KRLemmons African American History

April 15 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 15 *

1861 – President Lincoln calls for 75,000 troops to put down
the rebellion. The Lincoln administration rejects
African American volunteers. For almost two years
straight African Americans fight for the right, as one
humorist puts it, “to be kilt”.

1889 – Asa Philip Randolph is born in Crescent Way, Florida.
He will become a labor leader and a tireless fighter for
civil rights. He will organize and lead the Brotherhood
of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African
American labor union (organized in 1925). In the early
Civil Rights Movement, he will lead the March on
Washington Movement, which will convince President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 8802 in
1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries
during World War II. The group will then successfully
pressure President Harry S. Truman to issue Executive
Order 9981 in 1948, ending segregation in the armed
services. In 1963, he will be the head of the March on
Washington, organized by Bayard Rustin, at which Reverend
Martin Luther King, Jr. delivers his “I Have A Dream”
speech. He will inspire the Freedom budget, sometimes
called the “Randolph Freedom budget”, which will aim to
deal with the economic problems facing the black community.
In 1942, he will receive the NAACP Spingarn Medal. On
September 14, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson will
present him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He will
join the ancestors on May 16, 1979. He will be named
posthumously to the Florida Civil Rights Hall of Fame in
January, 2014.

1919 – Elizabeth Catlett (later Mora) is born in Washington, DC.
In 1940, she will become the first student to receive an
M.F.A. in sculpture at the University of Iowa School of
Art and Art History. While there, she will be influenced
by American landscape painter Grant Wood, who will urge
students to work with the subjects they knew best. For
her, this will mean black people, and especially black
women, and it will be at this point that her work begins
to focus on African Americans. Her piece ‘Mother and
Child,’ done in limestone in 1939 for her thesis, will
win first prize in sculpture at the American Negro
Exposition in Chicago in 1940. In 1946, she will receive
a Rosenwald Fund Fellowship that allows her to travel to
Mexico where she will study wood carving with Jose L.
Ruiz and ceramic sculpture with Francisco Zúñiga, at the
Escuela de Pintura y Escultura, Esmeralda, Mexico. She
will later emigrate to Mexico, marry, and become a
Mexican citizen. She will become an internationally
known printmaker and sculptor and embrace both African
and Mexican influences in her art. She will be best
known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and
prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which
will be seen as politically charged. She will join the
ancestors on April 2, 2012 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

1922 – Harold Washington is born in Chicago, Illinois. He will
serve in the Illinois House of Representatives and
Senate as well as two terms in Congress before becoming
the first African American mayor of Chicago. He will
join the ancestors after suffering a massive heart
attack on November 25, 1987 after being re-elected to a
second term as mayor.

1928 – Pioneering architect Norma Merrick (later Sklarek) is
born in New York City. She become one of the first black
women to be licensed as an architect in the United States,
and the first to be licensed in the states of New York
(1954) and California (1962). She will also become the
first African American woman to become a fellow in the
American Institute of Architects (1980). In 1985, she will
become the first African American female architect to form
her own architectural firm: Siegel, Sklarek, Diamond,
which will be the largest woman-owned and mostly woman-
staffed architectural firm in the United States. Among her
designs will be the San Bernardino City Hall in San
Bernardino, California, the Fox Plaza in San Francisco,
Terminal One at the Los Angeles International Airport and
the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo, Japan. Howard
University will offer the Norma Merrick Sklarek
Architectural Scholarship Award in her honor. She will join
the ancestors on February 6, 2012.

1947 – Baseball player Jackie Robinson plays his first major-
league baseball game (he had played exhibition games
previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the
first African American in the major leagues since Moses
Fleetwood Walker played in 1885. The Brooklyn Dodgers
promoted him to the majors from the Montreal Royals.

1957 – Evelyn Ashford is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. She
will grow up in Roseville, California becoming a track
star specializing in sprinting. She will be a four-
time winner of Olympic gold medals and one silver in
1976, 1984, 1988, and 1992. In 1979, she will set a
world record in the 200-meter dash. In 1989 she will
receive the Flo Hyman Award from the Woman’s Sports
Foundation. In 1992, the U.S. Olympic team will ask her
to carry the flag during the opening ceremonies in the
Barcelona Olympics. She will retire from track and
field in 1993 at the age of 36.

1958 – African Freedom Day is declared at the All-African
People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana.

1960 – The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is
formed on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh,
North Carolina.

1985 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the World Middleweight
title. This is one of five weight classes in which he
will win a boxing title making him the first African
American to win boxing titles in five different weight
classes.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 2 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – March 2 *

1807 – “The importation of slaves into the United States or the
territories thereof” after January 1, 1808 is banned by
Congress. Although abolitionists will hail the ban, it will
not significantly affect the U.S. supply of slaves. Illegal
importation will continue through Florida and Texas. The law
also has no provision to restrict the internal slave trade,
and the reproduction rate of American slaves is high enough
to allow an active trade. Therefore the domestic slave trade
continues to prosper after 1808.

1867 – Howard University is chartered by Congress in Washington, DC.
Also founded or chartered are Talladega College in Talledega,
Alabama, Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland, Johnson
C. Smith College in Charlotte, North Carolina, and St.
Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1867 – The first of a succession of Reconstruction acts is passed by
Congress. The acts divide the former Confederate states into
five military districts under the command of army generals.

1867 – African Americans vote in municipal election in Alexandria,
Virginia, for perhaps the first time in the South. The
election commissioners refuse to count the fourteen hundred
votes and military officials suspend local elections pending
clarification of the status of the freedmen.

1867 – Elections are ordered for constitutional conventions and
freedmen are enfranchised. Commanders in some states change
the status of African Americans by military orders. Major
General E.R.S. Canby opens the jury box to African Americans.
African Americans are named policemen in Mobile, Alabama.

1885 – George W. Williams, minister, lawyer and historian, is named
minister to Haiti. The appointment is vacated by the new
administration.

1896 – In the battle of Aduwa, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) defeats the
troops of the invading Italians.

1919 – Claude A. Barnett establishes the Associated Negro Press (ANP),
the first national news service for African American
newspapers. The goal of the ANP is to provide national news
releases to African American publishers. The ANP will operate
for the next 48 years and have, at one time, 95% of all
African American newspapers as subscribers.

1921 – Harry Pace establishes Pace Phonograph Corporation to produce
records on the Black Swan label. It is the first African
American owned and operated record company and will record
blues, jazz, spirituals, and operatic arias.

1938 – Operatic baritone, Simon Estes is born in Centerville, Iowa.
He will be noted for his leading roles in Wagnerian operas
and will sing at the opening of the 1972 Summer Olympic
Games in Munich, Germany. He will enjoy the acclaim of
audiences and critics around the globe. Since his debut
with the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1965, he will perform with
major international opera companies including the
Metropolitan Opera, New York; Lyric Opera, Chicago; San
Francisco Opera; La Scala Milan; Deutsche Opera, Berlin;
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; The Washington Opera;
L’Opéra de Paris; Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona; the
States Operas of Hamburg, Munich, Vienna and Zurich and at
the Bayreuth, Salzburg and Glyndebourne Festivals. A noted
recitalist and orchestra soloist as well, he will sing with
the world’s leading orchestras. His love and concern for
youth is manifested in the four scholarship organizations
that bear his name; The Simon Estes Scholarship Fund at the
University of Iowa; The Simon and Westella H. Estes
Scholarship Fund at Centerville Community College, Centerville,
Iowa; The Simon Estes Iowa Arts Scholarship and The Simon Estes
Educational Foundation, Inc. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This latter
Foundation being the most broad-based will spawn the formation
of The Simon Estes International Foundation, Inc., Zurich,
Switzerland in 1984 and The Simon Estes Foundation, Cape Town,
South Africa in 1996. Restricted music scholarships are offered
in his name at Centerville Community College, the University of
Iowa and through the Simon Estes Iowa Arts Scholarship Fund.

1957 – Mark Dean is born in Jefferson City, Tennessee. He will
receive a BSEE degree from the University of Tennessee in
1979, a MSEE degree from Florida Atlantic University in
1982, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford
University in 1992. He will become an engineer for the IBM
Corporation. During his career with IBM, he will hold
several engineering positions in the area of computer
system hardware architecture and design. He will work on
establishing the strategy, architecture, design and
business plan for proposed video server offerings and
studyd the technology and business opportunity for settop
boxes. He will also be chief engineer for the development
of the IBM PC/AT, ISA systems bus, PS/2 Model 70 & 80, the
Color Graphics Adapter and numerous other subsystems. He
will become an IBM Fellow and Vice President of Systems in
IBM Research. He will be responsible for the research and
application of systems technologies spanning circuits to
operating environments. Key technologies in his research
team will include cellular systems structures (Blue Gene),
digital visualization, DA tools, Linux optimizations for
Pervasive, SMPs & Clusters, Settop Box integration, MXT,
S/390 & PowerPC processors, super dense servers, formal
verification methods and high speed low power circuits.
His awards will include induction as a member of the
National Academy of Engineering, the Black Engineer of the
Year Award, the NSBE Distinguished Engineer award, the
Black Engineer of the Year President’s Award, induction
into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in Akron, OH and
recipient of the Ronald H. Brown American Innovators Award
in Washington, DC. He will be appointed to IBM Fellow in
1995, IBM’s highest technical honor. Only 50 out of
310,000 IBM employees have the level of IBM Fellow. He will
also be a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, serving
on the Technology Council Board. He will receive several
academic and IBM awards, including thirteen Invention
Achievement Awards and six Corporate Awards. He will also
have more than 30 patents or patents pending.

1961 – 180 African American students and a white minister are arrested
in Columbia, South Carolina after anti-segregation march.

1962 – Philadelphia 76er Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in an NBA
game against the New York Knicks. It is a feat Chamberlain
will repeat but one which has not been equaled by another NBA
player to date.

1963 – Suzette DeGaetano is born in Mays Landing, New Jersey. As
Suzette Charles, she will represent New Jersey in the 1984
Miss America competition. She will win the preliminary talent
competition but will finish as first runner-up to Vanessa Lynn
Williams. When Williams is asked to resign her crown after
nude photographs of her came to light, Charles will be
declared to be the second Miss America for 1984, making her
the second African American Miss America after Williams.

1980 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the vacant USBA Welterweight
title. This is one of five weight classes in which he wins
a boxing title, making him the first African American to win
boxing titles in five different weight classes.

1986 – Sidney Barthelemy is elected mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana,
succeeding Ernest Morial as the second African American mayor
of the city.

1988 – J. Saunders Redding, author, joins the ancestors in Ithaca,
New York at the age of 81.

1990 – Carole Gist, of Detroit, Michigan, is crowned Miss USA. She
becomes the first African American to win the title.

2003 – Hank Ballard, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, joins the
ancestors after succumbing to throat cancer in Los Angeles,
California. He wrote “The Twist” and other hits.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 15 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – September 15 *

1830 – The first National Negro Convention begins in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

1876 – White terrorists attack Republicans in Ellenton, South
Carolina. Two whites and thirty-nine African Americans are
killed.

1890 – Claude McKay is born in Sunnyville, Jamaica. Emigrating to
the United States in 1912, he will be come a poet and
winner of the 1928 Harmon Gold Medal Award for Literature.
Author of the influential poetry collection “Harlem
Shadows”, he will also be famous for the poems “The
Lynching,” “White Houses,” and “If We Must Die,” which
will be used by Winston Churchill as a rallying cry during
World War II. He will join the ancestors on May 22, 1948.

1898 – The National Afro-American Council is founded in Rochester,
New York. Bishop Alexander Walters of the AME Zion Church
is elected president. The organization proposes a program
of assertion and protest.

1915 – Julius “Nipsey” Russell is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He
will become a comedian and actor. He will star in “Car 54
Where Are You?” (the movie), “Barefoot in the Park,”
“Masquerade Party, and Varsity Blues.” He will also be a
panelist on “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares.” He will
join the ancestors on October 2, 2005.

1923 – The governor of Oklahoma declares that Oklahoma is in a
“state of virtual rebellion and insurrection” because of
Ku Klux Klan activities. Martial law is declared.

1924 – Robert Waltrip “Bobby” Short is born in Danville, Illinois. He
will become a singer and pianist. In 1968, he will be offered
a two-week stint at the Café Carlyle in New York City, to
fill in for George Feyer. He (accompanied by Beverly Peer on
bass and Dick Sheridan on drums) will become an institution at
the Carlyle, as Feyer had been before him, and will remain
there as a featured performer for over 35 years. In 2000, The
Library of Congress will designate him a Living Legend, a
recognition established as part of its bicentennial
celebration. He will join the ancestors on March 21, 2005.

1928 – Julian Edwin Adderly is born in Tampa, Florida. He will be
best known as “Cannonball” Adderly, a jazz saxophonist who
will play with Miles Davis as well as lead his own band
with brother Nat Adderly and musicians such as Yusef
Lateef and George Duke. Songs made famous by him and his bands
include “This Here” (written by Bobby Timmons), “The Jive
Samba,” “Work Song” (written by Nat Adderley), “Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy” (written by Joe Zawinul) and “Walk Tall” (written by
Zawinul, Marrow and Rein). He will join the ancestors on August
8, 1975. Later that year, he will be inducted into the Down Beat
Jazz Hall of Fame.

1943 – Actor and activist Paul Robeson acts in the 296th
performance of “Othello” at the Shubert Theatre in New
York City.

1963 – Four African American schoolgirls – Addie Collins, Denise
McNair, Carol Robertson and Cynthia Wesley – join the ancestors
after being killed in a bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It is an act of violence that
will galvanize the civil rights movement.

1964 – Rev. K.L. Buford and Dr. Stanley Smith are elected to the
Tuskegee City Council and become the first African
American elected officials in Alabama in the twentieth
century.

1969 – Large-scale racially motivated disturbances are reported
in Hartford, Connecticut. Five hundred persons are
arrested and scores are injured.

1978 – Muhammad Ali wins the world heavyweight boxing championship
for a record third time by defeating Leon Spinks in New
Orleans, Louisiana.

1987 – Boxer, Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns, becomes the first African
American to win boxing titles in five different weight
classes.

1991 – San Diego State freshman, Marshall Faulk, sets the NCAA
single game rushing record of 386 yards.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 2 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 2 *

1847 – William A. Leidesdorff, born in the Danish West Indies to
a Danish father and a Black native mother, opens the first
commercial steamship service on San Francisco Bay.

1920 – Marcus Garvey presents his “Back To Africa” program in New
York City.

1924 – James Arthur Baldwin is born in New York City. He will
become one of the most prolific and influential African
American authors of fiction. His essays, such as
the collection “Notes of a Native Son” (1955), explore
palpable yet unspoken intricacies of racial, sexual, and
class distinctions in Western societies, most notably in
mid-20th-century America, and their inevitable if unnameable
tensions with personal identity, assumptions, uncertainties,
yearning, and questing. Some of his essays are book-length,
for instance “The Fire Next Time” (1963), “No Name in the
Street” (1972), and “The Devil Finds Work” (1976). His
novels and plays fictionalize fundamental personal questions
and dilemmas amid complex social and psychological pressures
thwarting the equitable integration of not only blacks, but
also gay men — depicting as well some internalized
impediments to such individuals’ quest for acceptance —
namely in his second novel, “Giovanni’s Room” (1956),
written well before gay equality was widely espoused in
America. His best-known novel is his first, “Go Tell It on
the Mountain” (1953). In 1948, disillusioned by American
prejudice against blacks and gays, He will leave the United
States and depart for Paris, France. He will live as an
expatriate in France for most of his later life. He will
also spend some time in Switzerland and Turkey. He will
join the ancestors on December 1, 1987.

1945 – Jewell Jackson (later McCabe) is born in Washington, DC.
She will become president of the Coalition of 100 Black
Women, whose mission is to develop a forum for African
American women leaders.

1951 – While manning his machine gun during a surprise attack on
his platoon, private first class William Henry Thompson of
Company M, Twenty-fourth Infantry Regiment, becomes the
first African American to earn the Congressional Medal of
Honor in the Korean conflict.

1964 – A racially motivated disturbance begins in Jersey City, New
Jersey.

1966 – The Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School, later
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, is
chartered in Los Angeles, California. It is the only
African American-focused medical school west of the
Mississippi.

1967 – “In the Heat of the Night”, starring Sidney Portier and Rod
Steiger, premieres.

1967 – Claude A. Barnett, who founded the Associated Negro Press,
joins the ancestors at the age of 78.

1980 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the WBA Welterweight title.
This is one of five weight classes in which he wins a
boxing title, making him the first African American to win
boxing titles in five different weight classes.

1982 – Jackie Robinson, the first African American to break the
color barrier in major league baseball, is honored by a
commemorative stamp issued by the Postal Service, the
fifth in its Black Heritage USA series.

1986 – Jackie Joyner-Kersee (United States) sets record for the
heptathlon (7161 pts).

______________________________________________________________
Munirah Chronicle is edited by Rene’ A. Perry

KRLemmons African American History

April 15 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – April 15 *

1861 – President Lincoln calls for 75,000 troops to put down
the rebellion. The Lincoln administration rejects
African American volunteers. For almost two years
straight African Americans fight for the right, as one
humorist puts it, “to be kilt”.

1889 – Asa Philip Randolph is born in Crescent Way, Florida.
He will become a labor leader, the organizer of the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, and a
tireless fighter for civil rights. He will join the
ancestors in 1979.

1919 – Elizabeth Catlett (later Mora) is born in Washington,
        DC. In 1940, she will become the first student to receive
        an M.F.A. in sculpture at the University of Iowa School of
        Art and Art History. While there, she will be influenced by
American landscape painter Grant Wood, who will urge
students to work with the subjects they knew best. For
her, this will mean black people, and especially black
women, and it will be at this point that her work begins
to focus on African Americans. Her piece ‘Mother and
Child,’ done in limestone in 1939 for her thesis, will
win first prize in sculpture at the American Negro
Exposition in Chicago in 1940. In 1946, she will receive
a Rosenwald Fund Fellowship that allows her to travel to
Mexico where she will study wood carving with Jose L.
Ruiz and ceramic sculpture with Francisco Zúñiga, at the
Escuela de Pintura y Escultura, Esmeralda, Mexico. She
will later emigrate to Mexico, marry, and become a
Mexican citizen. She will become an internationally
known printmaker and sculptor and embrace both African
and Mexican influences in her art. She will be best
known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and
prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which
will be seen as politically charged. She will join the
ancestors on April 2, 2012 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.

1922 – Harold Washington is born in Chicago, Illinois. He will
serve in the Illinois House of Representatives and
Senate as well as two terms in Congress before becoming
the first African American mayor of Chicago. He will
join the ancestors after suffering a massive heart
attack on November 25, 1987 after being re-elected to a
second term as mayor.

1928 – Pioneering architect Norma Merrick (later Sklarek) is
born in New York City. She become one of the first black
women to be licensed as an architect in the United States,
and the first to be licensed in the states of New York
(1954) and California (1962). She will also become the
first African American woman to become a fellow in the
American Institute of Architects (1980). In 1985, she will
become the first African American female architect to form
her own architectural firm: Siegel, Sklarek, Diamond,
which will be the largest woman-owned and mostly woman-
staffed architectural firm in the United States. Among her
designs will be the San Bernardino City Hall in San
Bernardino, California, the Fox Plaza in San Francisco,
Terminal One at the Los Angeles International Airport and
the Embassy of the United States in Tokyo, Japan. Howard
University will offer the Norma Merrick Sklarek
Architectural Scholarship Award in her honor. She will join
the ancestors on February 6, 2012.

1947 – Baseball player Jackie Robinson plays his first major-
league baseball game (he had played exhibition games
previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the
first African American in the major leagues since Moses
Fleetwood Walker played in 1885. The Brooklyn Dodgers
promoted him to the majors from the Montreal Royals.

1957 – Evelyn Ashford is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. She
will grow up in Roseville, California becoming a track
star specializing in sprinting. She will be a four-
time winner of Olympic gold medals and one silver in
1976, 1984, 1988, and 1992. In 1979, she will set a
world record in the 200-meter dash. In 1989 she will
receive the Flo Hyman Award from the Woman’s Sports
Foundation. In 1992, the U.S. Olympic team will ask her
to carry the flag during the opening ceremonies in the
Barcelona Olympics. She will retire from track and
field in 1993 at the age of 36.

1958 – African Freedom Day is declared at the All-African
People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana.

1960 – The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is
formed on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh,
North Carolina.

1985 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the World Middleweight
title. This is one of five weight classes in which he
will win a boxing title making him the first African
American to win boxing titles in five different weight
classes.
          

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 2 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – March 2 *

1807 – “The importation of slaves into the United States or the
territories thereof” after January 1, 1808 is banned by
Congress. Although abolitionists will hail the ban, it will
not significantly affect the U.S. supply of slaves. Illegal
importation will continue through Florida and Texas. The law
also has no provision to restrict the internal slave trade,
and the reproduction rate of American slaves is high enough
to allow an active trade. Therefore the domestic slave trade
continues to prosper after 1808.

1867 – Howard University is chartered by Congress in Washington, DC.
Also founded or chartered are Talladega College in Talledega,
Alabama, Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland, Johnson
C. Smith College in Charlotte, North Carolina, and St.
Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1867 – The first of a succession of Reconstruction acts is passed by
Congress. The acts divide the former Confederate states into
five military districts under the command of army generals.

1867 – African Americans vote in municipal election in Alexandria,
Virginia, for perhaps the first time in the South. The
election commissioners refuse to count the fourteen hundred
votes and military officials suspend local elections pending
clarification of the status of the freedmen.

1867 – Elections are ordered for constitutional conventions and
freedmen are enfranchised. Commanders in some states change
the status of African Americans by military orders. Major
General E.R.S. Canby opens the jury box to African Americans.
African Americans are named policemen in Mobile, Alabama.

1885 – George W. Williams, minister, lawyer and historian, is named
minister to Haiti. The appointment is vacated by the new
administration.

1896 – In the battle of Aduwa, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) defeats the
troops of the invading Italians.

1919 – Claude A. Barnett establishes the Associated Negro Press (ANP),
the first national news service for African American
newspapers. The goal of the ANP is to provide national news
releases to African American publishers. The ANP will operate
for the next 48 years and have, at one time, 95% of all
African American newspapers as subscribers.

1921 – Harry Pace establishes Pace Phonograph Corporation to produce
records on the Black Swan label. It is the first African
American owned and operated record company and will record
blues, jazz, spirituals, and operatic arias.

1957 – Mark Dean is born in Jefferson City, Tennessee. He will
receive a BSEE degree from the University of Tennessee in
1979, a MSEE degree from Florida Atlantic University in
1982, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford
University in 1992. He will become an engineer for the IBM
Corporation. During his career with IBM, he will hold
several engineering positions in the area of computer
system hardware architecture and design. He will work on
establishing the strategy, architecture, design and
business plan for proposed video server offerings and
studyd the technology and business opportunity for settop
boxes. He will also be chief engineer for the development
of the IBM PC/AT, ISA systems bus, PS/2 Model 70 & 80, the
Color Graphics Adapter and numerous other subsystems. He
will become an IBM Fellow and Vice President of Systems in
IBM Research. He will be responsible for the research and
application of systems technologies spanning circuits to
operating environments. Key technologies in his research
team will include cellular systems structures (Blue Gene),
digital visualization, DA tools, Linux optimizations for
Pervasive, SMPs & Clusters, Settop Box integration, MXT,
S/390 & PowerPC processors, super dense servers, formal
verification methods and high speed low power circuits.
His awards will include induction as a member of the
National Academy of Engineering, the Black Engineer of the
Year Award, the NSBE Distinguished Engineer award, the
Black Engineer of the Year President’s Award, induction
into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in Akron, OH and
recipient of the Ronald H. Brown American Innovators Award
in Washington, DC. He will be appointed to IBM Fellow in
1995, IBM’s highest technical honor. Only 50 out of
310,000 IBM employees have the level of IBM Fellow. He will
also be a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, serving
on the Technology Council Board. He will receive several
academic and IBM awards, including thirteen Invention
Achievement Awards and six Corporate Awards. He will also
have more than 30 patents or patents pending.

1961 – 180 African American students and a white minister are arrested
in Columbia, South Carolina after anti-segregation march.

1962 – Philadelphia 76er Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in an NBA
game against the New York Knicks. It is a feat Chamberlain
will repeat but one which has not been equaled by another NBA
player to date.

1963 – Suzette DeGaetano is born in Mays Landing, New Jersey. As
Suzette Charles, she will represent New Jersey in the 1984
Miss America competition. She will win the preliminary talent
competition but will finish as first runner-up to Vanessa Lynn
Williams. When Williams is asked to resign her crown after
nude photographs of her came to light, Charles will be
declared to be the second Miss America for 1984, making her
the second African American Miss America after Williams.

1980 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the vacant USBA Welterweight
title. This is one of five weight classes in which he wins
a boxing title, making him the first African American to win
boxing titles in five different weight classes.

1986 – Sidney Barthelemy is elected mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana,
succeeding Ernest Morial as the second African American mayor
of the city.

1988 – J. Saunders Redding, author, joins the ancestors in Ithaca,
New York at the age of 81.

1990 – Carole Gist, of Detroit, Michigan, is crowned Miss USA. She
becomes the first African American to win the title.

2003 – Hank Ballard, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, joins the
ancestors after succumbing to throat cancer in Los Angeles,
California. He wrote “The Twist” and other hits.

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

KRLemmons African American History

September 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – September 15 *

1830 – The first National Negro Convention begins in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

1876 – White terrorists attack Republicans in Ellenton, South
Carolina. Two whites and thirty-nine African Americans are
killed.

1890 – Claude McKay is born in Sunnyville, Jamaica. Emigrating to
the United States in 1912, he will be come a poet and
winner of the 1928 Harmon Gold Medal Award for Literature.
Author of the influential poetry collection “Harlem
Shadows”, he will also be famous for the poems “The
Lynching,” “White Houses,” and “If We Must Die,” which
will be used by Winston Churchill as a rallying cry during
World War II. He will join the ancestors on May 22, 1948.

1898 – The National Afro-American Council is founded in Rochester,
New York. Bishop Alexander Walters of the AME Zion Church
is elected president. The organization proposes a program
of assertion and protest.

1915 – Julius “Nipsey” Russell is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He
will become a comedian and actor. He will star in “Car 54
Where Are You?” (the movie), “Barefoot in the Park,”
“Masquerade Party, and Varsity Blues.” He will also be a
panelist on “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares.” He will
join the ancestors on October 2, 2005.

1923 – The governor of Oklahoma declares that Oklahoma is in a
“state of virtual rebellion and insurrection” because of
Ku Klux Klan activities. Martial law is declared.

1924 – Robert Waltrip “Bobby” Short is born in Danville, Illinois. He
will become a singer and pianist. In 1968, he will be offered
a two-week stint at the Café Carlyle in New York City, to
fill in for George Feyer. He (accompanied by Beverly Peer on
bass and Dick Sheridan on drums) will become an institution at
the Carlyle, as Feyer had been before him, and will remain
there as a featured performer for over 35 years. In 2000, The
Library of Congress will designate him a Living Legend, a
recognition established as part of its bicentennial
celebration. He will join the ancestors on March 21, 2005.

1928 – Julian Edwin Adderly is born in Tampa, Florida. He will be
best known as “Cannonball” Adderly, a jazz saxophonist who
will play with Miles Davis as well as lead his own band
with brother Nat Adderly and musicians such as Yusef
Lateef and George Duke. Songs made famous by him and his bands
include “This Here” (written by Bobby Timmons), “The Jive
Samba,” “Work Song” (written by Nat Adderley), “Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy” (written by Joe Zawinul) and “Walk Tall” (written by
Zawinul, Marrow and Rein). He will join the ancestors on August
8, 1975. Later that year, he will be inducted into the Down Beat
Jazz Hall of Fame.

1943 – Actor and activist Paul Robeson acts in the 296th
performance of “Othello” at the Shubert Theatre in New
York City.

1963 – Four African American schoolgirls – Addie Collins, Denise
McNair, Carol Robertson and Cynthia Wesley – join the ancestors
after being killed in a bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It is an act of violence that
will galvanize the civil rights movement.

1964 – Rev. K.L. Buford and Dr. Stanley Smith are elected to the
Tuskegee City Council and become the first African
American elected officials in Alabama in the twentieth
century.

1969 – Large-scale racially motivated disturbances are reported
in Hartford, Connecticut. Five hundred persons are
arrested and scores are injured.

1978 – Muhammad Ali wins the world heavyweight boxing championship
for a record third time by defeating Leon Spinks in New
Orleans, Louisiana.

1987 – Boxer, Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns, becomes the first African
American to win boxing titles in five different weight
classes.

1991 – San Diego State freshman, Marshall Faulk, sets the NCAA
single game rushing record of 386 yards.

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

KRLemmons African American History

April 15 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – April 15 *

1861 – President Lincoln calls for 75,000 troops to put down
the rebellion. The Lincoln administration rejects
African American volunteers. For almost two years
straight African Americans fight for the right, as one
humorist puts it, “to be kilt”.

1889 – Asa Philip Randolph is born in Crescent Way, Florida.
He will become a labor leader, the organizer of the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925, and a
tireless fighter for civil rights. He will join the
ancestors in 1979.

1919 – Elizabeth Catlett is born in Washington, DC. She will
become an internationally known printmaker and sculptor
who will emigrate to Mexico and embrace both African
and Mexican influences in her art.

1922 – Harold Washington is born in Chicago, Illinois. He will
serve in the Illinois House of Representatives and
Senate as well as two terms in Congress before becoming
the first African American mayor of Chicago. He will
join the ancestors after suffering a massive heart
attack on November 25, 1987 after being re-elected to a
second term as mayor.

1928 – Pioneering architect Norma Merrick (later Sklarek) is
born in New York City. Sklarek will be the first
licensed woman architect in the United States and the
first African American woman to become a fellow in the
American Institute of Architects (1980).

1947 – Baseball player Jackie Robinson plays his first major-
league baseball game (he had played exhibition games
previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the
first African American in the major leagues since Moses
Fleetwood Walker played in 1885. The Brooklyn Dodgers
promoted him to the majors from the Montreal Royals.

1957 – Evelyn Ashford is born in Shreveport, Louisiana. She
will grow up in Roseville, California becoming a track
star specializing in sprinting. She will be a four-
time winner of Olympic gold medals and one silver in
1976, 1984, 1988, and 1992. In 1979, she will set a
world record in the 200-meter dash. In 1989 she will
receive the Flo Hyman Award from the Woman’s Sports
Foundation. In 1992, the U.S. Olympic team will ask her
to carry the flag during the opening ceremonies in the
Barcelona Olympics. She will retire from track and
field in 1993 at the age of 36.

1958 – African Freedom Day is declared at the All-African
People’s Conference in Accra, Ghana.

1960 – The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is
formed on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh,
North Carolina.

1985 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the World Middleweight
title. This is one of five weight classes in which he
will win a boxing title making him the first African
American to win boxing titles in five different weight
classes.

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

KRLemmons African American History

March 2 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – March 2 *

1807 – “The importation of slaves into the United States or the
territories thereof” after January 1, 1808 is banned by
Congress. Although abolitionists will hail the ban, it will
not significantly affect the U.S. supply of slaves. Illegal
importation will continue through Florida and Texas. The law
also has no provision to restrict the internal slave trade,
and the reproduction rate of American slaves is high enough
to allow an active trade. Therefore the domestic slave trade
continues to prosper after 1808.

1867 – Howard University is chartered by Congress in Washington, DC.
Also founded or chartered are Talladega College in Talledega,
Alabama, Morgan State College in Baltimore, Maryland, Johnson
C. Smith College in Charlotte, North Carolina, and St.
Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1867 – The first of a succession of Reconstruction acts is passed by
Congress. The acts divide the former Confederate states into
five military districts under the command of army generals.

1867 – African Americans vote in municipal election in Alexandria,
Virginia, for perhaps the first time in the South. The
election commissioners refuse to count the fourteen hundred
votes and military officials suspend local elections pending
clarification of the status of the freedmen.

1867 – Elections are ordered for constitutional conventions and
freedmen are enfranchised. Commanders in some states change
the status of African Americans by military orders. Major
General E.R.S. Canby opens the jury box to African Americans.
African Americans are named policemen in Mobile, Alabama.

1885 – George W. Williams, minister, lawyer and historian, is named
minister to Haiti. The appointment is vacated by the new
administration.

1896 – In the battle of Aduwa, Abyssinia (Ethiopia) defeats the
troops of the invading Italians.

1919 – Claude A. Barnett establishes the Associated Negro Press (ANP),
the first national news service for African American
newspapers. The goal of the ANP is to provide national news
releases to African American publishers. The ANP will operate
for the next 48 years and have, at one time, 95% of all
African American newspapers as subscribers.

1921 – Harry Pace establishes Pace Phonograph Corporation to produce
records on the Black Swan label. It is the first African
American owned and operated record company and will record
blues, jazz, spirituals, and operatic arias.

1957 – Mark Dean is born in Jefferson City, Tennessee. He will
receive a BSEE degree from the University of Tennessee in
1979, a MSEE degree from Florida Atlantic University in
1982, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford
University in 1992. He will become an engineer for the IBM
Corporation. During his career with IBM, he will hold
several engineering positions in the area of computer
system hardware architecture and design. He will work on
establishing the strategy, architecture, design and
business plan for proposed video server offerings and
studyd the technology and business opportunity for settop
boxes. He will also be chief engineer for the development
of the IBM PC/AT, ISA systems bus, PS/2 Model 70 & 80, the
Color Graphics Adapter and numerous other subsystems. He
will become an IBM Fellow and Vice President of Systems in
IBM Research. He will be responsible for the research and
application of systems technologies spanning circuits to
operating environments. Key technologies in his research
team will include cellular systems structures (Blue Gene),
digital visualization, DA tools, Linux optimizations for
Pervasive, SMPs & Clusters, Settop Box integration, MXT,
S/390 & PowerPC processors, super dense servers, formal
verification methods and high speed low power circuits.
His awards will include induction as a member of the
National Academy of Engineering, the Black Engineer of the
Year Award, the NSBE Distinguished Engineer award, the
Black Engineer of the Year President’s Award, induction
into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in Akron, OH and
recipient of the Ronald H. Brown American Innovators Award
in Washington, DC. He will be appointed to IBM Fellow in
1995, IBM’s highest technical honor. Only 50 out of
310,000 IBM employees have the level of IBM Fellow. He will
also be a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, serving
on the Technology Council Board. He will receive several
academic and IBM awards, including thirteen Invention
Achievement Awards and six Corporate Awards. He will also
have more than 30 patents or patents pending.

1961 – 180 African American students and a white minister are arrested
in Columbia, South Carolina after anti-segregation march.

1962 – Philadelphia 76er Wilt Chamberlain scores 100 points in an NBA
game against the New York Knicks. It is a feat Chamberlain
will repeat but one which has not been equaled by another NBA
player to date.

1963 – Suzette DeGaetano is born in Mays Landing, New Jersey. As
Suzette Charles, she will represent New Jersey in the 1984
Miss America competition. She will win the preliminary talent
competition but will finish as first runner-up to Vanessa Lynn
Williams. When Williams is asked to resign her crown after
nude photographs of her came to light, Charles will be
declared to be the second Miss America for 1984, making her
the second African American Miss America after Williams.

1980 – Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns wins the vacant USBA Welterweight
title. This is one of five weight classes in which he wins
a boxing title, making him the first African American to win
boxing titles in five different weight classes.

1986 – Sidney Barthelemy is elected mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana,
succeeding Ernest Morial as the second African American mayor
of the city.

1988 – J. Saunders Redding, author, joins the ancestors in Ithaca,
New York at the age of 81.

1990 – Carole Gist, of Detroit, Michigan, is crowned Miss USA. She
becomes the first African American to win the title.

2003 – Hank Ballard, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member, joins the
ancestors after succumbing to throat cancer in Los Angeles,
California. He wrote “The Twist” and other hits.

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