TODAY IN OUR HISTORY July 12, 1849 William Hooper Councill, educator, author, and first principal of what is now Alabama A&M University, was born enslaved in Fayettville, North Carolina. In 1857, Councill, his mother and one of his brothers were sold and eventually ended up in Alabama. His two other brothers were sold separately and he never saw them again. Councill and his family escaped to the North during the Civil War. Councill returned to Alabama in 1865 to attend a freedmen’s school and graduated in 1867. In 1869, he opened Lincoln School in Huntsville, Alabama to educate Black children in the region. In 1875, he was appointed the first principal of the State Colored Normal School at Huntsville (now Alabama A&M University) with the mission to train Black teachers for Alabama’s segregated school system. In 1877, Coucill founded the Huntsville Herald which he edited and published until 1884. He also founded St. John African Methodist Episcopal Church. Council wrote several books, including “Lamp of Wisdom” (1898), “Negro Development in the South” (1901), and “The Bright Side of the Southern Question” (1903). Councill died April 9, 1909. Hooper Councill High School, the first high school for Black students in Huntsville, was named in his honor and operated from 1867 to the 1960s. July 12, 1864 George Washington Carver, hall of fame scientist, educator and inventor, was born enslaved in Diamond, Missouri. Carver and his family were freed after slavery was abolished. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and his Master of Science degree in 1896 from Iowa State Agricultural College where he was the first Black student and later the first Bl ack faculty member. In 1896, he accepted the position to lead the Agricultural Department at Tuskegee University and remained there for 47 years. During that time, Carver devoted himself to the research and promotion of alternative crops to cotton, including peanuts and sweet potatoes. He also created approximately 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house. In 1923, Carver received the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingarn Medal. Carver died January 5, 1943. On his grave is written, “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.” On July 14, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated the George Washington Carver National Monument near Diamond, Missouri, the first national monument dedicated to an African American and also the first to a non-president. The United States Postal Service issued commemorative postage stamps in honor of Carver in 1948 and 1998. Carver was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1977, the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1990, and was a charter inductee in the United States Department of Agriculture Hall of Heroes as the “Father of Chemurgy” in 2000. Biographies of Carver include “George Washington Carver: Man’s Slave, God’s Scientist” (1981) and “George Washington Carver: His Life & Faith in His Own Words” (2003). Dozens of schools around the country are named in his honor and his name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. July 12, 1887 The city of Mound Bayou, Mississippi was founded as an independent Black community by formerly enslaved people led by Isaiah Montgomery. Montgomery led the town through the 1920s. The population according to the 2010 census is 1,913 and 98% African American, one of the largest African American majority populations in the country. July 12, 1894 Brent Woods received the Congressional Medal of Honor, America’s highest military decoration, for his actions during the Indian Wars. Woods was born enslaved in 1855 in Pulaski County, Kentucky. He was freed at the end of the Civil War and at 18 enlisted in the United States Army. By August 19, 1881, he was serving as a sergeant in Company B of the 9th Cavalry Regiment. On that day, Woods participated in an engagement in New Mexico where, according to his citation, he “saved the lives of his comrades and citizens of the detachment.” Woods retired from the army in 1902 and not much else is known of his life except that he died March 31, 1906. July 12, 1899 Edgar Daniel “E. D.” Nixon, civil rights activist, was born in rural Lowndes County, Alabama but raised in Montgomery, Alabama. In the early 1920s, he began working as a Pullman car porter and in 1928 joined the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. He went on to organize a chapter of the union and served as president for many years while working for the company until 1964. Nixon joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and in 1940 organized 750 African Americans to march on the Montgomery County Court House to attempt to register to vote. In 1945, he became president of the Montgomery NAACP chapter and in 1947 president of the state organization. In 1954, he became the first Black person to run for a seat on the county Democratic Executive Committee. In the early 1950s, Nixon and others decided to mount a challenge to the discriminatory seating practices on Montgomery’s city buses. When Rosa Parks was arrested December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on the bus for a White passenger, Nixon led support for the organization of the Montgomery Improvement Association and a bus boycott. The boycott lasted 381 days and nearly bankrupted the bus system. On December 17, 1956, the United States Supreme Court in Browder v. Gayle upheld a lower court decision that the city and state’s laws on bus segregation were unconstitutional. After retiring from the railroad, Nixon worked as the recreation director of a public housing project and continued to work for improved housing and education for African Americans in Montgomery. Nixon received the NAACP Walter White Award in 1985 and in 1986 his house in Montgomery was placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, in recognition of his leadership in the state. Nixon died February 25, 1987. July 12, 1912 Laurean Rugambwa, the first native African Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, was born in Bukongo, Tanganyika (now Tanzania). After completing his philosophy and theology studies at Katigondo Seminary in Uganda, he was ordained a priest in 1943. Rugambwa did missionary work in West Africa until 1948 when he went to Rome to study at the Pontifical Urbaniana University where he earned his doctorate degree in canon law. In 1952, he was ordained a bishop and was elected the first African cardinal in church history March 28, 1960. In 1969, Rugambwa was made Archbishop of Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania. He held that position until his retirement in 1992. During that time, he built the first Catholic hospital and founded a female religious order, the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi. Rugambwa received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1961. Rugambwa died December 8, 1997. • July 12, 1920 Beau Richards, stage, film and television actress, was born Beulah Richardson in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Richards graduated from Dillard University in 1948 and two years later moved to New York City. Her career started to take off in 1955 with her appearance in the off-Broadway production of “Take a Giant Step.” Other Broadway productions in which Richards appeared include “The Miracle Worker” (1957) and “A Raisin in the Sun” (1959). In 1965, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in “The Amen Corner.” In 1967, Richards was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” Other notable movie performances include “Hurry Sundown” (1967), “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), and “Beloved” (1998). Richards made numerous television appearances and won the Prime Time Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in 1988 for an appearance in “Frank’s Place” and in 2000 for an appearance in “The Practice.” Richards died September 14, 2000. In 2003, she was the subject of the documentary “Beau: A Black Woman Speaks.” July 12, 1932 Otis Crandall Davis, hall of fame track and field athlete, was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Davis did not start running track until he was 26 years old at the University of Oregon. He was the national outdoor 400 meter champion in 1960 and 1961. At the 1960 Rome Olympic Games, Davis won the Gold medal in the 400 meter race, setting a world record and becoming the first man to run the race in under 45 seconds. He also won a Gold medal as part of the 4 by 400 meter relay team. That same year, Davis earned his Bachelor of Science degree in health and physical education. After retiring from track, he served for many years as a teacher, coach and counselor. In 2004, Davis was inducted into the USA Track & Field Hall of Fame. He currently serves as a high school verification officer. July 12, 1936 Rose Virginia Scott McClendon, a leading Broadway actress of the 1920s, died. McClendon was born August 27, 1884 in Greenville, South Carolina. She started acting in church plays as a child but did not become a professional actress until she won a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Art when she was in her thirties. McClendon made her stage debut in the 1919 play “Justice.” She was one of the few Black actresses who worked consistently during the 1920s and was considered “the Negro first lady of the dramatic stage,” appearing in productions such as “Deep River” (1926), “Porgy” (1928), and “Mulatto” (1936). In 1935, McClendon co-founded the Negro People’s Theatre in Harlem and after her death the name was changed to the Rose McClendon Players in her honor. July 12, 1937 William Henry “Bill” Cosby, hall of fame comedian, actor, producer, author and activist, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cosby dropped out of high school and served in the United States Navy from 1956 to 1960. In 1962, he began his career as a stand-up comedian. In 1964, he released “Bill Cosby Is a Funny Fellow…..Right,” the first of a series of comedy albums. In 1965, Cosby was cast to star in the television series “I Spy,” the first African American co-star in a dramatic television series. That show ran for three seasons and Cosby won three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Cosby also created and hosted “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” which ran from 1972 to 1984. Next, he produced and starred in “The Cosby Show” which premiered September 20, 1984 and became the highest rated television situation comedy of all time and aired for eight seasons. He also produced the spin-off series, “A Different World.” Cosby earned his Master of Arts and his Doctor of Education degrees from the University of Massachusetts in 1972 and 1976, respectively. In addition to the Emmys for “I Spy,” Cosby won the 1969 Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety or Musical Program for “The Bill Cosby Special.” He has also won seven Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Performance and two Grammys for Best Recording for Children. He has authored a number of books, including “I Didn’t Ask to Be Born (But I’m Glad I Was)” (2011). In 1985, Cosby was awarded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingarn Medal. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and in 1999 was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame. On July 9, 2002, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President George W. Bush. In 2009, he was presented the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Cosby has received honorary doctorate degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities. July 12, 1947 James Melvin Lunceford, bandleader and alto saxophonist, died. Lunceford was born June 6, 1902 in Fulton, Mississippi but raised in Denver, Colorado. He earned his Bachelor of Music degree from Fisk University in 1926. While teaching high school in Memphis, Tennessee, he formed a student band which eventually became the Jimmy Lunceford Orchestra. In 1934, the band began an engagement at the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York and by 1935 they had achieved a national reputation as one of the top Black swing bands. The Lunceford Orchestra recorded 22 hits, including the number one “Rhythm is Our Business” in 1935. It was the first Black band to play New York’s Paramount Theater and tour White colleges. Glen Miller was quoted as saying, “Duke Ellington is great, Count Basie remarkable, but Lunceford tops them all.” By 1942, the band began to have internal problems and suffered a decline in popularity. The Jimmy Lunceford Jamboree Festival is held annually in Memphis and in 2011 a Mississippi Blues Trail marker dedicated to Lunceford was unveiled. July 12, 1949 Frederick McKinley Jones received three patents (numbers 2,475,841 – 2,475,843). Patent 2,475,841 was for a portable air-cooling unit for trucks. His air coolers made it possible to ship perishable food long distances any time of the year. His units were also important during World War II, preserving blood, medicine, and food. Patents 2,475,842 and 2,475,843 related to a starter generator for gas engines which were more efficient in proportion to the power consumed, more reliable, and cooler to operate. Jones was born May 17, 1893 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1912, he moved to Hallock, Minnesota and after serving in the United States Army during World War I, taught himself electronics and built a transmitter for the town’s radio station. During his lifetime, Jones was awarded 61 patents, mostly for refrigeration equipment but also for portable X-ray machines, sound equipment, and gasoline engines. In 1944, Jones became the first African American to be elected into the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers. Jones died February 21, 1961. On September 16, 1991, he was posthumously awarded the National Medal of Technology by President George H. W. Bush, the first African American to receive the medal. In 2007, he was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Biographies of Jones include “Man With a Million Ideas: Fred Jones, Genius/Inventor” (1976). July 12, 1952 Singer Liz Mitchell born Elizabeth Rebecca Mitchell in St Catherine, Jamaica. She was the lead vocalist for the 1970s group Boney M. The group is most well known for their #1 hit Rivers of Babylon. July 12, 1969 Television and film actress Lisa Nicole Carson was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is most well know for her appearances on televisions Ally McBeal and ER. July 12, 1973 Melvin Barcliff born in Norfolk, Virginia. Better known as Magoo the rapper of the Pop Rap duo Timbaland & Magoo with record producer Tim Timbaland Mosley. July 12, 1975 The Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe gained independence from Portugal. This African nation consists of two islands, Sao Tome and Principe, approximately 150 miles off the northwestern coast of Gabon. In total, the islands are 372 square miles with a population of approximately 163,000, the second smallest African country by population. The capital and largest city is Sao Tome. The official language is Portuguese and almost all of the people practice Christianity. July 12, 1976 Barbara Charlene Jordan became the first African American woman to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. Her speech is considered by many historians to be the best convention keynote speech in modern history. Jordan was born February 21, 1936 in Houston, Texas. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, from Texas Southern University in 1956 and her Juris Doctor degree from Boston University in 1959. In 1966, Jordan became the first Black woman elected to the Texas State Senate where she served until 1972. That year, she became the first African American woman to be elected to the United States House of Representatives from a southern state. During her time in Congress, she supported the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 that required financial institutions to lend and make services available to underserved poor and minority communities and the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Jordan retired from politics in 1979 and became adjunct professor at the University of Texas. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1990 and in 1992 was awarded the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingarn Medal. Jordan was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, by President William Clinton August 8, 1994 and the United States Military Academy’s Sylvanus Thayer Award in 1995, the second female recipient. Jordan died January 17, 1996. She was the first Black woman to be buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. On April 24, 2009, a Barbara Jordan statue was unveiled at the University of Texas in Austin. Her biography, “Barbara Jordan: American Hero,” was published in 2000 and a collection of her speeches, “Barbara Jordan: Speaking the Truth with Eloquent Thunder,” was published in 2007. Jordan’s name is enshrined in the Ring of Genealogy at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, Michigan. July 12, 1979 Minnie Julia Riperton, singer and songwriter, died. Riperton was born November 8, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois. As a teenager, Riperton received operatic training and was urged to study the classics. However, she became interested in rhythm and blues. Riperton’s first solo album, “Come to My Garden,” was released in 1970 and although commercially unsuccessful is now considered a masterpiece by music critics. In 1974, the album “Perfect Angel” was released and included the single “Lovin’ You,” which went to the top of the charts in the United States and number two in the United Kingdom. In 1976, Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer and in 1977 became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society. She was presented with the Society’s Courage Award by President Jimmy Carter in 1978. In April, 1979, her final album, “Minnie,” was released which included the single “Memory Lane” which many consider her greatest work. July 12, 2003 Bennett Lester “Benny” Carter, hall of fame jazz musician, composer, arranger and bandleader, died. Carter was born August 8, 1907 in New York City. Largely self-taught, by 15 Carter was sitting in with some of New York’s top bands. In 1929, Carter formed his first big band and from 1931 to 1932 led the McKinney’s Cotton Pickers. During the 1930s, Carter was also noted for his arrangements, including “Keep a Song in Your Soul” (1930), “Lonesome Nights” (1933), and “Symphony in Riffs” (1933). Carter moved to Europe in 1935 and became staff arranger for the British Broadcasting Corporation dance orchestra. Carter returned to the United States in 1938 and beginning with “Stormy Weather” in 1943 began to arrange for feature films. Carter was one of the first African Americans to compose music for films. In 1963, he won the Grammy Award for Best Background Arrangement for “Busted” by Ray Charles. In 1977, Carter was inducted into the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame and in 1986 was designated a NEA Jazz Master, the highest honor the nation bestows on jazz artists, by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1987, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and in 1994 won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo for “Prelude to a Kiss.” President William Clinton presented Carter with the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor the nation bestows on an individual artist, December 20, 2000. Carter received honorary doctorate degrees from Princeton, Rutgers, and Harvard Universities and the New England Conservatory. Carter’s biography, “Benny Carter: A Life in Music,” was published in 1982. July 12, 2005 Arthur Allen Fletcher, the “father of affirmative action,” died. Fletcher was born December 22, 1924 in Phoenix, Arizona. He organized his first civil rights protest in high school when he refused to allow his picture and those of the other African American students to appear at the back of the school yearbook. After serving in World War II where he was wounded and earned a Purple Heart, Fletcher earned his bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology from Washburn University. For a short time, he played professional football and was the first African American to play for the Baltimore Colts. He later earned his law degree and Ph. D. in education. Fletcher supervised the enforcement of equal opportunities for minorities in federally funded contracts in the administrations of President’s Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He was also an advisor to President George H. W. Bush. In 1972, Fletcher became executive director of the United Negro College Fund and helped coin the phrase “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” He later led a consultancy that trained companies to comply with governmental equal opportunity regulations.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 01:36:10 +0000
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