1825 - Frances Ellen Watkins Harper is born free in Baltimore, Maryland. She will grow up to be one of the most famous African American poets. Harpers mother will join the ancestors before she is three years old, leaving her an orphan. Harper will be raised by her uncle, William Watkins, a teacher at the Academy for Negro Youth and a radical political figure in civil rights. Watkins will be a major influence on Harpers political, religious, and social views. Harper will attend the Academy for Negro Youth and the rigorous education she will receive, along with the political activism of her uncle, will affect and influence her poetry. In 1850, she will become the first female to teach at Union Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio. After new laws pass in 1854, state that African Americans entering through Marylands northern border could be sold into slavery, Harper will become an active abolitionist and writer. She will be known for her writings, Forest Leaves, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, Moses: A Story of the Nile, Achans Sin, Sketches of Southern Life, Light Beyond the Darkness, Iola Leroy: Or Shadows Uplifted, The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems, Atlanta Offering Poems, and Idylls of the Bible. She will join the ancestors on February 22, 1911. 1883 - The National Black convention meets in Louisville, Kentucky. 1894 - Sociologist and professor at Morehouse College, Fisk University, and Howard University, E.(Edward) Franklin Frazier is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will organize the Atlanta University School of Social Work (for African Americans), later becoming its director. He will write the controversial publication (1927) The Pathology of Race Prejudice in Forum Magazine. His writings will include The Negro Family in the United States (1939), among the first sociological works on African Americans researched and written by an African American. He will also write Negro Youth at the Crossways (1940) and Race and Culture Contacts in the Modern World (1957), which deals with African studies. Frazier will have a distinguished career at Howard University as chairman of its sociology department as well as serving as the first African American president of the American Sociological Society. He will join the ancestors on May 17, 1962. 1931 - Cardiss Robertson (later Collins) is born in St. Louis, Missouri. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1973 after the death of her husband, George, she will serve in a leadership capacity often in her Congressional career, most notably as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Competitiveness. 1935 - World Heavyweight Champion, Joe Louis, becomes the first African American boxer to draw a million dollar gate. 1941 - John Mackey is born in New York City. He will become a football player in the National Football League in 1963 and will play all but one of his pro years with the Baltimore Colts. His career record will include 331 catches, 5,236 yards, and 38 touchdowns. He will be enshrined in the Football Hall of Fame in 1992 (the second tight end to be so honored). 1946 - Charles Edward Mean Joe Greene is born in Temple, Texas. He will become a star football player for North Texas State and will be a number one draft pick in the National Football League in 1969 and will play his entire career (1969-1981) with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He will become the cornerstone of franchise that dominated the NFL in the 1970s. He will be an exceptional team leader, possessing size, speed, quickness, strength, and determination. He will be NFL Defensive Player of The Year twice (1972 and 1974). He will be All-Pro or All- AFC nine years and will play in four Super Bowls (won all four), six AFC title games, and 10 Pro Bowls. He will be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987. He will become a defensive line coach with Pittsburgh after his retirement as an active player. 1953 - Take a Giant Step, a drama by playwright Louis Peterson, opens on Broadway. 1954 - Patrick Kelly is born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. A fashion design student, Kelly will move to Paris, where his innovative and outrageous womens fashion designs, featuring multiple buttons, bows and African American baby dolls, will win him wide acclaim and make him the first and only American designer admitted to an exclusive organization of French fashion designers. 1957 - President Eisenhower makes an address on nationwide TV and radio to explain why troops are being sent to Little Rock, Arkansas. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, earlier in the day sends 1,000 U.S. government paratroopers to Little Rock to aid in the desegregation of the public schools. The troops will escort nine school children to Central High School in the first federally supported effort to integrate the nations public schools. The nine Black students who had entered Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas were forced to withdraw because of a white mob outside. 1962 - United States Circuit Court of Appeals orders the Mississippi Board of Higher Education to admit James Meredith to the University of Mississippi or be held in contempt of court. 1973 - Leaders of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) declare the independence of Guinea-Bissau from Portugal. Portugal will recognize this independence the following year. The PAIGC was formed by Amilcar Cabral and Raphael Barbosa in 1956. Luis Cabral, Amilcars half-brother, will become Guinea-Bissaus first president. 1977 - Rev. John T. Walker is installed as the sixth -- and first African American bishop of the Episcopal Church when he is installed in the diocese of Washington, DC. 1988 - Jackie Joyner-Kersee of the United States sets the heptathlon womans record (7,291).
Posted on: Wed, 24 Sep 2014 16:27:19 +0000
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