* Today in Black History – December 30 *
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* The Nguzo Saba – The seven principles of Kwanzaa – Principle for *
* Day #5 – Nia (nee-AH) Purpose: To make as our collective vocation *
* the building and developing of our community in order to restore *
* our people to their traditional greatness. *
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1842 – Josiah T. Walls is born near Winchester, Virginia. He will
become, in 1871, Florida’s first African American congressman.
1892 – Physician, Dr. Miles V. Lynk, publishes the first African
American medical journal.
1916 – Frederick Douglass “Fritz” Pollard, of Brown University, becomes
the first African American running back named to the All-
American team.
1928 – Ellas Otha Bates McDaniel is born in Magnolia, Mississippi. Better
known as Bo Diddley, he will influence a generation of musicians
including such groups as the Rolling Stones and the Doors. A
favorite of President John F. Kennedy, who invited Diddley to
play in the White House in 1962, he will be inducted into the
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He will join the ancestors
on June 2, 2008.
1929 – The Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority is incorporated.
1929 – The “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign begins in Chicago
with picketing of Chain stores on the South Side. The campaign
spread to New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and other cities and
continued throughout the Depression.
1929 – Mordecai W. Johnson receives the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal for his
work as the first African American president of Howard
University.
1935 – Marian Anderson makes a historic appearance in New York City’s
Town Hall. Fresh from a triumphant tour in Europe, Anderson
will be hailed by New York critics as one of the “great singers
of our time.” Her performance will mark a new era in the
Philadelphian’s long and successful career. Her performance is
described by Howard Taubman, the New York Times reviewer, as
“music-making that probed too deep for words.”
1952 – Tuskegee Institute reports there were no lynchings during the
year for the first time in the 71 years it has been keeping such
records.
1960 – Poet Langston Hughes is presented the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal and
cited as “the poet laureate of the Negro race.”
1960 – Two U.S. courts issues temporary injunctions to prevent eviction
of about seven hundred African American sharecroppers in Haywood
and Fayette counties, Tennessee.
1961 – Ben Johnson is born in Falmouth, Jamaica. He will become a world
class 100 meter runner. He win the Olympic gold medal in 1988
and will be later disqualified for using steroids.
1975 – The constitution of the Democratic Republic of Madagascar comes
into effect.
1975 – Eldrick ‘Tiger’ Woods is born in Cypress, California. He will
become the first African American or Asian American to win the
Masters Golf tournament. He will accomplish this feat in his
first year on the PGA tour at the age of 21 also making him the
youngest person to win the Masters tournament.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 