KRLemmons African American History

November 9 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 9 *

1731 – Benjamin Banneker is born free in Ellicott Mills (now
Ellicott City), Maryland. He will become the builder
of the first clock made in America. He also will
become the key figure in the design of Washington, DC
after Pierre L’Enfant quit and took his plans for DC
with him. Banneker was able to save the project by
reproducing the plans from memory, in two days, a
complete layout of the streets, parks, and major
buildings. From 1792 to 1802, Banneker will publish
an annual Farmer’s Almanac, for which he did all the
calculations himself. He will join the ancestors on
October 9, 1806.

1868 – The Howard University Medical School opens with eight
students.

1868 – Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton, declares martial law
in ten counties and mobilizes the state militia in a
Ku Klux Klan crisis.

1923 – Dorothy Dandridge is born in Cleveland, Ohio. She will
try vaudeville and a stint at the Cotton Club before
finding her most noteworthy success as an actress.
She will appear in such works as “Porgy and Bess” and
minor movie roles before her big break in a series of
low-budget movies including “Tarzan’s Perils”. While
simultaneously maintaining a singing career, Dandridge
will have her greatest success in “Carmen Jones”
opposite Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Diahann
Carroll, and Brock Peters, which will earn her an
Academy Award nomination, a first for an African
American actress. She will join the ancestors on
September 8, 1965.

1925 – Oscar Micheaux’s movie “Body and Soul” is released. It
marks the film debut of Paul Robeson.

1931 – Eugene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb is born in Uniontown, Alabama.
He will be best known as a professional football star
with the old Baltimore Colts. He will enter the NFL
without ever playing college football. He will be
considered one of the greatest defensive tackles in NFL
history. He will join the ancestors on May 10, 1963.

1935 – Robert “Bob” Gibson is born in Omaha, Nebraska. He will
become a professional baseball player and pitcher for
the St. Louis Cardinals. He will be the National
League MVP in 1968. During his career, he will amass
3,000 career strike-outs, win the Cy Young Award in
1968 and 1970, win the Baseball Writers Award in 1968,
pitch in the 1964, 1967, and 1968 World Series, and win
Nine Gold Glove Awards. He will enter the National
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1961 – The Professional Golfers Association eliminates their
Caucasians only rule.

1965 – Willie Mays is named the National League’s Most Valuable
Player.

1970 – William L. Dawson, Democratic congressman and party
leader, in Chicago, Illinois, joins the ancestors at
the age of 84.

1976 – The United Nations General Assembly endorses 10
resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa,
including one that says the white-only government is
“illegitimate.”

1982 – Sugar Ray Leonard retires from professional boxing for
the first time, because of a recurring eye problem
sustained in a welterweight title match.

1990 – Freedom Bank in New York City, one of the largest
African American-owned banks in the nation, is
declared insolvent. Its losses in 1988-1989 totaled
$4.7 million, and it was expected to lose $2 million
in 1990. A last-minute effort to revive the bank by
raising funds from the local Harlem community will
fail to meet the government-imposed deadline.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 3 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – November 3 *

1868 – John W. Menard, of Louisiana, is elected as the African
American representative to Congress. Menard defeats a 
white candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in 
Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an 
unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress.

1874 – James Theodore Holly, an African American who emigrated 
to Haiti in 1861, is elected bishop of Haiti.

1883 – Race riots occur in Danville, Virginia, resulting in the 
death of four African Americans.

1896 – South Carolina State College is established.

1905 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones is born in Boston, Massachusetts. 
She will win her first award in 1926 and have major 
exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation, the Salon des 
Artistes Francais in Paris, the National Academy of 
Design, and many others. Despite her long career, she 
will not have a major retrospective of her work until 
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mounts a show in her 
honor in 1973. She will join the ancestors on June 9,
1998. 

1920 – “Emperor Jones” opens at the Provincetown Theater with 
Charles Gilpin in the title role.

1933 – Louis Wade Sullivan is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will 
become the founder and first dean of the Morehouse 
School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, the highest-ranking African American in the 
Bush Administration.

1942 – William L. Dawson is elected to Congress from Chicago. 

1942 – Black and white advocates of direct, nonviolent action 
organized the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago. 
Three CORE members stage a sit-in at Stoner’s Restaurant
in Chicago’s Loop.

1942 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to Asa Philip Randolph 
“for organizing the Sleeping Car Porters under the 
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and securing 
recognition for them; and because of his fearless, 
determined mobilization of mass opinion that resulted 
in… Executive Order No. 8802, which banned racial 
discrimination in defense industries and government work.”

1945 – Irving C. Mollison, a Chicago Republican, is sworn in as 
U.S. Customs Court judge in New York City.

1945 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Paul Robeson 
“for his outstanding achievement in the theater, on the 
concert stage, and in the general field of racial 
welfare.”

1949 – Larry Holmes is born in Easton, Pennsylvania. He will 
become a professional boxer and world heavyweight 
champion from 1978 to 1985. During his reign, he will 
defend his title more times than any other heavyweight 
in history, with the exception of Joe Louis.

1953 – Jeffrey Banks is born in Washington, DC. He will become 
an influential fashion designer and the youngest designer 
to win the prestigious Coty Award, for his outstanding 
fur designs. 

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain of the NBA San Francisco Warriors, scores 
72 points vs the Los Angeles Lakers.

1964 – John Conyers, Jr. is elected to the House of 
Representatives from Detroit, Michigan.

1970 – Twelve African Americans are elected to the Ninety-second 
Congress, including five new congressmen: Ralph H. 
Metcalfe (Illinois), George Collins (Illinois), Charles 
Rangel (New York), Ronald Dellums (California), and 
Parren Mitchell (Maryland).

1970 – Wilson Riles is elected as the first African American 
superintendent of Public Instruction in California. 

1970 – Richard Austin is elected as the first African American 
secretary of state in Michigan.

1974 – Harold G. Ford is elected U.S. Congressman from Tennessee. 

1978 – Dominica is granted its independence by Great Britain.

1979 – Klansmen fire on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North 
Carolina, and kill five persons.

1981 – Coleman Young is re-elected mayor of Detroit. Thurman L. 
Milner is elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. James 
Chase is elected mayor of Spokane, Washington. 

1983 – Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for 
President of the United States. Although unsuccessful in 
this and a later 1988 campaign, Jackson will win many 
Democratic state primaries. His candidacy will win him 
national attention and a platform for increased 
representation by African Americans in the Democratic
Party. 

1992 – Carol Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to
be elected to the U.S. Senate. 

1992 – James Clyburn is the first African American to represent 
South Carolina since Reconstruction. He had previously 
served for 18 years as South Carolina’s Human Affairs 
Commissioner.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 26 African American Historical Events

* Today in Black History – August 26 *

1874 – Sixteen African Americans are lynched in the state of
Tennessee.

1900 – Hale Woodruff is born in Cairo, Illinois. He will study art
in the United States, Paris and fresco painting with Diego
Rivera in Mexico. He will also start the influential
Atlanta University shows for African American artists in
the 1940’s.

1905 – George Washington joins the ancestors in Centralia,
Washington. An African American settler of a vast land
claim at the junction of the Shockumchuck and Chehalis
rivers in 1851, Washington endured schemes of white
settlers to take his land and the Indian Wars of 1853 to
found the town of Centerville (later Centralia),
Washington,in 1875.

1943 – William L. Dawson is elected as the Black Democratic Party
Vice President candidate.

1947 – Daniel Robert “Dan” Bankhead becomes the first African
American pitcher in major-league baseball. The Brooklyn
Dodger hurler helps his own cause by slamming a home run
in his first appearance at the plate.

1948 – Valerie Simpson (Ashford) is born in the Bronx, New York
City. She will become an accomplished singer, composer,
and producer. She will marry Nicholas ‘Nick’ Ashford and
perform with him for many years. She will lose her husband
and entertainment partner when he joins the ancestors after
succumbing to throat cancer on August 22, 2011.

1960 – Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis is born in New Orleans,
Louisiana. He will begin his musical career with Art
Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, later playing with his
brother Wynton’s quintet, will record with Miles Davis,
Dizzy Gillespie, and Sting, and become musical director
for the Tonight Show in 1992.

1982 – Rickey Henderson ties Lou Brock’s 1974 record of 118
stolen bases in a season, as the Milwaukee Brewers down
the Kansas City Royals, 10-3.

1985 – Baltimore Oriole Eddie Murray knocks in 9 RBIs in a game
vs the California Angels.

1998 – Attorney General Janet Reno reopens the investigation of
the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., focusing on two allegations of a conspiracy
beyond James Earl Ray.

2000 – Sir Lynden Pindling, the father of Bahamas independence,
joins the ancestors after succumbing to prostate cancer.
Pindling had led the Black Progressive Liberal Party to
victory in 1967. Sir Lynden ruled the Bahamas for 25
years. He resigned from the House of Assembly in July
1997, ending 41 years of unbroken service as a legislator.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 9 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 9 *

1731 – Benjamin Banneker is born free in Ellicott Mills (now
Ellicott City), Maryland. He will become the builder
of the first clock made in America. He also will
become the key figure in the design of Washington, DC
after Pierre L’Enfant quit and took his plans for DC
with him. Banneker was able to save the project by
reproducing the plans from memory, in two days, a
complete layout of the streets, parks, and major
buildings. From 1792 to 1802, Banneker will publish
an annual Farmer’s Almanac, for which he did all the
calculations himself. He will join the ancestors in
1806.

1868 – The Howard University Medical School opens with eight
students.

1868 – Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton, declares martial law
in ten counties and mobilizes the state militia in a
Ku Klux Klan crisis.

1923 – Dorothy Dandridge is born in Cleveland, Ohio. She will
try vaudeville and a stint at the Cotton Club before
finding her most noteworthy success as an actress.
She will appear in such works as “Porgy and Bess” and
minor movie roles before her big break in a series of
low-budget movies including “Tarzan’s Perils”. While
simultaneously maintaining a singing career, Dandridge
will have her greatest success in “Carmen Jones”
opposite Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Diahann
Carroll, and Brock Peters, which will earn her an
Academy Award nomination, a first for an African
American actress. She will join the ancestors on
September 8, 1965.

1925 – Oscar Micheaux’s movie “Body and Soul” is released. It
marks the film debut of Paul Robeson.

1931 – Eugene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb is born. He will become a
professional football star with the old Baltimore
Colts. He will enter the NFL without ever playing
college football. He will be considered one of the
greatest defensive tackles in NFL history. He will
join the ancestors in May, 1963.

1935 – Robert “Bob” Gibson is born in Omaha, Nebraska. He will
become a professional baseball player and pitcher for
the St. Louis Cardinals. He will be the National
League MVP in 1968. During his career, he will amass
3,000 career strike-outs, win the Cy Young Award in
1968 and 1970, win the Baseball Writers Award in 1968,
pitch in the 1964, 1967, and 1968 World Series, and win
Nine Gold Glove Awards. He will enter the National
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1961 – The Professional Golfers Association eliminates their
Caucasians only rule.

1965 – Willie Mays is named the National League’s Most Valuable
Player.

1970 – William L. Dawson, Democratic congressman and party
leader, in Chicago, Illinois, joins the ancestors at
the age of 84.

1976 – The United Nations General Assembly endorses 10
resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa,
including one that says the white-only government is
“illegitimate.”

1982 – Sugar Ray Leonard retires from professional boxing for
the first time, because of a recurring eye problem
sustained in a welterweight title match.

1990 – Freedom Bank in New York City, one of the largest
African American-owned banks in the nation, is
declared insolvent. Its losses in 1988-1989 totaled
$4.7 million, and it was expected to lose $2 million
in 1990. A last-minute effort to revive the bank by
raising funds from the local Harlem community will
fail to meet the government-imposed deadline.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 3 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 3 *

1868 – John W. Menard, of Louisiana, is elected as the African
American representative to Congress. Menard defeats a
white candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in
Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an
unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress.

1874 – James Theodore Holly, an African American who emigrated
to Haiti in 1861, is elected bishop of Haiti.

1883 – Race riots occur in Danville, Virginia, resulting in the
death of four African Americans.

1896 – South Carolina State College is established.

1905 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones is born in Boston, Massachusetts.
She will win her first award in 1926 and have major
exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation, the Salon des
Artistes Francais in Paris, the National Academy of
Design, and many others. Despite her long career, she
will not have a major retrospective of her work until
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mounts a show in her
honor in 1973. She will join the ancestors on June 9,
1998.

1920 – “Emperor Jones” opens at the Provincetown Theater with
Charles Gilpin in the title role.

1933 – Louis Wade Sullivan is born in Atlanta, Georgia. He will
become the founder and first dean of the Morehouse
School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human
Services, the highest-ranking African American in the
Bush Administration.

1942 – William L. Dawson is elected to Congress from Chicago.

1942 – Black and white advocates of direct, nonviolent action
organized the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago.
Three CORE members stage a sit-in at Stoner’s Restaurant
in Chicago’s Loop.

1942 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to Asa Philip Randolph
“for organizing the Sleeping Car Porters under the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and securing
recognition for them; and because of his fearless,
determined mobilization of mass opinion that resulted
in… Executive Order No. 8802, which banned racial
discrimination in defense industries and government work.”

1945 – Irving C. Mollison, a Chicago Republican, is sworn in as
U.S. Customs Court judge in New York City.

1945 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Paul Robeson
“for his outstanding achievement in the theater, on the
concert stage, and in the general field of racial
welfare.”

1949 – Larry Holmes is born in Easton, Pennsylvania. He will
become a professional boxer and world heavyweight
champion from 1978 to 1985. During his reign, he will
defend his title more times than any other heavyweight
in history, with the exception of Joe Louis.

1953 – Jeffrey Banks is born in Washington, DC. He will become
an influential fashion designer and the youngest designer
to win the prestigious Coty Award, for his outstanding
fur designs.

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain of the NBA San Francisco Warriors, scores
72 points vs the Los Angeles Lakers.

1964 – John Conyers, Jr. is elected to the House of
Representatives from Detroit, Michigan.

1970 – Twelve African Americans are elected to the Ninety-second
Congress, including five new congressmen: Ralph H.
Metcalfe (Illinois), George Collins (Illinois), Charles
Rangel (New York), Ronald Dellums (California), and
Parren Mitchell (Maryland).

1970 – Wilson Riles is elected as the first African American
superintendent of Public Instruction in California.

1970 – Richard Austin is elected as the first African American
secretary of state in Michigan.

1974 – Harold G. Ford is elected U.S. Congressman from Tennessee.

1978 – Dominica is granted its independence by Great Britain.

1979 – Klansmen fire on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North
Carolina, and kill five persons.

1981 – Coleman Young is re-elected mayor of Detroit. Thurman L.
Milner is elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut. James
Chase is elected mayor of Spokane, Washington.

1983 – Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for
President of the United States. Although unsuccessful in
this and a later 1988 campaign, Jackson will win many
Democratic state primaries. His candidacy will win him
national attention and a platform for increased
representation by African Americans in the Democratic
Party.

1992 – Carol Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to
be elected to the U.S. Senate.

1992 – James Clyburn is the first African American to represent
South Carolina since Reconstruction. He had previously
served for 18 years as South Carolina’s Human Affairs
Commissioner.

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

KRLemmons African American History

August 26 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – August 26 *

1874 – Sixteen African Americans are lynched in the state of
Tennessee.

1900 – Hale Woodruff is born in Cairo, Illinois. He will study art
in the United States, Paris and fresco painting with Diego
Rivera in Mexico. He will also start the influential
Atlanta University shows for African American artists in
the 1940’s.

1905 – George Washington joins the ancestors in Centralia,
Washington. An African American settler of a vast land
claim at the junction of the Shockumchuck and Chehalis
rivers in 1851, Washington endured schemes of white
settlers to take his land and the Indian Wars of 1853 to
found the town of Centerville (later Centralia),
Washington,in 1875.

1943 – William L. Dawson is elected as the Black Democratic Party
Vice President candidate.

1947 – Daniel Robert “Dan” Bankhead becomes the first African
American pitcher in major-league baseball. The Brooklyn
Dodger hurler helps his own cause by slamming a home run
in his first appearance at the plate.

1948 – Valerie Simpson (Ashford) is born in the Bronx, New York
City. She will become an accomplished singer, composer,
and producer. She will marry Nicholas ‘Nick’ Ashford and
perform with him for many years. She will lose her husband
and entertainment partner when he joins the ancestors after
succumbing to throat cancer on August 22, 2011.

1960 – Jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis is born in New Orleans,
Louisiana. He will begin his musical career with Art
Blakey & the Jazz Messengers, later playing with his
brother Wynton’s quintet, will record with Miles Davis,
Dizzy Gillespie, and Sting, and become musical director
for the Tonight Show in 1992.

1982 – Rickey Henderson ties Lou Brock’s 1974 record of 118
stolen bases in a season, as the Milwaukee Brewers down
the Kansas City Royals, 10-3.

1985 – Baltimore Oriole Eddie Murray knocks in 9 RBIs in a game
vs the California Angels.

1998 – Attorney General Janet Reno reopens the investigation of
the assassination of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr., focusing on two allegations of a conspiracy
beyond James Earl Ray.

2000 – Sir Lynden Pindling, the father of Bahamas independence,
joins the ancestors after succumbing to prostate cancer.
Pindling had led the Black Progressive Liberal Party to
victory in 1967. Sir Lynden ruled the Bahamas for 25
years. He resigned from the House of Assembly in July
1997, ending 41 years of unbroken service as a legislator.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 9 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 9           *

1731 – Benjamin Banneker is born free in Ellicott Mills (now
Ellicott City), Maryland.  He will become the builder
of the first clock made in America.  He also will
become the key figure in the design of Washington, DC
after Pierre L’Enfant quit and took his plans for DC
with him.  Banneker was able to save the project by
reproducing the plans from memory, in two days, a
complete layout of the streets, parks, and major
buildings.  From 1792 to 1802, Banneker will publish
an annual Farmer’s Almanac, for which he did all the
calculations himself.  He will join the ancestors in
1806.

1868 – The Howard University Medical School opens with eight
students.

1868 – Arkansas Governor Powell Clayton, declares martial law
in ten counties and mobilizes the state militia in a
Ku Klux Klan crisis.

1923 – Dorothy Dandridge is born in Cleveland, Ohio.  She will
try vaudeville and a stint at the Cotton Club before
finding her most noteworthy success as an actress.
She will appear in such works as “Porgy and Bess” and
minor movie roles before her big break in a series of
low-budget movies including “Tarzan’s Perils”.  While
simultaneously maintaining a singing career, Dandridge
will have her greatest success in “Carmen Jones”
opposite Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey, Diahann
Carroll, and Brock Peters, which will earn her an
Academy Award nomination, a first for an African
American actress. She will join the ancestors on
September 8, 1965.

1925 – Oscar Micheaux’s movie “Body and Soul” is released. It
marks the film debut of Paul Robeson.

1931 – Eugene “Big Daddy” Lipscomb is born.  He will become a
professional football star with the old Baltimore
Colts.  He will enter the NFL without ever playing
college football. He will be considered one of the
greatest defensive tackles in NFL history.  He will
join the ancestors in May, 1963.

1935 – Robert “Bob” Gibson is born in Omaha, Nebraska.  He will
become a professional baseball player and pitcher for
the St. Louis Cardinals.  He will be the National
League MVP in 1968.  During his career, he will amass
3,000 career strike-outs, win the Cy Young Award in
1968 and 1970, win the Baseball Writers Award in 1968,
pitch in the 1964, 1967, and 1968 World Series, and win
Nine Gold Glove Awards.  He will enter the National
Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.

1961 – The Professional Golfers Association eliminates their
Caucasians only rule.

1965 – Willie Mays is named the National League’s Most Valuable
Player.

1970 – William L. Dawson, Democratic congressman and party
leader, in Chicago, Illinois, joins the ancestors at
the age of 84.

1976 – The United Nations General Assembly endorses 10
resolutions condemning apartheid in South Africa,
including one that says the white-only government is
“illegitimate.”

1982 – Sugar Ray Leonard retires from professional boxing for
the first time, because of a recurring eye problem
sustained in a welterweight title match.

1990 – Freedom Bank in New York City, one of the largest
African American-owned banks in the nation, is
declared insolvent.  Its losses in 1988-1989 totaled
$4.7 million, and it was expected to lose $2 million
in 1990.  A last-minute effort to revive the bank by
raising funds from the local Harlem community will
fail to meet the government-imposed deadline.

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

KRLemmons African American History

November 3 African American Historical Events

Today in Black History – November 3             *

1868 – John W. Menard, of Louisiana, is elected as the African
American representative to Congress.  Menard defeats a
white candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in
Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an
unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress.

1874 – James Theodore Holly, an African American who emigrated
to Haiti in 1861, is elected bishop of Haiti.

1883 – Race riots occur in Danville, Virginia, resulting in the
death of four African Americans.

1896 – South Carolina State College is established.

1905 – Artist Lois Mailou Jones is born in Boston, Massachusetts.
She will win her first award in 1926 and have major
exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation, the Salon des
Artistes Francais in Paris, the National Academy of
Design, and many others.  Despite her long career, she
will not have a major retrospective of her work until
the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mounts a show in her
honor in 1973. She will join the ancestors on June 9,
1998.

1920 – “Emperor Jones” opens at the Provincetown Theater with
Charles Gilpin in the title role.

1933 – Louis Wade Sullivan is born in Atlanta, Georgia.  He will
become the founder and first dean of the Morehouse
School of Medicine and Secretary of Health and Human
Services, the highest-ranking African American in the
Bush Administration.

1942 – William L. Dawson is elected to Congress from Chicago.

1942 – Black and white advocates of direct, nonviolent action
organized the Congress of Racial Equality in Chicago.
Three CORE members stage a sit-in at Stoner’s Restaurant
in Chicago’s Loop.

1942 – The Spingarn Medal is presented to Asa Philip Randolph
“for organizing the Sleeping Car Porters under the
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and securing
recognition for them; and because of his fearless,
determined mobilization of mass opinion that resulted
in… Executive Order No. 8802, which banned racial
discrimination in defense industries and government work.”

1945 – Irving C. Mollison, a Chicago Republican, is sworn in as
U.S. Customs Court judge in New York City.

1945 – The NAACP’s Spingarn Medal is presented to Paul Robeson
“for his outstanding achievement in the theater, on the
concert stage, and in the general field of racial
welfare.”

1949 – Larry Holmes is born in Easton, Pennsylvania.  He will
become a professional boxer and world heavyweight
champion from 1978 to 1985.  During his reign, he will
defend his title more times than any other heavyweight
in history, with the exception of Joe Louis.

1953 – Jeffrey Banks is born in Washington, DC.  He will become
an influential fashion designer and the youngest designer
to win the prestigious Coty Award, for his outstanding
fur designs.

1962 – Wilt Chamberlain of the NBA San Francisco Warriors, scores
72 points vs the Los Angeles Lakers.

1964 – John Conyers, Jr. is elected to the House of
Representatives from Detroit, Michigan.

1970 – Twelve African Americans are elected to the Ninety-second
Congress, including five new congressmen: Ralph H.
Metcalfe (Illinois), George Collins (Illinois), Charles
Rangel (New York), Ronald Dellums (California), and
Parren Mitchell (Maryland).

1970 – Wilson Riles is elected as the first African American
superintendent of Public Instruction in California.

1970 – Richard Austin is elected as the first African American
secretary of state in Michigan.

1974 – Harold G. Ford is elected U.S. Congressman from Tennessee.

1978 – Dominica is granted its independence by Great Britain.

1979 – Klansmen fire on an anti-Klan rally in Greensboro, North
Carolina, and kill five persons.

1981 – Coleman Young is re-elected mayor of Detroit. Thurman L.
Milner is elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut.  James
Chase is elected mayor of Spokane, Washington.

1983 – Reverend Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for
President of the United States.  Although unsuccessful in
this and a later 1988 campaign, Jackson will win many
Democratic state primaries. His candidacy will win him
national attention and a platform for increased
representation by African Americans in the Democratic
Party.

1992 – Carol Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to
be elected to the U.S. Senate.

1992 – James Clyburn is the first African American to represent
South Carolina since Reconstruction.  He had previously
served for 18 years as South Carolina’s Human Affairs
Commissioner.

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