* Today in Black History - March 09 * 1841 - Sengbe Pieh, known as Joseph Cinque, and the surviving African slaves who revolted on the ship Amistad are ordered freed by the United States Supreme Court and return to Africa after successfully appealing their mutiny conviction on grounds that they were kidnapped by outlawed slave traders. Their defense attorney is John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States and a Massachusetts senator. Before reaching the Supreme Court, U.S. President Martin Van Buren appeals twice the decision of lower courts to free the slaves. View the original documents of the U.S. Supreme Court at: archives.gov/education/lessons/amistad/supreme- court-statement.html 1871 - Oscar De Priest is born in Florence, Alabama. He will be the first congressman elected from a northern state. He will represent Illinois and be an active advocate for pensions for African American ex-slaves, lynching prevention, and civil rights improvements. 1891 - The North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University is founded in Greensboro. 1892 - Three friends of Ida B. Wells-Barnett, prominent African American businessmen, are lynched in Memphis, Tennessee after an incident that stemmed from their opening a grocery store across the street from a white-owned grocery store. 1911 - White firemen of the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railroad struck to protest the hiring of African American firemen. (For those who dont remember steam engines, firemen worked in the engine stoking the fire, which kept the steam generator going) 1914 - The New Southern University campus opens in Scotlandville, Louisiana near Baton Rouge with nine teachers and 47 students. 1930 - Ornette Coleman is born in Fort Worth, Texas. He will become a self-taught musician, beginning on alto saxophone when he is fourteen and moving on to the tenor saxophone when he is sixteen. He will be influenced by Charlie Parker, Illinois Jacquet and Big Jay McNeely. A born improvisionalist, he found it difficult to fit into his school band as well as the mainstream groups that he will later join. It wasnt until the late 1950s that he will be recognized for his jazz innovations. He will name his musical method harmolodics. Many musicians and critics and jazz listeners will reject his new jazz as formless and abstract. However, critics of his method will recognize his importance as a composer. Critics will praise his compositions, including Peace, Lonely Woman, and Beauty Is a Rare Thing. In 1967 he will win a Guggenheim fellowship, the first granted to a jazz musician. He will compose and perform film scores, including Chappaqua (1965), Box Office (1981), and Naked Lunch (1991). In 1997 the New York Philharmonic will perform his Skies of America, a large-scale work that was first recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra in 1972. 1931 - Walter F. White is named NAACP executive secretary. 1933 - Lloyd Price is born in Kenner, Louisiana. He will become a successful Rhythm & Blues artist and will record Lawdy Miss Clawdy (52 #1 R&B), Oooh, Oooh, Oooh (52 #4 &B), Aint It A Shame (53 #4 R&B), Just Because (57 #3 R&B, #29 Pop), Stagger Lee (58 #1 R&B, #1 Pop), Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day) (59 #4 R&B, #23 Pop), Personality (59 #1 R&B, #2 Pop), and fifteen other hits. 1948 - Jeffrey Osborne is born in Providence, Rhode Island. He will become an accomplished rhythm and blues singer performing as lead singer for the group LTD. He will later become a successful solo artist. 1964 - Miriam Zenzi Makeba speaks before the United Nations about the apartheid system in South Africa. 1965 - Three white Unitarian ministers, including the Rev. James J. Reeb, are attacked with clubs on the streets of Selma, Alabama, while participating in a civil rights demonstration. Reeb will later die in a Birmingham, Alabama hospital. 1966 - Andrew F. Brimmer becomes the first African American governor on the Federal Reserve Board. 1971 - Emmanuel Lewis is born in Brooklyn, New York. He will become a child actor and will be best known for his television role as Webster. 1997 - The popular gangsta rapper Notorious B.I.G., whose real name is Christopher Wallace, joins the ancestors after being killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, California at the age of 24.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Mar 2014 12:59:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015