Ourstory

[True Father Sankofa]

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 Sankofa]

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

[True Father Sankofa]

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.

[True Father Sankofa]

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

[True Father Sankofa]

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.

[Reginald Hudlin]

Date:
Fri, 1939-01-27
*Julius Lester was born on this date in 1939. He is an African American educator, musician and writer.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he is the son of a Methodist minister. As a teenager, Lester lived in Nashville, Tennessee, spending most summers at his grandmother's farm in Arkansas. Growing up, he wanted to be a musician. In 1960, Lester graduated from Fisk University with a degree in English. Moving to New York City, he recorded two albums, performed with Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Judy Collins, and worked as a radio announcer. His first book was The 12-String Guitar as Played by Leadbelly: an Instructional Manual, dealt with Black folk music.

He also was active in the Civil Rights movement, joining the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee as head of their photo department. Since then his photographs from that time have been included in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution and are part of the permanent collection at Howard University. Some of his photographs have been in group shows at Pivot Media, Florence, Mass., and Valley Photographers, Springfield, Mass. In 1969, Lester published two works as a children's author. They were To Be a Slave, and Black Folktales. His subsequent writings continued to show his interest in African American history, folklore, and politics.

Over the years, he has published 35 books; 7 non-fiction, 1 book of poetry, 2 novels, and 25 children's books. Among the awards these books have received are the Newberry Honor Medal, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, National Book Award Finalist, National Jewish Book Award Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, and Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. Numerous titles have also appeared on the New York Times Outstanding Book list and American Library Association Notable Book list. Lester also has published over 200 hundred essays and reviews in such publications as the New York Times Book Review, New York Times Op-Ed Page, Boston Globe, Village Voice, The New Republic, Forward, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Lester joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts in 1971 and is currently a professor in the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department, and adjunct professor of History. In 1974, while on retreat at the Trappist monasteryin Spencer, Massachusetts, one of the monks told him, "When you know the name by which God knows you, you will know who you are." Lester searched with the passion of one seeking the Eternal Beloved. He found that his name was Yaakov Daniel Ben Avraham v'Sarah. And that he was a Jew; he converted to Judaism during that time.

Lester has been honored with all three of the university's most prestigious faculty awards: The Distinguished Teacher's Award, the Faculty Fellowship Award for Distinguished Research and Scholarship, and the Chancellor's Medal, the university's highest honor. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education selected him as the Massachusetts State Professor of the Year in 1988. Also for ten years he was lay religious leader of Beth El Synagogue in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Julius Lester has five children and lives with his wife and one cat on a secluded twelve acres in a small town in western Massachusetts.

[True Father Sankofa]

Ourstory 2/6

1810 - The Argentine national hero from Buenos Aires, Argentina,
       Antonio Ruiz (El Negro Falucho), joins the ancestors, fighting
       for his country.

1820 - The first organized emigration back to Africa begins when
       86 free African Americans leave New York Harbor aboard the
       Mayflower of Liberia. They are bound for the British colony
       of Sierra Leone, which welcomes free African Americans as well as fugitive slaves.

1867 - The Anglo-American merchant George Peabody, founds the $ 2 million Peabody Education Fund.  It is the first philanthropy
       established in the wake of the Civil War to promote free public
       education in 12 Civil War devastated southern states for whites and African Americans.  The Peabody Fund will provide funding for construction, endowments, scholarships, teacher and industrial education for newly freed slaves.

1898 - Haywood Hall is born in South Omaha, Nebraska.  After
       relocating to Minneapolis, Minnesota with his family, he will
       join the U.S. Army.  He will serve with the 370th Infantry in
       France during World War I. Returning to Chicago, Illinois after
       the war, he will be active as a Black Nationalist, becoming a
       member of the African Blood Brotherhood and the Communist Party of the USA. In 1925, he will adopt the pseudonym, Harry
       Haywood. He will be a leading proponent of Black Nationalism,
       self-determination, and the idea that American Blacks are a
       colonized people who should organize themselves into a nation. From 1926 to 1930, he will study in the Soviet Union, where he will meet several anti-colonial revolutionaries, including
       Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh. On his return to the U.S. in 1931, he
       will be chosen to lead the Communist Party's Negro Department, and in 1934 will be elected a member of its politburo. The Spanish Civil War will take him to Spain in 1937, where he
       will fight in a volunteer Communist brigade against General
       Francisco Franco's fascist regime. During World War II, his
       belief in black self-determination and territorial autonomy
       will put him at odds with Communist Party policy, which had
       gravitated away from support for a Black nation in the American south. His agitation on "The Negro Question" led to his
       expulsion from the Party in 1959. He will remain in Chicago,
       supporting Black Nationalist movements such as the Nation of
       Islam. He will publish "Negro Liberation" (1948), a detailed
       analysis of the national character of Black oppression,
       particularly in the South. In his later years he will write
       his memoirs, "Black Bolshevik: Autobiography of an Afro-
       American Communist" (1978). Harry Haywood's greatest
       contribution will be his central role in developing a
       theoretical understanding of the Black nation in the United
       States. He will join the ancestors in January, 1985.

1898 - Melvin B. Tolson, author and educator, is  born in Moberly,
       Missouri.  Educated at Fisk, Lincoln, and Columbia
       Universities, his first volume of poetry, "Rendezvous with
       America," will be published in 1944.  He will be best known
       for "Libretto for the Republic  of Liberia," published in
       1953.

1931 - The Harlem Experimental Theatre Group performs its first play at St. Philips Parish House.  The group's advisory board
       includes famed  actress Rose McClendon, author Jesse Fauset,
       and Grace Nail.

1933 - Walter E. Fauntroy is born in Washington, DC.  He will become a
       civil rights leader and minister.  He will later become the
       non-voting delegate to the United States Congress for the
       District of Columbia from 1971 to 1991.

1945 - Robert Nesta Marley is born in St. Ann, Jamaica to Captain
       Norval and Cedella Marley.  He will become a successful singer along with his group, The Wailers.  Bob Marley and The Wailers were among the earliest to sing Reggae, a blend of Jamaican dance music and American Rhythm & Blues with a heavy dose of Rastafarianism, the Jamaican religion that blends Christian and African teachings.   He will join the ancestors in 1981 at the
       age of 36, succumbing to cancer.  As a result of his
       accomplishments, he will be awarded Jamaica's Order Of Merit, the nation's third highest honor, (April, 1981) in recognition
       of his outstanding contribution to the country's culture.   He
       will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

1961 - The "jail-in" movement starts in Rock Hill, South Carolina,
       when arrested students demand to be jailed rather than pay
       fines.

1993 - Arthur Ashe, tennis champion, joins the ancestors at the age of 49.  He succumbs from complications of AIDS, contracted from a transfusion during a earlier heart surgery.

Date:
Fri, 1939-01-27
*Julius Lester was born on this date in 1939. He is an African American educator, musician and writer.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he is the son of a Methodist minister. As a teenager, Lester lived in Nashville, Tennessee, spending most summers at his grandmother's farm in Arkansas. Growing up, he wanted to be a musician. In 1960, Lester graduated from Fisk University with a degree in English. Moving to New York City, he recorded two albums, performed with Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Judy Collins, and worked as a radio announcer. His first book was The 12-String Guitar as Played by Leadbelly: an Instructional Manual, dealt with Black folk music.

He also was active in the Civil Rights movement, joining the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee as head of their photo department. Since then his photographs from that time have been included in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution and are part of the permanent collection at Howard University. Some of his photographs have been in group shows at Pivot Media, Florence, Mass., and Valley Photographers, Springfield, Mass. In 1969, Lester published two works as a children's author. They were To Be a Slave, and Black Folktales. His subsequent writings continued to show his interest in African American history, folklore, and politics.

Over the years, he has published 35 books; 7 non-fiction, 1 book of poetry, 2 novels, and 25 children's books. Among the awards these books have received are the Newberry Honor Medal, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, National Book Award Finalist, National Jewish Book Award Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, and Boston Globe/Horn Book Award. Numerous titles have also appeared on the New York Times Outstanding Book list and American Library Association Notable Book list. Lester also has published over 200 hundred essays and reviews in such publications as the New York Times Book Review, New York Times Op-Ed Page, Boston Globe, Village Voice, The New Republic, Forward, and the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

Lester joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts in 1971 and is currently a professor in the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies Department, and adjunct professor of History. In 1974, while on retreat at the Trappist monasteryin Spencer, Massachusetts, one of the monks told him, "When you know the name by which God knows you, you will know who you are." Lester searched with the passion of one seeking the Eternal Beloved. He found that his name was Yaakov Daniel Ben Avraham v'Sarah. And that he was a Jew; he converted to Judaism during that time.

Lester has been honored with all three of the university's most prestigious faculty awards: The Distinguished Teacher's Award, the Faculty Fellowship Award for Distinguished Research and Scholarship, and the Chancellor's Medal, the university's highest honor. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education selected him as the Massachusetts State Professor of the Year in 1988. Also for ten years he was lay religious leader of Beth El Synagogue in St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Julius Lester has five children and lives with his wife and one cat on a secluded twelve acres in a small town in western Massachusetts.

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[True Father Sankofa]

Ourstory 2/13


1635 - America's first public school, the Boston Latin School, opened in Boston. Black students were excluded from attending.

1882 - Henry Highland Garnet, abolitionist, preacher, diplomat and
        protest leader, joins the ancestors in Monrovia, Liberia at
        the age of 66.

1907 - Wendell P. Dabney establishes "The Union."  The Cincinnati,
        Ohio paper's motto is "For no people can become great without being united, for in union, there is strength."

1920 - The National Association of Professional Baseball Clubs is
        founded by Andrew "Rube" Foster.  They will be called the
        Negro National League.  It will become the first successful
        African American professional baseball league.  Two other
        leagues had previously been started, but failed to last more
        than one season.

1923 - The first African American professional basketball team "The Renaissance" is organized by Robert J. Douglas.  It is named
        after its home court, the Renaissance Casino.  They will
        play from 1923 to 1939 and have a record of 1,588 wins
        against 239 losses.  They will become the first African
        American team in the Basketball Hall of Fame.   
 
1957 - The Southern Leadership Conference is founded at a meeting of ministers in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Martin Luther King, Jr. is elected its first president.  Later in the year its name
will be changed to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

1973 - Gertrude E. Downing and William Desjardin Corner Cleaner Attachment, Patent No. 3,715,772 on February 13, 1973

1976 - General Murtala Mohammed, head of Nigeria, who came to power in 1975 after General Gowon is ousted, joins the ancestors
        after being killed in an unsuccessful counter-coup.  His
        chief of staff, General Olusegun Obasanjo, will assume
        Mohammed's post and his promise to hand over political power to civilian rule.
 
1996 - Minister Louis Farrakhan, of the Nation of Islam, visits Iran
        to celebrate its 1979 revolution ousting the Shah.

[True Father Sankofa]

1760 - Richard Allen, is born into slavery in Philadelphia,
        Pennsylvania. He will purchase his freedom in 1786 and will
        become a preacher the same year.  He will become the first
        African American ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church
        (1799), and founder of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME)
        Church in 1816, and first bishop of the AME Church.  He will
        join the ancestors on March 26, 1831.
 
1818 - Possible birth of Frederick Douglass “the Great Emancipator” (some sources say 1817) in Tuckahoe (Talbot County), Maryland, is attributed to this date.  He will state, "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it... and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant." He will be a great African American leader/orator and "one of the giants of nineteenth century America.  He was born Frederick Bailey and will change his name to Douglass after he escapes slavery in 1838. Some accounts say he purchased his freedom in 1845. He became the greatest abolitionist of his time and was also the creator of the “North Star” newspaper. He will join the ancestors on February 20, 1895 in Washington, DC.

1867 - Morehouse College is organized in Augusta, Georgia.  The
        school will be moved later to Atlanta.
 
1867 - New registration law in Tennessee abolishes racial
        distinctions in voting.
 
1936 - The National Negro Congress is organized at a Chicago meeting attended by eight hundred seventeen delegates representing more than five hundred organizations.  Asa Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters is elected
president of the new organization.
 
1946 - Gregory Hines is born in New York City.  A child tap-dancing
        star in the group Hines, Hines, and Dad, Hines will lead a
        new generation of tap dancers that will benefit from the
        advice and teaching of such tap legends as Henry Le Tang,
        "Honi" Coles, Sandman Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Sammy Davis, Jr.  He will also become a successful actor in movies
including "White Knights," "Tap," and "A Rage in Harlem." He
will join the ancestors on August 9, 2003.

1978 - Maxima Corporation, a computer systems and management company, is incorporated.  Headquartered in Lanham, Maryland, it will become one of the largest African American-owned companies
and earn its founder, chairman and CEO, Joshua I. Smith, chairmanship of the U.S. Commission on Minority Business Development.

[True Father Sankofa]

Republic Day in Guyana

1841 - Grafton Tyler Brown is born in Harrisburg,  Pennsylvania. A
        lithographer and painter, he will be  considered to be one of
        the first African-American artists in California.  His
        paintings will be collected by the Oakland (California) Museum
        of Art, Washington State Museum, and private individuals. He will join the ancestors on March 3, 1918.
 
1865 - Tennessee adopts a new constitution abolishing slavery.  This will allow Tennessee to become the first former confederate
state to be re-admitted to the Union.

1868 - On this day Dr.William Edward Burghardt DuBois, (W E B DuBois) educator and civil rights advocate, is born in Great Barrington, Mass. He was also a Black sociologist and one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. A race riot convinced him that he couldn’t confine himself to scholarly research, but to find a way to protest the worsening conditions of Black life in America.

1888 - Horace Pippin is born in West Chester, Pennsylvania.  His right arm crippled in World War I (where he will earn a Purple
Heart), Pippin will paint holding the wrist of his practically useless right arm in his left fist.  The self-taught artist will win wide acclaim for the primitive style and strong emotional content of his work. He will join the ancestors on July 6, 1946.
 
1895 - William H. Heard, AME minister and educator, named minister to Liberia.

1898 - The African American postmaster of Lake City, South Carolina joins the ancestors after being lynched.  His wife and three daughters are shot and maimed for life.

1915 - Death of Robert Smalls (75), Reconstruction congressman, in Beaufort, South Carolina

1921 - Jean-Bedel Bokassa I is born in Bobangul, Oubangul-Chari,
        French Equatorial Africa (present-day Central African
        Republic).  He will become a career soldier who will seize
        power from President David Dacko in a 1965 coup.  In 1972 he will proclaim himself president-for-life, ruling the country with brutal repression, using its revenues for personal enrichment, and crowning himself emperor in 1976.  He will be deposed in September 1979 and was imprisoned for murder in 1986 after seven years in exile.  He will be pardoned in 1993 and will join the ancestors in 1996 at the age of 75.
 
1938 - Ishmael Reed is born in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  He will become a poet (nominated for the National Book Award for "Conjure"), novelist ("Yellow Back," "Radio Broke Down," "Mumbo Jumbo," "Flight to Canada"), and anthologist of the well-received "19 Necromancers from Now" and "The Yardbird Reader, Volume I."

1953 - Bass Singer Melvin Franklin of The Temptations died of complications following a brain seizure in Los Angeles. He was 53.

1972 – Political activist Angela Davis is released from jail. She was not only an activist but also an educator and author and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panthers

1979 - St. Lucia gains its independence from Great Britain.

[True Father Sankofa]

Oustory 2/24

1964 - Rebecca Lee Crumpler becomes the first black woman to receive an M.D. degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born in 1833. She worked from 1852-1860 as a nurse in Massachusetts.

1966 - Military leaders oust Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana - while on a peace mission, in Beijing, to stop the Vietnam War.

2008 – Raul Castro is elected president of Cuba after his brother Fidel resigns.

[True Father Sankofa]

Japanese General Takahashi met with NOI leader Elijah Muhammad and explained that Japan was committed to the Black man’s struggle and wanted to destroy America for all the crimes it had committed against people of color throughout the world.

2 years later the attack on Pearl Harbor.
4 years later the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Executive Order 9066

[True Father Sankofa]

(the irony of some of the info associated with Wheatley and Duncan falling on the same dates is rather odd but nothing spooky at all)

1704 - A school for African Americans is opened in New York City by Elias Neau, a Frenchman.
 
1708 - A slave revolt occurs in Newton, Long Island in New York State. Seven whites are killed.  Two African American male slaves and an Indian slave are hanged, and an African American woman is burned alive.
 
1776 - George Washington, in his letter of acknowledgment to Phyllis Wheatley for a poem she wrote for his birthday, says, "I thank you most sincerely for...the elegant line you enclosed...the
style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your poetic talents."
 
1778 - Rhode Island General Assembly in precedent-breaking act
authorizes the enlistment of slaves.
 
1784 - Phyllis Wheatley, poet, joins the ancestors.

1854 - Some 50 slavery opponents meet in Ripon, Wisconsin, to call for the creation of a new political group, which will become the
Republican Party.
 
1859 - Arkansas legislature requires free African Americans to choose between exile and enslavement.

1879 – The “Exodus of 1879” where many Blacks left the South in large numbers heading North starts.

1932 - Richard Spikes invented/patented automatic gear shift.

1940 - United States population: 131,669,275. Black population: 12,865,518 (9.8 per cent). Richard Wright's Native Son published.

1942 - Riots against African Americans occur in Detroit, Michigan at
the Sojourner Truth Homes.
 
1943 - "Porgy and Bess" opens on Broadway with Anne Brown and Todd Duncan in starring roles.
 
1945 - Charles "Bubba" Smith is born in Beaumont, Texas.  He will
become a professional football player with the Baltimore Colts, Oakland Raiders and the Houston Oilers.  After a successful football career, he will become an actor in the "Police Academy" series. He also will become the president and CEO of Vital Aircraft Company,  which solicits the Department of Defense for government contracts.  To illustrate his enduring interest in education and work with children, he will endow an engineering scholarship at his alma mater, Michigan State University.

1948 - Sgt. Cornelius F. Adjetey becomes the first martyr for national independence of Ghana.

1977 - Death of comedian Eddie ("Rochester") Anderson (71).

1984 - Singer Michael Jackson wins eight Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, breaking the previous record of six awards won by a single artist in 1965. Jackson's awards stem from his album "Thriller," which became the biggest selling record of all time with 35 million copies sold since its release in 1982.

1990 - Philip Emeagwali awarded the Gordon Bell Prize (computing's Nobel Prize) for solving one of the twenty most difficult problems in the computing field.
 
1991 - "The Content of our Character," the controversial book on
affirmative action and race relations by Shelby Steele, wins the National Book Critics Circle Award.
 
1998 - Todd Duncan joins the ancestors at his home in Washington, DC, at the age 95.  His ascension is on the fifty-fifth anniversary of his starring role in the Broadway opening of "Porgy and Bess."

[Battle]

Wednesday, 23rd March Twenty One

Phyllis Wheatley

On Being Brought from Africa to America, 1773

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with a scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

[Battle]

Thursday, 7th April  Twenty One

Phyllis Wheatley

To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works  1753

To show the lab'ring bosom's deep intent,
And thought in living characters to paint,
When first thy pencil did those beauties give,
And breathing figures learnt from thee to live,
How did those prospects give my soul delight,
A new creation rushing on my sight?
Still, wond'rous youth! each noble path pursue;
On deathless glories fix thine ardent view:
Still may the painter's and the poet's fire,
To aid thy pencil and thy verse conspire!
And may the charms of each seraphic theme
Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame!
High to the blissful wonders of the skies
Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes.
Thrice happy, when exalted to survey
That splendid city, crown'd with endless day,
Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring:
Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring.
Calm and serene thy moments glide along,
And may the muse inspire each future song!
Still, with the sweets of contemplation bless'd,
May peace with balmy wings your soul invest!
But when these shades of time are chas'd away,
And darkness ends in everlasting day,
On what seraphic pinions shall we move,
And view the landscapes in the realms above?
There shall thy tongue in heav'nly murmurs flow,
And there my muse with heav'nly transport glow;
No more to tell of Damon's tender sighs,
Or rising radiance of Aurora's eyes;
For nobler themes demand a nobler strain,
And purer language on th' ethereal plain.
Cease, gentle Muse! the solemn gloom of night
Now seals the fair creation from my sight.