KRLemmons African American History

April 11 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 11 *

1865 – President Lincoln recommends suffrage for African American veterans
and African Americans who are “very intelligent.”

1881 – Spelman College is founded with $100 and eleven former slaves
determined to learn to read and write. It is opened as the Atlanta
Baptist Female Seminary. The two female founders, Sophia B. Packard
and Harriet E. Giles are appalled by the lack of educational
opportunities for African American women at the time. They will
return to Boston determined to get support to change that and earned
what will prove to be the lifelong support of John D. Rockefeller,
who considers Spelman to be one of his family’s finest investments.
The name Spelman is adopted later in honor of Mrs. Rockefeller’s
parents.

1933 – William Anthony “Tony” Brown is born in Charleston, West Virginia.
He will become well known as executive producer, host, and moderator
of the Emmy-winning television series “Black Journal.” In 1971 he
will establish and become the first dean of Howard University’s School
of Communications, a post he will hold until 1974. In 2002, he will
be inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences’ Silver Circle. He will become the dean of Hampton
University’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications
in 2004 and hold that position until 2009, when he will step down.

1955 – Roy Wilkins is elected the NAACP’s executive secretary following
the ancestral ascension of Walter White.

1956 – Singer Nat “King” Cole is attacked on the stage of a Birmingham
theater by white supremacists.

1966 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African American major league
umpire, working in the American League. He had been the first
African American professional umpire in the minor leagues in
1951.

1967 – Harlem voters defy Congress and re-elect Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. after he had been expelled by the legislative body.

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs what will become known as the
1968 Housing Act, which outlaws discrimination in the sale,
rental, or leasing of 80% of the housing in the United States.
Passed by the Senate and submitted by the House to Johnson in
the aftermath of the King assassination, the bill also protects
civil rights workers and makes it a federal crime to cross state
lines for the purpose of inciting a riot.

1972 – Benjamin L. Hooks, a Memphis lawyer and Baptist minister, becomes
the first African American to be named to the Federal Communications
Commission.

1979 – Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda. A combined force of
Tanzanian and Ugandan soldiers overthrew the dictator. Amin, who
attained power in 1971 after a coup against socialist-leaning
President Milton Obote, oversaw the killing of at least 100,000
people. It is believed that Idi Amin left Uganda to live in Saudi
Arabia.

1988 – Willie D. Burton becomes the first African American to win the
Oscar for sound when he receives the award for the movie “Bird.”

1997 – The Museum of African American History opens in Detroit. It will
become the largest of its kind in the world.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 3 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 3 *

1841 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond returns to the United
States after a year and a half in Great Britain. He
had been serving as a delegate to the world Anti-
Slavery Convention in London. He brings with him an
“Address from the People of Ireland” including 60,000
signatures urging Irish-Americans to “oppose slavery by
peaceful means and to insist upon liberty for all
regardless of color, creed, or country.”

1843 – The Society of Colored People in Baltimore, is the first
African American Catholic association whose
documentation has been preserved. Their notebook will
begin today and continue until September 7, 1845.

1847 – Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney begin the
publication of “The North Star” newspaper, one of the
leading abolitionist newspapers of its day.

1864 – The Twenty-Fifth Corps, the largest all African American
unit in the history of the U.S. Army, is established by
General Order # 297 of the War Department, Adjutant
General’s Office. The Colored Troops of the Department
of Virginia and North Carolina were organized into the
Twenty-Fifth Corps under the command of Major General G.
Weitzel.

1866 – John Swett Rock, a Massachusetts lawyer and dentist joins
the ancestors. He had become the first African American
certified to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase appointed Dr. Rock to
present cases before the Supreme Court on December 31,
1865.

1868 – The trial of ex-Confederacy president, Jefferson Davis
starts, marking the first United States trial with
African Americans included in the jury.

1883 – The Forty-Eighth Congress (1883-85) convenes. Only Two
African Americans are included as representatives. They
are James E. O’Hara of North Carolina and Robert Smalls
of South Carolina.

1883 – George L. Ruffin is appointed a city judge in Boston,
Massachusetts.

1922 – Ralph Alexander Gardner-Chavis is born in Cleveland, Ohio.
He will become a pioneer chemist whose research into
plastics leads to the development of so-called “hard
plastics.” His innovations in the manipulation of
catalytic chemicals will lead to the products for the
petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries as well as
plastics.

1951 – President Truman names a committee to monitor compliance
with anti-discrimination provisions in U.S. government
contracts and sub-contracts.

1956 – Wilt Chamberlain plays in his first collegiate basketball
game and scores 52 points.

1962 – Edith Spurlock Sampson is sworn in as the first African
American woman judge.

1964 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to NAACP executive
secretary Roy Wilkins for his contribution to “the
advancement of the American people and the national
purpose.”

1964 – The Independence Bank of Chicago is organized.

1964 – J. Raymond Jones is elected leader of the New York
Democratic organization (Tammany Hall).

1970 – Jennifer Josephine Hosten become the first African
American Miss World.

1979 – An University of Southern California running back,
Charles White, is named the Heisman Trophy winner for
1979. White, who gained a career regular season total
of 5,598 yards, will play professionally for the Los
Angeles Rams.

1982 – Thomas Hearns unifies the world boxing titles in the
junior middleweight division by capturing the WBC title
over Wilfredo Benitez.

1988 – Barry Sanders wins the Heisman Trophy.

1988 – In South Africa, 11 black funeral mourners are slain in
Natal Province in an attack blamed on security forces.

1990 – “Black Art – Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in
African American Art” opens at the Dallas Museum of Art.
United States and Caribbean artists represented among
the more than 150 works include Richmond Barthe’, John
Biggers, Aaron Douglas, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent
Johnson, and Houston Conwill.

1997 – President Clinton hosts his first town hall meeting on
America’s race relations in Akron, Ohio.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 8 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 8 *

1866 – Charles Harrison Mason is born on the Prior Farm near
Memphis, Tennessee. He will be inspired by the
autobiography of evangelist Amanda Berry Smith in 1893.
He and Charles Price Jones will form a fellowship of
churches, named “Church of God.” He will rename the
group the “Church of God in Christ,” to distinguish the
group from the other “Church of God” forming around that
time. After attending the “Azusa Street Revival” in Los
Angeles, California, he will adopt the new Pentecostal
teachings of Elder William Seymour, such as ‘speaking in
tongues.’ After the opposition of Charles Jones in these
new beliefs, they will split and he will win the legal
rights to the “Church of God in Christ” name. He will be
elected General Overseer of the Church in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1907, later becoming the Senior Bishop (now
referred to as Presiding Bishop). He will lead the COGIC
group of churches until he joins the ancestors on November
17, 1961. At this time, the Church membership totals
around 400,000. Afterwards, the Church will grow
exponentially, until in 2000, it is estimated over 6
million people were members of the denomination.

1875 – The governor of Mississippi requests federal troops to
protect African American voters. Attorney General Edward
Pierrepont refuses the request and says “the whole
public are tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in
the South…”

1925 – Ossian Sweet, a prominent Detroit doctor, is arrested on
murder charges after shots are fired into a mob in front
of the Sweet home in a previously all-white area. Sweet
is defended by Clarence Darrow, who won an acquittal in
the second trial.

1940 – Willie Tyler is born in Red Level, Alabama. He will
become a well known ventriloquist along with his wooden
partner, Lester.

1956 – Maurice Cheeks is born. He will become a professional
basketball player and will play guard for the New York
Knicks and the Philadelphia ’76ers.

1957 – Tennis champion, Althea Gibson, becomes the first
African American athlete to win a U.S. national tennis
championship.

1965 – Dorothy Dandridge, nominated for an Oscar for her
performance in “Carmen Jones,” joins the ancestors at
the age of 41 in Hollywood, California.

1968 – Black Panther Huey Newton is convicted of voluntary
manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an Oakland
policeman. He will later begin a 2 to l5-year jail
sentence.

1968 – Saundra Williams is crowned the first Miss Black America
in a contest held exclusively for African American
women in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1973 – Hank Aaron sets the record for most Home Runs in 1
league (709).

1975 – The city of Boston begins court ordered citywide busing
of public schools amid scattered incidents of violence.

1981 – Roy Wilkins, longtime and second executive director of
the NAACP, joins the ancestors.

1990 – Marjorie Judith Vincent of Illinois is selected as Miss
America in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Haitian
native, a third-year law student at Duke University,
is the fourth woman of African descent to become Miss
America.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 30 *

1800 – Jack Bowler and Coachman Gabriel Prosser’s plans for a
slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia, are betrayed by a
pair of house slaves attempting to save their master.
Prosser’s plan, which involved over 1,100 slaves, would
have resulted in the death of all slave-owning whites,
but would have spared Quakers, Frenchmen, elderly women,
and children.

1838 – The first African American magazine “Mirror of Freedom”,
begins publication in New York City by abolitionist
David Ruggles.

1843 – The Liberty Party has the first African American
participation in a national political convention.
Samuel R. Ward leads the convention in prayer — Henry
Highland Garnet, a twenty-seven-year-old Presbyterian
pastor who calls for a slave revolt and a general slave
strike. Amos G. Beman of New Haven, Connecticut is
elected president of the convention.

1856 – Wilberforce University is established in Xenia, Ohio under
the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1863,
the university was transferred to the African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) Church.

1861 – General John C. Fremont issues an order confiscating the
property of Confederates and emancipating their slaves.
The order causes wide-spread protest and is revoked by
President Lincoln.

1892 – S. R. Scottron patents a curtain rod.

1901 – Roy Wilkins is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will become
a civil rights leader, assistant executive secretary of
the NAACP under Walter White and editor of the Crisis
Magazine for 15 years. He will become Executive Secretary
of the NAACP in 1955, a post he will hold for 22 years.
During his tenure, he will be a champion of civil rights
committed to using constitutional arguments to help obtain
full citizenship rights for all African Americans. He will
join the ancestors on September 8, 1981.

1931 – Carrie Saxon Perry is born in Hartford, Connecticut. In
1987, she will be elected mayor of Hartford, becoming the
first African American mayor of a major eastern United
States city.

1953 – Robert Parish is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He will
become a professional basketballplayer. Playing 14 years
with the Boston Celtics from 1980 to 1994, he will win
three NBA titles (1981, 1984 and 1986) teaming with
legendary small forward Larry Bird, and, from 1983 to 1992
with Kevin McHale. The trio will be regarded by many as the
best front court in NBA history.

1956 – A white mob prevents the enrollment of blacks at Mansfield
High School in Texas.

1961 – James Benton Parsons is confirmed as the first African
American judge of a United States District Court in the
continental United States (Northern Illinois). He had
been appointed by President John F. Kennedy on April 18,
1961.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African
American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been
appointed by President Lyndon Johnson on June 13, 1967.

1969 – Racially motivated civil disturbances occur in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida.

1983 – Lt. Colonel Guion S. Bluford is the first African American
in space when he serves as a mission specialist on the
Challenger space shuttle. The space shuttle, launched
from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stayed in orbit
almost six days. This was the Challenger’s third flight
into space.

1987 – Ben Johnson of Canada runs 100 meters in world record time
of 9.83 seconds.

1990 – Ken Griffey & Ken Griffey, Jr. become the first father &
son to play on the same professional sports team (Seattle
Mariners). Both single in the first inning.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 15 *

1824 – Freed American slaves establish a settlement in West Africa
that will eventually become the country of Liberia.

1843 – The National Black Convention meets at Buffalo, New York,
with some seventy delegates from twelve states. The
highlight of the convention will be a stirring address by
Henry Highland Garnet, a twenty seven-year-old Presbyterian
pastor who calls for a slave revolt and a general slave
strike. Amos G. Beman of New Haven, Connecticut, is
elected president of the convention.

1900 – Riots erupt in New York City as a white plainclothes
policeman is killed in a fight with an African American man.
It is the fourth racial riot in the city’s history.

1906 – At the second meeting of the Niagara Movement at Harpers
Ferry, West Virginia, W.E.B. DuBois demands equal
citizenship rights for African Americans, saying, “We will
not be satisfied to take one jot or title less than our full
manhood rights…”

1925 – Oscar Peterson is born in Montreal (Quebec), Canada.
Classically trained in the piano, he will work with top
Canadian jazz bands until 1949, when he will first appear in
New York City’s Carnegie hall. He will be recognized as a
jazz innovator who forges a synthesis of bop and swing into
his own unique style. He will join the ancestors on
December 23, 2007.

1931 – Roy Wilkins joins the NAACP as assistant secretary.

1931 – The Spingarn Medal is awarded to Richard B. Harrison for his
Portrayal of “De Lawd” in “The Green Pastures.”

1935 – Vernon Eulion Jordan, Jr, is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
become a civil rights activist. In 1962 he will be appointed
Georgia field director for the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), leading a boycott of
Augusta, Georgia merchants who refused to serve African
Americans. After four years as NAACP field director, in 1966
he will become director of the Southern Regional Council’s
Voter Education Project. The project will sponsor voter
registration campaigns in 11 southern states and conduct
seminars, workshops, and conferences for candidates and
office holders. After four years, he will take a six-month
appointment as a fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Politics
at Harvard and then, in 1970, will become executive director
of the United Negro College Fund. When Whitney Young,
executive director of the National Urban League, joins the
ancestors in 1972, he will be appointed Young’s successor.
As director of the league, he will continue its emphasis on
African American uplift through training, employment, and
social service programs, but the organization will also begin
to emphasize research and advocacy as part of its thrust
toward implementing promises of the 1960s civil rights
reforms. For example, during his administration the league
will develop a highly regarded research and information
dissemination capability, including a policy journal – The
Urban League Review – and the annual State of Black America
reports. The State of Black America, issued each January to
coincide with the president’s State of the Union address,
will become a principal source of systematic data on the
African American condition in the United States and an
important resource for identifying African American policy
perspectives. During his tenure at the League he will be
recognized as a leading African American spokesman, writing a
weekly syndicated column, lecturing, and appearing on national
television interview programs. A frequent adviser to government,
corporate, and labor leaders, he will be frequently appointed
to presidential advisory boards and commissions.

1938 – Maxine Waters is born in St. Louis, Missouri. A longtime
California state legislator, in 1990, she will be the
second African American woman from California elected to
the United States Congress.

1945 – Gene Upshaw is born in Robstown, Texas. He will become a
professional football player and a guard for the Oakland
Raiders. After retirement from football, he will become the
longtime president of the NFL Players Association. He will
join the ancestors on August 20, 2008.

1960 – The Republic of the Congo gains independence from France.

1962 – The Shady Grove Baptist Church is burned in Leesburg,
Georgia.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Dixmoor, (a
Chicago suburb) Illinois.

1964 – Ralph Boston of the United States, sets the then long jump
record at 27′ 3″.

1975 – Joanne Little is acquitted of murder charges in the August
27, 1974, killing of a white jailer. The defense said she
stabbed the jailer with an ice pick after he made sexual
advances.

1979 – Andrew Young resigns under pressure as U.N. ambassador
after unauthorized meeting with representatives of the
Palestine Liberation Organization. His resignation creates
a storm of controversy and divides the African American
and Jewish communities.

1999 – Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship, becoming the youngest
player to win two majors since Seve Ballesteros.

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

KRLemmons African American History

July 28 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – July 28 *

1802 – Alexandre Dumas is born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie in
Villers-Cotterêts, Aisne, near Paris, France, the grandson
of the Marquis Antoine-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie.
While his grandfather serves the government of France as
General Commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of
Santo Domingo, (today’s Dominican Republic but at the time
a part of Haiti), he marries Marie-Céssette Dumas, a Black
slave. In 1762, she gives birth to a son, Thomas-Alexandre,
and she joins the ancestors soon thereafter. When the
Marquis and his young son return to Normandy, it is at a
time when slavery still exists, and the boy will suffer as
a result of being half Black. In 1786, Thomas-Alexandre
joins the French army, but to protect the aristocratic
family’s reputation, he enlists using his mother’s maiden
name. Following the Revolution in France, the Marquis loses
his estates but his mulatto son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas,
distinguishes himself as a capable and daring soldier in
Napoleon Bonaparte’s army, rising through the ranks to
become a General by the age of 31. Thomas Alexandre Dumas
will marry Marie Labouret Dumas, a French woman and
Alexandre Dumas is born from this union. He will become an
acclaimed author of the French classics “The Three
Musketeers”, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “The Man in the
Iron Mask”, “The Corsican Brothers,” “Twenty Years After,”
“The Vicomte de Bragelonne,” “The Regent’s Daughter,”
“Queen Margot,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Black Tulip,”
“The Nutcracker,” and “La Dame de Montsoreau.” Despite his
success and aristocratic connections, his being of mixed-
blood will impact on him all of his life. In 1843, he will
write a short story that addresses some of the issues of
race and the effects of colonialism. Nevertheless, inbred
racist attitudes will impact his rightful position in
France’s history long after he joins the ancestors on
December 5, 1870. Buried in the place where he was born,
he will remain in the cemetery at Villers-Cotterêts until
November 30, 2002. Under orders of the French President,
Jacques Chirac, his body will be exhumed and in a
televised ceremony, his new coffin, draped in a blue-
velvet cloth and flanked by four men costumed as the
Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan, will
be transported in a solemn procession to the Panthéon of
Paris, the great mausoleum where French luminaries are
interred. In his speech, President Chirac will say: “With
you, we were D’Artagnan, Monte Cristo or Balsamo, riding
along the roads of France, touring battlefields, visiting
palaces and castles — with you, we dream.” In an
interview following the ceremony, President Chirac will
acknowledge the racism that had existed, saying that a
wrong is now righted with Alexandre Dumas enshrined
alongside fellow authors Victor Hugo and Voltaire.

1866 – Congress passes a law that African American regiments
should be part of the regular army, which results in the
organization of the 9th and 10th Cavalry.

1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
guaranteeing due process of law, is declared in effect.
which grants citizenship for African Americans and
provides for federal intervention when state governments
are accused of violating an individual’s constitutional
rights.

1903 – Maggie Lena Walker founds and becomes the first president
of the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank in Richmond,
Virginia. She will be elected at age seventeen to office
in the Independent Order of St. Luke, a Black burial
society. On this date, she will found the Saint Luke
Penny Savings Bank and becomes the first female bank
president in America. St. Luke Penny Savings Bank is
still in operation today as the Consolidated Bank and
Trust Company, the nation’s oldest continuously existing
African American bank.

1914 – Woodrow Wilson Woolwine Strode is born in Los Angeles,
California. An athlete turned actor, Strode will become a
top-notch decathlete and a football star at UCLA, breaking
the color barrier at the same time as Kenney Washington.
He will meet his wife, an Hawaiian princess and stand-in
for the swim sequences for Hedy Lamarr. Woody will play
for the Cleveland Rams prior to their move to Los Angeles.
He will become part of Hollywood lore after meeting
director John Ford and becoming a part of the Ford
“family”, appearing in almost a dozen Ford westerns.
Strode will also play the powerful gladiator who does
battle with Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus.” He will also be
a professional wrestler, wrestling the likes of Gorgeous
George. Woody will live in a modest home overlooking
Glendora and the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles
about 25 miles. He will join the ancestors on December 31,
1994.

1915 – United States forces invade Haiti and the country becomes
a defacto protectorate. U.S. troops will remain there
until 1924.

1917 – Led by W.E.B. Dubois and James Weldon Johnson, over 10,000
African Americans march down Fifth Avenue in New York City
to the sound of muffled drums in silent protest of
lynchings and other racial indignities that are rampant in
the United States.

1949 – Vida Blue is born in Mansfield, Louisiana. He will become a
Major League Baseball left-handed starting pitcher. In his
17-year career, he will play for the Oakland Athletics,
San Francisco Giants, and Kansas City Royals. He will have
a 24-8 record in 1971, striking out 301 batters, and will
win both the Cy Young and American League MVP awards. He
will be the starting pitcher for the American League in
the 1971 All-Star Game, and for the National League in the
1978 All-Star Game. He will win 20 games in 1973 as he
leads the A’s to the World Championship. He will win 22
games in 1975. In 1978, he will win 18 games as he leads
the Giants to 83 wins as they battle all year for the
National League West Division which is won that year by
the Los Angeles Dodgers. His great year is rewarded as he
won the Sporting News National League Pitcher Of The Year.
He will also make a name and career after baseball for
himself in the San Francisco Bay Area by donating his time
to many charitable causes, mostly promoting baseball in
the inner city.

1977 – Roy Wilkins turns over NAACP leadership to Benjamin L Hooks.

1985 – Lou Brock is inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame at
Cooperstown, New York.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 11 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 11 *

1865 – President Lincoln recommends suffrage for African American veterans
and African Americans who are “very intelligent.”

1881 – Spelman College is founded with $100 and eleven former slaves
determined to learn to read and write. It is opened as the Atlanta
Baptist Female Seminary. The two female founders, Sophia B. Packard
and Harriet E. Giles are appalled by the lack of educational
opportunities for African American women at the time. They will
return to Boston determined to get support to change that and earned
what will prove to be the lifelong support of John D. Rockefeller,
who considers Spelman to be one of his family’s finest investments.
The name Spelman is adopted later in honor of Mrs. Rockefeller’s
parents.

1933 – William Anthony “Tony” Brown is born in Charleston, West Virginia.
He will become well known as executive producer, host, and moderator
of the Emmy-winning television series “Black Journal.” In 1971 he
will establish and become the first dean of Howard University’s School
of Communications, a post he will hold until 1974. In 2002, he will
be inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and
Sciences’ Silver Circle. He will become the dean of Hampton
University’s Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications
in 2004 and hold that position until 2009, when he will step down.

1955 – Roy Wilkins is elected the NAACP’s executive secretary following
the ancestral ascension of Walter White.

1956 – Singer Nat “King” Cole is attacked on the stage of a Birmingham
theater by white supremacists.

1966 – Emmett Ashford becomes the first African American major league
umpire, working in the American League. He had been the first
African American professional umpire in the minor leagues in
1951.

1967 – Harlem voters defy Congress and re-elect Congressman Adam Clayton
Powell Jr. after he had been expelled by the legislative body.

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson signs what will become known as the
1968 Housing Act, which outlaws discrimination in the sale,
rental, or leasing of 80% of the housing in the United States.
Passed by the Senate and submitted by the House to Johnson in
the aftermath of the King assassination, the bill also protects
civil rights workers and makes it a federal crime to cross state
lines for the purpose of inciting a riot.

1972 – Benjamin L. Hooks, a Memphis lawyer and Baptist minister, becomes
the first African American to be named to the Federal Communications
Commission.

1979 – Idi Amin is deposed as president of Uganda. A combined force of
Tanzanian and Ugandan soldiers overthrew the dictator. Amin, who
attained power in 1971 after a coup against socialist-leaning
President Milton Obote, oversaw the killing of at least 100,000
people. It is believed that Idi Amin left Uganda to live in Saudi
Arabia.

1988 – Willie D. Burton becomes the first African American to win the
Oscar for sound when he receives the award for the movie “Bird.”

1997 – The Museum of African American History opens in Detroit. It will
become the largest of its kind in the world.

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

KRLemmons African American History

December 3 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – December 3 *

1841 – Abolitionist Charles Lenox Remond returns to the United
States after a year and a half in Great Britain. He
had been serving as a delegate to the world Anti-
Slavery Convention in London. He brings with him an
“Address from the People of Ireland” including 60,000
signatures urging Irish-Americans to “oppose slavery by
peaceful means and to insist upon liberty for all
regardless of color, creed, or country.”

1843 – The Society of Colored People in Baltimore, is the first
African American Catholic association whose
documentation has been preserved. Their notebook will
begin today and continue until September 7, 1845.

1847 – Frederick Douglass and Martin R. Delaney begin the
publication of “The North Star” newspaper, one of the
leading abolitionist newspapers of its day.

1864 – The Twenty-Fifth Corps, the largest all African American
unit in the history of the U.S. Army, is established by
General Order # 297 of the War Department, Adjutant
General’s Office. The Colored Troops of the Department
of Virginia and North Carolina were organized into the
Twenty-Fifth Corps under the command of Major General G.
Weitzel.

1866 – John Swett Rock, a Massachusetts lawyer and dentist joins
the ancestors. He had become the first African American
certified to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase appointed Dr. Rock to
present cases before the Supreme Court on December 31,
1865.

1868 – The trial of ex-Confederacy president, Jefferson Davis
starts, marking the first United States trial with
African Americans included in the jury.

1883 – The Forty-Eighth Congress (1883-85) convenes. Only Two
African Americans are included as representatives. They
are James E. O’Hara of North Carolina and Robert Smalls
of South Carolina.

1883 – George L. Ruffin is appointed a city judge in Boston,
Massachusetts.

1922 – Ralph Alexander Gardner-Chavis is born in Cleveland, Ohio.
He will become a pioneer chemist whose research into
plastics leads to the development of so-called “hard
plastics.” His innovations in the manipulation of
catalytic chemicals will lead to the products for the
petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries as well as
plastics.

1951 – President Truman names a committee to monitor compliance
with anti-discrimination provisions in U.S. government
contracts and sub-contracts.

1956 – Wilt Chamberlain plays in his first collegiate basketball
game and scores 52 points.

1962 – Edith Spurlock Sampson is sworn in as the first African
American woman judge.

1964 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to NAACP executive
secretary Roy Wilkins for his contribution to “the
advancement of the American people and the national
purpose.”

1964 – The Independence Bank of Chicago is organized.

1964 – J. Raymond Jones is elected leader of the New York
Democratic organization (Tammany Hall).

1970 – Jennifer Josephine Hosten become the first African
American Miss World.

1979 – An University of Southern California running back,
Charles White, is named the Heisman Trophy winner for
1979. White, who gained a career regular season total
of 5,598 yards, will play professionally for the Los
Angeles Rams.

1982 – Thomas Hearns unifies the world boxing titles in the
junior middleweight division by capturing the WBC title
over Wilfredo Benitez.

1988 – Barry Sanders wins the Heisman Trophy.

1988 – In South Africa, 11 black funeral mourners are slain in
Natal Province in an attack blamed on security forces.

1990 – “Black Art – Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in
African American Art” opens at the Dallas Museum of Art.
United States and Caribbean artists represented among
the more than 150 works include Richmond Barthe’, John
Biggers, Aaron Douglas, Malvin Gray Johnson, Sargent
Johnson, and Houston Conwill.

1997 – President Clinton hosts his first town hall meeting on
America’s race relations in Akron, Ohio.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 8 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 8 *

1866 – Charles Harrison Mason is born on the Prior Farm near
Memphis, Tennessee. He will be inspired by the
autobiography of evangelist Amanda Berry Smith in 1893.
He and Charles Price Jones will form a fellowship of
churches, named “Church of God.” He will rename the
group the “Church of God in Christ,” to distinguish the
group from the other “Church of God” forming around that
time. After attending the “Azusa Street Revival” in Los
Angeles, California, he will adopt the new Pentecostal
teachings of Elder William Seymour, such as ‘speaking in
tongues.’ After the opposition of Charles Jones in these
new beliefs, they will split and he will win the legal
rights to the “Church of God in Christ” name. He will be
elected General Overseer of the Church in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1907, later becoming the Senior Bishop (now
referred to as Presiding Bishop). He will lead the COGIC
group of churches until he joins the ancestors on November
17, 1961. At this time, the Church membership totals
around 400,000. Afterwards, the Church will grow
exponentially, until in 2000, it is estimated over 6
million people were members of the denomination.

1875 – The governor of Mississippi requests federal troops to
protect African American voters. Attorney General Edward
Pierrepont refuses the request and says “the whole
public are tired of these annual autumnal outbreaks in
the South…”

1925 – Ossian Sweet, a prominent Detroit doctor, is arrested on
murder charges after shots are fired into a mob in front
of the Sweet home in a previously all-white area. Sweet
is defended by Clarence Darrow, who won an acquittal in
the second trial.

1940 – Willie Tyler is born in Red Level, Alabama. He will
become a well known ventriloquist along with his wooden
partner, Lester.

1956 – Maurice Cheeks is born. He will become a professional
basketball player and will play guard for the New York
Knicks and the Philadelphia ’76ers.

1957 – Tennis champion, Althea Gibson, becomes the first
African American athlete to win a U.S. national tennis
championship.

1965 – Dorothy Dandridge, nominated for an Oscar for her
performance in “Carmen Jones,” joins the ancestors at
the age of 41 in Hollywood, California.

1968 – Black Panther Huey Newton is convicted of voluntary
manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an Oakland
policeman. He will later begin a 2 to l5-year jail
sentence.

1968 – Saundra Williams is crowned the first Miss Black America
in a contest held exclusively for African American
women in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

1973 – Hank Aaron sets the record for most Home Runs in 1
league (709).

1975 – The city of Boston begins court ordered citywide busing
of public schools amid scattered incidents of violence.

1981 – Roy Wilkins, longtime and second executive director of
the NAACP, joins the ancestors.

1990 – Marjorie Judith Vincent of Illinois is selected as Miss
America in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Haitian
native, a third-year law student at Duke University,
is the fourth woman of African descent to become Miss
America.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 30 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 30 *

1800 – Jack Bowler and Coachman Gabriel Prosser’s plans for a
slave revolt in Richmond, Virginia, are betrayed by a
pair of house slaves attempting to save their master.
Prosser’s plan, which involved over 1,100 slaves, would
have resulted in the death of all slave-owning whites,
but would have spared Quakers, Frenchmen, elderly women,
and children.

1838 – The first African American magazine “Mirror of Freedom”,
begins publication in New York City by abolitionist
David Ruggles.

1843 – The Liberty Party has the first African American
participation in a national political convention.
Samuel R. Ward leads the convention in prayer — Henry
Highland Garnet, a twenty-seven-year-old Presbyterian
pastor who calls for a slave revolt and a general slave
strike. Amos G. Beman of New Haven, Connecticut is
elected president of the convention.

1856 – Wilberforce University is established in Xenia, Ohio under
the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1863,
the university was transferred to the African Methodist
Episcopal (AME) Church.

1861 – General John C. Fremont issues an order confiscating the
property of Confederates and emancipating their slaves.
The order causes wide-spread protest and is revoked by
President Lincoln.

1892 – S. R. Scottron patents a curtain rod.

1901 – Roy Wilkins is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will become
a civil rights leader, assistant executive secretary of
the NAACP under Walter White and editor of the Crisis
Magazine for 15 years. He will become Executive Secretary
of the NAACP in 1955, a post he will hold for 22 years.
During his tenure, he will be a champion of civil rights
committed to using constitutional arguments to help obtain
full citizenship rights for all African Americans.

1931 – Carrie Saxon Perry is born in Hartford, Connecticut. In
1987, she will be elected mayor of Hartford, becoming the
first African American mayor of a major eastern United
States city.

1953 – Robert Parish is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He will
become a professional basketballplayer. Playing 14 years
with the Boston Celtics from 1980 to 1994, he will win
three NBA titles (1981, 1984 and 1986) teaming with
legendary small forward Larry Bird, and, from 1983 to 1992
with Kevin McHale. The trio will be regarded by many as the
best frontcourt in NBA history.

1956 – A white mob prevents the enrollment of blacks at Mansfield
High School in Texas.

1961 – James Benton Parsons is confirmed as the first African
American judge of a United States District Court in the
continental United States (Northern Illinois). He had
been appointed by President John F. Kennedy on April 18,
1961.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African
American justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He had been
appointed by President Lyndon Johnson on June 13, 1967.

1969 – Racially motivated civil disturbances occur in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida.

1983 – Lt. Colonel Guion S. Bluford is the first African American
in space when he serves as a mission specialist on the
Challenger space shuttle. The space shuttle, launched
from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, stayed in orbit
almost six days. This was the Challenger’s third flight
into space.

1987 – Ben Johnson of Canada runs 100 meters in world record time
of 9.83 seconds.

1990 – Ken Griffey & Ken Griffey, Jr. become the first father &
son to play on the same professional sports team (Seattle
Mariners). Both single in the first inning.

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