KRLemmons African American History

April 28 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – April 28 *

1910 – Martin Morua Delgado joins the ancestors in Havana, Cuba.
He had been a labor and political activist, statesman,
journalist and author. He had been a leading opponent of
slavery in Cuba and after emancipation, a leading proponent
for racial equality. He also was active in the struggle for
Cuban independence from Spain. Cuba will celebrate the
centennial of his birth in 1956.

1911 – Mario Bauza is born in Havana, Cuba. He will become a
professional trumpet player, bandleader and arranger. He
will be a leading player in the creation of Afro-Cuban
jazz. While in Cuba, he will be primarily a classical
musician, playing for the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra.
He will leave Cuba for New York City in 1930 and find
himself working in mostly jazz venues. He will play with
Noble Sissle, Chick Webb (musical director), Don Redman,
and Cab Calloway. While working with Chick Webb, he will
convince Webb to hire the young Ella Fitzgerald as a
vocalist for the band. While collaborating with these
talents, he will integrate Afro-Latin influence into the
music whenever possible. He will be active in the jazz
musical scene until the last year of his life. He will
join the ancestors on July 11, 1993.

1924 – Kenneth David Kuanda is born in Lubwe, Northern Rhodesia
(Northern Rhodesia will eventually become the country of
Zambia). He will become president of Zambia from its day of
independence until 1991. He will begin his political career
with the Northern Rhodesia African Congress, which will
become the African National Congress. Like most African
politicians who called for independence from colonial rule,
he will be imprisoned multiple times. After his release
from prison in 1960, he will continue to be active and will
promote many activities of civil disobedience. Under his
leadership, the colonial administration will relent and the
British will grant Zambia its independence on October 24,
1964.

1934 – Charles Patton joins the ancestors in Indianola, Mississippi.
He was a bluesman who is considered to be the creator of the
Delta variation of the blues. His recordings between 1929
and 1934 will contribute to the national influence of the
Mississippi Delta style on the blues.

1935 – Akin Euba is born in Lagos, Nigeria. He will become a
classical composer whose work will integrate European and
Yoruba influences into his compositions. His music will be
introduced to the world at the 1972 Olympics in Munich,
Germany. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1974, he will become
a music educator and continue to create his unique African
musical art form. He will eventually become a professor of
African music at the University of Pittsburgh.

1941 – In a famous Jim Crow railroad case brought by congressman
Arthur W. Mitchell, the Supreme Court rules that separate
facilities must be substantially equal.

1950 – William Anthony Colon in born in the Bronx in New York City.
He will begin his musical career, while a teenager, creating
recordings that will emphasize his Afro-Puerto Rican
heritage in the form of salsa music. His music will
integrate the influence of Puerto Rican life in New York
City with the African influence on the Puerto Rican
experience. He will create and produce over thirty
recordings and be nominated for at least five Grammy awards
in Latin music.

1957 – W. Robert Ming, a Chicago lawyer, is elected chairman of the
American Veterans Committee. He is the first African
American to head a major national veterans organization.

1967 – Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army and is
stripped of his boxing titles by the World Boxing
Association and the New York Athletic Association.

1983 – Two African American women, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor,
win prestigious American Book Awards for fiction. Alice
Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” will be dramatized as a
theatrical movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover,
and Oprah Winfrey. Naylor’s first novel, “The Women of
Brewster Place,” will be made into a made-for-television
movie and series starring Oprah Winfrey, Jackee’, and
Paula Kelly.

1990 – Clifton Reginald Wharton, Sr. joins the ancestors in
Phoenix, Arizona. He was an attorney and was the first
African American to enter the U.S. Foreign Service and the
first African American to become a United States Ambassador
to a European country (Norway-1961).

1991 – Former CORE director and North Carolina judge Floyd Bixley
McKissick joins the ancestors in North Carolina at the age
of 69. He led CORE from 1963 to 1966 during its
transformation to a more militant civil rights organization.

1997 – Ann Lane Petry joins the ancestors in Old Saybrook,
Connecticut. She was a leading African American novelist
and was known for her works, “The Street,” “Country Place,”
“The Narrows,” “Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the
Underground Railroad,” “Tituba of Salem Village,” “The
Drugstore Cat,” and “Legends of the Saints.”

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 24 African American Historical Events

 

* Today in Black History – March 24 *

1912 – Dorothy Irene Height is born in Richmond, Virginia. In 1965,
she will inaugurate the Center for Racial Justice, which is
still a major initiative of the National YWCA. She will
serve as the 10th National President of the Delta Sigma
Theta Sorority, Inc. from 1946 to 1957, before becoming
president of the National Council of Negro Women in 1958.
Working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Roy
Wilkins, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph and others, She
will participate in virtually all major civil and human
rights event in the 1950’s and 1960’s. For her tireless
efforts on behalf of the less fortunate, President Ronald
Reagan will present her the Citizens Medal Award for
distinguished service to the country in 1989. She will
receive the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in July, 1993.
She will be inducted into the “National Women’s Hall of
Fame” in October, 1993 and President Bill Clinton will
present her the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in
August 1994. She will join the ancestors on April 20, 2010.

1941 – “Native Son,” a play adapted from Richard Wright’s novel of
the same name, opens at the St. James Theatre in New York
City.

1944 – Patricia Louise Holt is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
She will become a singer best known as Patti Labelle. As a
teenager, she and Cindy Birdsong (later a member of the
Supremes) will sing with the Ordettes. When two girls
leave the group, Nona Hendrix and Sarah Dash will sign on
and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells will be born in 1961.
By the next year, they will have their first multimillion
seller, “I Sold My Heart to the Junkman.” With other hits,
including “All Or Nothing” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,”
the group will develop a strong following worldwide. After
years of success and being “Rocked and Rolled out,” as
Patti describes it, the group will disband on good terms
in 1977. She will continue to perform as a solo artist and
will release top-selling albums. She will receive numerous
awards including Philadelphia’s Key to the City, a medal
from the Congressional Black Caucus, a citation from
Congress on her 20th anniversary in the music business,
another citation from President Reagan, a cable ACE, the
B’nai B’rith Creative Achievement Award, two NAACP
Entertainer of the Year Awards, the NAACP Image Award for
three consecutive years, the Ebony Achievement Award, the
Martin Luther King Lifetime Achievement Award, three Emmy
nominations, eight Grammy nominations and a 1992 Grammy
Award for Best R&B Female Vocal performance for her album
“Burnin.”

1958 – Bill Russell, center for the Boston Celtics, becomes the
NBA’s MVP. He is again named as MVP in 1961, 1962, 1963
and 1965.

1962 – Benny ‘Kid’ Paret is knocked out in the twelfth round by
Emile Griffith, in a welterweight title bout in New York
City. Paret will join the ancestors 10 days later.

1969 – Joseph Kasavubu, President of the Congo, joins the ancestors.
In 1960, he and Mobutu Sese Seko overthrew the government of
Patrice Lumumba.

1972 – Z. Alexander Looby, the first African American to serve on
the Nashville City Council, joins the ancestors in
Nashville, Tennessee. He had also been a successful
Nashville attorney, in the forefront of the Civil Rights
Movement, for many years. In 1960, he survived the April
19th bombing of his home.

1975 – Muhammad Ali defeats Chuck Wepner in a 15-round bout to
retain his world heavyweight crown.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 8 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – March 8 *

1825 – Alexander Thomas Augusta is born free in Norfolk, Virginia. He
will graduate from Trinity Medical College in Toronto, Canada
in 1856, serve his medical apprenticeship in Philadelphia,
and join the Union Army in 1863 with the rank of major. In
1865 he becomes the first African American to head any
hospital in the United States, when the Freedmen Bureau
establishes Freedmen’s Hospital at Howard University with
Augusta in charge. In 1868, Howard University opens its own
medical school, with Augusta as demonstrator of anatomy. He
will be the first African American to receive an honorary
degree from Howard University (1869). He will join the ancestors
on December 21, 1890.

1873 – The United States Senate refuses to seat P.B.S. Pinchback of
Louisiana because of alleged election irregularities.

1898 – Louise Beavers is born in Cincinnati, Ohio. She will become
an actress and will be cast as the Henderson’s maid in “The
Beulah Show,” the first network show on television to have an
African American female in the title role. She will join the
ancestors on October 26, 1962. She will be inducted posthumously
into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1976.

1942 – Richard Anthony “Dick” Allen is born in Wampum, Pennsylvania.
He will become a professional baseball player with the
Philadelphia Phillies in 1963. He will play in the major
leagues for 14 years.

1945 – Phyllis Mae Daley, a graduate of Lincoln School for Nurses in
New York, receives her commission as an ensign in the Navy
Nurse Corps. She is the first of four African American Navy
nurses (including Helen Turner, Ella Lucille Stimley, and
Edith De Voe) to serve on active duty in World War II.

1971 – Joe Frazier defeats Muhammad Ali in a heavyweight boxing
championship match billed as the “fight of the century.” Ali
was previously undefeated. Both Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali
collect $2,500,000 for the fight.

1977 – Henry L. Marsh, III is elected the first African American
mayor of Richmond, Virginia.

1991 – “New Jack City,” a film directed by Mario Van Peebles, actor
and son of director Melvin Van Peebles, premieres. Produced
by African Americans George Jackson and Doug McHenry, the
film, which tells the violent story of the rise and fall of a
drug lord played by Wesley Snipes, will suffer from
widespread violence among moviegoers.

2012 – Jimmy Ellis, who belted out the dance anthem “Disco Inferno” in
the 1970s for the Trammps, joins the ancestors at the age of 74.

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

KRLemmons African American History

February 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – February 3 *

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1855 – The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares that the United States
Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional.

1874 – Blanche Kelso Bruce is elected to the United States Senate from
Mississippi. He will be the first African American senator to
serve a full term and the first to preside over the Senate
during a debate.

1879 – Charles Follis is born in Wooster, Ohio. He will become the
first African American professional football player in the
United States reported by the press. He will play for a
professional team known as the Shelby Blues, in Shelby, Ohio.
starting in 1904 and will retire in 1906 due to injuries.
Most sources will state that 1904 was when his career started,
when he signed a contract on September 16, but Hall of Fame
research indicates the 1902 Shelby Athletic Club that Follis
played on, was indeed professional. Editor’s note: In 1972,
The Pro Football Hall of Fame will discover proof that William
(Pudge) Heffelfinger, a Yale All-American, played one game for
$ 500, for the Allegheny Athletic Association in 1892, making
him the actual ‘first’ to play football for pay. Follis will
join the ancestors on April 5, 1910 after succumbing to pneumonia.

1935 – Johnny “Guitar” Watson is born in Houston. Texas. He will
become a guitarist and singer known for his wild style of
guitar playing and the sound which merged Blues Music with
touches of Rhythm & Blues and Funk. He will join the ancestors
after succumbing to a heart attack, while performing at the
Yokohama Blues Cafe in Japan, on May 17, 1996.

1938 – Emile Griffith is born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He will
move to New York City as a young man and discover boxing. He
will win the Golden Gloves title and turn professional in
1958. In his career, he will meet 10 world champions and box
339 title-fight rounds, more than any other fighter in history.
He will be elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame
with the distinction of being the third fighter in history to
hold both the welterweight and middleweight titles.

1938 – Elijah Pitts is born in Mayflower, Arkansas. He will become a
professional football player with the Green Bay Packers. A
major contributor as a running back, he will help his team win
Super Bowl I. He will spend nine years with the Green Bay
Packers during their championship years under Hall of Fame
coach Vince Lombardi. The Packers will win four NFL
championships and two Super Bowls during his career. He will
return to the Super Bowl thirty years later as a running back
coach with the Buffalo Bills. He will join the ancestors on
July 10, 1998 after succumbing to abdominal cancer.

1939 – The Baltimore Museum of Art exhibit, “Contemporary Negro Art”,
opens. The exhibit, which will run for 16 days, will feature
works by Richmond Barthe, Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley,
Jr., and Jacob Lawrence’s Toussaint L’Ouverture series.

1947 – Percival Prattis of “Our World” in New York City, becomes the
first African American news correspondent admitted to the
House and Senate press galleries in Washington, DC.

1948 – Laura Wheeler Waring, portrait painter and illustrator, joins
the ancestors. Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
Arts, she received the Harmon Award in 1927 for achievement in
the fine arts and, with Betsey Graves Reyneau, completed a set
of 24 renderings of their works entitled “Portraits of
Outstanding Americans of Negro Origins” for the Harmon
Foundation in the 1940’s.

1948 – Rosa Ingram and her fourteen and sixteen-year-old sons are
condemned to death for the alleged murder of a white Georgian.
Mrs. Ingram states that she acted in self-defense.

1964 – School officials report that 464,000 Black and Puerto Rican
students boycotted New York City public schools.

1980 – Muhammad Ali starts tour of Africa as President Jimmy Carter’s
envoy.

1981 – The Air Force Academy drops its ban on applicants with sickle-
cell trait. The ban was considered by many a means of
discriminating against African Americans.

1984 – A sellout crowd of 18,210 at Madison Square Garden in New York
City sees Carl Lewis best his own world record in the long
jump by 9-1/4 inches.

1989 – Former St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman, Bill White becomes
the first African American to head an American professional
sports league when he was named to succeed A. Bartlett
Giamatti as National League president.

1993 – The federal trial of four police officers charged with civil
rights violations in the videotaped beating of Rodney King,
began in Los Angeles.

1993 – Marge Schott is suspended as Cincinnati Reds owner for one year
for her repeated use of racial and ethnic slurs.

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 16 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 16 *

1776 – The Continental Congress approves General George Washington’s
order on the enlistment of free African Americans.

1865 – General William T. Sherman issues his Field Order No. 15,
setting aside “the islands from Charleston, south, the
abandoned rice fields along the river for thirty miles back
from the sea, and the country bordering the St. John’s River,
Florida,” for exclusive settlement by African Americans. The
order provides that “each family should have a plot of not
more than forty (40) acres of tillable ground…in the
possession of which land the military authorities will afford
them protection until such time as they can protect
themselves….” General Rufus Saxton, South Carolina
Freedmen’s Bureau director, will later settle some 40,000
African Americans on forty-acre tracts in the area. In
South Carolina and other states, African American settlers
will be given possessory titles pending final action on the
confiscated and abandoned lands of Confederate rebels. Many
will never see their land, because President Johnson will
reverse the policy implemented by the Freedmen’s Bureau.

1871 – Jefferson F. Long, of Georgia, is sworn in as the second
African American congressman.

1901 – Hiram Revels joins the ancestors in Aberdeen, Mississippi, at
the age of 73. He held the distinction of being the first
African American elected to serve in the U.S. Senate.

1938 – Lionel Hampton and Teddy Wilson become the first African
Americans to perform at Carnegie Hall, in New York City.
Benny Goodman leads a historic jazz concert, later considered
to be one of the first “serious” jazz concerts. Goodman
refuses to perform without the two African American members
of his band. Carnegie Hall officials will relent and the
integrated band performs to critical praise with Hampton on
vibraphone and Wilson on piano.

1941 – The War Department announces formation of the first Army Air
Corps squadron for African American cadets. The 99th Pursuit
Squadron is formed and the Tuskegee Training Program is
established. The 99th will fly more than 500 missions and
more than 3,700 sorties during one year of combat before
being combined with the 332nd Fighter Group.

1941 – Dr. Charles Richard Drew sets up and runs the pioneer blood
plasma bank in Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. This
bank will serve as one of the models for the system of banks
operated later by the American Red Cross.

1962 – A suit accusing the New York City Board of Education of using
“racial quotas” is filed in U.S. District Court on behalf of
African American and Puerto Rican children.

1966 – Harold R. Perry becomes the second African American Roman
Catholic bishop in U.S. history.

1967 – Lucius D. Amerson, a former army paratrooper, becomes the first
African American sheriff in the South since Reconstruction,
when he is sworn in at Tuskegee (Macon County), Alabama.

1967 – The first Black government is installed in the Commonwealth of
the Bahamas.

1974 – Heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali, is named the
Associated Press “Athlete of the Year.”

1978 – NASA names Major Frederick D. Gregory, Major Guion Bluford,
and Dr. Ronald McNair to its astronaut program.

1988 – Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder, a self-styled oddsmaker and expert
on sports, is fired as a CBS Sports commentator after making
controversial remarks about athletes of African descent.

1989 – Racially motivated disturbances erupt in Miami, Florida after
a police officer fatally shoots an African American
motorcyclist, causing a crash that kills a passenger.

2012 – Today marks the first King holiday where visitors can celebrate
the legacy of the civil rights leader at the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Memorial, since it was dedicated in the fall of 2011. The
National Park Service will lay a wreath at the site and offer
educational programs throughout the day.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 11 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 11 *

1872 – America’s first African American governor takes office as
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback became acting governor
of Louisiana.

1916 – John E. Bush, former slave and teacher, joins the
ancestors. He had been appointed receiver of the United
States Land Office in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1898.

1917 – 13 African American soldiers are hanged for alleged
participation in a Houston riot.

1917 – The Great Jazz migration begins as Joe Oliver leaves New
Orleans and settles in Chicago, to be joined later by
other stars.

1917 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Harry T.
Burleigh, composer and accomplished opera singer, for
excellence in the field of music.

1926 – Willie Mae Thornton is born in Montgomery, Alabama. She
will be better known as “Big Mama” Thornton, a blues
singer whose recording of “Hound Dog” in 1952 will be
mimicked by Elvis Presley, much to his success. She
also recorded the hits “Ball & Chain,” and “Stronger
than Dirt.” She will join the ancestors on July 25, 1984.

1928 – Lewis Latimore joins the ancestors in Flushing, New York.
Employed as a chief draftsman, Mr. Latimore created the
drawings for Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone in 1870.

1931 – The British Statute of Westminster gives complete
legislative independence to South Africa.

1940 – Lev T. Mills, who will become an artist and chairman of
the art department at Spelman College, is born in
Tallahassee, Florida. His prints and mixed-media works
will be collected by the Victoria & Albert and British
Museums in London and the High Museum in Atlanta and
include glass mosaic murals for an Atlanta subway station
and the atrium floor of Atlanta’s City Hall.

1954 – Jermaine Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. He will become
a singer and musician with his brothers and perform with
their group, The Jackson Five.

1961 – U.S. Supreme Court reverses the conviction of sixteen
sit-in students who had been arrested in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana.

1961 – Langston Hughes’ musical, “Black Nativity,” opens on
Broadway.

1964 – Sam Cooke joins the ancestors after being killed. Bertha
Franklin, Manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles,
claimed she killed the singer in self-defense after he’d
tried to rape a 22-year-woman and then turned on Franklin.

1980 – George Rogers, a running back for the University of South
Carolina, is awarded the Heisman Trophy. He achieved 21
consecutive 100-yard games with the gamecocks and led the
nation in rushing.

1981 – Muhammad Ali’s boxes in his 61st & last fight, losing to
Trevor Berbick.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 22 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 22 *

1865 – The Mississippi legislature enacts “Black Codes” which
restrict the rights and freedom of movement of the
freedmen. The Black Codes enacted in Mississippi and
other Southern states virtually re-enslave the
freedmen. In some states, any white person could
arrest any African American. In other states, minor
officials could arrest African American “vagrants” and
“refractory and rebellious Negroes” and force them to
work on roads and levees without pay. “Servants” in
South Carolina were required to work from sunrise to
sunset, to be quiet and orderly and go to bed at
“reasonable hours.” It was a crime in Mississippi for
African Americans to own farm land. In South Carolina,
African Americans have to get a special license to
work outside the domestic and farm laborer categories.

1871 – Louisiana Lt. Governor Oscar J. Dunn, joins the
ancestors suddenly in the midst of a bitter struggle
for control of the state government. Dunn aides
charge that he was poisoned.

1884 – T. Thomas Fortune founds the “New York Freeman”, which
later becomes the “New York Age.”

1884 – The Philadelphia Tribune is founded by Christopher J.
Perry.

1893 – Alrutheus Ambush Taylor, teacher and historian, is
born in Washington, DC. He will become Fisk
University’s Dean. He and other local African American
historians will come under the influence of Dr. Carter
G. Woodson, who spoke in Nashville on several occasions.
In 1941, Taylor will publish a Tennessee study from the
African American perspective. Taylor titled his study,
“The Negro in Tennessee, 1865-1880.” Taylor’s book
will go beyond slavery and cover Reconstruction history
and various aspects of African American life, including
business and politics.

1930 – The Nation of Islam is founded in Detroit.

1942 – Guion S. Bluford, Jr. is born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. He will become a Colonel in the United
States Air Force, an astronaut and the first African
American to fly in space (four times – STS 8, STS 61A,
STS 39, STS 53).

1957 – The Miles Davis Quintet debuts with a jazz concert at
Carnegie Hall in New York.

1961 – Frank Robinson becomes the first baseball player to be
named “Most Valuable Player” in both major leagues.

1965 – Muhammad Ali defeats Floyd Patterson. Ali, a recent
convert to the Muslim faith, taunts the former champ
and ends the fight in 12 rounds to win the world
heavyweight title.

1968 – A portrait of Frederick Douglass appears on the cover
of Life magazine. The cover story, “Search for a Black
Past,” will be the first in a four-part series of
stories in which the magazine examines African
Americans, a review of the last 50 years of struggle
and interviews with Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond,
Eldridge Cleaver, Dick Gregory, and others.

1986 – 24 year-old George Branham wins the Brunswick Memorial
World Open. It is the first time an African American
wins a Professional Bowlers Association title.

1986 – Mike Tyson, 20 years, 4 months old, becomes the
youngest to wear the world heavyweight boxing crown
after knocking out Trevor Berbick in Las Vegas.

1988 – Bob Watson is named assistant general manager of the
Houston Astros, the team where he began his
professional career in 1965. One of a select few
African American assistant general managers in the
sport, Watson’s spikes hang in the Baseball Hall of
Fame for scoring baseball’s 1,000,000th run in 1976.

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

KRLemmons African American History

October 29 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – October 29           *

1902 – The Dinwiddle Quartet from Virginia is the first
African American singing group on record when they
record six single sided discs, including “Down at the
Old Camp Ground,” on the Victory Talking Machine
Company’s Monarch label.

1923 – Runnin’ Wild opens at the Colonial Theater, Broadway.
Miller and Lyles Productions introduced the Charleston
to New York and the world.

1924 – Dixie to Broadway, “the first real revue by Negroes,”
opens at the Broadhurst Theater, New York City, with
Florence Mills in the starring role.

1929 – The collapse of the stock market and the beginning of
the Great Depression.  By 1937, 26 per cent of African
American males will be unemployed.

1945 – Beatrice Moore is born in New York, New York.  She will
become an actress and singer better known as Melba
Moore. Her big break will come when she joins the cast
of the Broadway musical “Hair.” She will eventually win
the lead role. It will be the first time that an African
American actress replaces a white actress (Diane Keaton)
for a lead role on Broadway. That engagement will be
followed with another Broadway hit, “Purlie,” which
earns her a Tony Award and rave reviews.  This success
will be followed by appearances in film and television.
In addition to her success in acting, she will have a
fruitful recording career.

1947 – The President’s Committee on Civil Rights condemns racial
injustices in America in a formal report, “To Secure
These Rights.”

1947 – Texas Southern University is established.

1947 – The NAACP Spingarn Medal is awarded to Dr. Percy L. Julian
for his achievements as a scientist.

1949 – Alonzo G. Moron, from the Virgin Islands, becomes the
first person of African descent to become president of
Hampton Institute (now University) in Hampton, Virginia.

1960 – Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) boxes in his first professional
fight, beating Tunney Hunsaker in 6 rounds.

1961 – Randy Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. He will become a
member of the famed family group, “The Jackson Five.”

1969 – Johnson Products Company of Chicago, Illinois, the largest
African American hair-care products manufacturer, is
incorporated.  Founded by George Johnson in 1954, in 1971,
it will become the first African American owned company
listed on the American Stock Exchange.

1969 – The U.S. Supreme Court states that school systems must end
segregation “at once” and “operate now and hereafter only
unitary schools.” In the Mississippi case, Alexander v.
Holmes, the Court abandons the principle of “all
deliberate speed.”

1974 – Muhammad Ali defeats George Foreman in Zaire to regain his
heavyweight crown in a fight billed as “The Rumble in the
Jungle.”  In addition to the fight being the first
heavyweight title fight held in Africa, it is the 14th
Anniversary of Ali’s professional boxing debut.

1981 – William Otis Walker, publisher of the “Cleveland Call &
Post,” joins the ancestors at the age of 85.  He was the
first African American to hold a post in the Ohio Cabinet
in 1963, and was national chairman for “Black Republicans
for Reagan and Bush” in 1980.

1987 – Thomas Hearns wins an unprecedented 4th boxing title in
different weight classes.

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

KRLemmons African American History

October 26 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – October 26           *

1868 – White terrorists kill several African Americans in St.
Bernard Parish, near New Orleans, Louisiana.

1868 – B.F. Randolph, state senator and chairman of the state
Republican party, is assassinated in broad daylight at
Hodges Depot in Abbeville, South Carolina.

1911 – Mahalia Jackson is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Known
as the “Gospel Queen,” Jackson will become instrumental
in the popularization of gospel music and songs.
Jackson’s traditional gospel audiences transcended
beyond African American churchgoers through her
recordings, radio performances and concert tours in
America and abroad. Her recordings will sell millions of
copies. She will join the ancestors on January 27, 1972.

1919 – Edward William Brooke III is born in Washington, DC.
After serving in World War II and obtaining a law degree
from Boston University, he will be elected attorney
general of the State of Massachusetts and serve a term
of four years before being elected to the United States
Senate as a Republican in 1966, the first African
American Senator elected since Reconstruction. In the
Senate, Brooke will oppose President Nixon’s policies in
Southeast Asia, advocate low-income housing, and oppose
quotas to meet affirmative action goals.  Among his
awards will be the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal in 1967.

1921 – Solomon Porter Hood is named minister to Liberia.

1934 – At a New York City conference, representatives of the
NAACP and the American Fund for Public Service plan a
coordinated legal campaign against segregation and
discrimination.  Charles H. Houston, Vice-dean of the
Howard University Law School, is named director of the
NAACP legal campaign.

1950 – Walter E. “Chuck” Foreman is born in Frederick, Maryland.
He will become a star running back for the Minnesota
Vikings.  He will be NFC Rookie of the Year in 1973 and
NFC Player of the Year in 1974 and 1976.  He will also
play in losing efforts in Super Bowls VIII, IX, and XI.

1951 – William Collins is born in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He will
become a rhythm and blues performer and bandleader known
as “Bootsy” Collins.   He will form his first group, the
Pacesetters, in 1968.  From 1969 to 1971, the group will
function as James Brown’s backup band and will be dubbed
the JB’s. In 1972, Bootsy will join George Clinton’s
Parliament/Funkadelic. He will launch Bootsy’s Rubber
Band as a spin-off of P-Funk in 1976.  He will record
with Warner Brothers from 1976 through 1982.  After a
six year hiatus, he will sign with Columbia Records in
1988 and actively record into the 1990s.

1951 – Joe Louis is defeated by Rocky Marciano in the eighth
round in a bout at Madison Square Garden.

1962 – Louise Beavers, who starred in more than 100 films,
including “Imitation of Life”, “The Jackie Robinson
Story”, and “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House”,
joins the ancestors in Los Angeles, California.

1970 – Following 3 1/2 years of forced isolation from boxing,
Muhammad Ali returns to the ring and beats Jerry Quarry
in Atlanta, Georgia.

1976 – Trinidad & Tobago becomes a republic.

1977 – Dr. Clifford R. Wharton Jr. is named chancellor of the
State University of New York.

1980 – Ten African American Roman Catholic bishops issue a
pastoral letter asserting that “the Church must seize
the initiative to ‘share the gift of our blackness with
the Church in the United States.'”
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry

KRLemmons African American History

September 30 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 30          *

1935 – John Royce “Johnny” Mathis is born in San Francisco,
California. He will become a romantic pop singer who will
amass more than 50 gold and platinum records for such hits
as “Misty”.  He will also have the distinction of having
an album on the Billboard pop charts for the longest
period, 560 weeks.

1935 – “Porgy and Bess,” a folk opera by composer George Gershwin,
has its premiere in Boston at the Colonial Theatre.  It
was a flop! It was revived in 1942 and ran longer than any
revival in the history of American musical theater.

1942 – Franklin Joseph “Frankie” Lymon is born in New York City.
He will become the lead singer of Frankie Lymon and the
Teenagers and will record his signature song, “Why Do Fools
Fall in Love?,” at age fourteen. He will develop a serious
drug problem before he turns twenty and will join the
ancestors after succumbing to a drug overdose on the
bathroom floor of his grandmother’s apartment at age 25,
on February 27, 1968.

1943 – Marilyn McCoo (Davis) is born in Jersey City, New Jersey.
She will become a singer with the group, “The Fifth
Dimensions”. Some of the hits with the group will be “Up,
Up and Away,” and “Aquarius.” She will have a solo hit,
“One Less Bell to Answer,” and will record “You Don’t
Have to be a Star” with her husband, Billy Davis, Jr. She
will later become a TV hostess for “Solid Gold” from
1981-1984, and from 1986-88.  She will also be a TV music
reporter for “Preview.”

1962 – A large force of federal marshals escorts James H. Meredith
to the campus of the University of Mississippi.  President
Kennedy federalizes the Mississippi National Guard.
University of Mississippi students and adults from Oxford,
Mississippi, and other southern communities riot on the
university campus.  Two persons are killed and one hundred
or more are wounded.

1966 – Bechuanaland becomes the independent Republic of Botswana
with Sir Seretse Khama as its first President.

1975 – Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier square off in a fight billed
as “The Thrilla in Manila”.  Ali will win the fight and
retain his world heavyweight title when, after 14 rounds,
Frazier’s trainer refuses to let him continue.

1976 – Two Centuries of Black American Art opens at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art.  The exhibit features over 60
lithographers, painters, and sculptors including 19th
century masters Joshua Johnston, Edward Bannister, and
Henry O. Tanner as well as modern artists Charles White,
Romare Bearden, and Elizabeth Catlett.  The introduction
to the exhibit’s catalogue asserts that the assembled
artists’ work proves that the human creative impulse can
triumph in the face of impossible odds, and at times even
because of them.

1991 – President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first freely
elected president, is overthrown by a military junta.
The three-member junta that takes over begins a campaign
of terror and violence that in a three-year period will
cause the deaths of over 5000 Haitians and force tens of
thousands to flee the island by boat. Jean-Bertrand
Aristide sat in the presidency for only seven months.

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