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Archive through May 10, 2004

The TVClubHouse: General Discussions ARCHIVES: 2004 Nov. - 2005 Jan.: Black History (ARCHIVES): Archive through May 10, 2004 users admin

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Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, April 25, 2004 - 10:13 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Black Facts that happened on April the 25th:

1918 Ella Fitzgerald, "First Lady of Song," born.

1950 Charles "Chuck" Cooper first African American ever drafted by an NBA team; picked by the Boston Celtics

1960 Consent judgment in Memphis federal court ended restrictions barring voters in Fayette County, Tennessee. This was the first voting rights case under the Civil Rights Act.

1963 Black and white Freedom Riders through the South test compliance with court decisions.

1972 Major General Frederick E. Davidson first African American to lead an Army division

1990 Saxophonist Dexter Gordon, the last of the beboppers, died of kidney failure in Philadelphia.

www.blackfacts.com

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, April 25, 2004 - 10:19 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Happy Birthday, Ms. Ella!

ella

In 1934, an awkward sixteen-year-old girl made her singing debut at the Harlem Apollo Theatre amateur night in New York City. She intended to dance, but she lost her nerve when she got on stage. "The man said, 'do something while you're out there, 'the singer later recalled. "So I tried to sing 'Object of My Affection' and 'Judy,' and I won first prize." She drew the attention of the bandleader Chick Webb. After personally coaching the shy performer, Webb introduced her at the Savoy Theatre one evening as his orchestra's singer *. That evening marked the beginning of Ella Jane Fitzgerald's singing career. One of the great compliments paid to Ella was from Ira Gershwin who said 'I didn't realize our songs were so good until Ella sang them'.

Ella's life was marked both by extreme highs and lows. Born in Newport News, Virginia in 1918 and orphaned at the age of 15, Ella was placed in the Colored Orphan Asylum in Riverdale, one of the few orphanages at the time that accepted Afro-American children. From there, she was transferred to the New York State Training School for Girls, a reformatory at which State investigations later revealed widespread physical abuse. Having escaped from the reformatory, Ella was literally living in the streets of Harlem when she was discovered by Webb. She was married twice, first at the age of 24 to a shady character by the name of Benjamin Kornegay, and then again to bass player Ray Brown at the age of 30. Both marriages ended in divorce. A diabetic for many years, the disease compromised her vision as well as her circulatory system before taking her life. In 1992, both of her legs were amputated below the knee due to diabetes related circulatory problems. As an artist, however, Ella achieved legendary success in a career that spanned six decades, yielded recordings numbering into the thousands, and earned the singer countless awards including a Kennedy Center Award for her contributions to the performing arts, honorary doctorate degrees from Dartmouth and Yale, and thirteen Grammy Awards.

Despite never having received formal vocal training, Ella's technique and range rivaled that of the conservatory trained singer. Throughout her three-octave vocal range, Ella's voice remained uniform in its clarity and child-like timbre. Her diction was unfailingly crisp, and her intonation was absolutely flawless. Coupled with this textbook-perfect technique, Ella had an improvisational talent on par with that of the best jazz instrumentalists. Her spontaneous, often pyrotechnic scat vocalizations, in fact, were a trademark of her style.

In looking back upon Ella's rich catalogue of recordings, the name of Norman Granz consistently emerges in conjunction with that of Ella's. Ella met the record producer and founder of both the Verve and Pablo jazz labels in 1949, after which the two developed a working relationship, which lasted forty years. Under the direction of Norman Granz, Ella recorded her legendary "songbook" albums — a series of albums each devoted to the songs of a particular American composer. Between the years of 1956 and 1964, Ella recorded songbook albums featuring the music of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer. Collectively, these are one of Ella's crowning achievements. Granz also produced Ella's phenomenal collaborations with Count Basie and Duke Ellington, respectively entitled "On the Sunny Side of the Street" and "Ella at Duke's Place." All of these recordings are on the Verve label, and are available on CD. After founding the Pablo label, Granz recorded the four Ella Fitzgerald/Joe Pass duet albums, each of which are deservedly considered jazz classics.

As amazing as Ella's musical talents were, equally amazing was the fact that she managed not to fall through the cracks of the segregated child welfare system of the 1930's. A victim of poverty and abuse, Ella was able to transcend circumstance and develop into one of the greatest singers that America produced. Despite suffering poor health Ella remained an active performer until 1992. Ella died on June 15, 1996 of complications associated with diabetes. She was 79 years old.

www.blackfacts.com

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, April 26, 2004 - 6:22 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Today is Monday, April 26th 2004, and here are some things that happened in Black History on this date:

1785 John James Audubon born in Haiti to an African Caribbean mother and a French father.

1844 Jim Beckwourth, Afro-American Pioneer, discovered a path through the Sierra Nevada Mountains that now bear his name. Beckwourth Pass on U.S. Alt 40 between Reno, Nevada and Sacramento, California made overland travel to the gold fields of California possible.

1883 William Levi Dawson is born, first African American representative to chair a committee in Congress.

1886 Blues musician Gertrude " Ma" Rainey's birthday

1898 J.A. Joyce patents ore bucket, Patent No. 603,143

1968 Students seized administration building at Ohio State.

1984 William "Count" Basie, jazz musician, dies.

1991 Maryann Bishop Coffey is named the first woman and the first African American co-chair of the National Conference of Christians and Jews

1994 South Africa held its first all-race elections for the national assembly and provincial parliaments.

www.blackfacts.com





Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 9:22 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Today In Black History - April 27

1883 Hubert Harrison, writer, freedom fighter, born in St. Croix, Virgin Islands.

1903 U.S. Supreme Court upheld clauses in Alabama constitution which disfranchised Blacks.

1903 The publication of W.E.B. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk crystallized opposition to Booker T. Washington's program of social and political subordination.

1903 Maggie L. Walker named president of Richmond's St. Luke Bank and Trust Company and became the first Black woman to head a bank.

1903 Eighty-four Blacks reported lynched in this year.

1927 Coretta Scott is born in Marion, Ala. She will marry Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1953 and be an integral part of his civil rights activities. After his assassination in 1968, she will continue her civil rights activities, founding the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Change in Atlanta, Ga.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Tuesday, April 27, 2004 - 9:22 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Mark Dean:
The Inventor at the Beginning -- Again


dr mark dean

By Roger Witherspoon

In the beginning, Dr. Mark E. Dean didn’t know what he had done. That’s a circumstance he won’t repeat.

"We didn’t have a clue," he said in an interview from IBM’s research facilities in Austin, Tx. "The PC was just an interesting thing we did. If we sold 200,000 PCs we thought we would do well, and pay off the investment, and then we would go off and do something else. We just had hopes we would sell enough to justify the project.

"We could not foresee where this was headed, that the PC would allow us to be more productive. The PC allowed you to create and get information more quickly than on paper. It had tremendous value, but we didn’t recognize certain businesses that needed that capability."

He was part of a team at IBM research facilities in Boca Raton, Fla. attempting to develop a more effective desktop computer, something which became known as the IBM PC. Dr. Dean and a colleague, Dennis Moeller, developed the interior architecture allowing desktop computers to share information with printers and other devices. The result was the machine which spearheaded the revolution to put computational power on the average business and personal desktop.

Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents for the PC’s internal architecture, the computer designated by Time Magazine as its Machine of the Year. But at the time, Dr. Dean didn’t think it was a very big deal. "We gave away the logics required to duplicate it," he said. "We did what they used to do with old TV sets -- the logic was in the back so the repairman could see it and repair it.. In this case, it allowed people to go off and guild them themselves. That’s why the PC was so successful."

But Dr. Dean was quick to catch on as the PC led the modern technological revolution in industry, education, and virtually every aspect of modern life. He moved on to develop the PC AT -- for Advanced Technology -- which laid out the industry standard architecture for personal computers. The new PC AT was faster and could handle greater amounts of data than the standard PC. He also is credited at IBM with spearheading the development of the 1-gigahertz processor chip at his Austin Research Lab. That product should find its way into desktop applications in the next two to three years. But Dr. Dean is now thinking past the PC. He readily acknowledges he did not foresee the widespread implications of the desktop computer when he and his colleagues developed it. Over the years he has participated in the development of ever more powerful computers and networks. And he has watched the disparity in computer availability grow between society’s haves and have-nots, while the need for technological training and access have grown exponentially.

And IBM has given him the opportunity to invent the future. Dr. Dean has been promoted from Director of the IBM Research Lab in Austin to Vice President of the newly formed IBM systems Division, operating out of its headquarters in New York. "My new position is one of those dream jobs," he said. "There isn’t anything we can’t do.

"There are about 300 people here. IBM wanted to put together everyone working on systems -- operating systems and other software and hardware, the desk top boxes, hand held devices -- everything. And we can build just about anything we can imagine.

"I am pretty dangerous where I am right now. With the talent I have in this group there is nothing that they can’t do. We will build some very interesting things."

Dr. Dean has earned that position. In 1989, after receiving more than 20 patents for innovations in computing technology, he was named to the IBM Academy of Technology. In his Texas research capacity he contributed to the development of ever more powerful servers for office networks. In 1995 he was named an IBM Fellow, a honor shared by 151 of the company’s top researchers during its 88-year history. He was the first African American to hold that post. He has since quickly climbed to the 10th, 11th, and 12th level in the IBM Master Inventor Award Series -- and it takes three patents to move up one level. In 1997 he was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame -- joining two other noted black members, George Washington Carver and Dr. Percy Julian.

And what he wants to do in this new position, is develop the replacement for the ubiquitous personal computer. In this case, what Dr. Dean envisions is the ultimate communications device. "The next step is the electronic tablet," he said, "and it is so much fun to talk about."

Dr. Dean and his team are at work on a prototype of flat tablet "with all the contrast and resolution paper has, and with enough resistance that you can control your handwriting on it. That is difficult technology, but all the other display technology we need we already have."

His tablet will hold everything. It will have a built in microphone and digital camera, and wireless modem for Internet or telephone, fax, and cable connections. It will be capable of displaying full motion picture video and audio. This will make it the ultimate communications tool.

"Right now if you subscribe to a magazine, you get it in the mail, and it contains print ads supporting it," Dr. Dean continued. "With this, you would subscribe to the magazine, and then download. So now you have the ability to generate revenue from the device -- something you can’t do now with the computer.

"And it can display video and audio, so it won’t just compete for print ads. Instead of selling just a page of ads, it will compete with Fox and NBC and CBS to sell advertising time. You can transmit articles directly and show the video ads as part of the magazine you download with each issue. "This also works for reference books and catalogues. Each person in the home could have one of these. You could buy them for about $100 and they would be your information device -- your source for all sorts of information. They would be capable of doing many more of the things we do today, and there is money to be made from them."

The devices would have voice recognition capabilities, he said, and could be used to open the garage or turn on the house lights. "There wouldn’t be anything the device couldn’t do automatically.

"And it would have the ability to communicate back to you, if you wanted that. Some people are afraid of talking to a device like that, but it has the intelligence to think ahead of you. So if you are in the habit of downloading US News and World Report and turning to certain pages to look at stock quotes, it will recognize your reading pattern and go there for you. "We can get very close to building that kind of device, and it will change the way we deal with information. It actually starts to level the playing field . Everybody should have one, and it would flatten the digital divide." In the Dean scenario of tomorrow, every student would receive a tablet when they entered school. "All of their homework, all reports, all of their books would be on the device. Instead of lugging a lot of books, their texts would all be right there and since information is dynamic, they can be updated as required.

"Everything you do in school will come through that machine." Much of the technology is already available, he said. "We already have a microdrive that holds 350 Megabytes of storage on something the size of a matchbook. In about three years, that will hold 10 gigabytes and be a little bigger than a quarter. That will give you the power to do movies. It will hold all the information you could create for an entire school year and you’ve still got plenty of space. It has almost endless capacity, and we are doubling storage capacity every year.

"As a learning device, kids respond if the content is more active. That’s why Sesame Street was so successful. They were interested because they were entertained, and an interactive device can do things for them. They could also create their own content."

Presently, the most advanced classes -- usually in upper income areas -- are structured for distance learning, featuring desktop computers with digital cameras and sound systems allowing students in one location to participate in classes anywhere in the globe with an Internet connection. The Dean wireless tablet would bring those capabilities to every classroom -- regardless of the lack of infrastructure in their physical school system. It would also transform information handling and conferencing in the workplace.

Dr. Dean ponders the future with a vision of what impact his team’s inventions can have on the world.

"I hope that it won’t be too long before you can go to a museum to see a PC. To live through the beginning of the PC era and the end is really special. "But I think I will easily see us move that fast. There is an endless list of opportunities."

blackengineer

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - 2:58 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
April 28:

1910 Martin Morua Delgado died in Havana, Cuba. He was a labor and political activist, statesman, journalist and author. He was a leading opponent of slavery in Cuba and after emancipation, a leading proponent for racial equality. He also was active in the struggle for Cuban independence from Spain.

1911 Mario Bauza was born in Havana, Cuba. He became a professional trumpet player, bandleader and arranger. He was a leading player in the creation of Afro-Cuban jazz. While in Cuba, he was primarily a classical musician, playing for the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra. He left Cuba for New York City in 1930 and worked in mostly jazz venues. He played with Noble Sissle, Chick Webb (musical director), Don Redman, and Cab Calloway. While working with Chick Webb, he convinced Webb to hire the young Ella Fitzgerald as a vocalist for the band. While collaborating with these talents, he integrated Afro-Latin influence into the music whenever possible.

1934 Charles Patton died in Indianola, Mississippi. He was a bluesman who is considered to be the creator of the Delta variation of the blues. His recordings between 1929 and 1934 contributed to the national influence of the Mississippi Delta style on the blues.

1941 In a famous Jim Crow railroad case brought by congressman Arthur W. Mitchell, the Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities must be substantially equal.

1950 Willie Colon was born in the Bronx in New York City. He began his musical career, while a teenager, creating recordings that emphasized his Afro-Puerto Rican heritage in the form of salsa music. His music integrated the influence of Puerto Rican life in New York City with the African influence on the Puerto Rican experience. He created and produced over thirty recordings and was nominated for at least five Grammy awards in Latin music.

1957 W. Robert Ming, a Chicago lawyer, was elected chairman of the American Veterans Committee. He was the first African American to head a major national veterans organization.

1967 Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army and was stripped of his boxing titles by the World Boxing Association and the New York Athletic Association.

1967 Mrs. Robert W. Claytor was elected president of the YWCA. She was the first Black president of the organization.

1971 Samuel L. Gravely, Jr. became the first African American Admiral in the United States Navy.

1983 Two African American women, Alice Walker and Gloria Naylor, won prestigious American Book Awards for fiction. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" was dramatized as a theatrical movie starring Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey. Naylor's first novel, "The Women of Brewster Place," was made into a made-for-television movie and series starring Oprah Winfrey, Jackee', and Paula Kelly.

1990 Clifton Reginald Wharton, Sr. died in Phoenix, Arizona. He was an attorney and was the first African American to enter the U.S. Foreign Service and the first African American to become a United States Ambassador to a European country
(Norway-1961).

1991 Former CORE director and North Carolina judge Floyd Bixley McKissick died in North Carolina at the age of 69. He led CORE from 1963 to 1966 during its transformation to a more militant civil rights organization.

1997 Ann Lane Petry died in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was a leading African American novelist and was known for her works, "The Street," "Country Place," "The Narrows," "Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad," "Tituba of Salem Village," "The Drugstore Cat," and "Legends of the Saints."

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Wednesday, April 28, 2004 - 5:24 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I love picking up new facts here...like this one:

1526 The first recorded slave revolt occurred in a settlement of some five hundred Spaniards and one hundred slaves, located on the Pedee River in what is now South Carolina.

1526...amazing!

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Thursday, April 29, 2004 - 4:28 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
April 29:

1854 Ashmun lnstitute, later Lincoln University, was founded in Oxford, Pennsylvania. It was "the first institution founded anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for youth of African descent." (This applies to the modern era).

1881 Julian Francis Abele was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He become an architect widely believed to have designed Philadelphia's Museum of Art and the Free Library, as well as major buildings at Duke University.

1899 Edward "Duke" Kennedy Ellington was born in Washington, DC. He formed his first band in 1919, and moved to New York City in 1922. His five-year tenure at the famed Cotton Club garnered him wide acclaim. Scoring both his first musical and making his recording debut in 1924, Ellington was known as the first conventional jazz composer, although he will also become renowned for his Sacred Concerts in the mid-1960's. His most notable works include "Take the A Train," "Mood Indigo," "Sophisticated Ladies," and "I Got It Bad and That Ain't Good." He died in 1974.

1915 Donald Mills was born in Piqua, Ohio. With his brothers, Herbert, Harry and John, the Mills Brothers began performing in 1922 in their hometown and over time sold an estimated 50 million records. The group broke racial barriers in the era of Jim Crow and sang before royalty in London. From the early 1930s onward, the Mills Brothers were a nationwide hit on radio and in record sales. In 1931, the song "Tiger Rag" sold 1 million copies. Some of their other hit songs include "You Always Hurt the One You Love," "Glow Worm," "Yellow Bird," and "Paper Doll." The brothers also appeared in several movies, including "The Big Broadcast" in 1932, and "Twenty Million Sweethearts" in 1934. Donald was the last surviving member of the group and toured in his later years with his youngest son, John, after his brothers retired in 1982. He accepted a Grammy Award for Life Achievement for the Mills Brothers in 1998. He died in 1999.

1922 Parren James Mitchell was born in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1971, he became the first African American elected to Congress from the State of Maryland.

1928 Carl Gardner was born. He became a singer and a member of the 1960's rhythm and blues group, The Coasters.

1934 Otis Rush was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi. He became a blues musician and helped to shape Chicago's West Side blues sound.

1945 Richard Wright's 'Black Boy' reached first place on the National Best Seller Book List.

1948 Willi Smith was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A noted designer, he took his first job with Arnold Scaasi in New York City and formed his own fashion label, Willi Wear Ltd., in 1976. He became a Coty Award winner in 1983 and led his company until he died in 1987.

1968 Poor People's Campaign began with Ralph Abernathy, SCLC president, leading delegation of leaders representing poor whites, Blacks, Indians, and Spanish Americans to Capitol Hill for conferences with cabinet members and congressional leaders.

1981 Buffalo, N.Y., grand jury indicted Pvt. Joseph G. Christopher of the U.S. Army on murder charges stemming from the racially motivated slayings of three Blacks in September, 1980.

1983 Harold Washington was sworn in as the first African American mayor of Chicago.

1992 Rioting erupts in Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white policemen of charges related to the videotaped beating of African American motorist Rodney King. The National Guard and federal troops were mobilized to deal with the rebellion, which lasted several days and cost the lives of 58 people. There were demonstrations and riots in other American cities.

Blackfacts Online
Munirah Chronicle

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Thursday, April 29, 2004 - 4:42 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Twelve years already, since the riots in L.A....how quickly time passes.

The links are wonderful, like the Energizer Bunny...they keep going & going.

I was reading about the Cherokee Freedmen...very interesting. I never even knew about them 'til now.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 4:26 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
April 30:

711 General Tarik al Gibral, a Nafza Berber after whom the famed "Rock of Gibralter" is named, crossed to Andalus (Spain under the Visigoths) with a force of seven thousand troops. After several battles in which the Visigoths were completely routed, the Moorish-Berber-Arab force marched from city to city until the entire peninsula was under their control by 715AD. It should be noted that many modern historians tend to refer to Tarik's garrison as consisting only of Caucasoid Berbers and Arabs. Primary sources, such as Ibn Husayn of the 10th Century recorded however that many of his troops were "Sudanese," a synonym at the time for Blacks. Contemporary accounts of Europeans state of the Moorish invaders, "Their faces were as black as pitch, the handsomest amongst them was as black as a cooking pot." It should be pointed out that the term "Berber," erroneously identified as a racial category, is in actuality a linguistic-ethnic group. There are both Semitic and African Berbers. Tarik, tracing his ethnic roots, may have been one of them. He was described by contemporary witnesses as having a short stature, brown skin, a hooked nose, and woolly hair. He was said to be a native of Sudan. Thus would begin the Moorish occupation of Spain, to which Europe owes greatly the benefits of the Renaissance, which would last well into the 15th Century.

1828 Shaka, the great Zulu king, killed.

1863 Sarah Thompson Garnet became the first African American female principal in the New York City public school system.

1864 A regiment captured a rebel battery after fighting rearguard action. Six infantry regiments checked rebel troops at Jenkins' Ferry, Saline River, Arkansas. The troops were so enraged by atrocities committed at Poison Spring two weeks earlier, that the Second Kansas Colored Volunteers went into battle shouting, "Remember Poison Spring!"

1900 One of America's classic folk tunes "Casey Jones" was written by Wallace Saunders an Afro-American.

1931 William Lacy Clay was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He became a congressman from Missouri and chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee.

1940 Jesse E. Moorland died in Washington, DC. He was a clergyman, key force in fund-raising for African American YMCAs, alumnus and trustee of Howard University. The donation of his substantial private library to Howard forms the basis of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center on the university's campus.

1961 Isiah Lord Thomas was born in Chicago, Illinois. One of nine children raised by a single mother, Thomas became a basketball star, first for Indiana University and later for the Detroit Pistons, where he led the team to 1989 and 1990 NBA championships.

1983 Robert C. Maynard became the first African American to gain a controlling interest in a major metropolitan newspaper when he bought the Oakland Tribune from Gannett.

1994 The counting of ballots begins in South Africa's first all-race elections.

Munirah Chronicle
Blackfacts Online

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Friday, April 30, 2004 - 4:35 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yeah...Isaiah Thomas is a local hero around these parts. Gotta give his Mum credit for raising nine kids by herself...my hat is off to her.

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 12:55 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
May 1:

1863 The Confederate congress passed a resolution which branded African American troops and their officers criminals. The resolution, in effect, doomed captured African American soldiers to death or slavery.

1866 White Democrats and police attacked freedmen and their white allies in Memphis, Tennessee. Forty-six African Americans and two white liberals were killed. More than seventy were wounded. Ninety homes, twelve schools and four churches were burned.

1867 Reconstruction of the South began with the registering of African American and white voters in the South. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan ordered the registration to begin in Louisiana on May 1 and to continue until June 30. Registration began in Arkansas in May. Other states followed in June and July. By the end of October, 1,363,000 citizens had registered in the South, including 700,000 African Americans. African American voters constitute a majority in five states: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

1867 Howard University,in Washington, D.C. named for General Oliver O. Howard, opened.

1884 Moses Fleetwood Walker became the first African American in the Major Leagues when he played for the Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association. A catcher, he went 0-for-3 in his debut, allowing 2 passed balls and committing 4 errors, as his team bowed to Louisville 5-1. He did better in 41 subsequent games before injuries forced Toledo to release him in late September. In July he was joined by his brother Welday, an outfielder. Racial bigotry prevented his return to major league ball. No other African American player appeared in a major league uniform until Jackie Robinson in 1947.

1901 Sterling Allen Brown was born in Washington, DC. He became a poet, literary critic, editor of "The Negro in American Fiction" and "Negro Poetry and Drama," and the coeditor of the anthology, "The Negro Caravan."

1902 Jimmy Winkfield won his second Kentucky Derby in a row.

1924 Evelyn Boyd Granville was born in Washington, D.C. She attended Dunbar High School, a segregated high school at the time. Her interest in mathematics was encouraged by two mathematics teachers. Granville worked with Einar Hille, a distinguished mathematician in the field of functional analysis, as her Ph.D. faculty advisor at Yale University. She received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Yale in 1949. Following her graduation from Yale Evelyn Granville spent a year as a research assistant at the New York University Institute of Mathematics and part-time instructor in the mathematics department of New York University (NYU). Professor Granville was then appointed as Associate Professor of Mathematics at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee from 1950-1952.

1930 Little Walter was born.
The influential rhythm & blues harmonica player's most popular records include "My Babe" and "Juke".

1941 A. Philip Randolph issued a call for 100,000 African Americans to march on Washington, DC, to protest armed forces and defense industry discrimination. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who attempted to persuade Randolph and others to cancel the demonstration, issued Executive Order 8802, to ban federal discrimination, before Randolph finally yielded.

1946 Mrs. Emma Clarissa Clement was named "American Mother of the Year" by the Golden Rule Foundation.

1946 Former federal judge William H. Hastie was confirmed as governor of the Virgin Islands. Hastie became the only African-American to govern a U.S. state or territory since Reconstruction.

1948 Glenn H. Taylor, U.S. Senator from Idaho and Vice-presidential candidate of the Progressive party, was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes."

1950 Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry "Annie Allen."

1967 May 1-October 1, 1867, was the worst summer for racial distrubances in U.S. history, more than 40 riots and 100 other distrubances occurred.

1975 A commemorative stamp of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar was issued by the U.S. Postal Service as part of its American Arts series.

1981 Dr. Clarence A. Bacote, historian and political scientist, died in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 75.

1990 Robert Guillaume, former star of the Benson TV series, premiered in the title role in "Phantom of the Opera" at the Music Center in Los Angeles. Guillaume continued the role that had been played to critical acclaim by the English star, Michael Crawford.

1991 Rickey Henderson stole his 939th base in the Oakland A's game against the New York Yankees, breaking Lou Brock's major league record.

1995 Charges that Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, had plotted to murder Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan were dropped as jury selection for her trial was about to begin in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1998 Eldridge Cleaver, the fiery Black Panther leader who later renounced his past and became a Republican, died in Pomona,
California, at age 62.

2000 Bobby Eggleston was sworn in as the new sheriff of Drew County, Arkansas. He became the first African American sheriff in Arkansas since Reconstruction.

Blackfacts Online
Munirah Chronicles

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 3:31 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Got my reading in for today...

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 5:41 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I'm glad you're enjoying this thread Rupertbear. I've learned a lot while doing this research.

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Saturday, May 01, 2004 - 6:31 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Yes thanks, Essence...a few of the links won't work but I ALWAYS find something great when I surf from the Yahoo page.

I really enjoy going to a different page every day and finding something new to read about.

Some things are amazing, some uplifting, some sad but I guess it's all a part of mankind's history and we can learn from it. :-)

History was always one of my favourite subjects, Essence.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 4:23 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Today is Sunday, May 2nd 2004, and here are some things that happened in Black History on this date:

1844 Elijah Mc Coy, master inventor, holder of over 50 patents and source of the phrase "the real Mc Coy" born

1845 Macon B. Allen, first African American admitted to the bar in Massachusetts ; the previous year he was admitted to the bar in Maine making him the first licensed African American attorney in the U.S.A.

1863 The Confederate congress passes a resolution which brands African American troops and their officers criminals. The resolution, in effect, dooms captured African American soldiers to death or slavery.

1866 White Democrats and police attack freedmen and their white allies in Memphis, Tennessee. Forty-six African Americans and two white liberals are killed. More than seventy are wounded. Ninety homes, twelve schools and four churches are burned.

1867 Reconstruction of the South begins with the registering of African American and white voters in the South. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan orders the registration to begin in Louisiana on May 1 and to continue until June 30. Registration will begin in Arkansas in May. Other states follow in June and July. By the end of October, 1,363,000 citizens had registered in the South, including 700,000 African Americans. African American voters constitute a majority in five states: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.

1870 William Seymour was born in Centerville, Louisiana. He is credited as being the inspirational force behind the birth of Pentecostalism in the United States.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/2000/001/3.17.html

1884 Moses Fleetwood Walker becomes the first African American in the Major Leagues when he plays for the Toledo Blue Stockings in the American Association. A catcher, he goes 0-for-3 in his debut, allowing 2 passed balls and committing 4 errors, as his team bows to Louisville 5-1. He will do better in 41 subsequent games before injuries force Toledo to release him in late September. In July he will be joined by his brother Welday, an outfielder. Racial bigotry will prevent his return to major league ball. No other African American player will appear in a major league uniform until Jackie Robinson in 1947.

1901 Sterling Allen Brown is born in Washington, DC. He will become a poet, literary critic, editor of "The Negro in American Fiction" and "Negro Poetry and Drama," and the coeditor of the anthology, "The Negro Caravan."

1920 First game of the National Negro Baseball League is played in Indianapolis

1941 A. Philip Randolph issues a call for 100,000 African Americans to march on Washington, DC, to protest armed forces and defense industry discrimination. In response, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who attempted to persuade Randolph and others to cancel the demonstration, will issue Executive Order 8802, to ban federal discrimination, before Randolph finally yields.

1946 Mrs. Emma Clarissa Clement is named "American Mother of the Year" by the Golden Rule Foundation.

1948 Glenn H. Taylor, U.S. Senator from Idaho and Vice-presidential candidate of the Progressive party, is arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, for trying to enter a meeting through a door marked "for Negroes."

1950 Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry "Annie Allen."

1963 An established 2,543 African American and white civil rights demonstrators protesting segregation were arrested and jailed in Birmingham, Alabama.

1968 Poor People's March led by Ralph Abernathy begins

1975 A commemorative stamp of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar is issued by the U.S. Postal Service as part of its American Arts series.

1981 Dr. Clarence A. Bacote, historian and political scientist, dies in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 75.

1990 Robert Guillaume, former star of the Benson TV series, premieres in the title role in "Phantom of the Opera" at the Music Center in Los Angeles. Guillaume continues the role that had been played to critical acclaim by the English star, Michael Crawford.

1991 Rickey Henderson steals his 939th base in the Oakland A's game against the New York Yankees, breaking Lou Brock's major league record.

1992 Los Angeles begins clean up and rebuilding after the Rodney King riots (58 deaths, 600 fires, 1 billion dollars of property damage)

1995 Charges that Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, had plotted to murder Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan are dropped as jury selection for her trial is about to begin in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1998 Eldridge Cleaver, the fiery Black Panther leader who later renounced his past and became a Republican, dies in Pomona, California, at age 62.

1998 Former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, pleads guilty to charges stemming from the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 Tutsis.

2000 Bobby Eggleston is sworn in as the new sheriff of Drew County, Arkansas. He becomes the first African American sheriff in Arkansas since Reconstruction.

http://www.blackfacts.com/
http://www.informationman.com/today.htm




Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, May 03, 2004 - 6:24 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Black Facts that happened on May the 3rd:

1845 Macon B. Allen, first Black lawyer admitted to the bar, passed examination at Worcester, Massachusetts.

1866 On May 1-3, white civilians and police killed forty-six African-Americans and injured many more, burning ninety houses, twelve schools, and four churches in Memphis, Tennessee.

1902 African American jockey Jimmy Winkfield won his second Kentucky Derby in a row astride Alan-a-Dale. With Winkfield's wins, African American jockeys have won 15 of 28 Derby races.

1921 Walker Smith, Jr. was born in Detroit, Michigan. He began his career as a boxer by using the amateur certificate of another boxer, Ray Robinson, which enabled him to enter contests at a young age. After winning the welterweight Golden Glove titles in 1939 and 1940, he turned professional. He continued to box under that name as a professional and is known as Sugar Ray Robinson. He was a world welterweight champion and five-time middleweight champion, with a 175-19-6 record and 109 knockouts from 1940-65. He won his last middleweight title at the age of 38. He was voted the Associated Press Fighter of the Century in December, 1999.

1933 James Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina. The only child of a poor backwoods family, he was sent, to Augusta, Georgia at age five, to live at an aunt's brothel. He evolved from a juvenile delinquent to become one of the most influential Rhythm & Blues singers, with a career that spanned more than five decades and included the hits "I Got You," "Cold Sweat," "Living in America", "Prisoner of Love", and "Sing It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud." Incarcerated in 1988 for aggravated assault, Brown was released in 1991 and returned to the recording scene, where he continued to influence a new generation of artists including M.C. Hammer, Prince, and many others. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 23, 1986 and on February 25, 1992,received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 34th annual Grammy Awards.

1948 Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer that federal and state courts could not enforce restrictive convenants which barred persons from owning or occupying property because of their race.

1967 Black students seized finance building at Northwestern University and demanded Black-oriented curriculum and campus reforms.

http://www.blackfacts.com
http://www.informationman.com/today.htm


Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 8:37 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Black Facts that happened on May the 4th:

1864 Ulysses S. Grant crossed the Rapidan and began his duel with Robert E. Lee. At the same time Ben Butler's Army of the James moved on Lee's forces. Black division in Grant's army did not play a prominent role in Wilderness Campaign, but Ben Butler gave his Black infantrymen and his eighteen hundred Black cavalrymen important assignments. Black troops of the Army of the James were the first Union Soldiers to take possession of James River (at Wilson's Wharf Landing, Fort Powhatan and City Point).

1891 Dr. Daniel Hale Williams founded the Provident Hospital and Training School.

1896 Cowboy Bill Pickett earned the title of inventor of Bull Dogging.

1897 J.W. Smith patents Lawn sprinkler, Patent No. 581,785

1937 Melvin Edwards was born in Houston, Texas. He became a sculptor and had one-man exhibits at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. His work is represented in private collections as well as that of the Museum of Modern Art, the Schomburg Collection of the New York Public Library, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.

1942 Nickolas Ashford was born in Fairfield, South Carolina. He became a songwriter who, with his partner and wife Valerie Simpson, wrote such hits as "Reach out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)," "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing," and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." After becoming a solo act in 1973, Ashford and Simpson had a string of successful albums including "Send It," "Solid," and "Real Love." He and wife Valerie performed at Nelson Mandela's 70th birthday celebration in London in 1988, sang for President Clinton at the 52nd Presidential Inauguration in 1992, performed at the White House for the CISAC 39th World Congress, and in April of 1996 they were awarded ASCAP's highest honor: The Founder's Award, at the Motown Cafe in New York.

1943 William Tubman was elected president of Liberia.

1951 Sigmund Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana. Better known as “Jackie," he became the oldest of the pop group, "The Jackson Five" and later "The Jacksons."

1961 Thirteen CORE-sponsored Freedom Riders began a bus trip in Washington, DC to cities throughout the south, to force desegregation of terminals. Ten days later, the bus was bombed and its passengers attacked by white segregationists near Anniston, Alabama.

1965 Willie Mays' 512th home run broke Mel Ott's 511th National League home run record.

1969 "No Place to Be Somebody" opened at the Public Theatre in New York City. Charles Gordone's powerful play earned its author the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

1985 The famed Apollo Theatre, once the showcase for the nation's top African American performers, reopens after a renovation that cost $10.4 million. The landmark building on West 125th Street in New York was the first place The Beatles wanted to see on their initial visit to the United States. Ed Sullivan used to frequent the Apollo in search of new talent for his CBS show.

1990 The South African government and the African National Congress conclude historic talks in Cape Town with a joint statement agreeing on a "common commitment toward the resolution of the existing climate of violence."

1999 Five New York police officers go on trial for the torture of Haitian immigrant Abner Louima. One officer will later plead guilty; a second officer will be convicted; and three will be acquitted.

http://www.informationman.com/today.htm
http://www.blackfacts.com






Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 9:14 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
<<The Plains Indians began to call the Black cavalrymen "Buffalo Soldiers" and the troopers accepted the title and wore it proudly. To be associated with the fighting spirit of the Indian's sacred buffalo was a measure of respect.>>

Cool...I'd heard the term Buffalo Soldier before but never knew from where the term originated.



Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Thursday, May 06, 2004 - 5:08 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Facts for May 5:

1865 Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., was born.

1905 Robert Sengstacke Abbott founded the Chicago Defender calling it "The World's Greatest Weekly" .

1969 Moneta Sleet became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. and her daughter at her husband's funeral.

1975 Hank Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth's RBI mark. He finished his career
with 755 home runs and over 2200 RBIs; both records still stand today. Aaron was inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame on August 1, 1982. He currently works in the front office for the Atlanta Braves and has a street named in
his honor adjacent to the Braves' new stadium.

Blackfacts.com

Essence
Member

01-12-2002

Thursday, May 06, 2004 - 5:25 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Facts for May 6:

1787 African Lodge No. 459 organized in Boston with Prince Hall as Master.

1812 Marin R. Delany, pioneer Black nationalist, was born free in Charles Town, Virginia.

1886 Inventor M.A. Cherry patented the tricycle.

1931 Baseball great Willie Howard Mays was born in Westfield, Alabama. Mays played with both the New York and San Francisco Giants. He was National League batting champion four times and twice the league's Most Valuable Player.

1960 President Eisenhower signed Civil Rights Act of 1960.

1967 Four hundred students seized administration building at Cheyney State College.

1985 Gladys Ross, co-founder of Phi Delta Kappa sorority for African American teachers, died in Stockton, California.

Blackfacts.com

Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Thursday, May 06, 2004 - 8:15 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hmmmm, I found this about one of the men mentioned for today but it doesn't explain how he was born free....

Delany, Martin R(obison)




Delany, lithograph
Copyright Archive Photos
(b. May 6, 1812, Charles Town, Va., U.S.--d. Jan. 24, 1885, Xenia, Ohio), U.S. black Abolitionist, physician, and editor in the pre-Civil War period; his espousal of black nationalism and racial pride anticipated expressions of such views a century later.
In search of quality education for their children, the Delanys moved to Pennsylvania when Martin was a child. At 19, while studying nights at a Negro church, he worked days in Pittsburgh. Embarking on a course of militant opposition to slavery, he became involved in several racial improvement groups. Under the tutelage of two sympathetic physicians he achieved competence as a doctor's assistant as well as in dental care, working in this capacity in the South and Southwest (1839).

Returning to Pittsburgh, Delany started a weekly newspaper, the Mystery, which publicized grievances of blacks in the U.S. and also championed women's rights. The paper won an excellent reputation, and its articles were often reprinted in the white press. From 1846 to 1849 he worked in partnership with the Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass in Rochester, N.Y., where they published another weekly, the North Star. After three years Delany decided to pursue formal medical studies; he was one of the first blacks to be admitted to the Harvard Medical School and became a leading Pittsburgh physician.

In the 1850s Delany developed an overriding interest in foreign colonization opportunities for his people, and in 1859-60 he led an exploration party to West Africa to investigate the Niger Delta as a location for settlement.

In protest against oppressive conditions in the United States, Delany moved in 1856 to Canada, where he continued his medical practice. At the beginning of the Civil War (1861-65) he returned to the U.S. and helped recruit troops for the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, for which he served as a surgeon. To counter a desperate Southern scheme to impress its slaves into the military forces late in the war, in February 1865, Delany was made a major (the first black man to receive a regular army commission) and was assigned to Hilton Head Island, S.C., to recruit and organize former slaves for the North. When peace came in April he became an official in the Freedmen's Bureau, serving for the next two years.

In 1874 Delany ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor as an Independent Republican in South Carolina; thereafter his fortunes declined. He was the author of The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States Politically Considered (1852).




Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Friday, May 07, 2004 - 6:39 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Today is Friday, May 7th 2004, and here is something that happened in Black History on this date:

1800 On this date in 1800, Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable, frontier trader, fur trapper, farmer, businessman and "father" of Chicago sold all his property for $1,200 and left the area. He died 18 years later, almost penniless, and was buried in St. Charles, Missouri. The archives of this thread contain a biography of Mr. DuSable.

1867 Black demonstrators staged ride-in to protest segregation on New Orleans streetcars. Similar demonstrations occurred in Mobile, Ala., and other cities.

1878 J. R. Winters receives a patent for the fire escape ladder.

1885 Dr. John E. W. Thompson, graduate of the Yale University Medical School, named minister to Haiti.

1976 William H. Hastie inaugurated as the first Black governor of the Virgin Islands.

Black Facts Online

Unfortunately, the Munirah Chronicals have not been updated since May 4th.


Rupertbear
Member

09-19-2003

Friday, May 07, 2004 - 8:58 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Someone's probably on vacation, LadyTex.

Ladytex
Member

09-27-2001

Monday, May 10, 2004 - 11:46 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Black Facts that happened on May the 10th:

1652 John Johnson, a free black, granted 550 acres in Northampton County, VA., for importing eleven persons.

1775 Black patriots participated in the first aggressive action of American forces, the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen and "the Green Mountain Boy."

1837 Pickney Benton Stewart (PBS) Pinchback was born in rural Georgia. Pinchback entered Louisiana politics after the Civil War and became lieutenant governor of that Reconstruction Era state. For 43 days he actually served the office of governor of the state. PBS Pinchback biography found in archives of this thread.

1919 Race riot in Charleston, South Carolina. Two Blacks were killed.

1950 Jackie Robinson appears on the cover of Life magazine; first time an African American is featured on the cover in the magazine's 13 year history

1951 Z. Alexander Looby elected to Nashville City Council.

1962 Southern School News reported that 246,988 or 7.6 per cent of the Black pupils in public schools in seventeen Southern and Border States and the District of Columbia attended integrated classes in 1962.

1963 Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth announced agreement on limited integration plan which ended the Birmingham demonstrations.

1994 Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa.

2004 Justice Dept. reopens the investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a black teenager whose death while visiting Mississippi was an early catalyst for the civil rights movement. News story is found here

www.blackfacts.com
www.cnn.com