Ourstory

[True Father Allah]

1856 - T. (Timothy) Thomas Fortune is born a slave in Marianna,
Florida. In Chicago on January 25, 1890, he will
co-found the militant National Afro-American League to
right wrongs against African Americans authorized by law
and sanctioned or tolerated by public opinion. The league
will fall apart after four years. When it is revived in
Rochester, New York on September 15, 1898, it will have
the new name of the "National Afro-American Council",
with him as President. Those two organizations will play
a vital role in setting the stage for the Niagara Movement,
NAACP and other civil rights organizations to follow. He
will also be the leading advocate of using "Afro-American"
to identify his people. Since they are "African in origin
and American in birth", it is his argument that it most
accurately defines them. With himself at the helm as co-
owner with Emanuel Fortune, Jr. and Jerome B. Peterson, the
New York Age will become the most widely read of all Black
newspapers. It will stand at the forefront as a voice
agitating against the evils of discrimination, lynching,
mob violence, and disenfranchisement. Its popularity is due
to his editorials which condemn all forms of discrimination
and demand full justice for all African Americans. Ida B.
Wells's newspaper "Memphis Free Speech and Headlight" will
have its printing press destroyed and building burned as
the result of an article published in it on May 25, 1892. He
will then give her a job and a new platform from which to
detail and condemn lynching. His book, "The Kind of Education
the Afro-American Most Needs" is published in 1898. He will
publish "Dreams of Life: Miscellaneous Poems" in 1905. After
a nervous breakdown, he will sell the New York Age to Fred R.
Moore in 1907, who will continue publishing it until 1960.
He will publish another book, "The New York Negro in
Journalism" in 1915. He will join the ancestors on June 2,
1928 in Philadephia, Pennsylvania.

1904 - The Daytona Normal and Industrial School opens in Daytona
Beach, Florida. In 1923, the school merges with Cookman
Institute and becomes Bethune-Cookman College. One of
the leading institutions for training teachers, founder
Mary McLeod Bethune will later say the college was
started on "faith and a dollar and a half."

1935 - Ethiopia is invaded by Italy, despite Emperor Haile
Selasse's pleas for help to the League of Nations.

1941 - Ernest Evans is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later
adopting the name "Chubby Checker" after the renowned
Fats Domino, his best-known recording will be the
1960's "The Twist," which will spark the biggest dance
craze since the Charleston in the 1920's.

1949 - The first African American owned radio station, WERD-AM
in Atlanta, Georgia, is founded by Jesse Blanton, Sr.

1979 - Artist Charles White, joins the ancestors at the age of
61 in Los Angeles, California.

1990 – Rio de Janeiro’s first black congresswoman, Benedita da Silva, sweeps the first round of the city’s mayoral race.

1991 - Public Enemy released their platinum-selling 4th album “Apocalypse ‘91” – The Enemy Strikes Black on Def Jam Records , on this day in 1991. Classics tracks like “Shut ‘Em Down” , “Nighttrain” and a remake of “Bring The Noise” with heavy metal bad Anthrax , prompted hip-hop heads to call this set the “birth of hardcore rap”. Album cuts like “Lost At Birth” , “Rebirth” and “Move” would bring underground hip-hop to a whole other level. The album produced the hit single “Can’t Truss It”. Pete Rock’s remixes to singles like “Nighttrain” and “Shut ‘Em Down” also ushered in the era of “the hip-hop remix”, which would see rap singles flipped entirely from their original versions which is common place in the industry until this day. "By the Time I Get to Arizona" is a classic example of how hip hop music could have an influence on spreading awareness and sparking change when it comes to politics. “Apocalypse ‘91” also saw Gary “G” Wiz Rinaldo come to the forefront of The Bomb Squad production sound in regards to P.E. records , bringing in a heavy drum influence as well as meshing it with melodic horn lines while all the while keeping P.E.’s explosive sound.

1994 - U.S. soldiers in Haiti raid the headquarters of a pro-
army militia that is despised by the general Haitian
population.

1994 - Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announces his
resignation because of questions about gifts he had
received.

1994 - South African President Nelson Mandela addresses the
United Nations, urging the world to support his
country's economy.

1995 - Ex-football star O.J. Simpson is cleared today of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

[True Father Allah]

1864 - The National Black Convention meets in Syracuse, New York.

1864 - The New Orleans Tribune, the first African American daily
newspaper, is founded by Dr. Louis C. Roudanez. The
newspaper, published in both English and French, starts
as a tri-weekly, but soon becomes an influential daily.

1934 - Malvin Gray Johnson joins the ancestors in New York City.
His deceptively simple paintings, with their warm colors
and serene, sensuous charm, had earned him a large and
loyal group of admirers during the Harlem Renaissance.

1937 - Lee Patrick Brown is born in Wewoka, Oklahoma. He will
become one of the top-ranking law-enforcement executives
in the United States, first as Public Safety Commissioner
in Atlanta, Georgia, then as the first African American
police chief in Houston, Texas, the second African
American police commissioner for New York City, and the
first African American mayor of Houston.

1943 - Hubert Gerold Brown is born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
He will be better known as H. Rap Brown, become a Black
nationalist and chairman of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee in the 1960s, and later the
Justice Minister of the Black Panther Party. He will be
most famous for his proclamation during that period that
"violence is as American as cherry pie", as well as once
stating that "If America don't come around, we're gonna
burn it down". He is also known for his autobiography "Die
Nigger Die!". He will spend five years (1971-1976) in
New York's Attica Prison after a robbery conviction. While
in prison, he will convert to Islam and change his name to
Jamil Abdullah al-Amin. After his release, he will open a
grocery store in Atlanta, Georgia and become a Muslim
spiritual leader and community activist, preaching against
drugs and gambling in Atlanta's West End neighborhood. He
will be sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of
parole, for the 2000 shooting of two Fulton County Sheriff's
deputies, one of whom joins the ancestors.

1944 - Dancer Pearl Primus makes her Broadway debut at the
Belasco Theater. She will become widely known for
blending the African and American dance traditions.

1944 - Patricia Holt is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She
will become a singer known as Patti LaBelle and will be
a lead with the Ordettes, the Bluebells, and LaBelle.
She will eventually debut a solo career performing over
90 concerts a year. She will publish her life story,
"Don't Block The Blessings: Revelations of a Lifetime."

1945 - Clifton Davis is born in Chicago, Illinois. He will
become an actor and singer, performing in "That's My
Mama," and "Amen" on television. He will also become a
minister in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

1966 - Lesotho (Basutoland) gains its independence from Great
Britain.

1976 - Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigns in the wake
of a controversy over a joke he had made about Blacks.

1982 - Rayford Logan, educator, historian, author, dies

1988 - The Martin L. King, Jr. Federal Building is dedicated in Atlanta, Ga. It is the first federal building in the nation to bear the name of the slain civil rights leader.

1991 - The Harold Washington Library in Chicago, Illinois is
dedicated in the memory of its beloved former mayor.

1994 - Exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide vows in
an address to the U.N. General Assembly, to return to
Haiti in 11 days.

1994 - President Clinton welcomes South African President Nelson
Mandela to the White House.

1996 - Congress passes a bill authorizing the creation of 500,000 Black Revolutionary War Patriots Commemorative coins.

[True Father Allah]

1867 - Monroe Baker, a well-to-do African American businessman,
is named mayor of St. Martin, Louisiana. He is probably
the first African American to serve as mayor of a town.

1869 - First Reconstruction legislature (27 Blacks, 150 whites) met in Richmond, Virginia.

1872 - Booker T. Washington leaves Malden, West Virginia to enter
Hampton Institute.

1878 - George B. Vashion joins the ancestors after succumbing to
yellow fever in Rodney, Mississippi. He was the first
African American lawyer in the state of New York and an
educator and poet whose most famous work was "Victor Oge"
(1854), the first narrative, nonlyrical poem by an
African American writer.

1929 - Autherine Lucy (later Foster) is born in Shiloh, Alabama.
She will be the first African American student to enroll
at the University of Alabama (1956).

1932 - Perle Yvonne Watson is born in Los Angeles, California. As
Yvonne Braithwaite, she will serve as staff attorney on
the McCone Commission investigating the causes of the
Watts riots and will become the first African American
woman elected to the California state assembly, as well
as the first African American woman elected to the House
of Representatives. She also will be the first woman to
sit on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors as a
result of an appointment by Governor Brown. Some years
later, she will become the first woman elected to the Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

1992 - Eddie Kendrick, one of the original members of the Motown
group, The Temptations, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to lung cancer.

[Fatal Guillotine]

good to see youre still at it

[True Father Allah]

Ourstory 10/6

1776 - Henri Christophe is born a slave in Grenada. He will
become a Haitian revolutionist and ruler and also become
provisional chief of northern Haiti. He will establish
himself as King Henri I in the north and build Citadelle
Laferriere.

1847 - National Black convention meets in Troy, New York, with
more than sixty delegates from nine states. Nathan
Johnson of Massachusetts is elected president.

1868 - An African American state convention at Macon, Georgia,
protests expulsion of African American politicians from
the Georgia legislature.

1871 - The Fisk Jubilee Singers begin their tour to raise money
for the school. Soon they will become one of the most
popular African American folk-singing groups of the late
19th century, performing throughout the U.S. and Europe
and raising large sums for Fisk's building program.

1917 - Fannie Lou Hamer is born near Ruleville, Mississippi. She
will become a leader of the civil rights movement during
the 1960's and founder of the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party in Montgomery County, Mississippi.

1921 - Joseph Echols Lowery is born in Huntsville, Alabama. An
early civil rights activist, he will become a founder,
chairman of the board, and president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference. He will lead SCLC to
great levels of civil rights activism including a 2,700
mile pilgrimage to extend and strengthen the Voting
Rights Act, protesting toxic waste sites in African
American communities, and actions against United States'
corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa.

1949 – Lonnie Johnson, creator of the Super Soaker water gun and owner of over 40 patents was born in Mobile, AL

1965 - Patricia Harris takes the post as U.S. Ambassador to
Belgium, becoming the first African American U.S.
ambassador.

1971 - John A. Wilkinson's marriage to Lorraine Mary Turner was the first legalized interracial marriage in North Carolina. Wilkinson was black and Turner was white.

1981 - Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt, is assassinated by
extremists while reviewing a military parade.

1985 - W.D. Davis patented an improved riding saddle.

1986 - Abram Hill joins the ancestors in New York City. He was
the founder of the city's American Negro Theatre in 1940,
where the careers of Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, and
Sidney Poitier were launched. Hill's adaptation of the
play "Anna Lucasta" premiered on Broadway in 1944 and
ran successfully for 900 performances.

1991 - Williams College's exhibit of African American photography
- "Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social
Protest" opens. The exhibit includes photography by C.M.
Battey, James Van Der Zee, Marvin and Morgan Smith,
Moneta Sleet, Carrie Mae Weems, and others.

1991 - Anita Hill, a former personal assistant to Supreme Court
justice nominee Clarence Thomas, accuses Thomas of sexual
harassment (from 1981-83) during his confirmation
hearings.

1994 - South African President, Nelson Mandela, addresses a joint
session of Congress. He will warn against the lure of
isolationism, saying the U.S. post-Cold War focus should
be on eliminating "tyranny, instability and poverty"
across the globe.

good to see youre still at it

PEACE

[True Father Allah]

1800 – Gabriel Prosser was hung for leading a slave revolt in Virginia. A similar plot was discovered in 1722. About 200 slaves had armed themselves with plans to kill the town’s whites while they attended church.

1821 - William Still is born in Burlington County, New Jersey.
He will become an abolitionist and will be involved in
the anti-slavery movement working for the Pennsylvania
Society for the Abolition of Slavery. After the Civil
War, he will chronicle the personal accounts of former
runaway slaves, who had traveled on the Underground
Railroad. His publication, "Underground Railroad,"
published in 1872, will provide a revealing look into
the activities of the flight of fugitive slaves. Still
will be a civil rights activist, researcher and writer,
until he joins the ancestors on July 14, 1902.

1873 - Henry E. Hayne, secretary of state, is accepted as a
student at the University of South Carolina. Scores of
African Americans will attend the university in 1874 and
1875.

1886 - Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.

1888 - Sargent C. Johnson is born in Boston, Massachusetts. He
will be a pioneering artist of the Harlem Renaissance,
known for his wood, cast stone, and ceramic sculptures.
Among his most famous works will be "Forever Free" and
"Mask.

1891 - Archibald John Motley, Jr. is born in New Orleans,
Louisiana. He will become one of the more renowned
painters of the 1920's and 1930's. He will join the
ancestors on January 16, 1981.

1897 - Elijah Poole is born in Sandersville, Georgia. He will
become better known as The Honorable Elijah Muhammad,
one of the most influential leaders in the Nation of
Islam. Poole will be trained by Master Wallace Fard
Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, and will lead
the organization to become the largest African American
movement since Garveyism until he joins the ancestors
on February 25, 1975.

1931 - Desmond Mpilo Tutu is born in Klerksdorp, South Africa.
He will become the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1984, and
Archbishop of the Anglican Church (First Anglican bishop
of African descent) of Johannesburg, South Africa.

1934 - LeRoi Jones is born in Newark, New Jersey. He will be
better known as Amiri Baraka, influential playwright,
author, and critic of the African American experience.

1981 - Egypt's parliament names Vice President Hosni Mubarak to
succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat.

[True Father Allah]

1775 - A council of general officers decides to bar slaves and
free African Americans from serving in the Continental
Army.

1820 – Henri Christophe, leader of Haitan independence from France, died in Cap-Haitien

1930 - Faith Ringgold is born in New York City. She will become
a multimedia artist whose paintings, face masks, fabric
and soft sculptures, and quilts will earn her praise for
her reaffirmation of African American women's values and
unique perspective.

1950 - Robert "Kool" Bell is born. He will become a Rhythm and
Blues singer and will become the leader of his own group,
"Kool & the Gang."

1963 - The Sultan of Zanzibar cedes his mainland possessions to
Kenya.

1969 - Police officers and African Americans exchange sniper
fire on Chicago's West Side. One youth is killed and
nine policemen are injured.

1980 – Bob Marley collapses during a concert in Pittsburgh, PA; he will not perform again

1992 - The Nobel Prize for literature is awarded to West Indies
poet, Derek Walcott.

1993 - The U.N. General Assembly lifted almost all its remaining
economic sanctions against South Africa, begun in the
1960s and built up in subsequent years because of
Pretoria's policy of racial apartheid.

1999 - Laila Ali, the 21-year-old daughter of Muhammad Ali,
makes her professional boxing debut by knocking out
opponent April Fowler 31 seconds after the opening bell
in Verona, New York.

2004 - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai

2009 - Abu Talib, bluesman who recorded and toured with Ray Charles
and Little Walter under his given name, Freddy Robinson,
joins the ancestors in Lancaster, California after
succumbing to cancer.

[True Father Allah]

Uganda Independence Day

1806 – Mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker dies in Ellicott City, MD

1823 - Mary Ann Shadd (later Cary) is born free in Wilmington,
Delaware, the eldest of thirteen children. She will
become the publisher of Canada's first anti-slavery
newspaper, "The Provincial Freeman", devoted to displaced
African Americans living in Canada. This also makes her
the first woman in North America to publish and edit a
newspaper. She will then become a teacher, establishing
or teaching in schools for African Americans in
Wilmington, Delaware, West Chester, Pennsylvania, New
York, Morristown, New Jersey, and Canada. She will also
be the first woman to speak at a national Negro
convention. In 1869, she will embark on her second
career, becoming the first woman to enter Howard
University's law school. She will become the first
African American woman to obtain a law degree and among
the first women in the United States to do so. She will
join the ancestors in 1893.

1894 - Eugene Jacques Bullard is born in Columbus, Georgia.

1906 - Leopold Senghor is born in Joal, Senegal, French West
Africa (now in Senegal). He will become a poet and
president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980. Senghor will
attempt to modernize Senegal's agriculture, instill a
sense of enlightened citizenship, combat corruption and
inefficiency, forge closer ties with his African
neighbors, and continue cooperation with the French. He
will advocate an African socialism based on African
realities, free of both atheism and excessive
materialism. He will seek an open, democratic,
humanistic socialism that shunned such slogans as
"dictatorship of the proletariat." A vigorous spokesman
for the Third World, he will protest unfair terms of
trade that work to the disadvantage of the agricultural
nations. In 1984, Senghor will be inducted into the
French Academy, becoming the first Black member in that
body's history.

1929 - Ernest "Dutch" Morial is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
He will become the first African American mayor of New
Orleans in 1978 and be re-elected in 1982.

1940 - The White House releases a statement which says that
government "policy is not to intermingle colored and
white enlisted personnel in the same regimental
organizations."

1961 - Tanganyika becomes independent within the British
Commonwealth.

1962 - Uganda gains its independence from Great Britain.

1963 - Uganda becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth.

1984 - W Wilson Goode becomes the 1st African American mayor of Philadelphia

1991 - Korean store owner shoots and kills teenager Latasha Harlins in the back of the head. Despite widespread protests, the store owner is only convicted of 10 years of probation. Her store was firebombed weeks later.

1999 - Milt Jackson, a jazz vibraphonist who made the instrument
sing like the human voice as a longtime member of the
Modern Jazz Quartet, joins the ancestors at the age of
76. He succumbs to liver cancer in a Manhattan hospital.

[True Father Allah]

1874 - South Carolina Republicans carry the election with a
reduced victory margin. The Republican ticket is
composed of four whites and four Blacks.

1899 - J.W. Butts, inventor, receives a patent for a luggage
carrier.

1899 - I. R. Johnson patents his bicycle frame.

1901 - Frederick Douglass Patterson is born in Washington, DC.
He will receive doctorate degrees from both Iowa State
University and Cornell University. Dr. Patterson will
serve as the president of Tuskegee Institute from 1935
to 1955. In 1943, he will organize a meeting of the
heads of Black colleges to conduct annual campaigns
for funds needed to help meet the operating expenses of
27 Black colleges and universities. This will result
in the formation of the United Negro College Fund. Dr.
Patterson will serve as its first president.

1917 - Thelonious Monk is born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
He will become an innovative jazz pianist and composer
of ‘Round Midnight.' Monk will be considered one of the
fathers of jazz improvisation and in 1961 will be
featured on the cover of Time magazine, only one of
three jazz musicians so honored at that time.

1935 - George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" premieres at the
Alvin Theater in New York City.

1946 - Ben Vereen is born in Miami, Florida. He will become a
dancer and multi-faceted entertainer.

1953 - Gus Williams is born. He will become a professional
basketball player and NBA guard with the Golden State
Warriors, Seattle Supersonics, and Washington Bullets.

1957 - President Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister
of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused
service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.

1961 - Otis M. Smith is appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court
and becomes the first African American on the high
court.

1964 – This was Day 1 for the Nation of Gods and Earths commonly known as the Five Percenters. The NGE uses street-based education as a means of proactive social change.

1978 - Congressman Ralph H. Metcalfe joins the ancestors in
Chicago at the age of 68.

1989 - South African President F.W. de Klerk announces that
eight prominent political prisoners, including African
National Congress official Walter Sisulu, would be
unconditionally freed, but that Nelson Mandela would
remain imprisoned.

[True Father Allah]

1864 - Slavery is abolished in Maryland.

1865 - Jamaican national hero, Paul Bogle leads a successful
protest march to the Morant Bay Courthouse. Poverty and
injustice in Jamaican society and lack of public
confidence in the central authority had urged Paul Bogle
to lead the march. A violent confrontation with official
forces will follow the march, resulting in the death of
nearly 500 people. Many others will be flogged and
punished before order is restored. Paul Bogle will be
captured and hanged on October 24, 1865. His forceful
demonstration will pave the way for the establishment of
just practices in the courts and bring about a change in
official attitude, making possible the social and economic
betterment of the Jamaican people.

1882 - Robert Nathaniel Dett, is born in Ontario, Canada. He will
become an acclaimed concert pianist, composer, arranger,
and choral conductor. He will receive his musical
education at the Oliver Willis Halstead Conservatory in
Lockport, NY, Oberlin College (BM, 1908, composition and
piano), and the Eastman School of Music (MM, 1938). He
will become President of the National Association of Negro
Musicians from 1924-1926. His teaching tenures will
include Lane College in Tennessee, Lincoln Institute in
Missouri, Bennett College in North Carolina, and Hampton
Institute in Virginia. It will be at Hampton Institute
that he develops the choral ensembles which will receive
international acclaim and recognition. He will join the
ancestors on October 2, 1943, in Battle Creek, Michigan,
after succumbing to congestive heart failure.

1887 – Granville T. Woods patented the telephone. He later sold his patent to General Electric, 1887

1887 - A. Miles registers a patent on an elevator.

1919 - Arthur "Art" Blakey is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Blakey, a jazz drummer credited as one of the creators of
bebop, will be best known as the founder of the Jazz
Messengers. The band will become a proving ground for some
of the best modern jazz musicians, including Horace Silver,
Hank Mobely, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins,
Wynton Marsalis, and Branford Marsalis. He will join the
ancestors on October 16, 1990.

1939 - Coleman Hawkins records his famous "Body and Soul" in New
York City.

1939 - The NAACP organizes the Education and Legal Defense Fund.

1972 - A major prison uprising occurs at the Washington, DC jail.

1976 - The United Nations Day of Solidarity with South Africa is
declared by the membership of the United Nations. A
special day of solidarity is observed with the numerous
political prisoners who are being held in South Africa.

1985 - President Reagan bans the importation of South African gold
coins known as Krugerrands.

1991 - Redd Foxx (John Elroy Sanford), comedian (Sanford & Sons,
Harlem Nights), joins the ancestors at the age of 68.

1994 - U.S. troops in Haiti take over the National Palace.

[True Father Allah]

1904 - William Montague Cobb is born in Washington, DC. He will
become the only Black physical anthropologist with a
Ph.D. before the Korean War, He will hold the only Black
perspective on physical anthropology for many years.
He will serve as the Chairman of the Anthropology
Section of the American Association for Advancement of
Science and be the first African American President of
the American Association of Physical Anthropologists.
He will be not only a famous physical anthropologist
because of his race, but also because of the great
contributions he made to the field of anthropology. He
grew up pondering the question of race, which ultimately
led him to his studies of anthropology. After graduating
from Dunbar High School, he will continue his studies at
Amherst College, where he will study a wide variety of
subjects and graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
After his graduation from Amherst, he will research
embryology at the prestigious Woods Hole Marine Biology
Laboratory in Massachusetts. He will then attend Howard
University Medical School, where he will earn an Masters
Degree in 1929 and will later spend much of his
professional career. The next few years, he will spend
his time at Case Western Reserve University, where he will
earn a Ph.D. and work on the Hamann-Todd Skeletal
Collection. He will return to Howard University in 1932
and begin working on a laboratory of his own to conduct
skeletal research. He will also continue his research on
human cranio-facial union at the Hamann-Todd Collection
and the Smithsonian Institute during the summers. In his
mind, his two best papers on this subject were "The
Cranio-Facial Union and the Maxillary Tuber in Mammals"
(1943), and "Cranio-Facial Union in Man" (1940). These
publications will establish him as a functional anatomist.
He will also make significant contributions in the issue
of race in athletics, where he will claim race was
insignificant to athletics and also profile the biology
and demography of the African American race during the
1930's. He will leave his legacy of skeletal research with
the Laboratory of Anatomy and Physical Anthropology at
Howard University. This collection of over 600 skeletons
will be considered one of the premiere collections of its
kind. He will also be the editor of the Journal of the
National Medical Association from 1949 to 1977. He will
join the ancestors on November 20, 1990.

1908 - Ann Lane Petry is born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She
will become the author of "The Street and the Juvenile
Work", and "Harriet Tubman, Conductor of the
Underground Railroad." She will join the ancestors on
April 28, 1997.

1925 - Xavier University, America's only African American
Catholic college, becomes a reality, when the College
of Liberal Arts and Sciences is established. The
first degrees were awarded three years later. (The
Normal School was founded in 1915.)

1929 - Napoleon Brown Goodson Culp is born in Charlotte, North
Carolina. He will become a blues singer better known as
"Nappy" Brown. He will begin his career as the lead singer
for the gospel group, The Heavenly Lights, recording for
Savoy Records. In 1954, Savoy will convince Brown to
cross over to secular music. For the next few years,
he will ride the first wave of rock and roll until his
records stop selling. After years away from the
limelight, he will resurface in 1984 with an album for
Landslide Records. He will then regularly perform and
record for the New Moon Blues independent label. He will
join the ancestors on September 20, 2008.

1932 - Richard Claxton Gregory is born in St. Louis, Missouri.
He will be better known as "Dick" Gregory and in the
1960's will become a comedic pioneer, bringing a new
perspective to comedy and opening many doors for Black
entertainers. Once he achieves success in the
entertainment world, he will shift gears and use his
talents to help causes in which he believes. He will
serve the community for over forty years as a comedian,
civil and human rights activist and health/nutrition
advocate. On October 9, 2000, his friends and
supporters will honor him at a Kennedy Center gala,
showing him their "appreciation for his uncommon
character, unconditional love, and generous service."

1935 - Samuel David Moore is born in Winchester, Georgia. He
will become a rhythm and blues singer and one half of
the group: Sam & Dave (Dave Prater). The two singers
will be brought together onstage at Miami's King of Hearts
nightclub during an amateur night venue. Sam and Dave
will record for the Alston and Roulette labels before
being discovered by Atlantic Records' Jerry Wexler,
who caught their act at the King of Hearts in 1964 and
then sent them to Memphis-based Stax to record the
next year. They will be best know for their hits,
"Hold On! I'm a Comin'", "Soul Man", "I Thank You",
and "You Got Me Hummin'". Sam and Dave will finally
call it quits after a performance in San Francisco on
New Year's Eve in 1981. Samuel Moore will live to see
the induction of Sam and Dave into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame in 1992 (Dave Prater will be killed in an
automobile accident on April 9, 1988).

1945 - Jesse James Payne was lynched in Madison County. Florida.

1968 - Equatorial Guinea gains independence from Spain.

1972 - Forty-six African American and white sailors are
injured in a racially motivated insurrection aboard
the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, off the coast of
North Vietnam.

1989 - George Beavers, Jr., the last surviving founder of
Golden State Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles,
California, joins the ancestors. He co-founded this
company in 1925, which is the third largest African
American life insurance company, with $120 million in
assets and $5 billion of insurance in force.

[True Father Allah]

1831 - Jo Anderson, a slave, helps invent the grain harvester
reaper.

1876 - Meharry Medical College, formally opens at Central
Tennessee College.

1901 - Edith Spurlock (later Sampson) is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. She will graduate from the John Marshall
Law School in Chicago in 1925 with a Bachelor of Laws
degree. In 1927, she will become the first African
American woman to receive a Masters of Laws degree from
Loyola University. She will become a member of the
Illinois bar in 1927, and be admitted to practice before
the Supreme Court in 1934. She will become the first
African American woman to be named a delegate to the
United Nations. She will serve from 1950 to 1953, first
as an appointee of President Harry S. Truman and later
during a portion of the Eisenhower Administration. She
will join the ancestors on October 8, 1979.

1902 - Arna Bontemps is born in Alexandria, Louisiana. He will
become a prolific poet, librarian, and author of
historical and juvenile fiction. Among his best-known
works will be "God Sends Sunday" and "Black Thunder",
the juvenile books "We Have Tomorrow" and "The Story of
the Negro", and "American Negro Poetry", which he edited.
In 1943, after graduating from the University of Chicago
with a masters degree in library science, Bontemps was
appointed librarian at Fisk University in Nashville,
Tennessee. He will hold that position for 22 years and
will develop important collections and archives of
African American literature and culture. Through his
librarianship and bibliographic work, he will become a
leading figure in establishing African American
literature as a legitimate object of study and
preservation. He will join the ancestors on June 4, 1973.

1906 - J. Saunders Redding is born in Wilmington, Delaware. He
will become a literary and social critic and author of
non-fiction works on the African American experience. He
will earn an advanced degree in English at Brown
University (1932) and will be a professor at various
colleges and universities, including Morehouse, Hampton,
and Cornell. In 1949, his stint as a visiting professor
at Brown will make him the first African American to hold
a faculty position at an Ivy League university. He will
write many books and articles on African American culture
and other topics, including "To Make a Poet Black" (1939),
a landmark history of African American literature; "No Day
of Triumph" (1942), an autobiographical account of a
journey through southern black communities; and "Stranger
and Alone" (1950), a novel, as well as several more general
historical and sociological works. He will also edit with
Arthur P. Davis, an important anthology, "Cavalcade: Negro
American Writing from 1760 to the Present" (1971). He will
join the ancestors on March 2, 1988 at his home in Ithaca,
New York.

1914 - Garrett Augustus Morgan, the son of former slaves, receives
a patent for an invention he calls the "Safety Hood and
Smoke Protector," which came to be known as a gas mask.

1926 - First Black naval aviator, Jesse Leroy Brown was born

1970 - Angela Davis arrested in New York City and charged with unlawful flight to avoid persecution for her alleged role in California courthouse shoot-out.

1980 - Unprovoked slayings of six Blacks in Buffalo, New York, triggered demands for national investigation. Spingarn Medal warded to Rayford W. Logan, historian and author, "in tribute to his lifetime of service as an educator and historian."

[True Father Allah]

10/14

Young People’s Day (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

1834 - Henry Blair of Glen Ross, Maryland, receives a patent for
a corn planting machine.

1864 - The first African American daily newspaper, the New
Orleans Tribune, is published in both French and English.

1916 - Sophomore tackle and guard Paul Robeson is excluded from
the Rutgers football team when Washington and Lee
University refuse to play against an African American.
The exclusion will be temporary and the young Robeson
will go on to be named a football All-American twice.

1958 - The District of Columbia Bar Association votes to accept
African Americans as members.

1964 - Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. is announced as the recipient of
the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights activities.
King is the second African American to win the Peace
Prize.

1969 - A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in
Springfield, Massachusetts.

1971 - Two people are killed in a Memphis, Tennessee racially
motivated disturbance.

1980 - Bob Marley performs in his last concert before he
untimely joins the ancestors succumbing to cancer.

1995 - Sports Illustrated places Eddie Robinson on the cover
of its magazine. He is the first and only coach of an
Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to
appear on the cover of any major sports publication in
the United States.

1999 - Julius Nyerere, Tanzania's first president, joins the
ancestors in a London hospital at age 77.

10/15

1877 - Jackson College in Jackson, Mississippi is established.

1883 - The U.S. Supreme Court declares that The Civil Rights Act
of 1875 is unconstitutional. The Civil Rights Act of
1875 stated that "All persons within the jurisdiction of
the United States shall be entitled to the full and
equal enjoyment of the accomodations, advantages,
facilities, and privileges of inns, public conveyances
on land or water, theaters, and other places of public
amusement; subject only to the conditions and
limitations established by law and applicable alike to
citizens of every race and color, regardless of any
previous condition of servitude."

1890 - Savannah State College in Savannah, Georgia is
established.

1890 - The Alabama Penny Savings Bank is founded in Birmingham,
Alabama by Reverend William Reuben Pettiford with $2,000
in capital. Although, so strapped for funds in its initial
months that its officers will not draw salaries, the bank
will prosper so well that during the panic of 1893, it will
remain open when larger, white banks in Birmingham fail.

1917 - The first significant group of African American officers
is commissioned by the U.S. Army.

1949 - William Hastie is nominated for the U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals. He will be the first African American to
sit on the court.

1953 - Toriano Adaryll Jackson is born in Gary, Indiana. He
will become a singer and member of The Jackson Five
known as Tito.

1957 - The Sickle Cell Disease Research Foundation opens in Los
Angeles, California. It is the forerunner to a national
association and over 50 local chapters dedicated to
providing education, screening, counseling, and research
in the genetic disease that affects over 50,000
individuals, mostly African Americans.

1966 – The Black Panther Party for self defense was formed in Oakland, CA

1969 - Abdi Rashid Ali Shermarke, President of Somalia, is
assassinated.

1974 - The National Guard is mobilized to restore order in the
Boston school busing crisis.

1989 - South African officials release eight prominent political
prisoners, including Walter Sisulu, a leader of the
African National Congress.

1991 - Judge Clarence Thomas is confirmed as the 106th associate
justice of the United States Supreme Court, despite
sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill, with a
Senate vote of 52-48. He becomes the second African
American to sit on the Supreme Court.

1993 - African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and South
African President F.W. de Klerk are awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for their work to end apartheid and laying
the foundations for a democratic South Africa.

1994 - Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide returns to his
country, three years after being overthrown by army
rulers. The U.N. Security Council welcomes Aristide's
return by voting to lift stifling trade sanctions
imposed against Haiti.

2005 - The Million More Movement convenes on the National Mall
in Washington, DC. In addition to celebrating the 10th
anniversary of the Million Man March, there is a call
for an end to the war in Iraq, and pointed criticism of
the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

10/16

1849 - George Washington Williams is born in Bedford Springs,
Pennsylvania. He will become the first major African
American historian and founder of two African American
newspapers, "The Commoner" in Washington, DC, and
Cincinnati's "The Southern Review."

1849 - Charles L. Reason is named professor of belles-lettres
and French at Central College in McGrawville, New York.
William G. Allen and George B. Vashon also will teach
at the predominantly white college.

1855 - More than one hundred delegates from six states hold a
Black convention in Philadelphia.

1855 - John Mercer Langston, one of the first African Americans
to win public office, is elected clerk of Brownhelm
Township, Lorain County, Ohio.

1859 - Osborne Perry Anderson, a free man, is one of five
African Americans in John Brown's raid on the United
States Arsenal at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. This raid that hoped for escaped slaves to join the rebellion included 16 whites as well.

1872 - South Carolina Republicans carry the election with a
ticket of four whites and four Blacks: Richard H.
Gleaves, lieutenant governor; Henry E. Hayne, secretary
of state; Francis L. Cardozo, treasurer; and Henry W.
Purvis, adjutant general. African Americans win 97 of
the 158 seats in the General Assembly and four of the
five congressional districts.

1876 - A race riot occurs in Cainhoy, South Carolina. Five
whites and one African American are killed.

1895 - The National Medical Association is founded in Atlanta,
Georgia.

1901 - Booker T. Washington dines at the White House with
President Theodore Roosevelt and is criticized in the
South.

1932 - Chi Eta Phi sorority is founded in Washington, DC.
Aliene Carrington Ewell and 11 other women establish
the nursing society, which will grow to 72 chapters in
22 states, the District of Columbia, and Liberia and
will eventually admit both men and women.

1968 - Tommie Smith and John Carlos hold up their fists in a
Black Power salute during the 1968 Summer Games in
Mexico City, Mexico. Their actions will come to
symbolize the Black Power movement in sports and will
result in their suspension from the games two days
later.

1973 - Maynard Jackson becomes the first African American mayor
of a major southern city when he was elected mayor of
Atlanta, Georgia. Jackson, at the age of 35, becomes
one of the youngest mayors of a major city to ever be
elected.

1984 - Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa is awarded
the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as a unifying figure
in the campaign to resolve the problems of apartheid in
South Africa.

1990 - Art Blakey, jazz drummer (Jazz Messengers), joins the
ancestors, after a bout with cancer, at the age of 71.

1995 - Minister Louis Farrakhan of The Nation of Islam speaks at
The Million Man March in Washington, D.C., which he
called for, and organized. It is known as the "Day of
Atonement."

1997 – The NAACP advocated for a formal revision of the word nigger in Merrium-Webster’s dictionary

2000 - The Million Family March, called for by Minister Louis
Farrakhan, is held in Washington, DC.

10/17

Mother’s Day (Malawi)

1711 - Jupiter Hammon is born a slave on Long Island, New York. He
will become a poet and the first published Black writer in
America, a poem appearing in print in 1760. He will be
considered one of the founders of African American
literature. He will be a slave his entire life, owned by
several generations of the Lloyd family on Long Island.
However, he will be allowed to attend school, and unlike
many slaves, will be able to read and write. In 1786,
He will give his "Address to the Negroes of the State of
New York" before the African Society. He will write the
the speech at age seventy-six after a lifetime of slavery,
and it will contain his famous quote, "If we should ever
get to Heaven, we shall find nobody to reproach us for
being Black, or for being slaves." The speech draws
heavily on Christian motifs and theology. For example, He
will say that Black people should maintain their high
moral standards precisely because being slaves on Earth
had already secured their place in heaven. His speech
also will promote the idea of a gradual emancipation as a
way of ending slavery. It will be thought that he stated
this plan because he knew that slavery was so entrenched
in American society that an immediate emancipation of all
slaves would be more difficult to achieve. The speech will
be later reprinted by several groups opposed to slavery.
It is widely believed that he joined the ancestors in
1806.

1787 - Boston African Americans, led by Prince Hall, submit to
the State Legislature in Boston, Massachusetts, a
petition asking for equal educational rights and
facilities. The petition is not granted.

1806 - Jean Jacques Dessalines, revolutionist and Emperor of
Haiti, joins the ancestors as a result of an
assassination.

1817 - Samuel Ringgold Ward is born on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland. He will be considered one of the finest
abolitionist orators. He will work for the Anti-Slavery
Society of Canada and will travel to Britain to further
the society's work. His fundraising success in Britain
will provide the society to finance their support of
escaped slaves from the United States. After publishing
a book that will chronicle his anti-slavery achievements,
he will be able to retire to Jamaica, where he will join
the ancestors in 1866.

1871 - President Grant suspends the writ of habeas corpus and
declares martial law in nine South Carolina counties
affected by Ku Klux Klan disturbances.

1888 - The first African American bank, Capital Savings Bank of
Washington, DC, opens for business.

1894 - Ohio National Guard kills 3 members of a lynch mob while
rescuing an African American man.

1909 - William R. Cole is born in East Orange, New Jersey. He
will become a jazz drummer best known as "Cozy Cole."
He will begin to play professionally as a teenager and
will make his first recording at age 20 with Jelly Roll
Morton's Red Hot Peppers. Cozy Cole will join Cab
Calloway's band in 1939 and will join CBS radio in 1943
to play in Raymond Scott's Orchestra, becoming one of
the first African American musicians on a network
musical staff. In 1958, Cole will make a solo hit
record, "Topsy," that sells more than a million copies.
He will join the ancestors on January 9, 1981.

1956 - Mae C. Jemison is born in Decatur, Alabama. She will
grow up in Chicago, become a physician, serve in the
Peace Corps in Africa, and practice medicine in Los
Angeles, before being selected for the astronaut
training program in 1987.

1969 - Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr., is elected president of
Michigan State University and becomes the first African
American to head a major, predominantly white university
in the twentieth century.

1985 - Legendary jazz and blues singer Alberta Hunter joins the
ancestors in New York City. She achieved fame in
Chicago jazz clubs in the 1920's, toured Europe in the
1930's and, after over 20 years of anonymity as a nurse,
returned to performing in 1977.

1990 - Dr. Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader, joins the
ancestors.

1991 - The 100th episode of "A Different World" airs on NBC.
The acclaimed show, a spin-off of "The Cosby Show" that
stars Jasmine Guy, Kadeem Hardison, and an ensemble of
young African American actors, is directed by Debbie
Allen.

10/18

1903, 1905, 1910 (didn’t sources say different years) - Felix Houphouet-Boigny is born in the Ivory Coast when it
was part of French colonial West Africa. In 1960, after
the Ivory Coast (Cote' d'Ivoire) gains independence from
France, he will become President, and hold that office
until he joins the ancestors in 1993.

1926 - Charles Edward Berry is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He
will become one of the foremost legends in rock and roll
and known as "Chuck" Berry. In the early Fifties, Berry
will lead a popular blues trio by night and work as a
beautician by day. After befriending Muddy Waters, he
will be introduced to Leonard Chess of Chess Records, who
signs him to a recording contract. Chuck Berry will also
be successful in crossing over to the largely white pop
market. His hits will include "Maybellene," "Rock and
Roll Music," "School Days," "Johnny B. Goode," "Sweet
Little Sixteen," "No Particular Place to Go," "You Never
Can Tell," "Promised Land," and "My Ding-a-Ling." He
will inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1986.

1942 - Willie Horton is born. He will become a professional
baseball player with the Detroit Tigers, known for his
power hitting ability.

1945 - Paul Robeson, actor, singer, athlete and activist,
receives the NAACP's Spingarn Medal.

1961 - Wynton Marsalis is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. A
jazz trumpeter from the famous Marsalis family, which
includes father Ellis and brothers Branford and Delfayo,
he will at 19, become a member of Art Blakely's Jazz
Messengers and in 1984 be the first musician to win
Grammys for jazz and classical music recordings
simultaneously.

1968 - United States Olympic Committee suspends Tommie Smith &
John Carlos for giving a "black power" salute as a
protest during a victory ceremony in Mexico City on
October 16.

1973 - "Raisin", a musical adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry
play, "A Raisin in the Sun", opens on Broadway. It
marks the debut of Debbie Allen in the role of Beneatha
Younger and will act as the catalyst for her further
success in television and choreography.

1990 - Filmmaker Charles Burnett's 1977 movie "Killer of Sheep"
is declared a "national treasure" by the Library of
Congress. It is among the first 50 films placed in the
National Film Registry because of its significance.
Burnett's film joins other significant films such as
"All About Eve", "The Godfather", and "Top Hat."

10/19

1859 - Byrd Prillerman is born a slave in Shady Grove,
Franklin County, Virginia. He will become an
educator, reformer, religious worker, political
figure, and lawyer. He will be best known as the co-
founder of the West Virginia Colored Institute in
1891. The school will be changed to the West
Virginia Collegiate Institute in 1915. The school,
under Prillerman's leadership, will become the first
state school for African Americans to reach the rank
of an accredited college whose work is accepted by
the universities of the North. The school will
eventually become West Virginia State College, then
West Virginia State University. He will join the
ancestors on April 25, 1929.

1870 - The first African Americans are elected to the House
of Representatives. African American Republicans
won three of the four congressional seats in South
Carolina: Joseph H. Rainey, Robert C. DeLarge and
Robert B. Elliott. Rainey was elected to an un-
expired term in the Forty-first Congress and was the
first African American seated in the House.

1878 – Dr. Frederick Victor Nanka Bruce, the first physician on the Gold Coast, is born in Accra, Ghana

1920 - Alberta Peal is born in Cleveland, Ohio. She will
become a television and movie actress better known as
LaWanda Page and will star in "Mausoleum," "Women Tell
the Dirtiest Jokes," "Shakes the Clown," and "Don't Be
a Menace." She will be best known for her role as Aunt
Esther in the long-running television series, "Sanford
and Sons." She will join the ancestors on September 14,
2002.

1924 - "From Dixie to Broadway" premieres at the Broadhurst
Theatre in New York City. The music is written by
Will Vodery, an African American, who arranged music
for the Ziegfeld Follies for 23 years.

1936 - Johnnetta Betsch (later Cole) is born in Jacksonville,
Florida. She will have a distinguished career as an
educator and administrator and will become the first
African American woman to head Spelman College.

1944 - Winston Hubert McIntosh is born in Westmoreland, Jamaica.
He will become a founding father of reggae music and be
part of the song writing magic of the Wailers, Bob
Marley's group. He will be better known as Peter Tosh.
He will join the ancestors in September 11, 1987 after
being shot during a robbery attempt.

1944 - The Navy announces that African American women would be
allowed to become WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer
Emergency Service).

1946 - The first exhibition of the work of Josef Nassy, an
American citizen of Dutch-African descent, is held in
Brussels. The exhibit consists of 90 paintings and
drawings Nassy created while in a Nazi-controlled
internment camp during World War II.

1960 - Jennifer-Yvette Holiday is born in Riverside, Texas.
She will become a singer and actress and will have her
first big break as a star in the Broadway production
of "Dream Girls" in 1981. She will later become a
successful recording artist. She will be best known for
her debut single, the Dreamgirls showstopper and Grammy
Award-winning Rhythm & Blues/Pop hit, "And I Am Telling
You I'm Not Going."

1960 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in an Atlanta,
Georgia sit-in demonstration. John F. Kennedy, Democratic presidential candidate, called Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr. and expressed his concern about the imprisonment of Dr. King.

1981 - The Martin Luther King, Jr. Library and Archives opens
in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded by Coretta Scott King,
the facility, is the largest repository in the world
of primary resource material on Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., nine major civil rights organizations, and
the American civil rights movement.

1983 - Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop joins the
ancestors after being assassinated after refusing to
share leadership of the New Jewel Movement with his
deputy, Bernard Coard. This event will indirectly
lead to the invasion of Grenada by the United States
and six Caribbean nations.

1983 - The U.S. Senate approves the establishment of the
Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday on the third
Monday in January.

1988 - South African anti-apartheid leader, Walter Sisulu wins
a $100,000 Human Rights prize.

[True Father Allah]

1893 – Kenya’s first president Jomo Kenyatta was born

1934 - Henry Dumas is born in Sweet Home, Arkansas. He will move
to the village of Harlem in New York City at the age of
ten. He will attend City College and then join the Air
Force. While in the Air Force he will spend a year on
the Arabian Peninsula, where he will develop an interest
in the Arabic language, mythology, and culture. He will
be active in civil rights and humanitarian activities,
including transporting food and clothing to protesters
living in Mississippi and Tennessee. In 1967, he will
work at Southern Illinois University as a teacher,
counselor, and director of language workshops in its
"Experiment in Higher Education" program. It is there
where he meets Eugene Redmond, a fellow teacher in that
program. He and Redmond will read their poetry at common
gatherings; Redmond especially remembers him reading "Our
King Is Dead," his elegy for Martin Luther King, Jr. He
will also frequent the offices of the East St. Louis
Monitor, which Redmond edits. He will inspire interest
for his unique vision of black people in the diaspora.
In many ways he will become a cultural icon in African
American literary circles. He will claim Moms Mabley and
gospel music as particular influences upon him. He will
join the ancestors on May 23, 1968 at the age of 33 after
being mistakenly shot and killed by a New York City
Transit policeman. Over the course of the ten months that
he lives in East St. Louis, he and Redmond will forge the
collaborative relationship that would prove so fruitful
to his posthumous Career. His literary legacy is kept
alive almost single-handedly by Redmond. His first
collection of short fiction is entitled "Arks of Bones
and Other Stories" (edited by Redmond in 1974), which
includes nine stories and in which his largely mythic
vision of African American existence is apparent.
Redmond's commitment to making his work readily available
to scholarly communities will continue in the publication
of "Goodbye, Sweetwater" (1988) and "Knees of a Natural
Man: The Selected Poetry of Henry Dumas" (1989). The
first volume contains eight of the stories that first
appeared in "Ark of Bones," along with excerpts from
Dumas's unfinished novel, "Jonoah and the Green Stone"
(1976), stories from "Rope of Wind" (1979), and three
selections from "Goodbye Sweetwater." One of the stories
in the final section is "Rain God," which develops the
African American folk belief that, when it is raining and
the sun is shining, the devil is beating his wife. Three
young black boys literally witness this phenomenon as
they are on their way home one rainy-sunny day. The
second volume contains previously published as well as
unpublished poems, including several poems with the title
"Kef" and an accompanying number, and "Saba," with the
same pattern. Some of the poems in "Knees" had appeared
in "Play Ebony: Play Ivory" (1974), a collection of his
poetry, which Redmond will edit singly in 1974 and which
he co-edits in 1970. His poetry is inspired by African
American music, particularly blues and jazz (he studied
with Sun Ra), and he develops themes consistent with the
Black Aesthetic of the 1960s. His poetry also focuses,
in keeping with his fiction, on themes of nature and the
natural world.

1953 – Jomo Kenyatta and five other Mau Mau leaders refuse to appeal their prison terms

1954 - Freeman Bosley, Jr., St. Louis' first African American
mayor, is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will attend
Saint Louis University and Saint Louis University Law
School. He will graduate from Saint Louis University in
1976 with two undergraduate degrees, a B.A. in Urban
Affairs and a B.A. in Political Science. He will receive
his Juris Doctorate from Saint Louis University Law
School in 1979. His public service career will begin
when he becomes the first African American St. Louis
Circuit Clerk for the 22nd Judicial Circuit - a position
he will hold for ten years. He will serve as the 3rd
Ward Democratic Committeeman, chairman of the St. Louis
City Democratic Central Association, and the first
African American chairman of the Democratic Party in St.
Louis City. After winning the April 6, 1993 election
with 66.5% of the vote, he will become the first African
American Mayor of St. Louis. He will oversee the battle
against the Flood of 1993, help to orchestrate the $70
million bailout of Trans World Airlines and help to move
the Los Angeles Rams football team to St. Louis from
Anaheim, California. He will be defeated in his bid for
re-election.

1967 - The first National Conference of Black Power opens in
Newark, New Jersey. The four-day meeting is attended
by 1,100 African Americans.

1967 - A night of racially motivated disturbances occurs in
Memphis, Tennessee.

1973 - The National Black Network begins operations. It is the
first African American owned and operated radio news
network.

[True Father Allah]

1815 - Henry Highland Garnet is born in New Market, Maryland.
He will become a noted clergyman and abolitionist. He
will also be the first African American to deliver a
sermon before the House of Representatives.

1863 - Robert Blake, powder boy aboard the USS Marblehead, is
the first African American to be awarded the Naval Medal
of Honor "for conspicuous gallantry, extraordinary
heroism, and intrepidity at the risk of his own life."
The heroic action occurred during a victorious battle
off the coast of South Carolina.

1867 – Business woman Sarah Breedlove aka Madam CJ Walker, arguably the first self made woman millionaire of any race in America and first black millionaire was born in Delta, LA. She invented and marketed Black hair care products. Contrary to popular belief, Walker never sold skin lightening products is born in Delta, Louisiana. Her hair-care, toiletry and cosmetics products revolutionized the standard of
beauty for African American women. Her philanthropy and generosity made her a popular figure in the early 1900's. She started her business in Denver, CO which altered curling irons that were popularized by the French to suit the texture of Black womens hair.
1908 – Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was born

1919 - Alice H. Parker patents the gas heating furnace.

1935 - Esther Mae Jones is born in Galveston, Texas. She will
begin her career as a blues singer at 13 as "Little"
Esther Phillips, taking her name from a billboard for a
gasoline company. Problems with drugs and alcohol will
cause her to interrupt her career a number of times.
She will record several memorable songs including "And
I Love Him" and "Release Me."

1946 - The University of Tennessee refuses to play Duquesne
University, because they may use an African American
player in their basketball game.

1999 - President Clinton pardons Freddie Meeks, an African
American sailor court-martialed for mutiny during World
War II when he and other sailors refused to load live
ammunition following a deadly explosion at the Port
Chicago Naval Magazine near San Francisco that had
claimed more than 300 lives.
2006 - DJ Carl Blaze died from multiple gunshot wounds on this day in 2006 , 2 weeks after being shot a dozen times outside a friend’s home in Manhattan , New York. Blaze , a fixture on New York’s Power 105.1 fm station , was born Carlos Rivera and was the apparent victim of a robbery.