* Today in Black History – April 7 *
1712 – A slave uprising in New York City results in the death of
nine whites. This is one of the first major revolt of
African slaves in the American colonies. After the
militia arrives, the uprising will be suppressed. As a
result of the action, twenty one slaves will be executed
and six others will commit suicide.
1867 – Johnson C. Smith University is founded in Charlotte, North
Carolina.
1872 – William Monroe Trotter is born near Chillicothe, Ohio. He will
become a newspaper editor and real estate businessman based
in Boston, Massachusetts, and an activist for African
American civil rights. He will be an early opponent of the
accommodationist race policies of Booker T. Washington, and
in 1901, will found the Boston Guardian, an independent
African American newspaper, as a vehicle to express that
opposition. Active in protest movements for civil rights
throughout the 1900s and 1910s, he will also reveal some of
the differences within the African American community. He
will contribute to the formation of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He will earn
his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Harvard University,
and will become the first man of color to earn a Phi Beta
Kappa key there. Seeing an increase in segregation in northern
facilities, he will begin to engage in a life of activism, to
which he will devote his assets. He will join with W.E.B. Du
Bois in founding the Niagara Movement in 1905, a forerunner of
the NAACP. His style will be often divisive, and he will end
up leaving that organization and founding the National Equal
Rights League. His protest activities will sometimes seen to
be at odds with the goals of the NAACP. In 1914, he will have
a highly publicized meeting with President Woodrow Wilson, in
which he will protest Wilson’s introduction of segregation
into the federal workplace. In Boston, he will succeed in 1910,
in shutting down productions of The Clansman, but will be
unsuccessful in 1915 with preventing screenings of the movie
“Birth of a Nation,” which also portrayed the Ku Klux Klan in
favorable terms. He will not be able to influence the peace
talks at the end of World War I, and in later years become a
marginalized voice of protest. In an alliance with Roman
Catholics in 1921, he will get a revival screening of “Birth
of a Nation” banned. He will join the ancestors died on his
62nd birthday, April 7, 1934.
1915 – Eleanora Fagan is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She will
become a jazz singer who will influence the course of
American popular singing, better known as Billie Holiday or
“Lady Day.” She will be best known for her songs, “Strange
Fruit,” “Lover Man,” and “God Bless the Child.” Although she
will enjoy limited popular appeal during her lifetime, her
impact on other singers will be profound. Troubled in life
by addiction, She will join the ancestors as a result of
drug and alcohol abuse on July 17,1959.
1922 – Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria is born in Havana, Cuba. He will
drop out of school to become a professional musician,
playing gigs at the legendary Tropicana Club in Havana. In
1950 Santamaria will move to New York, where he will hook
up with such Latin jazz greats as Perez Prado, Tito Puente
and Cal Tjader. In 1963 Santamaria will score his first Top
10 hit with the single “Watermelon Man,” written by then
bandmate Herbie Hancock. Santamaria will perform and record
steadily throughout the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. In 1977,
he will be awarded a Grammy for his album “Amancer.” In
1999 Rhino Records will release a double-CD retrospective
of Santamaria’s music, The Mongo Santamaria Anthology
1958-1995, culling his greatest work during those five
decades. He will be considered one of the most influential
percussionists of his generation. He will join the ancestors
in Miami, Florida on February 1, 2003.
1934 – William Monroe Trotter joins the ancestors in Boston,
Massachusetts at the age of sixty-two.
1938 – Trumpeter Frederick Dewayne “Freddie” Hubbard is born in
Indianapolis, Indiana. From a musical family, he will play
four instruments in his youth and will later play with “Slide”
Hampton, Quincy Jones, and Art Blakey. A leader of his own
band starting in the 1960’s, he will record the noteworthy
albums “Red Clay,” “First Light,” and the Grammy Award-winning
“Straight Life.” He will join the ancestors on
December 29, 2008.
1940 – The first U.S. stamp ever to honor an African American is
issued bearing the likeness of Booker T. Washington. His
likeness is on a 10-cent stamp.
1954 – Tony Dorsett is born in Rochester, Pennsylvania. He will
become a star football player at the University of
Pittsburgh, where he will win the Heisman Trophy in 1976.
He will then become the number one pick in the 1977 NFL
draft by the Dallas Cowboys. He will play in two Super Bowls,
five NFC championship games, four Pro Bowls, will be All-NFL
in 1981, and NFC rushing champion in 1982. His career totals
include 12,739 yards rushing, 398 receptions for 3,544 yards,
16,326 combined net yards, 90 touchdowns, and a record 99
yard run for a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings in
1983. He will end his career with the 1988 Denver Broncos.
He will be enshrined in the NFL Hall of Fame in 1994.
1994 – Civil war erupts in Rwanda, a day after a mysterious plane
crash claims the lives of the presidents of Rwanda and
Burundi. In the months that follow, hundreds of thousands of
minority Tutsi and Hutu intellectuals will be slaughtered.
Information retrieved from the Munirah Chronicle and is edited by Mr. Rene’ A. Perry.
The CamaraIfe Maktaba 