Today in OUR Story - November 10 * 1891 - Granville T. Woods obtains a patent for the electric railway. 1898 - A race riot occurs in Wilmington, North Carolina resulting in the death of eight African Americans. 1898 - The National Benefit Life Insurance Company is organized in Washington, DC, by Samuel W. Rutherford. National Benefit will be the largest African American insurance company for several years. 1919 - Moise Tshombe is born near Musumba, in the then-Belgian Congo. He will lead a secessionist movement in Katanga, the Congos (Zaire) richest province in 1960, following independence from Belgium. In January 1963, UN forces will succeed in capturing Katanga, driving him into exile in Northern Rhodesia, later to Spain. In July 1964, he will return to the Congo to serve as prime minister in a new Coalition government. Scarcely a year later he will be dismissed from his position in October 1965 by President Joseph Kasavubu. In late 1965, Prime Minister Joseph Mobutu, who had staged a successful coup against President Kasavubu, will bring charges of treason against him. He will again flee the country, this time settling in Spain. In 1967, he will be sentenced to death in absentia. On June 30, 1967, a jet aircraft in which he was traveling in will be hijacked. He will be taken to Algeria, jailed, then placed under house arrest. He will join the ancestors on June 29, 1969, the official cause of death listed as death from heart failure. 1930 - Clarence M. Pendleton, Jr. is born in Louisville, Kentucky. He will become the first African American chairman of the United States Civil Rights Commission in 1981(through 1988), where he will oppose affirmative action and busing to achieve school desegregation. He will support the Reagan social agenda and hence come into conflict with long-established civil rights dogma. He will oppose the use of cross-town school busing to bring about racial balance among pupils. He will challenge the need for affirmative action policies because he will claim that African Americans could succeed without special consideration being written into law. Under his tenure, the commission will be split by an internal debate over fundamental principles of equality under the law. The commission will narrow the description of legal and political rights at the expense of social and economic claims. The debate will center principally between him and Mary Frances Berry, an original appointee of President Jimmy Carter. Democrat Morris B. Abram, also a Reagan appointee, will be vice chairman under him. He will describe an intellectual sea change at the agency with the conservative view dominant at that time. Authorized under the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the commission will be reconstituted by a 1983 law of Congress after Reagan dismisses three commissioners critical of his policies. He will join the ancestors on June 5, 1988 after succumbing to a heart attack. 1951 - Hosea Richardson becomes the first African American jockey to ride in Florida. 1956 - David Adkin is born in Benton Harbor, Michigan. He will become a comedian and actor, better known as Sinbad. He will get his big break on televisions Star Search in 1984. He will appear in the television series Different World, and become the emcee of Showtime at the Apollo. His movie credits will include Necessary Roughness, The Meteor Man, Coneheads, Sinbad-Afros and Bellbottoms, The Frog Prince, The Cherokee Kid, Jingle All The Way, First Kid, and Good Burger. He will also produce and emcee the successful Soul Music Festivals that were held annually for a few years in Caribbean countries. 1957 - Charlie Sifford becomes the first African American to win a major professional golf tournament, by winning the Long Beach Open. 1960 - Andrew Hatcher is named associate press secretary to President John F. Kennedy. He is the highest-ranking African American, appointed to date, in the executive branch. 1968 - Ida Cox, blues singer of such songs as Wild Women Dont Have the Blues, joins the ancestors in Knoxville, Tennessee. 1989 - The Rhythm and Blues Foundation presents its first lifetime achievement awards in Washington DC. Among the honorees are bluesmen Charles Brown, Ruth Brown, Percy Sledge (When a Man Loves a Woman), and Mary Wells (My Guy). 2006 - Gerald Levert, the fiery singer of passionate Rhythm & Blues love songs and the son of OJays singer Eddie Levert, joins the ancestors at the age of 40, at his home in Cleveland, Ohio.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 12:35:36 +0000
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