\Today in OUR Story in AMERKA - April 23 * 1856 - Granville Tailer Woods is born in Columbus, Ohio. He will become an inventor of steam boilers, furnaces, incubators and auto air brakes and holder of over 50 patents. He will become the first American of African ancestry to be a mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War. Self-taught, he will concentrate most of his work on trains and streetcars. One of his notable inventions will be the Multiplex Telegraph, a device that sends messages between train stations and moving trains. His work will assure a safer and better public transportation system for the cities of the United States. He will join the ancestors on January 30, 1910. 1872 - Charlotte E. Ray becomes the first African American woman lawyer in ceremonies held in Washington, DC admitting her to practice before the bar. She had received her law degree from Howard University on February 27. 1894 - Jimmy Noone is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will become a jazz clarinetist and a major influence on the swing music of the 1930s and 1940s. He will be a band leader and be best known as the leader of Jimmy Noones Apex Club Orchestra. Two of the people most influenced by Jimmy Noones style will be Benny Goodman and Jimmy Dorsey. He will join the ancestors after suffering a fatal heart attack, while performing with Kid Ory on April 19, 1944. 1895 - Jorge Mateus Vicente Lima is born in Alagoas, Brazil. He will become a poet, novelist, essayist, painter, doctor, and politician. He will become best known as a writer, manipulating Brazilian subjects, at the same time analyzing Afro-Brazilian culture and heritage. He will become a fixture in the Brazilian experience during the 1920s. Even though he became a physician, he will exhibit his talents as a writer in writings from his youth. His most famous writing will be a poem, Essa Nega Fulo (That Black Girl Fulo), written in 1928. The poem will explore the dynamics between a slave master, the slave and her mistress. He will join the ancestors in 1953 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1898 - Alfredo da Rocha Viana Jr. is born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He will become a composer and bandleader best known as Pixinguinha. By the time he was a teenager, he will be respected for his talent as a flutist. After traveling with his first band to France in 1922, he will open the door of Brazilian music to the world. He will be credited with assisting to invent the samba. He is generally referred to as the King of Samba and the Father of Musica Popular Brasileira. He will join the ancestors on February 17, 1973 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 1913 - The National Urban League is incorporated in New York City. The organization is founded in 1910 when the Committee on Urban Conditions Among Negroes met in New York to discuss means to assist rural African Americans in the transition to urban life. Founders include Mrs. Ruth Standish Baldwin and Dr. George Edmund Haynes, who becomes the leagues first executive director. 1941 - New Yorkers are treated to a performance of Cafi Society at Carnegie Hall by a group of jazz artists that includes Albert Jug Ammons, Hazel Scott, and Art Tatum. It also marks the first performance of Helena (later Lena) Horne, who sings Summertime, among other songs. 1944 - The NAACP Youth Council and Committee for Unity in Motion Pictures selects its first Motion Picture Award recipients. Given to honor actors whose roles advance the image of African Americans in motion pictures, awards go to Rex Ingram for Sahara, Lena Horne for As Thousands Cheer, Leigh Whipper for The Oxbow Incident and Mission to Moscow, Hazel Scott for her debut in Something to Shout About and Dooley Wilson for his role as Sam in Casablanca, among others. The awards will be the fore- runner to the NAACPs Image Awards. 1948 - Charles Richard Johnson in born in Evanston, Illinois. He will become an novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He will begin his career after graduating from the State University of New York at Stonybrook with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He will be mentored by W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, Jean Toomer, Richard Wright and John Gardner. He will be known for his works, Middle Passage, Oxherding Tale, The Sorcerers Apprentice, and Being and Race: Black Writing Since 1970. He will win the 1990 National Book Award for Middle Passage. 1954 - Hammerin Hank Aaron, of the Milwaukee Braves, hits the first of what will be 755 career home runs, in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. The score will be 7-5 in favor of the Braves. 1955 - U.S. Supreme Court refuses to review a lower court decision which would ban segregation in intrastate bus travel. 1964 - James Baldwins play, Blues for Mr. Charlie opens on Broadway. Starring Al Freeman, Jr., Diana Sands, and others, the play reveals the plight of African Americans in the South. 1971 - Columbia University operations are virtually ended for the year by African American and white students who seize five buildings on campus. 1971 - William Tubman, president of Liberia, joins the ancestors at the age of 76. He had been president of Liberia since 1944. 1998 - James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 and then insisted he was framed, dies at a Nashville hospital at age 70.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 17:58:15 +0000
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