejudice and racism. After finding the Soviet Union
to be a tolerant and friendly nation, he will begin to
protest the growing Cold War hostilities between the
United States and the USSR. He will question why
African Americans should support a government that did
not treat them as equals. At a time when dissent was
hardly tolerated, Robeson will be looked upon as an
enemy by his government. In 1947, he will be named by
the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and the
State Department will deny him a passport until 1958.
Events such as these, along with a negative public
response, will lead to the demise of his public career.
He will be an inspiration to millions around the world.
His courageous stance against oppression and inequality
in part will lead to the civil rights movement of the
1960s. He will join the ancestors on January 23, 1976,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after living in seclusion
for ten years.

1929 – Valenza Pauline Burke is born in Brooklyn, New York to
parents who had immigrated to the United States from
Barbados. She will become a novelist known as Paule
Marshall. She will author “Browngirl, Brownstones,”
“Praisesong for the Widow,” “The Chosen Place, The
Timeless People,” “Soul Clap Hands and Sing,” and
Daughters.” She will also write a collection of short
stories, “Reena and Other Stories.”

1939 – When she is refused admission to the Daughters of the
American Revolution’s Constitution Hall to give a
planned concert, Marian Anderson performs for 75,000 on
the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Two months later, she
will be honored with the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for her
talents as “one of the greatest singers of our time”
and for “her magnificent dignity as a human being.”

1950 – Juanita Hall becomes the first African American to win a
Tony award for her role as Bloody Mary in the musical
“South Pacific.”

1968 – Martin Luther King Jr. is buried after funeral services
at Ebenezer Baptist Church and memorial services at
Morehouse College, in Atlanta, Georgia. More than
300,000 persons march behind the coffin of the slain
leader which is carried through the streets of Atlanta
on a farm wagon pulled by two Georgia mules. Scores of
national dignitaries, including Vice-President Hubert
Humphrey, attend the funeral. CORE and the Fellowship of
Reconciliation send twenty-three dignitaries. Ralph
David Abernathy is elected to succeed King as head of
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1993 – The Reverend Benjamin Chavis is chosen to head the NAACP,
succeeding Benjamin Hooks.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 4 African American Historical Events

 

* Today in Black History – April 4 *

1915 – McKinley Morganfield is born in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. He
will be discovered in 1941 by two music archivists from the
Library of Congress, traveling the back roads of Mississippi
looking for the legendary Robert Johnson. They recorded two
of Morganfield’s songs and lit a fire in the ambitious young
man. He will leave Mississippi for Chicago two years later
to become a blues singer better known as “Muddy Waters.” He
will join the ancestors on April 30, 1983 in Chicago,
Illinois.

1928 – Marguerite Ann Johnson is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She
will become the first African American streetcar conductor
in San Francisco, a dancer, nightclub singer, editor, and
teacher of music and drama in Ghana and professor of
American Studies at Wake Forest University, better known as
Maya Angelou. She will also become noted as the author of a
multi-volume autobiographical series, as well as several
volumes of poetry.

1938 – Vera Mae Smart Grosvenor, who will become the author of the
popular and influential cookbook “Vibration Cooking”(1970),
is born in Fairfax, South Carolina.

1939 – Hugh Masekela is born in South Africa. He will become a
musician and band leader. He will be a major force in South
African Jazz, and will become known throughout the world.

1942 – Richard Parsons is born in New York City. In 1990, he will
be named chief executive officer of Dime Savings Bank, the
first African American CEO of a large, non-minority U.S.
savings institution.

1959 – The Federation of Mali is formed, consisting of Senegal & the
territory of Mali in the French Sudan. It will dissolve in
1960.

1960 – Senegal and Mali gain separate independence.

1968 – Acknowledged leader of the U.S. civil rights movement, Martin
Luther King, Jr. joins the ancestors after being
assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. His death will result
in a national day of mourning and the postponement of the
beginning of the baseball season. Over 30,000 people will
form a funeral procession behind his coffin, pulled by two
Georgia mules. King’s death will also set off racially
motivated civil disturbances in 160 cities leaving 82 people
dead and causing $ 69 million in property damage. President
Lyndon B. Johnson declares Sunday, April 6, a national day
of mourning and orders all U.S. flags on government
buildings in all U.S. territories and possessions to fly at
half-mast.

1972 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., former congressman and civil rights
leader, joins the ancestors in Miami, Florida at the age of
63.

1974 – Hank Aaron ties the baseball career home run record set by
Babe Ruth, when he hits his 714th home run in Cincinnati,
Ohio.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 3 *

1865 – The Fifth Massachusetts Colored Cavalry and units of the
Twenty-fifth Corps are in the vanguard of Union troops
entering Richmond. The Second Division of the Twenty-Fifth
Corps help to chase Robert E. Lee’s army from Petersburg to
Appomattox Court House, April 3-10. The African American
division and white Union soldiers are advancing on General
Lee’s trapped army with fixed bayonets when the Confederate
troops surrender.

1889 – The Savings Bank of the Order of True Reformers opens in
Richmond, Virginia.

1934 – Richard Mayhew is born in Amityville, New York. A student
at the Art Students League, Brooklyn Museum Art School, and
Columbia University, as well as the Academia in Florence,
Italy, Mayhew will be one of the most respected and
revolutionary landscape artists of the 20th century. He
will also form “Spiral,” a forum for artistic innovation
and exploration of African American artists’ relationships
to the civil rights movement, with fellow artists Romare
Bearden, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, and others.

1936 – James Harrell McGriff is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He will be surrounded by music as a child, with both parents
playing piano and cousins Benny Golson and Harold Melvin,
who were pursuing their own musical talents. He will be
influenced to play the organ by neighbor Richard “Groove”
Holmes, with whom he will study privately. He will also
study organ at Philadelphia’s Combe College of Music and at
Julliard. In addition, he will study with Milt Buckner and
with classical organist Sonny Gatewood. His first hit will
be with his arrangement of “I Got A Woman”, on the Sue
label, which made it to the top five on both Billboard’s
Rhythm and Blues and Pop charts. There will be close to 100
albums with Jimmy McGriff’s name at the top as leader. He
will record for Sue, Solid State, United Artists, Blue Note,
Groove Merchant, Milestone, Headfirst and Telarc. Over his
prolific career, he will record with George Benson, Kenny
Burrell, Frank Foster, J.J. Johnson and a two-organ jam
affair with the late “Groove” Holmes.

1944 – The U.S. Supreme Court (Smith v. Allwright) said that “white
primaries” that exclude African Americans are
unconstitutional.

1950 – Carter G. Woodson, “the father of black history,” joins the
ancestors in Washington, DC at the age of 74.

1961 – Edward “Eddie” Regan Murphy is born in Brooklyn, New York. A
stand-up comedian and star of “Saturday Night Live” before
pursuing a movie career, Murphy will become one of the
largest African American box office draws. Among his most
successful movies will be “48 Hours,” “Trading Places,”
“Beverly Hills Cop,” “Coming to America,” and “Harlem
Nights.”

1963 – Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., the Birmingham anti-
segregation campaign begins. Before it is over, more than
2,000 demonstrators, including King, will be arrested. The
Birmingham Manifesto, issued by Fred Shuttlesworth of the
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights the morning of
the campaign, summarizes the frustration and hopes of the
protesters: “The patience of an oppressed people cannot
endure forever…. This is Birmingham’s moment of truth in
which every citizen can play his part in her larger
destiny.”

1964 – Malcolm X speaks at a CORE-sponsored meeting on “The Negro
Revolt What Comes Next?” In his speech “The Ballot or
Bullet,” Malcolm warns of a growing black nationalism that
will no longer tolerate patronizing white political action.

1968 – Less than 24 hours before he is assassinated in Memphis,
Tennessee, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
delivers his famous “mountaintop” speech to a rally of
striking sanitation workers.

1990 – Jazz singer Sarah Vaughan joins the ancestors in suburban
Los Angeles, California, at the age of 66.

1996 – An Air Force jetliner carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown
and American business executives crashes in Croatia,
killing all 35 people aboard.

2007 – Eddie Robinson, the longtime Grambling University coach who
transformed a small, Black college into a football power
that sent hundreds of players to the NFL, joins the
ancestors at the age of 88. The soft-spoken coach spent 57
years at Grambling State University, where he set a
standard for victories with 408 and nearly every season
relished seeing his top players drafted by NFL teams.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – March 4 *

1837 – The second major African American newspaper, the “Weekly
Advocate” changes its name to the “Colored American.”

1869 – The forty-second Congress convenes (1871-73) with five
African American congressmen: Joseph H. Rainey, Robert
Carlos Delarge, and Robert Brown Elliott from South Carolina;
Benjamin S. Turner, of Alabama; Josiah T. Walls of Florida.
Walls is elected in an at-large election and is the first
African American congressman to represent an entire state.

1889 – The fifty-first Congress convenes. Three Black congressmen:
Henry P. Cheatham of North Carolina; Thomas E. Miller of
South Carolina; and John Mercer Langston of Virginia.

1897 – Willie Covan is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will become one
of the earliest successful tap dancers, appearing in the
original production of “Shuffle Along” as well as with the
Four Covans.

1901 – The congressional term of George H. White, last of the post
Reconstruction congressmen, ends.

1922 – Theater legend Bert Williams joins the ancestors at the age of
46 in New York City. He was considered the foremost African
American vaudeville performer, teaming first with George
Walker in 1895, most notably in “In Dahomey,” and later as a
soloist with the Ziegfeld Follies.

1932 – Miriam Zenzi Makeba, “Empress of African Song,” is born in
Prospect Township, South Africa. Although exiled from her
homeland, Makeba will become an internationally known
singer and critic of apartheid. Throughout her life and
singing career, She will use her voice to to draw the attention
of the world to the music of South Africa and to its oppressive
system of racial separation. After appearing in the
semi-documentary antiapartheid film, “Come Back, Africa,” she
will attract international attention. This will include
meeting Harry Belafonte, who will become her sponsor and
promoter in the United States. Because her music always
contained a political component – the denunciation of
apartheid, her South African passport will be revoked in 1960.
Her career in the United States will be crippled by her
marriage to Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture’), who was
active in the Black Panther Party. Her career will continue
to flourish in Europe. She will later become a United Nations
delegate from Guinea and will continue to record and perform.
She will return to her homeland, South Africa, in 1990 and in
1991, will make her first performance there in over thirty
years. She will join the ancestors on November 10, 2008 after
succumbing to a heart attack suffered after singing her hit
song “Pata Pata” during a concert organized to support writer
Robert Saviano in his stand against the Camorra, a mafia-like
organization in the Campania region of Italy.

1934 – Barbara McNair is born in Racine, Wisconsin. She will become a
singer and actress, and will host her own television program
(The Barbara McNair Show). The glamorous actress will
moonlight as a pop singer between TV and film roles during
the 1960s. She will be a classy addition to Berry Gordy’s
talent roster when his firm attempts to diversify its appeal.
She will cut a pair of albums for Motown in 1966 and 1969.

1944 – Robert Dwayne “Bobby” Womack is born in Cleveland, Ohio. He
will become a Rhythm and Blues performer, guitarist and
songwriter.

1954 – The first African American sub-cabinet member is appointed.
President Eisenhower names J. Earnest Wilkins of Chicago as
the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor.

1968 – Joe Frazier defeats Buster Mathis for the world heavyweight
boxing championship by knockout in the eleventh round.

1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr. announces plans for the Poor People’s
Campaign in Washington, DC. He says that he will lead a
massive civil disobedience campaign in the capital to pressure
the government to provide jobs and income for all Americans.
He tells a press conference that an army of poor white, poor
African Americans and Hispanics will converge on Washington
on April 20 and will demonstrate until their demands were met.

1981 – A jury in Salt Lake City convicts Joseph Paul Franklin, an
avowed racist, of violating the civil rights of two black men
who were shot to death.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 25 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – February 25 *

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1867 – Tennessee Gov. William Gannaway Brownlow issues a proclamation
warning that the unlawful events of the Ku Klux Klan “must and
SHALL cease” and that militia would be immediately organized
against the organization. This is in response to Ku Klux Klan
activities in a nine county area. The Klan’s aim is to
reverse the interlocking changes sweeping over the South
during the Reconstruction: to destroy the Republican’s party’s
infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish
control of the black labor force, and restore racial
subordination in every aspect of Southern life. (Editor’s Note:
The KKK was founded in Pulaski, Tennessee on December 15, 1865)

1870 – Hiram Rhoades Revels of Mississippi becomes the first African
American Senator. He is elected by the Mississippi legislature
to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jefferson Davis. After the
Senate term expires, he will become the first President of
Alcorn A&M College, in Lorman, Mississippi (the first African
American land-grant institution in the United States).

1948 – Martin Luther King, Jr. is ordained as a Baptist minister.
After graduating from Morehouse College in June, 1948, he will
enter the Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

1964 – Twenty-two year old Cassius Clay becomes world heavyweight
boxing champion when he defeats Sonny Liston in Miami, Florida.
The feared Liston is the favorite, but Clay predicts he will
“float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Soon after his
victory, Clay will assume his Muslim name of Muhammad Ali. He
will be considered by many, the greatest heavyweight champion
of all time.

1978 – Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. joins the ancestors at the age of
58 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. James was an early graduate
of the Tuskegee Institute Flying School and flew more than 100
missions during the Korean War. He was the first African
American to achieve the rank of four-star general.

1980 – Robert E. Hayden, African American poet and former poetry
consultant to the Library of Congress, joins the ancestors in
Ann Arbor, Michigan. Hayden’s most notable works include
“Words in Mourning Time and Angle of Ascent: New and Selected
Poems.”

1991 – Adrienne Mitchell becomes the first African American woman to
die in a combat zone in the Persian Gulf War when she joins
the ancestors after being killed in her military barracks in
Dharan, Saudi Arabia.

1992 – Natalie Cole, Patti LaBelle, Lisa Fischer, Luther Vandross,
B.B. King, Boyz II Men, and James Brown, among others, win
Grammy awards in ceremonies hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.

1999 – A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentences white supremacist John
William King to death for chaining James Byrd Jr., an African
American man, to a pickup truck and dragging him to pieces.

2000 – The killers of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo, four
white New York police officers, are acquitted of all charges
by a jury in Albany, New York. Diallo had been fired upon 41
times, with 19 shots hitting him while holding only his wallet
in the vestibule of his own home.

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