Ourstory

[True Father Allah]

Ourstory 12/25

1760 - Jupiter Hammon, a New York slave who was probably the
first African American poet, publishes "An Evening
Thought:Salvation by Christ".

1776 - Oliver Cromwell and Prince Whipple are among soldiers who
cross the Delaware River with George Washington to
successfully attack the Hessians in Trenton, New Jersey,
during the Revolutionary War.

1807 - Charles B. Ray is born in Falmouth, Massachusetts. He
will enter Wesleyan University in Connecticut and be
forced to withdraw due to objections from northerners
and southerners. He will later become a prominent
African American leader.

1837 - Cheyney University is established in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. It will be first known as the "Institute
for Colored Youth". The school will be moved to George
Cheyney's farm, 24 miles west of Philadelphia, in 1902.
It will be renamed in 1913 to "The Cheyney Training
School for Teachers." Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
is the first historically Black institution of learning
in America. It is also the first college in the United
States to receive official state certification as an
institution of higher academic education for African
Americans.

1837 - Charles Lenox Remond begins his career as an antislavery
agent. Remond will be one of the first African Americans
employed as a lecturer by the antislavery movement. He
will work many years for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society.

1865 - Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, Shaw University
in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Virginia Union University
in Richmond, Virginia are founded.

1875 - Charles Caldwell joins the ancestors after being
assassinated in Clinton, Mississippi. He was the first
African American in the state of Mississippi to be accused
of the murder of a white man and found "not guilty" by an
all-white jury. He was later elected to the state senate.

1907 - Cabell "Cab" Calloway III is born in Rochester, New York. A
versatile jazz bandleader and singer who will popularize
scat singing, his song "Minnie the Moocher" will be the
first million-selling jazz record. Calloway will also
appear in the movie "Porgy and Bess" as well as perform as
a singer in the touring companies of "Porgy" and "Hello
Dolly." He will join the ancestors on November 18, 1994.

1951 - Harry T. Moore, a Florida NAACP official, joins the
ancestors after being killed by a bomb in his home in Mims,
Florida. Active in expanding the African American vote in
Florida and in desegregating the University of Florida,
Moore will be posthumously awarded the NAACP's Spingarn
Medal in 1952.

1951 - The NAACP's Spingarn Medal is presented to Mabel K. Staupers
for her leadership in the field of nursing.

1956 - The home of Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a Birmingham,
Alabama protest leader, is destroyed by a dynamite bomb.

1959 - Michael P. Anderson is born in Plattsburgh, New York. He
will be raised in Spokane, Washington. He will graduate
from the University of Washington in 1981 and be
commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF. He will
become Chief of Communication Maintenance for the 2015
Communication Squadron and later be Director of
Information System Maintenance for the 1920 Information
System Group. In 1986 he will be selected to attend
Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, Oklahoma. He
will serve as an aircraft commander and instructor pilot
in the 920th Air Refueling Squadron, Wurtsmith AFB
Michigan. He will be selected as an astronaut by NASA in
December 1994, and will become qualified for flight crew
assignment as a mission specialist. He will be initially
assigned technical duties in the Flight Support Branch of
the Astronaut Office. He will fly on the crew of STS-89
(Shuttle Endeavour to Space Station Mir) and will log
over 211 hours in space in 1998. Lt. Colonel Anderson
will be assigned to the crew of STS-107 (Shuttle Columbia)
and will join the ancestors when Columbia explodes during
re-entry on February 1, 2003.

1965 - The Congress of Racial Equality announces that its national
director, Dr. James Farmer, would resign on March 1.

2006 - James Brown, the dynamic "Godfather of Soul," whose
revolutionary rhythms, rough voice and flashing footwork
influenced generations of musicians from rock to rap,
joined the ancestors early Christmas morning at the age of
73. He had been hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory
Crawford Long Hospital on 12/24 and succumbed to heart
failure around 1:45 a.m. He was one of the major musical
influences of the past 50 years. From Mick Jagger to
Michael Jackson, David Bowie to Public Enemy, his rapid-
footed dancing, hard-charging beats and heartfelt yet
often unintelligible vocals changed the musical landscape.

[True Father Allah]

Ourstory 1/1
************************************************** *********************
* The Nguzo Saba - The seven principles of Kwanzaa - Principle for *
* Day #7 - Imani (ee-MAH-nee) Faith: To believe with all our hearts *
* in our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our people and the *
* righteousness and victory of our struggle. *
* http://www.endarkenment.com/kwanzaa/ *
************************************************** *********************

1788 - The Quakers in Pennsylvania emancipate their slaves.

1804 – The island of Haiti became the first African-led nation in the world, as a result of revolution and achieved independence from France after the only successful slave rebellion in world history.

1808 - The slave trade is outlawed in the United States. This stopped
the legal importation of African slaves, but did not stop
domestic trading in slaves.

1831 - William Lloyd Garrison publishes the first issue of "The
Liberator" in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper will become
a major influence in the movement to abolish slavery in the
United States.

1937 – Lou Stovall, artist and master printmaker is born in Athens, GA

1856 - Bridget "Biddy" Mason and her children are granted their freedom
by the California courts. After gaining her freedom, she will
move to Los Angeles, where she will become a major landowner and
be known for her philanthropy to the poor.

1863 - President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation,
declaring freedom for slaves living in the states that joined
the rebellion that will become known as the Civil War.

1900 - The British protectorates of Northern & Southern Nigeria are
established.

1916 - The first issue of the "Journal of Negro History" is published
with Carter G. Woodson as editor. Since then, several other journals have explored the Global black experience, such as the Journal of African Civilizations.

1956 - Sudan becomes independent.

1958 – Legendary hip hop DJ pioneer Grandmaster Flash was born in Bridgetown, Barbados

1959 - Edmonia Lewis was born to a Chippewa mother and African father...given the indian name Wildfire. In the fall of 1859 she admiting in Oberlin College, and later studied sculpting privately with Edmund Brackett. Lewis became known for her busts of famous figures as Abraham Lincoln, Longfellow and John Brown. Her Staue 'The Death of Cleopatra', received critical acclaim. Most popular was her "Forever Free..depicting African American man and woman removing their shackles.

1959 - Chad becomes an autonomous republic within the French Community.

1960 - Cameroon gains independence from France.

1962 - Rwanda is granted internal self-government by Belgium.

1964 - The Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland is dissolved.

1973 - The West African Economic Community is formed with Benin, Ivory
Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta as
members.

1986 - Aruba becomes an independent part of Kingdom of the Netherlands.

1990 - David Dinkins is sworn in as first African American mayor of
New York City.

1997 - The former prison for Nelson Mandela and many other South Africans is turned in to a museum at Robben Island.

1997 - Kofi Annan of Ghana becomes first black secretary of United Nations.

2005 - Shirley Chisholm, an advocate for minority rights who became the
first African American woman elected to Congress and later the
first African American to seek a major party's nomination for
the U.S. presidency, joins the ancestors at the age of 80. The
Rev. Jesse Jackson calls her a "woman of great courage."

[True Father Allah]

1773 - "Felix," a Boston slave, and others petition Massachusetts
Governor Hutchinson for their freedom. It is the first of
a record eight similar petitions filed during the
Revolutionary War.

1831 - The World Anti-Slavery Convention opens in London, England.

1832 - William Lloyd Garrison founds the New England Anti-Slavery
Society at the African Meeting House in Boston,
Massachusetts, where he issues the society's "Declaration
of Sentiments" from the Meeting House pulpit.

1882 - Thomas Boyne receives the Congressional Medal of Honor for
bravery in two New Mexico battles while a sergeant in Troop
C, 9th U.S. Calvary.

1906 - Benedict Wallet Vilakazi is born in South Africa. He will
become a pre-apartheid Zulu poet, novelist, and educator.
In 1946, he will become the first Black South African to
receive a Ph.D. He will become the first Black South African
to teach white South Africans at the university level. He
will join the ancestors on October 26, 1947 after succumbing
to meningitis.

1937 - Doris Payne is born in Bronx, New York. She will become a
rhythm and blues singer better known as Doris Troy and best
known for her song "Just One Look." She will also be known
as "Mama Soul." "Mama, I Want To Sing" will be a stage
musical based on her life, and co-written with her sister,
Vy. It will run for 1,500 performances at the Heckscher
Theatre in Harlem. She will play the part of her own mother,
Geraldine. She will join the ancestors on February 16, 2004,
succumbing to emphysema.

1961 - The "jail-in" movement starts in Rock Hill, S.C. when arrested students demand jail rather than fines.

1968 - John Daniel Singleton is born in Los Angeles, California.
He will become an Academy Award-nominated film director,
screenwriter, and producer. His movies will depict his
native South Los Angeles with both its sweet and violent
sides given equal consideration. He will attend Pasadena
City College and the University of Southern California.
He will receive many distinctions, beginning during his
time as an undergraduate screenwriter at the University
of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts,
including nominations for Best Screenplay and Director for
"Boyz N the Hood." He will be the youngest person ever
nominated for Best Director at the 1991 Academy Awards for
"Boyz N the Hood" and the first (and, to date, the only)
African American to be nominated for the award.

1971 - Cecil A. Partee is elected president pro tem of the Illinois
State Senate. He is the first African American to hold this
position.

1971 – The Dance Theater of Harlem, an All-African American ballet company, was founded, 1971

1984 - Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., is
inaugurated as Chief Justice. The Philadelphia native,
former deputy attorney general of the state, and thirteen-
year veteran of the Court, is the first African American to
head a state Supreme Court.

1989 - Elizabeth Koontz joins the ancestors at the age of 69. She
was a noted educator and the first African American
president of the National Education Association. She also
had been director of the Women's Bureau in the U.S.
Department of Labor.

1993 - Jazz great, John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie, joins the ancestors
in Englewood, New Jersey at the age of 76. He had played
actively until early 1992.

1996 – Recycling Black Dollars, an organization of black businesses, campaigns for “Change Bank Day” to benefit black-owned financial institutions.

2003 - Mamie Till Mobley, mother of lynched Emmett Till dies at age 81. Her insistance that her son's casket remain open helped spur the civil rights movement.

[V4D3R]

Originally Posted by battle?

ban this thing permanantly

[True Father Allah]

1822 - A colony of free African Americans sent to Africa by the
American Colonization Society, is established on the west
coast of Africa. It is the beginning of the African American
colonization of Liberia. This colony will become the
independent nation of Liberia in 1847.

1868 - The Mississippi constitutional convention convenes in Jackson.
It is attended by seventeen African Americans and eighty-three
whites.

1868 - The Arkansas constitutional convention convenes in Little Rock.
It is attended by eight African Americans and forty-three
whites.

1890 - William B. Purvis is awarded patent #419,065 for the fountain
pen.

1891 - Zora Neale Hurston, who will become a brilliant folklorist,
novelist, and short story writer, is born in Notasulga,
Alabama. For reasons known only to her, she will claim 1901 as
her birth year and the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida as
her birthplace. She will be one of the more influential writers
of the Harlem Renaissance, known for her novel "Their Eyes Were
Watching God" and her folklore collections, including "Of Mules
and Men." She will join the ancestors on January 28, 1960.

1892 - A mine explosion kills 100 in Krebs, Oklahoma. African
Americans trying to help rescue white survivors, are driven
away at gunpoint.

1950 - The James Weldon Johnson Collection officially opens at Yale
University. Established in 1941 through a gift by Grace Nail
Johnson, widow of the famed author, diplomat and NAACP
official, the collection will eventually include the papers of
Johnson, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Dubois, Richard Wright, Jean
Toomer, Zora Neale Hurston, and many other writers of the
Harlem Renaissance.

1964 - The Bahamas achieve internal self-government & cabinet level
responsibility.

1986 - White teens in Howard Beach chased Michael Griffith, an African-American youth, onto a freeway where he was hit by a motorist. Griffith died from his injuries setting off a wave of protests and racial tensions in New York.

1997 – Former South African president Pieter W. Botha is prosecuted for refusing to appear before the nation’s truth commission.

2002 - Shirley Franklin is sworn in as the first African American Mayor of Atlanta and the only African American female mayor of a major American city.

2003 - Thurgood Marshall, a famed civil rights lawyer and U.S. Supreme
Court Justice, is honored by the United States Postal Service
with the 26th stamp issuance in the Black Heritage
Commemorative Series.

[True Father Allah]

Black people are the Original people of the planet. DNA evidence proves that all humans today came from a group of Blacks who traveled and settled the globe 50,000 years ago.

All of the elements of civilization first began in Africa, including religion, art, science, government, mining, writing, music, mathematics, architecture, engineering, and agriculture.

Before Greece, Rome or Europe was ever established, there were multiple Black civilizations throughout the world, already thousands of years old.

Blacks started compulsory education. Even stone workers in ancient Egypt learned to read, and education was made mandatory by the Moors, while 90% of Europe was illiterate, including the royalty.

Blacks started libraries. The ancient Egyptians created paper about 4000 BC, which library storage easier. Over 700,000 books were in the libraries of Egypt before Homer, the father of Western literature, was even born.

The earliest mathematical device found to date is the Lebombo bone of southern Africa. It is about 37,000 years old and appears to be a lunar calendar.

For more jewels like this cop the 365 Days of REAL Black History calendar by Supreme Design Publishing
http://www.supremedesignonline.com/blackhistory365.html

[True Father Allah]

1811 - A slave rebellion begins 35 miles outside of New Orleans,
Louisiana. U.S. troops will be called upon to put down the
uprising of over 400 slaves, which will last three days.

1837 - Fanny M. Jackson is born a slave in Washington, DC. She will
become the first African American woman college graduate in
the United States when she graduates from Oberlin College in
1865. After graduation, she will become a teacher at the
Institute for Colored Youths in Philadelphia. In 1869, she
will become the first African American woman to head an
institution of higher learning when she is made Principal of
the Institute. In the fall of 1881, Fanny will marry the Rev.
Levi Jenkins Coppin, a minister of the African Methodist
Episcopal Church. The marriage will open a wealth of
missionary opportunities for Fanny. When her husband is made
Bishop of Cape Town, South Africa, Fanny will accompany him
and travel thousands of miles organizing mission societies.
She will join the ancestors on January 21, 1913 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1926, a facility for teacher
training in Baltimore, Maryland will be named Fanny Jackson
Coppin Normal School in her honor. The school is known today
as Coppin State University.

1867 - Overriding President Andrew Johnson's veto, Congress passes
legislation giving African Americans in the District of
Columbia the right to the vote.

1912 - The African National Congress, in South Africa, is formed.

1975 - The state-owned Alabama Educational Television Commission has
its application for license renewal denied by the Federal
Communications Commission because of racial discrimination
against African Americans in employment and programming.

[True Father Allah]

Did you know...

Black people even pioneered fishing and sailing. 90,000 year old harpoons and other tools found in northeastern Zaire. Even before that, Blacks traveled the seas to populate the Pacific Islands.

Blacks started astronomy. Ruins of a 300 BC astronomical observatory were found at Namoratunga in Kenya. A stone observatory over 5,000 years old was found west of Egypt.
Black people were the first to engage in mining. A 43,000 year old hematite mine was found in Swaziland at Bomvu Ridge.

Black people were the first to develop agriculture. There are 12,000 year old tools and evidence of crop cultivation in Egypt’s Western Desert. Other agricultural sites in Egypt have been dated to 18,000 BC.

There’s nothing new under the sun. Most modern inventions, techniques, cultural practices and ideas can be traced back to ancient origins. And when you go back to the original of all things, you find Black people.

Black people developed the first martial arts. One of the earliest papyrus scrolls from Egypt shows a system of attacks and takedowns that has yet to be further explored.
Blacks developed the first economic systems. Cowrie shells are brightly colored shells that served as one of the earliest forms of money in ancient Africa, predating gold coins (which were also developed by Blacks)
For more jewels like this cop the 365 Days of REAL Black History calendar by Supreme Design Publishing
http://supremedesignonline.com/blackhistory365.html

[check two]

word

[True Father Allah]

Ourstory 1/9

1866 - Fisk College is established in Nashville, Tennessee. Rust
College is established in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
Lincoln University is established in Jefferson City,
Missouri.

1901 - Edward Mitchell Bannister joins the ancestors in Providence,
Rhode Island. Challenged to become an artist after reading a
newspaper article deriding African Americans' ability to
produce art, he disproved that statement throughout a
distinguished art career.

1906 - Poet and author, Paul Laurence Dunbar, joins the ancestors
after succumbing to tuberculosis. Dunbar was so talented and
versatile that he succeeded in two worlds. He was so adept
at writing verse in Black English that he became known as the
"poet of his people," while also cultivating a white audience
that appreciated the brilliance and value of his work.
"Majors and Minors" (1895), Dunbar's second collection of
verse, was a remarkable work containing some of his best poems
in both Black and standard English. When the country's
reigning literary critic, William Dean Howells reviewed
"Majors and Minors" favorably, Dunbar became famous. And
Howells' introduction in "Lyric of Lowly Life" (1896) helped
make Dunbar the most popular African American writer in
America at the time.

1922 - Ahmed Sekou Toure, first president of Guinea, born.

1935 - Earl G. Graves is born in Brooklyn, New York. He will become
president and chief executive officer of Earl G. Graves, Ltd.,
the publisher of "Black Enterprise" magazine, a successful
entrepreneur, and one of the strongest advocates for
African American business.

1946 - Lyric poet, Countee Cullen joins the ancestors in New York City
at the age of 42. His several volumes of poetry include
"Color" (1925); "Copper Sun" (1927); "The Black Christ" (1929);
and "On These I Stand" (published posthumously, 1947), his
selection of poems by which he wished to be remembered. Cullen
also wrote a novel dealing with life in Harlem, "One Way to
Heaven" (1931), and a children's book, "The Lost Zoo" (1940).

1967 - The Georgia legislature, bowing to legal decisions and national
pressure, seats state Representative Julian Bond, a critic of
the Vietnam War.

1970 - After 140 years of unofficial racial discrimination, the Mormon
Church issues an official statement declaring that Blacks were
not yet to receive the priesthood "for reasons which we
believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully
known to man."

1989 - Time, Inc. agrees to sell NYT Cable for $420 million to Comcast
Corporation, Lenfest Communications, and an investment group
led by African American entrepreneur J. Bruce Llewellyn. It is
the largest cable TV acquisition by an African American.

[diggy]

Originally Posted by True Father Allah

Did you know...

Black people even pioneered fishing and sailing. 90,000 year old harpoons and other tools found in northeastern Zaire. Even before that, Blacks traveled the seas to populate the Pacific Islands.

Blacks started astronomy. Ruins of a 300 BC astronomical observatory were found at Namoratunga in Kenya. A stone observatory over 5,000 years old was found west of Egypt.
Black people were the first to engage in mining. A 43,000 year old hematite mine was found in Swaziland at Bomvu Ridge.

Black people were the first to develop agriculture. There are 12,000 year old tools and evidence of crop cultivation in Egypt’s Western Desert. Other agricultural sites in Egypt have been dated to 18,000 BC.

There’s nothing new under the sun. Most modern inventions, techniques, cultural practices and ideas can be traced back to ancient origins. And when you go back to the original of all things, you find Black people.

Black people developed the first martial arts. One of the earliest papyrus scrolls from Egypt shows a system of attacks and takedowns that has yet to be further explored.
Blacks developed the first economic systems. Cowrie shells are brightly colored shells that served as one of the earliest forms of money in ancient Africa, predating gold coins (which were also developed by Blacks)
For more jewels like this cop the 365 Days of REAL Black History calendar by Supreme Design Publishing
http://supremedesignonline.com/blackhistory365.html

Blacks then and now. So what happened?

[True Father Allah]

1879 - British troops invade Zululand from Natal, confident that they
could crush the Zulu forces armed with spears and shields.
However, the well-trained Zulu army repulses the initial
attack, killing over 1300 British troops in the Battle of
Isandlwana. But that success will exhaust the Zulu army, and
before Cetshwayo could mount a counteroffensive into Natal,
British troops from around the Empire will be rushed to
southern Africa, where their advanced weaponry will bring them
ultimate victory in the six-month Anglo-Zulu war. The British
will conclude their aggressive venture by dividing up Zululand
among thirteen pro-British chiefs, effectively destroying the
Zulu kingdom.

1890 - Mordecai Wyatt Johnson is born in Paris, Tennessee. He will
become the first African American president of Howard
University in 1926, a position he will hold for 34 years. He
will also be a recipient of the NAACP's Spingarn Medal in 1929.
He will retire in 1960, and will join the ancestors on
September 11, 1976 in Washington, DC.

1920 - James Farmer is born in Marshall, Texas. He will become an
African American civil rights leader and activist. He will
found the Committee on Racial Equality in 1942 and later
change the name of the organization to the Congress of Racial
Equality. Farmer and CORE will be the architects of the
"Freedom Rides" that will lead to the desegregation of over
100 bus terminals in the South. He will become a major player
during the Civil Rights movement. He will be awarded the
Congressional Medal of Freedom in 1998 by President Bill
Clinton. He will join the ancestors on July 9, 1999 in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, at the age of 79.

1946 - George Duke is born in San Rafael, California, and will be
reared in Marin City, a working class section of Marin County.
He will become a major recording artist, heavily influenced by
Miles Davis and the soul-jazz sound of Les McCann and Cal
Tjader. He and a young singer named Al Jarreau will form a
group becoming the house band at San Francisco's Half Note
Club. Over the years, George will work with Sonny Rollins,
Dexter Gordon, Frank Zappa, Cannonball Adderley, Nancy Wilson,
Joe Williams, and Dizzy Gillespie. He will be a prolific
songwriter and producer.

1948 - The United States Supreme Court decision (Sipuel v. Oklahoma
State Board of Regents) said a state must afford African
Americans "an opportunity to commence the study of law at a
state institution at the same time as [other] citizens."

1952 - The University of Tennessee admits its first African American
student.

1959 - Berry Gordy borrows $800 from a family loan fund to form Motown
Records. The record company's first releases will appear on
the Tamla label.

.1964 - Leftist rebels in Zanzibar begin their successful revolt against
the government.

1965 - Noted playwright Lorraine Hansberry joins the ancestors, after
succumbing to cancer in New York City at the age of 34, while
her second play, "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window," is
playing on Broadway. Her first and most famous work, "A
Raisin in the Sun," brought her wide acclaim on Broadway,
earned her the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best
play, and became a motion picture starring Sidney Poitier,
Ruby Dee, and Claudia McNeil.

1971 - The Congressional Black Caucus is organized.

1982 - A commemorative stamp of Ralph Bunche is issued by the U.S.
Postal Service as part of its Great Americans series.

1990 - Civil Rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton is stabbed in Brooklyn,
New York, in Bensonhurst.

1995 - In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, an American soldier is killed and
another wounded during a shootout with a former Haitian army
officer who also was killed.

1995 - Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, is arrested in
Minneapolis, Minnesota on charges that she had tried to hire
a hit man to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. The
charges will later be dropped.
2010 – A 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastates the island nation of Haiti

[Living-jism]

Still can't let go of the past huh? Violence and death will only create more violence and death.

Whatever your skin colour is, you ain't going to get "liberated" by grudging.

[True Father Allah]

Originally Posted by Living-jism

Still can't let go of the past huh? Violence and death will only create more violence and death.

Whatever your skin colour is, you ain't going to get "liberated" by grudging.

it's just history, what's there to be afraid of, it's ok as long as it's not black? Yall killing me, just ignore this ish since you can't stand it so much, THIS IS HIP HP, black culture that introduced much of this suppressed information which is VERY liberating to those ignorant to it, now back to the regular scheduled programing

1/13
1869 - A National Convention of African American leaders meets in
Washington, DC. Frederick Douglass is elected president.

1869 - The first African American labor convention is held when the
Convention of the Colored National Labor Union takes place.

1873 - P.B.S. Pinchback relinquishes the office of governor, saying
at the inauguration of the new Louisiana governor: "I now have
the honor to formally surrender the office of governor, with
the hope that you will administer the government in the
interests of all the people [and that] your administration
will be as fair toward the class that I represent, as mine has
been toward the class represented by you."



1966 - Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American appointed
to a presidential cabinet position, when President Lyndon B.
Johnson names him to head the newly created Department of
Housing and Urban Development.

1979 - A commemorative stamp of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is issued
by the U.S. Postal Service as part of its Black Heritage USA
commemorative series. The stamp of the slain civil rights
leader is the second in the series.

1979 - Singer Donnie Hathaway joins the ancestors after jumping from
the 15th floor of New York's Essex House hotel.

1982 - Hank Aaron and Frank Robinson are elected to the Baseball Hall
of Fame.

1983 - Citing Muhammad Ali's deteriorating physical condition, the AMA
calls for the banning of prizefighting because new evidence
suggests that chronic brain damage is prevalent in boxers.
1987 - Even Mecham, then governor of Arizona, rescinded the gubernatorial decree by Gov. Bruce Babbit that established the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday.

1989 - Sterling Allen Brown joins the ancestors in Washington, DC. He
had devoted his life to the development of an authentic black
folk literature. He was one of the first scholars to identify
folklore as a vital component of the black aesthetic and to
recognize its validity as a form of artistic expression. He
worked to legitimatize this genre in several ways. As a
critic, he exposed the shortcomings of white literature that
stereotyped blacks and demonstrated why black authors are best
suited to describe the Black experience. As a poet, he mined
the rich vein of black Southern culture, replacing primitive
or sentimental caricatures with authentic folk heroes drawn
from Afro-American sources. He was associated with Howard
University for almost sixty years.

1990 - L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia is inaugurated as governor and
becomes the first elected African American governor in the
United States. Wilder won the election in Virginia by a mere
7,000 votes in a state once the heart of the Confederacy.
Later in the year, he will receive the NAACP's Spingarn Medal
for his lifetime achievements.

2010 - Rhythm & Blues singer Teddy Pendergrass, one of the most electric
and successful figures in music until a car crash 28 years ago
left him in a wheelchair, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to colon cancer at the age of 59.

[Fatal Guillotine]

forgot about noble drew ali January 8 (bornday)