MUNIRAH CHRONICLE
******* Today in Black History – July
30, 2014 *******
1822
- James Varick is consecrated as the firrst bishop of the
African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion
(AMEZ). Varick
had formed the first African American
church in New York
City in 1796 when forced to sit in
segregated seating in
the white John Street Methodist
Episcopal Church and had
established the first AMEZ church in New
Haven,
Connecticut.
1839
- Slave rebels, led by Joseph Cinque, kiill the captain and
take over the slave ship Amistad in the
most celebrated
of American slave mutinies. The rebels were captured off
Long Island on August 26.
1863
- President Lincoln gave an order to shooot a Confederate
prisoner for every African American
prisoner that was shot;
it became known as the
"eye-for-eye" order. A rebel
prisoner would also be condemned to life
in prison doing
hard labor, for every African American
prisoner sold into
slavery. The order had restraining influence on the
Confederate government, though
individual commanders and
soldiers continued to murder captured
African American
soldiers.
1864
- The Union Army explodes a mine under rrebel lines near
Petersburg, Virginia, commits three
white and one African
American divisions and is soundly
defeated. The African
American division of the Ninth Corps
sustains heavy
casualties in an ill-planned attack. The
only Union success
of the day is scored by the Forty-third
U.S. Colored Troops
which captures two hundred rebel
prisoners and two stands
of colors. Decatur Dorsey of the
Thirty-ninth U.S. Colored
Troops wins a Congressional Medal of
Honor.
1866
- Edward G. Walker, son of abolitionist David Walker, and
Charles L. Mitchell are elected to the
Massachusetts
Assembly from Boston and become the
first African Americans
to sit in the legislature of an American
state in the
post-Civil War period.
1866
- White Democrats, led by police, attackk a convention of
African American and white Republicans
in New Orleans,
Louisiana. More than 40 persons are
killed, and at least
150 persons are wounded. Gen. Philip H.
Sheridan, Military
commander of the state, says "It
was not riot; it was an
absolute massacre...which the mayor and
the police of the
city perpetrated without the shadow of a
necessity."
1885
- Eugene Kinckle Jones is born in Richmoond, Virginia. He will
attend Cornell University where he will
become one of the
seven founders of the Alpha Phi Alpha
Fraternity. After
completing his education, he will become
a social worker
and first executive secretary of the
National Urban League.
During his 20-year tenure with the
league, he will be
instrumental in its expansion to 58
affiliates and a budget
of $2.5 million as well as expanding its
fellowship program
to train social workers. The League,
under his direction,
will significantly expand its
multifaceted campaign to crack
the barriers to black employment,
spurred first by the boom
years of the 1920s, and then, by the
desperate years of the
Great Depression. He will implement
boycotts against firms
that refused to employ blacks, pressure
schools to expand
vocational opportunities for young
people, constantly
prod Washington officials to include
blacks in New Deal
recovery programs, and drive to get
blacks into previously
segregated labor unions. He will be a
member of President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Black Cabinet,
an informal group of
African American public policy advisors
to the President.
He will join the ancestors on January
11, 1954.
1945
- Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., activist andd politician, is elected
to the U.S. House of Representatives
representing Harlem.
1956
- Anita Hill is born in Morris, Oklahomaa.
She will become an
attorney, educator, author and activist.
She will receive
her law degree from Yale University, and
after a stint at
the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC), she will
teach law at the University of Oklahoma.
In 1991 she will be
catapulted into the public spotlight
when she brings
allegations of sexual harassment against
Supreme Court
nominee Clarence Thomas. At Thomas's
Senate confirmation
hearings, she will testify that Thomas
had made unwelcome
sexual advances while he was her
supervisor at the EEOC in
the 1980s. Although Thomas's appointment
will be
subsequently confirmed, her testimony
will bring the issue
of sexual harassment to public
attention, forever changing
relations between men and women in the
workplace. In 1997,
she will publish "Speaking Truth to
Power," a personal
memoir and study of her involvement in
the Thomas hearings.
She will resume her teaching career at
Brandeis University.
1959
- Willie McCovey steps to the plate for the first time in his
major-league baseball career. McCovey,
of the San Francisco
Giants bats 4-for-4 in his debut against
Robin Roberts of
the Philadelphia Phillies. He hits two singles and two
triples, driving in two runs. It is the
start of an All-Star
career that will land McCovey in
baseball's Hall of Fame in
Cooperstown, New York.
1961
- Lawrence Fishburne is born in Augusta,, Georgia. He will start
his acting career at the age of 12,
getting his big break
portraying Joshua Hall on the ABC soap
opera, "One Life to
Live in 1973." He will be
originally cast in the hit tv show
"Good Times," but the role
will eventually go to Ralph
Carter. He will later earn a supporting
role in Francis Ford
Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," as
well as a recurring role as
"Cowboy Curtis" alongside Pee
Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) in
the CBS children's television show,
"Pee-Wee's Playhouse."
However, it will be his 1991 role in
"Boyz N The Hood" that
gains him lasting recognition as an
outstanding actor. The
next year, he will win a Tony Award for
his stage
performance in August Wilson's "Two
Trains Running," which
is followed by an Oscar nomination one
year later for his
portrayal of Ike Turner in "What's
Love Got to Do With It?."
Also in 1992, he will receive an Emmy
Award for an episode
of the short-lived TV series
"Tribeca." He will be known for
his role as Morpheus, the hacker-mentor
of Neo (Keanu
Reeves) in the blockbuster science
fiction movie series "The
Matrix." He will also appear alongside
Tom Cruise as his IMF
superior in Mission: Impossible III.
1967
- Eight days of racially motivated distuurbances end in Detroit,
Michigan. The uprising, the worst of its kind in the 20th
century, kills 43 people, injures 2,000,
and results in over
5,000 arrests and over 1,400 fires.
1967
- A racially motivated disturbance occurrs in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin. Four persons are killed.
1970
- Author, television columnist, and Hofsstra University
professor Louis Lomax, joins the
ancestors after being
fatally injured in a car accident near
Santa Rosa, New
Mexico.
1984
- Reggie Jackson hits the 494th home runn of his career,
passing the Yankees' Lou Gehrig and
taking over 13th place
on the all-time home run list. Larry Sorenson is the
victim who gave up Reggie's milestone
homer.
1988
- The first National Black Arts Festivall opens in Atlanta,
Georgia. The biennial festival includes
over 50
architectural and art exhibits including
the works of
Romare Bearden, Edwin Harleston, Camille
Billops, David
Driskell, and over 140 others.
1994
- The first U.S. troops land in the Rwanndan capital of Kigali
to secure the airport for an expanded
international aid
effort.
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The source for these facts are "Encyclopedia Britannica,
"InfoBeat,"
"I, Too, Sing
Book of Days," "Before the Mayflower", "Black Firsts" and
independent research by Rene’ A. Perry.
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