KRLemmons African American History

January 23 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – January 23 *

1837 – Amanda Berry Smith is born into slavery in Long Green,
Maryland. She will be widowed twice, after which she will
attempt to minister to her people. Unable to preach in the
AME Church, which did not ordain women ministers, Smith
will become an independent missionary and travel throughout
the United States and three continents. She will publish
her autobiography, “Amanda Smith’s Story – The Story of the
Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, The Colored
Evangelist,” in 1893. She will join the ancestors on
February 24, 1915.

1891 – Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, the first African
American hospital, is founded by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.
He also establishes the Provident Hospital School of Nursing
around the same time, because Emma Reynolds, an African
American, had been denied admission to every school of
nursing in the city of Chicago.

1941 – Richard Wright is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
book, “Native Son.”

1943 – Duke Ellington’s band plays for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie
Hall in New York City. It is the first of what will become
an annual series of concerts for ‘The Duke’.

1945 – The Army Nurse Corps discontinues its color barrier and
starts admitting nurses without regard to race. This is due
primarily to the pressure applied by the National
Association of Colored Nursing Graduates (NACGN) and other
groups.

1962 – Demonstrations against discrimination in off-campus housing
are staged by students at the University of Chicago for
fourteen days. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
charges that the university operates segregated apartment
houses.

1964 – The 24th amendment to the United States’ Constitution,
abolishing the poll tax in federal elections, is ratified.
The poll tax had been used extensively in the South as a
means of preventing African Americans from voting.

1976 – Paul Robeson joins the ancestors, as the result of a stroke,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had been a world-renown
actor and singer. He was perhaps the best known and most
widely respected African American of the 1930s and 1940s.
Robeson was also a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union,
and a man, later in his life, widely vilified and censored
for his frankness and unyielding views on issues to which
public opinion ran contrary. As a young man, Robeson was
virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He learned to
speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the
barriers of race and ignorance throughout the world, and
yet, as Sterling Stuckey pointed out in the “New York Times
Book Review,” for the last 25 years of his life, his was “a
great whisper and a greater silence in Black America.”

1977 – The first episode of “Roots,” adapted from the “New York
Times” bestseller by Alex Haley, is aired on ABC. Over the
next several nights, 130 million Americans will be
transfixed before their televisions as the story of Kunta
Kinte is told.

1985 – O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner to be
inducted into pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, another Heisman
winner, is also elected, but is after O.J. in the sequence
of induction.

1986 – The first annual induction ceremony for the Rock ‘N’ Roll
Hall of Fame is held in New York City. Among those inducted
were Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Fats Domino.

1989 – In “City of Richmond vs. J.A. Croson Co.,” the United States
Supreme Court invalidates the city’s minority set-aside
program, a major setback for the concept’s proponents.

2003 – Nell Carter, Tony Award winner and television star, joins the
ancestors at the age of 54. She had suffered from diabetes
for years and underwent brain surgery in 1992 to remove an
aneurysm. She recovered and continued to perform, mostly on
stage.

2015 – Ernie Banks, an American professional baseball player nicknamed “Mr. Cub” and “Mr. Sunshine”, joins the ancestors at the age of 83. He died of a heart attack at a Chicago hospital on January 23, 2015, shortly before his 84th birthday.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 7 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 7 *

1874 – White Democrats kill seventy-five Republicans in a
massacre at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1885 – The Forty-Ninth Congress (1885-87) is convened. Two
African American congressmen, James E. O’Hara of North
Carolina and Robert Smalls of South Carolina are in
attendance.

1931 – Comer Cottrell is born in Mobile, Alabama. In 1970, he
will become founder and president of Pro-line
Corporation in Los Angeles, California, which he will
start with $ 600 and a borrowed typewriter. He will move
the headquarters to Dallas, Texas in 1980, becoming the
largest African American-owned business in the southwest.
An entrepreneur with a wide range of interests, he will
become the first African American to own a part of a
major league baseball team, the Texas Rangers, in 1989.
He will also become sponsor of Miss Collegiate African
American Pageant in 1989, purchase the campus of bankrupt
Bishop College in Dallas, Texas in 1990, and persuade
Paul Quinn College to relocate to former grounds of
Bishop College. He will donate $25,000 to Spelman College
in Atlanta, Georgia and serve as part of an entourage of
black businessmen visiting the Republic of South Africa
in 1994. He will join the ancestors on October 3, 2014.

1941 – During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller
of Waco, Texas, a messman aboard the battleship Arizona
who had never been instructed in firearms, heroically
downs three Japanese planes before being ordered to
leave the ship. Miller will be awarded the Navy Cross
for his bravery.

1941 – The Downtown Gallery in New York City presents the
exhibit “American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Century”.
Included in the exhibit is work by Robert Duncanson,
Horace Pippin, Eldzier Cortor, Richmond Barte’ and
others.

1941 – Lester Granger is named executive director of the
National Urban League.

1941 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to novelist
Richard Wright, “one of the most powerful of
contemporary writer,” for “his powerful depiction in
his books, ‘Uncle Tom’s Childre-n,’ and ‘Native Son,’
of the effect of proscription, segregation and denial
of opportunities to the American Negro.”

1942 – Reginald F. Lewis is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will
receive his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1968.
He will eventually become a partner in Murphy, Thorpe &
Lewis, the first African American law firm on Wall
Street. In 1989, he will become president and CEO of
TLC Beatrice International Holding Inc. With TLC’s
leverage acquisition of Beatrice International Food
Company, Lewis becomes the head of the largest African
American-owned business in the United States. TLC
Beatrice had revenues of $1.54 billion in 1992. He will
join the ancestors in January, 1993, succumbing to brain
cancer.

1972 – W. Sterling Cary is elected president of the Nation
Council of Churches.

1978 – Billy Sims is awarded the Heisman Trophy at the annual
awards dinner sponsored by the Downtown Athletic Club.
The running back from the University of Oklahoma is the
sixth junior to win the award.

1981 – John Jacobs is named president of the National Urban
League.

1985 – Bo Jackson of Auburn University wins the Heisman Trophy.

1990 – Rhythm and Blues artist, Dee Clark, joins the ancestors in
Smyrna, Georgia at the age of 52.

1993 – The South African transitional executive council is set up.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 28 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 28 *

1868 – John Sengstacke Abbott is born in Frederica, Georgia.
The son of former slaves, he will attend Hampton
Institute and prepare himself for the printing trade.
He will also go on to law school, and will work as an
attorney for a few years, but will change careers to
become a journalist. He will found the Chicago Defender,
a weekly newspaper on May 6, 1905. He will start the
paper on $25, and in the beginning, operate it out of
his kitchen. Under his direction, the Defender will
become the most widely circulated African American
newspaper of its time and a leading voice in the fight
against racism. He will cultivate a controversial,
aggressive style, reporting on such issues as violence
against blacks and police brutality. The Defender will
raise eyebrows with its anti-lynching slogan – “If you
must die, take at least one with you,” its opposition
to a segregated Colored Officers Training Camp in Fort
Des Moines, Iowa in 1917, and its condemnation of Marcus
Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
Through the Defender, he will also play a major role in
the “Great Migration” of many African Americans from the
South to Chicago. He will join the ancestors on
February 22, 1940.

1871 – The Ku Klux Klan trials begin in Federal District Court
in South Carolina.

1907 – Charles Alston is born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
After studying at Columbia University and Pratt
Institute, he will travel to Europe and the Caribbean,
execute murals for Harlem Hospital and Golden State
Mutual Life Insurance Company in Los Angeles, earning
the National Academy of Design Award, and the First
Award of the Atlanta University Collection’s 1942 show
for his watercolor painting, “Farm Boy”. As a teacher,
he will teach at the Harlem Community Art Center, Harlem
Art Workshop, and Pennsylvania State University. He
will be an associate professor of painting at The City
University of New York and a muralist for the WPA during
the Depression. His two-panel mural of that period,
“Magic and Medicine,” can be seen at Harlem Hospital. He
will become a full professor at City University of New
York in 1973. He will join the ancestors on April 27,
1977.

1929 – Berry Gordy is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will become
the the founder and president of Motown Records, the
most successful African American-owned record company.
Gordy’s “Motown Sound” will become synonymous with the
1960’s and will launch the careers of Diana Ross and the
Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson
and the Miracles, the Jackson Five, and many others.

1942 – Richard Wright, author of “Native Son” and “Black Boy”,
joins the ancestors in Paris, France at the age of 52.

1942 – Paul Warfield is born in Warren, Ohio. He will become an
wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins.
Over his career, he will catch 427 passes for 8,565 yards
and 85 touchdowns. He will have a sensational 20.1-yard
per catch average and will be All-NFL five years. He also
will be named to eight Pro Bowls. He will be enshrined in
the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983.

1958 – Chad, Congo, and & Mauritania become autonomous members of
the French World Community.

1960 – Mauritania gains independence from France.

1961 – The Downtown Athletic Club awards the Heisman Trophy to
Ernie Davis, a halfback from Syracuse University. He is
the first African American to win the award.

1966 – A coup occurs in Burundi overthrowing the monarchy. A
republic is declared as a replacement form of government.

1981 – Pam McAllister Johnson is named as publisher of Gannett’s
Ithaca (New York) Journal. She is the first African
American woman to head a general circulation newspaper in
the United States.

1992 – In King William’s Town, South Africa, four people are
killed, about 20 injured, when black militant gunmen
attack a country club.

2011 – Comedian and Actor, Patrice O’Neal, joins the ancestors at
the age of 41, succumbing to complications of a stroke he
suffered in September. O’Neal had appeared on shows like
“The Office” and “The Chappelle Show” as well as being a
regular guest on the “Opie and Anthony” radio show.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 4 *

1781 – California’s second pueblo near San Gabriel, Nuestra Senora
la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (Los Angeles,
California) is founded by forty-four settlers, of whom at
least twenty-six were descendants of Africans. Among the
settlers of African descent, according to H.H. Bancroft’s
authoritative “History of California,” were “Joseph Moreno,
Mulatto, 22 years old, wife a Mulattress, five children;
Manuel Cameron, Mulatto, 30 years old, wife Mulattress;
Antonio Mesa, Negro, 38 years old, wife Mulattress, six
children; Jose Antonio Navarro, Mestizo, 42 years old,
wife, Mulattress, three children; Basil Rosas, Indian, 68
years old, wife, Mulattress, six children.”

1848 – Louis H. Latimer is born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A one-
time draftsman and preparer of patents for Alexander
Graham Bell, he will later join the United States Electric
Company, where he will patent a carbon filament for the
incandescent lamp. When he joins the ancestors on December
11, 1928, he will be eulogized by his co-workers as a
valuable member of the “Edison Pioneers,” a group of men
and women who advanced electrical light usage in the
United States. He will join the ancestors on December 11,
1928.

1865 – Bowie State College (now University) is established in
Bowie, Maryland.

1875 – The Clinton Massacre occurs in Clinton, Mississippi. Twenty
to thirty African Americans are killed over a two-day
period.

1908 – Richard Wright, who will become the author of the best-
selling “Native Son,” “Uncle Tom’s Children,” and “Black
Boy,” is born near Natchez, Mississippi. Wright will be
among the first African American writers to protest white
treatment of African Americans. He will join the ancestors
on November 28, 1960.

1942 – Merald ‘Bubba’ Knight is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
become a singer with his sister Gladys Knight as part of
her background group, The Pips. They will record many
songs including “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “Best Thing
That Ever Happened to Me,” “I Heard It Through the
Grapevine,” “Every Beat of My Heart,” “Letter Full of
Tears,” and “The Way We Were/Try to Remember” medley.

1953 – Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs is born in New York City. He will
become an actor and will star in “Alien Nation,”
“Rituals,” “Roots,” “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Quiet Fire,”
“L.A. Heat,” and “L.A. Vice.”

1957 – The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, calls out the
National Guard to stop nine African American students
from entering Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas. Three weeks later, President Dwight Eisenhower
sends a force of 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers (The 101st
Airborne) to Little Rock to guarantee the peaceful
desegregation of the public school.

1960 – Damon Kyle Wayans is born in New York City, New York. He
will become an actor/comedian and will star in “In Living
Color,” “Major Payne,” “Blankman,” “Celtic Pride,”
“The Great White Hype” and many others.

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

KRLemmons African American History

June 27 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – June 27 *

1833 – The operator of an academy for African American females
in Canterbury, Connecticut, Prudence Crandall – a white
woman, is arrested for providing this service.

1872 – Paul Laurence Dunbar, short story writer, is born in
Dayton, Ohio. He will be so talented and versatile that he
will succeed in two worlds. He will be so adept at
writing verse in Black English that he will become known
as the “poet of his people,” while also cultivating a white
audience that appreciated the brilliance and value of his
work. “Majors and Minors” (1895), Dunbar’s second
collection of verse, will be a remarkable work containing
some of his best poems in both Black and standard English.
When the country’s reigning literary critic, William Dean
Howells reviews “Majors and Minors” favorably, Dunbar
becomes famous. And Howells’ introduction in “Lyric of
Lowly Life” (1896) will help make Dunbar the most popular
African American writer in America at the time. Dunbar will
join the ancestors after succumbing to tuberculosis on
February 9, 1906. The U.S. Postal Service will issue a
commemorative stamp in his honor on May 1, 1975.

1890 – George Dixon, a Canadian, becomes the first person of
African descent to win a world boxing championship. He
defeats Nunc Wallace to win the bantamweight title. He will
also become the first person of African descent to win an
American title in any sport, when he knocks out Cal McCarthy
in 1891.

1914 – The United States signs a treaty of commerce with Ethiopia.

1919 – Archibald H. Grimke’, noted lawyer and civil rights advocate
who had served as U.S. Consul in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic and president of the American Negro Academy among
his accomplishments, receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal.
An original member of the “Committee of Forty” that helped
establish the NAACP, Grimke’ is honored for his “years of
distinguished service to his race and country.”

1941 – Richard Wright is awarded the Spingarn Medal. He is cited
for the power of his books “Uncle Tom’s Children” and
“Native Son” in depicting “the effects of proscription,
segregation and denial of opportunities on the American
Negro.”

1960 – British Somaliland becomes part of Somalia.

1967 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Buffalo, New York.
200 persons are arrested. The disturbance will last four
days.

1970 – The Jackson Five: Marlon, Tito, Jackie, Jermaine and Michael,
jump to number one on the music charts with “The Love You
Save”. The song will stay at the top of the charts for a
two week run. It will be the third of four number-one hits
in a row for the group. The other three are: “I Want You
Back”, “ABC” and “I’ll Be There”. In 15 years, from 1969
to 1984, The Jackson Five/Jacksons will have 23 hits, score
two platinum singles (“Enjoy Yourself” and “Shake Your Body
[Down To The Ground]”) and one gold record (“State of
Shock”).

1972 – Patricia Roberts Harris, the first African American U.S.
Ambassador, is named permanent chairman of the Democratic
National Convention. The Mattoon, Illinois native will
later break new ground as Secretary of Health and Human
Services and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

1977 – Djibouti gains independence from France. Djibouti is located
in East Africa, bordered by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and
the Gulf of Aden.

1978 – Henry Rono of Kenya sets a world record for 3,000 meters,
running in 7 minutes 32 and 1/10 seconds.

1979 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules, in Weber v. Kaiser Aluminum
and Chemical Corporation, that employers and unions can
establish voluntary programs, including the use of quotas,
to aid minorities in employment.

1988 – Mike Tyson knocks out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the
first round, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1989 – The Baltimore Orioles beat the Toronto Blue Jays 16-6. Each
team is coached by an African American, Frank Robinson of
the Orioles and Cito Gaston of the Blue Jays. Robinson,
who will direct his team to an 87-75 season, will be named
manager of the year by both the Associated Press and the
United Press International.

1991 – Justice Thurgood Marshall, 82, the first African American on
the U.S. Supreme Court, announces his retirement after 24
years service, citing “advancing age and medical condition.”
As chief counsel for the NAACP, Marshall had played a major
role in the legal fight that led to the Brown v. Board of
Education decision, overturning legal segregation. In his
final dissent on the court on June 27, Marshall says that
the court’s conservative majority was recklessly overturning
decisions protecting the right of African Americans and
minorities.

1994 – U.S. Coast Guard cutters intercept 1,330 Haitian boat people
on the high seas in one of the busiest days since refugees
began leaving Haiti following a 1991 military coup.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 1 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – March 1 *

1739 – The British sign a peace treaty with the Black “Chimarrones”
in Jamaica.

1780 – Pennsylvania becomes the first state to abolish slavery.

1841 – Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first African American to serve a
full term in the United States Senate, is born a slave in
Prince Edward County, Virginia. He will join the ancestors on
March 17, 1898.

1864 – Rebecca Lee becomes the first African American woman to
receive an American medical degree, when she graduates from
the New England Female Medical College in Boston. She,
along with Rebecca Cole and Susan McKinney, is one of the
first African American female physicians.

1871 – James Milton Turner is named minister to Liberia and becomes
the first African American diplomat accredited to an African
country. James W. Mason was named minister in March, 1870,
but never took his post.

1875 – The (first) Civil Rights Bill is passed by Congress. The bill,
which gives African Americans equal rights in inns, theaters,
public transportation, and other public amusements, will be
overturned by the Supreme Court in 1883.

1914 – Ralph Waldo Ellison is born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He
will become a well known author, best known for his book
“Invisible Man,” for which he will win the 1953 National Book
Award. He will join the ancestors on April 16, 1994.

1927 – Harry Belafonte is born in New York City. He will become a
successful folk singer, actor, and winner of the first Emmy
awarded to an African American. His commitment to civil and
human rights will lead him to march with Martin Luther King,
Jr. in Montgomery, Selma, and Washington, DC. Among his
achievements will be Kennedy Center Honors in 1989.

1940 – Richard Wright’s “Native Son” is published by Harper and
Brothers.

1949 – Joe Louis retires as heavyweight boxing champion after holding
the title for a record eleven years and eight months.

1960 – Four national chain stores announce on October 17 that
food counters in about 150 stores in 112 cities in North
Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Texas, Tennessee,
Missouri, Maryland, Florida and Oklahoma have been integrated.

1960 – The Alabama State Board of Education expels nine Alabama State
University students for participating in sit-in
demonstrations.

1960 – Montgomery, Alabama, police break up a protest demonstration
on the Alabama State University campus and arrest thirty-five
students, a teacher and her husband.

1960 – San Antonio, Texas, becomes the first major Southern city to
integrate lunch counters.

1960 – Pope John elevates Bishop Laurian Rugambwa of Tanganyika to
the College of Cardinals, the first cardinal of African
descent in the modern era.

1963 – Carl T. Rowan is named United States ambassador to Finland.

1967 – The House of Representatives votes to expel Adam Clayton
Powell, Jr. from the 90th Congress. (The Supreme Court will
rule in 1969 that Powell will have to be seated.)

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

KRLemmons African American History

January 23 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – January 23 *

1837 – Amanda Berry Smith is born into slavery in Long Green,
Maryland. She will be widowed twice, after which she will
attempt to minister to her people. Unable to preach in the
AME Church, which did not ordain women ministers, Smith
will become an independent missionary and travel throughout
the United States and three continents. She will publish
her autobiography, “Amanda Smith’s Story – The Story of the
Lord’s Dealings with Mrs. Amanda Smith, The Colored
Evangelist,” in 1893. She will join the ancestors on
February 24, 1915.

1891 – Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, the first African
American hospital, is founded by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.
He also establishes the Provident Hospital School of Nursing
around the same time, because Emma Reynolds, an African
American, had been denied admission to every school of
nursing in the city of Chicago.

1941 – Richard Wright is awarded the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
book, “Native Son.”

1943 – Duke Ellington’s band plays for a black-tie crowd at Carnegie
Hall in New York City. It is the first of what will become
an annual series of concerts for ‘The Duke’.

1945 – The Army Nurse Corps discontinues its color barrier and
starts admitting nurses without regard to race. This is due
primarily to the pressure applied by the National
Association of Colored Nursing Graduates (NACGN) and other
groups.

1962 – Demonstrations against discrimination in off-campus housing
are staged by students at the University of Chicago for
fourteen days. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
charges that the university operates segregated apartment
houses.

1964 – The 24th amendment to the United States’ Constitution,
abolishing the poll tax in federal elections, is ratified.
The poll tax had been used extensively in the South as a
means of preventing African Americans from voting.

1976 – Paul Robeson joins the ancestors, as the result of a stroke,
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He had been a world-renown
actor and singer. He was perhaps the best known and most
widely respected African American of the 1930s and 1940s.
Robeson was also a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union,
and a man, later in his life, widely vilified and censored
for his frankness and unyielding views on issues to which
public opinion ran contrary. As a young man, Robeson was
virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He learned to
speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the
barriers of race and ignorance throughout the world, and
yet, as Sterling Stuckey pointed out in the “New York Times
Book Review,” for the last 25 years of his life, his was “a
great whisper and a greater silence in Black America.”

1977 – The first episode of “Roots,” adapted from the “New York
Times” bestseller by Alex Haley, is aired on ABC. Over the
next several nights, 130 million Americans will be
transfixed before their televisions as the story of Kunta
Kinte is told.

1985 – O.J. Simpson becomes the first Heisman Trophy winner to be
inducted into pro football’s Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys, another Heisman
winner, is also elected, but is after O.J. in the sequence
of induction.

1986 – The first annual induction ceremony for the Rock ‘N’ Roll
Hall of Fame is held in New York City. Among those inducted
were Chuck Berry, James Brown, Ray Charles, and Fats Domino.

1989 – In “City of Richmond vs. J.A. Croson Co.,” the United States
Supreme Court invalidates the city’s minority set-aside
program, a major setback for the concept’s proponents.

2003 – Nell Carter, Tony Award winner and television star, joins the
ancestors at the age of 54. She had suffered from diabetes
for years and underwent brain surgery in 1992 to remove an
aneurysm. She recovered and continued to perform, mostly on
stage.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 7 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 7 *

1874 – White Democrats kill seventy-five Republicans in a
massacre at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1885 – The Forty-Ninth Congress (1885-87) is convened. Two
African American congressmen, James E. O’Hara of North
Carolina and Robert Smalls of South Carolina are in
attendance.

1931 – Comer Cottrell is born in Mobile, Alabama. In 1970, he
will become founder and president of Pro-line
Corporation in Los Angeles, California, which he will
start with $ 600 and a borrowed typewriter. He will move
the headquarters to Dallas, Texas in 1980, becoming the
largest African American-owned business in the southwest.
An entrepreneur with a wide range of interests, he will
become the first African American to own a part of a
major league baseball team, the Texas Rangers, in 1989.
He will also become sponsor of Miss Collegiate African
American Pageant in 1989, purchase the campus of bankrupt
Bishop College in Dallas, Texas in 1990, and persuade
Paul Quinn College to relocate to former grounds of
Bishop College. He will donate $25,000 to Spelman College
in Atlanta, Georgia and serve as part of an entourage of
black businessmen visiting the Republic of South Africa
in 1994.

1941 – During the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Dorie Miller
of Waco, Texas, a messman aboard the battleship Arizona
who had never been instructed in firearms, heroically
downs three Japanese planes before being ordered to
leave the ship. Miller will be awarded the Navy Cross
for his bravery.

1941 – The Downtown Gallery in New York City presents the
exhibit “American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Century”.
Included in the exhibit is work by Robert Duncanson,
Horace Pippin, Eldzier Cortor, Richmond Barte’ and
others.

1941 – Lester Granger is named executive director of the
National Urban League.

1941 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to novelist
Richard Wright, “one of the most powerful of
contemporary writer,” for “his powerful depiction in
his books, ‘Uncle Tom’s Childre-n,’ and ‘Native Son,’
of the effect of proscription, segregation and denial
of opportunities to the American Negro.”

1942 – Reginald F. Lewis is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will
receive his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1968.
He will eventually become a partner in Murphy, Thorpe &
Lewis, the first African American law firm on Wall
Street. In 1989, he will become president and CEO of
TLC Beatrice International Holding Inc. With TLC’s
leverage acquisition of Beatrice International Food
Company, Lewis becomes the head of the largest African
American-owned business in the United States. TLC
Beatrice had revenues of $1.54 billion in 1992. He will
join the ancestors in January, 1993, succumbing to brain
cancer.

1972 – W. Sterling Cary is elected president of the Nation
Council of Churches.

1978 – Billy Sims is awarded the Heisman Trophy at the annual
awards dinner sponsored by the Downtown Athletic Club.
The running back from the University of Oklahoma is the
sixth junior to win the award.

1981 – John Jacobs is named president of the National Urban
League.

1985 – Bo Jackson of Auburn University wins the Heisman Trophy.

1990 – Rhythm and Blues artist, Dee Clark, joins the ancestors in
Smyrna, Georgia at the age of 52.

1993 – The South African transitional executive council is set up.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 28 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 28 *

1868 – John Sengstacke Abbott is born in Frederica, Georgia.
The son of former slaves, he will attend Hampton
Institute and prepare himself for the printing trade.
He will also go on to law school, and will work as an
attorney for a few years, but will change careers to
become a journalist. He will found the Chicago Defender,
a weekly newspaper on May 6, 1905. He will start the
paper on $25, and in the beginning, operate it out of
his kitchen. Under his direction, the Defender will
become the most widely circulated African American
newspaper of its time and a leading voice in the fight
against racism. He will cultivate a controversial,
aggressive style, reporting on such issues as violence
against blacks and police brutality. The Defender will
raise eyebrows with its anti-lynching slogan – “If you
must die, take at least one with you,” its opposition
to a segregated Colored Officers Training Camp in Fort
Des Moines, Iowa in 1917, and its condemnation of Marcus
Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
Through the Defender, he will also play a major role in
the “Great Migration” of many African Americans from the
South to Chicago. He will join the ancestors on
February 22, 1940.

1871 – The Ku Klux Klan trials begin in Federal District Court
in South Carolina.

1907 – Charles Alston is born in Charlotte, North Carolina.
After studying at Columbia University and Pratt
Institute, he will travel to Europe and the Caribbean,
execute murals for Harlem Hospital and Golden State
Mutual Life Insurance Company in Los Angeles, earning
the National Academy of Design Award, and the First
Award of the Atlanta University Collection’s 1942 show
for his watercolor painting, “Farm Boy”. As a teacher,
he will teach at the Harlem Community Art Center, Harlem
Art Workshop, and Pennsylvania State University. He
will be an associate professor of painting at The City
University of New York and a muralist for the WPA during
the Depression. His two-panel mural of that period,
“Magic and Medicine,” can be seen at Harlem Hospital. He
will become a full professor at City University of New
York in 1973. He will join the ancestors on April 27,
1977.

1929 – Berry Gordy is born in Detroit, Michigan. He will become
the the founder and president of Motown Records, the
most successful African American-owned record company.
Gordy’s “Motown Sound” will become synonymous with the
1960’s and will launch the careers of Diana Ross and the
Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson
and the Miracles, the Jackson Five, and many others.

1942 – Richard Wright, author of “Native Son” and “Black Boy”,
joins the ancestors in Paris, France at the age of 52.

1942 – Paul Warfield is born in Warren, Ohio. He will become an
wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins.
Over his career, he will catch 427 passes for 8,565 yards
and 85 touchdowns. He will have a sensational 20.1-yard
per catch average and will be All-NFL five years. He also
will be named to eight Pro Bowls. He will be enshrined in
the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1983.

1958 – Chad, Congo, and & Mauritania become autonomous members of
the French World Community.

1960 – Mauritania gains independence from France.

1961 – The Downtown Athletic Club awards the Heisman Trophy to
Ernie Davis, a halfback from Syracuse University. He is
the first African American to win the award.

1966 – A coup occurs in Burundi overthrowing the monarchy. A
republic is declared as a replacement form of government.

1981 – Pam McAllister Johnson is named as publisher of Gannett’s
Ithaca (New York) Journal. She is the first African
American woman to head a general circulation newspaper in
the United States.

1992 – In King William’s Town, South Africa, four people are
killed, about 20 injured, when black militant gunmen
attack a country club.

2011 – Comedian and Actor, Patrice O’Neal, joins the ancestors at
the age of 41, succumbing to complications of a stroke he
suffered in September. O’Neal had appeared on shows like
“The Office” and “The Chappelle Show” as well as being a
regular guest on the “Opie and Anthony” radio show.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 4 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 4 *

1781 – California’s second pueblo near San Gabriel, Nuestra Senora
la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (Los Angeles,
California) is founded by forty-four settlers, of whom at
least twenty-six were descendants of Africans. Among the
settlers of African descent, according to H.H. Bancroft’s
authoritative “History of California,” were “Joseph Moreno,
Mulatto, 22 years old, wife a Mulattress, five children;
Manuel Cameron, Mulatto, 30 years old, wife Mulattress;
Antonio Mesa, Negro, 38 years old, wife Mulattress, six
children; Jose Antonio Navarro, Mestizo, 42 years old,
wife, Mulattress, three children; Basil Rosas, Indian, 68
years old, wife, Mulattress, six children.”

1848 – Louis H. Latimer is born in Chelsea, Massachusetts. A one-
time draftsman and preparer of patents for Alexander
Graham Bell, he will later join the United States Electric
Company, where he will patent a carbon filament for the
incandescent lamp. When he joins the ancestors on December
11, 1928, he will be eulogized by his co-workers as a
valuable member of the “Edison Pioneers,” a group of men
and women who advanced electrical light usage in the
United States. He will join the ancestors on December 11,
1928.

1865 – Bowie State College (now University) is established in
Bowie, Maryland.

1875 – The Clinton Massacre occurs in Clinton, Mississippi. Twenty
to thirty African Americans are killed over a two-day
period.

1908 – Richard Wright, who will become the author of the best-
selling “Native Son,” “Uncle Tom’s Children,” and “Black
Boy,” is born near Natchez, Mississippi. Wright will be
among the first African American writers to protest white
treatment of African Americans. He will join the ancestors
on November 28, 1960.

1942 – Merald ‘Bubba’ Knight is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
become a singer with his sister Gladys Knight as part of
her background group, The Pips. They will record many
songs including “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “Best Thing
That Ever Happened to Me,” “I Heard It Through the
Grapevine,” “Every Beat of My Heart,” “Letter Full of
Tears,” and “The Way We Were/Try to Remember” medley.

1953 – Lawrence-Hilton Jacobs is born in New York City. He will
become an actor and will star in “Alien Nation,”
“Rituals,” “Roots,” “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Quiet Fire,”
“L.A. Heat,” and “L.A. Vice.”

1957 – The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, calls out the
National Guard to stop nine African American students
from entering Central High School in Little Rock,
Arkansas. Three weeks later, President Dwight Eisenhower
sends a force of 1,000 U.S. Army paratroopers (The 101st
Airborne) to Little Rock to guarantee the peaceful
desegregation of the public school.

1960 – Damon Kyle Wayans is born in New York City, New york. He
will become an actor/comedian and will star in “In Living
Color,” “Major Payne,” “Blankman,” “Celtic Pride,”
“The Great White Hype” and many others.

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