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The United States
The impact of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, of the new Labor Union movement (CIO) and of the democratization processes during and after the Second World War upon African Americans was at best peripheral. Whatever African Americans achieved was much less than the economical, social and educational possibilities afforded.
Such New Deal measures as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Youth Administration (NYA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) lifted African Americans as well as European Americans out of the depths of the Depression, but some African Americans felt that they did not receive their fare share of the benefits. Since many of the recovery and reform programs were administered by the state and local governments, this meant all-European American control, especially in the South.
Discriminatory handling of the measures for relief, in many instances, would not be difficult to imagine. In any case, the New Deal Administration was a segregated one. Nonetheless, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established his so-called "Black Cabinet," African American advisers on African-American affairs. These individuals included an educator, Mary McLeod Bethune; a political scientist, Ralph J. Bunche; an attorney, William H. Hastie, and an economist, Robert Weaver. In the end, the New Deal, despite its imperfections, was viewed by African Americans as well as European Americans as an era of progress -- certainly a marked advance over the Depression years.
Such New Deal measures as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the National Youth Administration (NYA), and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) lifted African Americans as well as European Americans out of the depths of the Depression, but some African Americans felt that they did not receive their fare share of the benefits. Since many of the recovery and reform programs were administered by the state and local governments, this meant all-European American control, especially in the South.
Discriminatory handling of the measures for relief, in many instances, would not be difficult to imagine. In any case, the New Deal Administration was a segregated one. Nonetheless, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established his so-called "Black Cabinet," African American advisers on African-American affairs. These individuals included an educator, Mary McLeod Bethune; a political scientist, Ralph J. Bunche; an attorney, William H. Hastie, and an economist, Robert Weaver. In the end, the New Deal, despite its imperfections, was viewed by African Americans as well as European Americans as an era of progress -- certainly a marked advance over the Depression years.
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One noticeable change that is also attributed to the New Deal was with regards to immigration. An interesting and positive factor was the influx of people of African descent from the West Indies during the 1930's (and of Puerto Ricans after World War II) -- somewhat similar to the great ethnic immigrations and their meaning for the American melting pot.
*President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought several prominent African Americans into government to serve in the "Black Cabinet," an advisory group. The most famous member was Mary McLeod Bethune.
*The United States Housing Authority began building low-cost housing, and African Americans occupied about a third of the units. The housing was segregated in the South and only partially integrated in the North.
Low-cost housing during the Depression was built largely with funds supplied by the United States Housing Authority, later the Federal Public Housing Authority. About one-third of the units constructed were occupied by African American families. In the South, separate projects were built for African Americans and European Americans. Some Northern projects were integrated and others were not.
*The Federal Housing Administration sponsored restrictive covenants in building and rental programs.
The fact that the Home Owners Loan Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the Federal Housing Administration followed conventional practices in granting loans eliminated most African Americans.
*The Tennessee Valley Authority hired African Americans as unskilled laborers but did not admit them to training programs. African Americans could not live in the Government communities of Norris and Arthurdale.
*In August, African Americans in Atlanta, Georgia, said "that in some cases competent and satisfactory Negro workers are beginning to be displaced by white men as a result of the higher wage scales provided by the NRA [National Industrial Recovery Act]."
*Although the law creating the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) stated that "no person shall be excluded on account of race, color or creed," in fact, the CCC generally maintained a policy of strict segregation. Between 1933 and 1942, approximately 200,000 African American boys worked in CCC camps. In New England, and in the Western States, approximately 30,000 African Americans lived in integrated camps.
George Washington Carver
* From 1923 to 1933, Carver toured white Southern colleges for the Commission on Interracial Cooperation.
*From 1933 to 1935, Carver worked to develop peanut oil massages to treat infantile paralysis (polio). Ultimately researchers found that the massages, not the peanut oil, provided the benefits of maintaining some mobility to paralyzed limbs.
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W. E. B. DuBois
After arriving at his new professorship in Atlanta, Du Bois wrote a series of articles generally supportive of Marxism. He was not a strong proponent of labor unions or the Communist Party, but he felt that Marx's scientific explanation of society and the economy were useful for explaining the situation of African Americans in the United States. Marx's atheism also struck a chord with Du Bois, who routinely criticized African American churches for dulling African Americans' sensitivity to racism. In his 1933 writings, Du Bois embraced socialism, but asserted that "[c]olored labor has no common ground with white labor", a controversial position that was rooted in Du Bois's dislike of American labor unions, which had systematically excluded African Americans for decades. Du Bois did not support the Communist Party in the United States and did not vote for their candidate in the 1932 presidential election, in spite of an African American on their ticket.
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Agriculture
*Between 1933 and 1934, Federal studies indicated that one-third of Southern land, and more than one-half of the land in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Oklahoma and Kentucky, was eroded to some extent. Cotton prices fell to half the pre-1914 level. Foreign countries bought cotton from their dominions, because of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) curtailment of production and destruction of surplus. The world price was also influenced by the introduction of synthetic materials, especially rayon.
The Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) production curtailment program was directly responsible for a decline in the number of African American sharecroppers and tenants in the South. Its policies inadvertently forced out the poorest farmers, of whom many more were African American than European American. Due to the reduction of crop acreage, many African American tenant farmers and sharecroppers lost their livelihood. In addition, under the AAA, benefit checks for curtailment of production were made out to landlords, who often failed to pass them on to their African American tenants. AAA cash benefits made mechanization possible and European American landowners mechanized production to eliminate tenants and thus to increase their own percentage of profits. For example, a 1939 study showed that with mechanization a reduction from 40 to 24 families was possible in the Mississippi Delta area. Jobs created by mechanization went to European American labor.
Although vast numbers of Southern African Americans voted in AAA crop referendums, large landowners were over-represented on local AAA administration committees. African Americans were rarely allowed to vote for these committees, even if established in primarily African American areas. All benefit and acreage decisions were made by these local committees, without adequate, if any, African American voice. Complaints were heard by European American boards.
Southern lien laws made it difficult for African American share tenants and sharecroppers to borrow from government agencies and credit cooperatives such as the Federal Land Bank, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Farm Mortgage Corporation, because the African Americans had nothing to offer as security. Even owners and cash tenants who had some resources had less valuable land than European Americans to offer as security, and thus had to apply for smaller loans.
Competition between poor African Americans and poor European Americans and local government racial attitudes impeded cooperation and development of agricultural unions to combat the ill effects of Federal legislation. Interracial organizations were concentrated in the Southwest. Not until 1940 did they appear in the South. The Socialist Party organized with other groups the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. It was composed of small farmers, sharecroppers and laborers, both African American and European American, in Tennessee, Arkansas, and later Texas and Oklahoma. About half African American, it held interracial meetings in violation of state and county laws, and thus encountered frequent violence. Membership probably never exceeded 30,000. There was little conflict between European Americans and African Americans within the organization. However, the Southern Tenants Farmers Union accomplished relatively little in its efforts to acquire Federal benefits and to fight displacements resulting from AAA policies.
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Awards
*YMCA secretary Max Yergan received the Spingarn Medal for his work as a missionary in South Africa.
Civil Rights
*In New York, an African American minister, the Reverend John Johnson, organized the Citizens League for Fair Play, which attempted to persuade European American merchants to hire African Americans. Eventually seven hundred jobs were opened to African Americans, but the bad feelings between European American merchants and African American residents continued, culminating in a riot in Harlem in 1935.
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The Communist Party
*Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old Cincinnati native and member of the Communist Party, led hunger marches in the South in an attempt to secure relief support due African Americans He was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to twenty (20) years on a chain gang (January 18).
Angelo Herndon, a 19-year-old African American from Cincinnati, who said he had come to the South with the message of Communism, led a hunger march to petition county commissioners for relief due to African Americans. He was arrested and convicted of attempting to incite insurrection. The state based its case on Herndon's possession of literature distributed by the United States Communist Party. Some of the literature advocated self-determination for Black Belt African Americans. Herndon's attorney, Benjamin J. Davis, Jr., said, "The only offense Herndon committed was that he asked for bread for children -- his only crime is his color." Herndon was sentenced to 20 years on a chain gang.
Educational Institutions
*The Works Projects Administration initiated adult education programs that taught 400,000 African Americans to read and write. Student aid programs by the National Youth Administration, the Agricultural Extension Service and the Farm Security Administration also helped many African Americans.
*The New Deal increased African American educational facilities. The Public Works Administration was especially successful in school building projects in the North. Less than 10% of the funds were used for African American schools in the South.
*There were 38,000 African Americans attending colleges, 97% in colleges in the South.
The Labor Movement
*To encourage European American employers in New York to hire blacks, John Johnson organized the Citizens League for Fair Play. African Americans quickly gained several hundred jobs, but tensions aggravated by league activities would lead to a riot in Harlem in 1935.
The Law and Legislation
*The first of the series of retrials of the Scottsboro Boys ended (April 9). Haywood Patterson was again found guilty of rape and sentenced to execution.
*Clarence Norris, the first of the Scottsboro Boys to receive a new trial, was found guilty of rape and sentenced to death for the third time. His attorney, Samuel S. Leibowitz, appealed the verdict of the Decatur, Alabama jury (December 1).
Literature
*Princess Malah, by John H. Hill, was published. An "Uncle Tom" historical novel, it gives an exaggerated, bucolic view of the relations between Virginia aristocrats and their slaves. Hill made the poor European Americans the only real racists.
*Banana Bottom, a poem by Claude McKay, expressed the fullest development of McKay's cultural dualism theme. The story, set in Jamaica, concerns the tensions and contrasts between a young African American and a European American missionary couple, who had raised her.
*Run Little Chillun by Hall Johnson was a successful African American folk drama written by an African American. It ran 126 performances on Broadway.
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Media
*Nina Mae McKinney became the first African American to perform on television, appearing on a broadcast made by John Logie Baird in London (February 17).
*Ethel Waters became the first African-American to have her own network radio show, after being signed to appear twice a week on the NBC Radio Network (July 1).
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Military
*After a ban against African American enlistments that had begun on August 4, 1919, the United States Navy allowed African Americans to join, but only in the steward's department, in food service and as servants for officers (January 4). At the time, 0.5% of the enlisted men were African American. The reversal was not prompted by racial enlightenment, but by concerns that the number of available Filipino domestic help would be dwindling.
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Movies
*The film version of The Emperor Jones, starring Paul Robeson and an African-American cast, had its premiere, being shown at the Rivoli theater in Manhattan and the Roosevelt Theater in Harlem (September 19).
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Music
*Florence Price became the first African American woman to compose a symphony that was performed by a major symphony orchestra.
The Chicago Symphony, under the direction of Frederick Stock, first played Symphony in E minor by Florence Price (1888 - 1953) at the Chicago World Fair. The first African American woman to achieve distinction as a composer, Price was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1906, and won her first Harmon prize for composition in 1925.
*Benny Goodman, a European American bandleader, began using African American musicians in recording sessions. In 1936, he would be the first major bandleader to have African Americans and European Americans playing together for the public.
The Chicago Symphony, under the direction of Frederick Stock, first played Symphony in E minor by Florence Price (1888 - 1953) at the Chicago World Fair. The first African American woman to achieve distinction as a composer, Price was a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music in 1906, and won her first Harmon prize for composition in 1925.
*Benny Goodman, a European American bandleader, began using African American musicians in recording sessions. In 1936, he would be the first major bandleader to have African Americans and European Americans playing together for the public.
The NAACP
*The NAACP began a widespread campaign against segregation by filing a suit on behalf of Thomas Hocutt against the University of North Carolina. The suit was lost.
*The NAACP again challenged Texas' white-only primary. Dr. Nixon was again the plaintiff, as in 1924. Nixon was awarded damages by the United States District Court for having been denied the right to vote, but the law was not changed. The following year, however, Dr. Nixon was permitted to vote.
The New Deal
*Camp De Priest, the first African-American Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp, was established at the Allegheny National Forest (April 24).
*United States Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes issued an order forbidding racial discrimination in hiring on any Public Works Administration (PWA) funded projects, including any businesses awarded a PWA contract (September 1).
Notable Births
*Clifford Leopold Alexander, Jr., a lawyer, businessman and public servant who became the first African American to serve as Secretary of the Army (1977-1981), was born in New York City, New York (September 21).
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*Gerald William Barrax, a poet and the author of Leaning Against the Sun, was born in Attalia, Alabama (June 21).*****
*George Wilson Becton, the controversial 43-year-old African-American evangelist, was murdered by two white gunmen as he and aides left a Philadelphia church after he preached a sermon there (May 21).
George Wilson Becton was one of the first of the colorful black preachers of Harlem. He began charismatic preaching in about 1930, after the decline of Marcus Garvey, and continued until he was mysteriously murdered in 1933. Becton's sermons were formal and presented in a dignified setting, with orchestral music and liveried pages. He was kidnapped and shot to death on May 21, 1933. He died without describing his attackers or explaining why anybody might have wanted him killed. Claude McKay wrote about Becton in his book Harlem, Negro Metropolis.
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*Camille Billops, painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, was born in Los Angeles (August 12).
*Camille Billops, painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, was born in Los Angeles (August 12).
Camille Billops (b. August 12, 1933, Los Angeles, California), an African American sculptor, filmmaker, archivist, and printmaker.
Billops was born in Los Angeles on August 12, 1933. Her parents, Alma Gilmore and Lucius Billops, worked "in service" for a Beverly Hills family, enabling them to provide her with a private secondary education.
Billops graduated in 1960 from Los Angeles State College, where she majored in education for physically handicapped children. She obtained her B.A. degree from California State University and her M.F.A. degree from City College of New York in 1975.
Billops’s primary visual art medium is sculpture and her works are in the permanent collections of the Jersey City Museum and the Museum of Drawers, Bern, Switzerland. Billops has exhibited in one-woman and group exhibitions worldwide including: Gallerie Akhenaton, Cairo, Egypt; Hamburg, Germany; Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer Gallery, and El Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia, Cali, Colombia.
In 1982, Billops began her filmmaking career with Suzanne, Suzanne. She followed this by directing five more films, including Finding Christa in 1991, a highly autobiographical work that garnered the Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival. Finding Christa has also been aired as part of the Public Broadcasting Service's P. O. V. television series. Her other film credits include Older Women and Love in 1987, The KKK Boutique Ain’t Just Rednecks in 1994, Take Your Bags in 1998, and A String of Pearls in 2002. Billops produced all of her films with her husband and their film company, Mom and Pop Productions.
Billops's film projects have been collaborations with, and stories about, members of her family. For instance, they were co-produced with her husband James Hatch and credit Hatch's son as director of photography.Suzanne, Suzanne studies the relationship between Billop's sister Billie and Billie's daughter Suzanne. Finding Christa deals with Billops's daughter whom she gave up for adoption. Older Women and Love is based on a love affair of Billops's aunt.
In 1961 the seeds of Hatch-Billops Collection were sown when Billops met James Hatch, a professor of theater at UCLA, through Billops's stepsister, Josie Mae Dotson, who was Hatch's student. A 40-year artistic collaboration followed. The Hatch-Billops Collection is an archive of African American memorabilia including thousands of books and other printed materials, more than 1,200 interviews, and scripts of nearly 1,000 plays. Once housed in a 120-foot-long (37 m) loft in lower Manhattan, the Collection is now largely located at the Camille Billops and James V. Hatch archives at Emory University.
Hatch and Billops also hosted a salon in their Manhattan loft, which led to the publication of Artist and Influence, an annual journal featuring interviews with noted American "marginalized artists" across a wide range of genres.
Billops collaborated with photographer James Van Der Zee and poet, scholar, and playwright Owen Dodson on The Harle Book of the Dead, which was published in 1978 with an introduction by Toni Morrison.
*James Brown, a singer known as the "Godfather of Soul", was born in Barnwell, South Carolina (May 3).
James Joseph Brown (b. May 3, 1933, Barnwell, South Carolina – d. December 25, 2006, Atlanta, Georgia) was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and bandleader. The founding father of funk music and a major figure of 20th century popular music and dance, Brown is often referred to as the "Godfather of Soul". In a career that spanned six decades, Brown influenced the development of several music genres.
Brown began his career as a gospel singer in Toccoa, Georgia. Joining an R&B vocal group called the Avons that later evolved to become the Flames. Brown served as the group's lead singer. First coming to national public attention in the late 1950s as a member of the singing group the Famous Flames with the hit ballads "Please, Please, Please" and "Try Me", Brown built a reputation as a tireless live performer with the Famous Flames and his backing band, sometimes known as the James Brown Band or the James Brown Orchestra. Brown's success peaked in the 1960s with the live album Live at the Apollo and hit singles such as "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "It's a Man's Man's Man's World". During the late 1960s, Brown moved from a continuum of blues and gospel-based forms and styles to a profoundly "Africanized" approach to music making that influenced the development of funk music. By the early 1970s, Brown had fully established the funk sound after the formation of the J.B.'s with records such as "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" and "The Payback". Brown also became notable for songs of social commentary, including the 1968 hit "Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud". Brown continued to perform and record until his death in 2006 from congestive heart failure.
Brown recorded 16 singles that peaked at number-one on the Billboard R&B charts. Brown also holds the record for the most singles listed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart which did not reach number-one. Brown has been honored by many institutions including inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In Joel Whitburn's analysis of the Billboard R&B charts from 1942 to 2010, James Brown is ranked as number one in The Top 500 Artists. Brown is ranked seventh on the music magazine Rolling Stone's list of its 100 greatest artists of all time. Rolling Stone has also cited Brown as the most artist of all time.
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*Tony Brown, producer and host of the Emmy-winning TV series Black Journal, was born in Charles Town, West Virginia (April 11).
Tony Brown, in full William Anthony Brown (b. April 11, 1933, Charleston, West Virginia), American activist, television producer, writer, educator, and filmmaker who hosted Tony Brown’s Journal (1968–2008; original name Black Journal until 1977), the longest-running black news program in television history.
Brown was the son of Royal Brown and Catherine Davis Brown. Segregation and poverty were a part of Brown’s upbringing and influenced his view that freedom can be achieved only through economic means. Brown attended public schools in Charleston, West Virginia, where he joined the track team and excelled in academics, especially English and drama. He performed in school plays and, shortly before graduating in 1951, performed segments of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar on WGKV radio in Charleston.
After serving in the army from 1953 to 1955, Brown enrolled in Wayne State University in Detroit where he studied sociology and psychology, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1959. Primarily concerned with the suffering caused by poverty that plagued the African American community, Brown continued his studies at Wayne State, focusing on psychiatric social work. He earned a master’s degree in 1961 and began a career as a social worker but quickly discovered that he did not like the work. Changing careers, Brown became a drama critic for the Detroit Courier in 1962. He soon rose to the position of editor at the newspaper, but in 1968 he decided to move on to a job in public-affairs programming at WTVS, Detroit’s public television station.
Over the next 30 years, Brown hosted and produced programming that concerned the black community. While at WTVS, he produced Colored People’s Time, the station’s first show aimed at a black audience, and Free Play, another community-oriented program. In 1970 Brown became executive producer and host of Black Journal, a New York-based program that aired nationally and had begun in 1968. The program consisted of commentaries, documentaries, and surveys. Brown’s approach to Black Journal garnered much criticism. His view of the United States government and its effect on African American life, as well as his seeming arrogance when focusing on the struggles of black people, caused a stir in both the broadcasting and black communities. As a result, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funded the program, announced that it would not fund the 1973–74 season of Black Journal. The national black community protested the decision, however, and the show was aired, although on a limited basis. In 1977 Brown negotiated a contract with the Pepsi-Cola Company to sponsor the show, changing its name to Tony Brown’s Journal and moving it to commercial television. The show was later moved back to public television after Brown experienced trouble getting desirable viewing times on commercial television stations.
Activism was important to Brown. He maintained a strong presence in community-oriented programs as well as launching initiatives of his own. His belief that education was the key to success prompted him to initiate Black College Day to highlight black colleges and the need for African American youth to pursue a college education. He also formed the Council for the Economic Development of Black Americans; the organization’s Buy Freedom campaign encouraged African Americans to patronize black businesses. To address the problem of drug addiction, he wrote and produced a film about the issue, The White Girl (1990).
Brown held academic positions throughout his career. He founded the School of Communications at Howard University in Washington, D. C., in 1971 and served as the school’s dean until 1974. He later served as dean of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Virginia from 2004 to 2009.
In addition to writing a syndicated column for many years, Brown also wrote the books Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown (1995), Empower the People: A 7-Step Plan to Overthrow the Conspiracy That Is Stealing Your Money and Freedom (1998), and What Mama Taught Me: The Seven Core Values of Life (2003).
Brown was the son of Royal Brown and Catherine Davis Brown. Segregation and poverty were a part of Brown’s upbringing and influenced his view that freedom can be achieved only through economic means. Brown attended public schools in Charleston, West Virginia, where he joined the track team and excelled in academics, especially English and drama. He performed in school plays and, shortly before graduating in 1951, performed segments of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar on WGKV radio in Charleston.
After serving in the army from 1953 to 1955, Brown enrolled in Wayne State University in Detroit where he studied sociology and psychology, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in 1959. Primarily concerned with the suffering caused by poverty that plagued the African American community, Brown continued his studies at Wayne State, focusing on psychiatric social work. He earned a master’s degree in 1961 and began a career as a social worker but quickly discovered that he did not like the work. Changing careers, Brown became a drama critic for the Detroit Courier in 1962. He soon rose to the position of editor at the newspaper, but in 1968 he decided to move on to a job in public-affairs programming at WTVS, Detroit’s public television station.
Over the next 30 years, Brown hosted and produced programming that concerned the black community. While at WTVS, he produced Colored People’s Time, the station’s first show aimed at a black audience, and Free Play, another community-oriented program. In 1970 Brown became executive producer and host of Black Journal, a New York-based program that aired nationally and had begun in 1968. The program consisted of commentaries, documentaries, and surveys. Brown’s approach to Black Journal garnered much criticism. His view of the United States government and its effect on African American life, as well as his seeming arrogance when focusing on the struggles of black people, caused a stir in both the broadcasting and black communities. As a result, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funded the program, announced that it would not fund the 1973–74 season of Black Journal. The national black community protested the decision, however, and the show was aired, although on a limited basis. In 1977 Brown negotiated a contract with the Pepsi-Cola Company to sponsor the show, changing its name to Tony Brown’s Journal and moving it to commercial television. The show was later moved back to public television after Brown experienced trouble getting desirable viewing times on commercial television stations.
Activism was important to Brown. He maintained a strong presence in community-oriented programs as well as launching initiatives of his own. His belief that education was the key to success prompted him to initiate Black College Day to highlight black colleges and the need for African American youth to pursue a college education. He also formed the Council for the Economic Development of Black Americans; the organization’s Buy Freedom campaign encouraged African Americans to patronize black businesses. To address the problem of drug addiction, he wrote and produced a film about the issue, The White Girl (1990).
Brown held academic positions throughout his career. He founded the School of Communications at Howard University in Washington, D. C., in 1971 and served as the school’s dean until 1974. He later served as dean of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications at Hampton University in Virginia from 2004 to 2009.
In addition to writing a syndicated column for many years, Brown also wrote the books Black Lies, White Lies: The Truth According to Tony Brown (1995), Empower the People: A 7-Step Plan to Overthrow the Conspiracy That Is Stealing Your Money and Freedom (1998), and What Mama Taught Me: The Seven Core Values of Life (2003).
*William Bryant, a recipient of the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Vietnam War, was born in Cochran, Georgia (February 16).
William Maud Bryant (b. February 16, 1933, Cochran, Georgia – d. March 24, 1969, Long Khanh Province, Republic of Vietnam) was a United States Army Special Forces soldier and a recipient of America's highest military decoration — the Medal of Honor — for his actions in the Vietnam War.
Bryant joined the Army from Detroit, Michigan, in 1953. By March 24, 1969 he was serving as a Sergeant First Class in Company A of the 5th Special Forces Group, 1st Special Forces. On that day, in Long Khanh Province, Republic of Vietnam, Bryant led a company of South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) troops during an intense attack by North Vietnamese forces until being fatally wounded by enemy fire. For his actions during the battle, Bryant was awarded the Medal of Honor.
William Bryant's Medal of Honor Citation reads:
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sfc. Bryant, assigned to Company A, distinguished himself while serving as commanding officer of Civilian Irregular Defense Group Company 321, 2d Battalion, 3d Mobile Strike Force Command, during combat operations. The battalion came under heavy fire and became surrounded by the elements of 3 enemy regiments. Sfc. Bryant displayed extraordinary heroism throughout the succeeding 34 hours of incessant attack as he moved throughout the company position heedless of the intense hostile fire while establishing and improving the defensive perimeter, directing fire during critical phases of the battle, distributing ammunition, assisting the wounded, and providing the leadership and inspirational example of courage to his men. When a helicopter drop of ammunition was made to re-supply the beleaguered force, Sfc. Bryant with complete disregard for his safety ran through the heavy enemy fire to retrieve the scattered ammunition boxes and distributed needed ammunition to his men. During a lull in the intense fighting, Sfc. Bryant led a patrol outside the perimeter to obtain information of the enemy. The patrol came under intense automatic weapons fire and was pinned down. Sfc. Bryant single-handedly repulsed 1 enemy attack on his small force and by his heroic action inspired his men to fight off other assaults. Seeing a wounded enemy soldier some distance from the patrol location, Sfc. Bryant crawled forward alone under heavy fire to retrieve the soldier for intelligence purposes. Finding that the enemy soldier had expired, Sfc. Bryant crawled back to his patrol and led his men back to the company position where he again took command of the defense. As the siege continued, Sfc. Bryant organized and led a patrol in a daring attempt to break through the enemy encirclement. The patrol had advanced some 200 meters by heavy fighting when it was pinned down by the intense automatic weapons fire from heavily fortified bunkers and Sfc. Bryant was severely wounded. Despite his wounds he rallied his men, called for helicopter gunship support, and directed heavy suppressive fire upon the enemy positions. Following the last gunship attack, Sfc. Bryant fearlessly charged an enemy automatic weapons position, overrunning it, and single-handedly destroying its 3 defenders. Inspired by his heroic example, his men renewed their attack on the entrenched enemy. While regrouping his small force for the final assault against the enemy, Sfc. Bryant fell mortally wounded by an enemy rocket. Sfc. Bryant's selfless concern for his comrades, at the cost of his life above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
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*Lee Calhoun, the 1956 and 1960 Olympic 110 meter hurdles champion, was born in Laurel, Mississippi (February 23).
Lee Quincy Calhoun (b. February 23, 1933, Laurel, Mississippi – d. June 21, 1989, Erie, Pennsylvania) was an American athlete who won the 110 meter hurdles at the 1956 and 1960 Olympic Games.
Born in Laurel, Mississippi, Lee Calhoun, representing North Carolina Central University, won the NCAA 120 yard hurdles in 1956 and 1957. He also won the AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) championships in 110 meter hurdles in 1956 and 1959 and in the 120 yd hurdles in 1957.
At the 1956 Summer Olympics, Calhoun surprisingly improved his personal best in 110 m by almost a full second in a final. He ran 13.5 to win the gold medal, edging teammate Jack Davis with a lunge that just got his shoulder across the line in front. He had learned the maneuver from Davis.
Calhoun was suspended in 1958 for receiving gifts on "Bride and Groom," a television game show, and seemed to be past his prime for the 1960 Summer Olympics. However, shortly before the Rome Olympics began, he tied the world record of 13.2 and went to the Olympic Games as a favorite. In the final, he won in 13.98, beating teammate Willie May by 0.01 seconds.
After retiring from competition, he became a college track coach, first at Grambling State University, then at Yale, and finally at Western Illinois University. He was an assistant Olympic coach at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
He was elected to the United States National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1974.
Lee Calhoun died in Erie, Pennsylvania.
*Godfrey Cambridge, a comic and actor, was born in New York City, New York (February 26).
Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge (b. February 26, 1933, New York City, New York – November 29, 1976, Burbank, California) was a stand-up comic and actor. Alongside Bill Cosby, Dick Gregory, and Nipsey Russell, he was acclaimed by Time magazine in 1965 as "one of the country's four most celebrated Negro comedians."
*Joycelyn Elders, a pediatrician who became the first African American appointed Surgeon General of the United States, was born in Schaal, Arkansas (August 13).
Minnie Joycelyn Elders (b. Minnie Lee Jones, August 13, 1933, Schaal, Arkansas) is a pediatrician and public health administrator. She was a vice admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and, in 1993, became the first African American appointed as Surgeon General of the United States. Elders is best known for her frank discussion of her views on controversial issues such as drug legalization and distributing contraception in schools. She was fired in December 1994 amidst controversy as a result of her views. She is currently a professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
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*Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of Medgar Evers and a chairperson of the NAACP, was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi (March 17).
Myrlie Louise Evers–Williams (b. Myrlie Louise Beasley, March 17, 1933, Vicksburg, Mississippi) is an American civil rights activist and journalist who worked for over three decades to seek justice for the murder of her civil rights activist husband Medgar Evers in 1963. She was also chairwoman of the NAACP from 1995 to 1998, and published several books on topics related to civil rights and her husband’s legacy. On January 21, 2013, she delivered the invocation at the second inauguration of Barack Obama.
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*Etta Zuber Falconer (b. November 21, 1933, Tupelo, Mississippi – d. September 18, 2002, Atlanta, Georgia), an educator and mathematician who was one of the first African American women to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
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*Louis Farrakhan (Louis Eugene Walcott) was born in New York City (May 11). As Louis Farrakhan, he would become national representative of Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam, and upon Muhammad's death, he would lead a faction of the movement.
Louis Farrakhan, in full Louis Abdul Farrakhan, original name Louis Eugene Walcott (b. May 11, 1933, Bronx, New York), African American leader (from 1978) of the Nation of Islam, an African American movement that combined elements of Islam and black nationalism. Walcott, as he was then known, was raised in Boston by his mother, Sarah Mae Manning, an immigrant from St. Kitts and Nevis. Deeply religious as a boy, he became active in the St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in his Roxbury neighborhood. He graduated with honors from the prestigious Boston English High School, where he also played the violin and was a member of the track team. He attended the Winston-Salem Teachers College from 1951 to 1953 but dropped out to pursue a career in music. Known as “The Charmer,” he performed professionally on the Boston nightclub circuit as a singer of calypso and country songs. In 1953 he married Khadijah, with whom he would have nine children.
In 1955 Walcott joined the Nation of Islam. Following the custom of the Nation, he replaced his surname with an “X,” a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders. Louis X first proved himself at Temple No. 7 in Harlem, where he emerged as the protégé of Malcolm X, the minister of the temple and one of the most prominent members of the Nation of Islam. Louis X was given his Muslim name, Abdul Haleem Farrakhan, by Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Farrakhan was appointed head minister of Boston Temple No. 11, which Malcolm had established earlier.
After Malcolm X’s break with the Nation in 1964 over political and personal differences with Elijah Muhammad, Farrakhan replaced Malcolm as head minister of Harlem’s Temple No. 7 and as the National Representative of the Nation, the second in command of the organization. Like his predecessor, Farrakhan was a dynamic, charismatic leader and a powerful speaker with the ability to appeal to the African American masses.
When Elijah Muhammad died in February 1975, the Nation of Islam fragmented. Surprisingly, the Nation’s leadership chose Wallace Muhammad (now known as Warith Deen Mohammed), the fifth of Elijah’s six sons, as the new Supreme Minister. Disappointed that he was not named Elijah’s successor, Farrakhan led a breakaway group in 1978, which he also called the Nation of Islam and which preserved the original teachings of Elijah Muhammad. Farrakhan disagreed with Wallace Muhammad’s attempts to move the Nation to orthodox Sunni Islam and to rid it of Elijah Muhammad’s radical black nationalism and separatist teachings, which stressed the inherent wickedness of whites.
Farrakhan became known to the American public through a series of controversies that began during the 1984 presidential campaign of Jesse Jackson, whom Farrakhan supported. Farrakhan withdrew his support after Jewish voters protested his praise of Adolf Hitler, and he has been embroiled in a continuing conflict with the American Jewish community because of his making allegedly anti-Semitic statements; Farrakhan has denied being anti-Semitic. In later speeches he blamed the United States government for what he claimed was a conspiracy to destroy black people with AIDS and addictive drugs.
In 1995 the Nation sponsored the Million Man March in Washington, D.C., to promote African American unity and family values. Estimates of the number of marchers, most of whom were men, ranged from 400,000 to nearly 1.1 million, making it the largest gathering of its kind in American history. Under Farrakhan’s leadership, the Nation of Islam established a clinic for AIDS patients in Washington, D.C., and helped to force drug dealers out of public housing projects and private apartment buildings in the city. It also worked with gang members in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Nation continued to promote social reform in African American communities in accordance with its traditional goals of self-reliance and economic independence.
In the early 21st century, the core membership of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam was estimated at between 10,000 and 50,000—though in the same period Farrakhan was delivering speeches in large cities across the United States that regularly attracted crowds of more than 30,000. Under Farrakhan’s leadership, the Nation was one of the fastest growing of the various Muslim movements in the country. Foreign branches of the Nation were formed in Ghana, London, Paris, and the Caribbean islands. In order to strengthen the international influence of the Nation, Farrakhan established relations with Muslim countries, and in the late 1980s he cultivated a relationship with the Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. After a near-death experience in 2000 resulting from complications from prostate cancer (he was diagnosed with cancer in 1991), Farrakhan toned down his racial rhetoric and attempted to strengthen relations with other minority communities, including Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. Farrakhan also moved his group closer to orthodox Sunni Islam in 2000, when he and Imam Warith Deen Mohmmed, the leading American orthodox Muslim, recognized each other as fellow Muslims.
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*Walter Fauntroy, the long-time Congressional Delegate for Washington, D. C., was born in Washington, D. C. (February 6).
Walter Edward Fauntroy (b. February 6, 1933, Washington, D. C.) is the former pastor of the New Bethel Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and a civil rights activist. He served as Delegate to the United States Congress from 1971 to 1991 and was a candidate for the 1972 and 1976 Democratic presidential nominations as a favorite son.
*Tom Feelings, an illustrator and comic strip artist, was born in Brooklyn, New York (May 19).
Tom Feelings (b. May 19, 1933, Brooklyn, New York – d. August 25, 2003, Mexico) was a cartoonist, children's book illustrator, author, teacher, and activist. Through his works, he framed the African American experience. His most famous book is The Middle Passage: White Ships/Black Cargo.
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*Ernest Gaines, the author of A Lesson Before Dying, was born in Oscar, Louisiana (January 15).
Ernest James Gaines (b. January 15, 1933, Oscar, Louisiana) is an African-American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works have been made into television movies.
His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, awarded the National Humanities Medal, and inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.
*Artist Sam Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi (November 30).
Sam Gilliam (b. November 30, 1933, Tupelo, Mississippi) is a Color Field Painter and Lyrical Abstractionist artist. Gilliam is associated with the Washington Color School. and is broadly considered a Color He works on stretched, draped, and wrapped canvas, and adds sculptural 3D elements. He is recognized as the first artist to introduce the idea of a painted canvas hanging without stretcher bars c.1965, a major contribution to the Color Field School.
Sam Gilliam was born in Tupelo, Mississippi and was the seventh of eight children born to Sam and Estery Gilliam. The Gilliams moved to Louisville, Kentucky, shortly after Sam was born. His father worked on the railroad, and his mother cared for the large family. Gilliam began painting in elementary school and received much encouragement from teachers. In 1951, Gilliam graduated from Central High School in Louisville. Gilliam served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1958. He received his bachelor's and master's degree of Fine Arts from the University of Louisville. In 1955, Gilliam had his first solo exhibition at the University of Louisville. He initially taught art for a year in the Louisville public schools. In 1962, he married Dorothy Butler, a Louisville native and a well-known journalist. That same year, Gilliam moved to Washington, D.C.
*Gene Harris, a jazz pianist known for his rendition of "Ode to Billie Joe", was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan (September 1).
Gene Harris (b. September 1, 1933, Benton Harbor, Michigan – d. January 16, 2000, Boise, Idaho) was a jazz pianist known for his warm sound and blues and gospel infused style that is known as soul jazz.
From 1956 to 1970, he played in The Three Sounds trio with bassist Andy Simpkins and drummer Bill Dowdy. During this time, The Three Sounds recorded regularly for Blue Note and Verve.
Harris was mostly retired to Boise, Idaho, starting in the late 1970s, although he performed regularly at the Idanha Hotel there. Then, Ray Brown convinced him to go back on tour in the early 1980s. He played with the Ray Brown Trio and then led his own groups, recording mostly on Concord Records, until his death from kidney failure in 2000.
Harris's rendition of "Ode to Billie Joe" is known as a jazz classic. One of his most popular numbers was his "Battle Hymn of the Republic," a live version of which is on his Live at Otter Crest album, published by Concord.
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*Richard Hatcher, a politician who became the first African American to serve as Mayor of Gary, Indiana, was born (July 10).
Richard Gordon Hatcher (b. July 10, 1933, Michigan City, Indiana) became on January 1, 1968, the first African American Mayor of Gary, Indiana. He was the first African American elected mayor of a United States city with more than 100,000 people and the first elected African American mayor in the state of Indiana. Carl Stokes was elected days later as the mayor of Cleveland, and was sworn into office prior to Hatcher's inauguration.
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*Trumpeter and record producer Quincy Delight Jones, winner of 28 Grammys, was born in Chicago (March 14).
Quincy Jones, in full Quincy Delight Jones, Jr., byname “Q” (b. March 14, 1933, Chicago, Illinois), American musical performer, producer, arranger, and composer whose work encompasses virtually all forms of popular music.
Jones was born in Chicago and reared in Bremerton, Washington, where he studied the trumpet and worked locally with the then-unknown pianist-singer Ray Charles. In the early 1950s, Jones studied briefly at the prestigious Schillinger House (now Berklee College of Music) in Boston before touring with Lionel Hampton as a trumpeter and arranger. He soon became a prolific freelance arranger, working with Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Oscar Pettiford, Cannonball Adderley, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, and many others. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1956, recorded his first album as a leader in the same year, worked in Paris for the Barclay label as an arranger and producer in the late 1950s, and continued to compose. Some of his more successful compositions from this period include “
Back in the United States in 1961, Jones became an artists-and-repertoire (or “A&R” in trade jargon) director for Mercury Records. In 1964, he was named a vice president at Mercury, thereby becoming one of the first African Americans to hold a top executive position at a major American record label. In the 1960s, Jones recorded occasional jazz dates, arranged albums for many singers (including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Billy Eckstine), and composed music for several films, including The Pawnbroker (1964), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and In Cold Blood (1967). Jones next worked for the A&M label from 1969 to 1981 (with a brief hiatus as he recovered from a brain aneurysm in 1974) and moved increasingly away from jazz toward pop music. During this time he became one of the most famous producers in the world, his success enabling him to start his own record label, Qwest, in 1980.
Jones’s best-known work includes producing an all-time best-selling album, Michael Jackson's Thriller(1982), organizing the all-star charity recording “
Quincy Jones, in full Quincy Delight Jones, Jr., byname “Q” (b. March 14, 1933, Chicago, Illinois), American musical performer, producer, arranger, and composer whose work encompasses virtually all forms of popular music.
Jones was born in Chicago and reared in Bremerton, Washington, where he studied the trumpet and worked locally with the then-unknown pianist-singer Ray Charles. In the early 1950s, Jones studied briefly at the prestigious Schillinger House (now Berklee College of Music) in Boston before touring with Lionel Hampton as a trumpeter and arranger. He soon became a prolific freelance arranger, working with Clifford Brown, Gigi Gryce, Oscar Pettiford, Cannonball Adderley, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, and many others. He toured with Dizzy Gillespie's big band in 1956, recorded his first album as a leader in the same year, worked in Paris for the Barclay label as an arranger and producer in the late 1950s, and continued to compose. Some of his more successful compositions from this period include “
Stockholm Sweetnin’,” “
For Lena and Lennie,” and “
Jessica’s Day.”
Back in the United States in 1961, Jones became an artists-and-repertoire (or “A&R” in trade jargon) director for Mercury Records. In 1964, he was named a vice president at Mercury, thereby becoming one of the first African Americans to hold a top executive position at a major American record label. In the 1960s, Jones recorded occasional jazz dates, arranged albums for many singers (including Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Billy Eckstine), and composed music for several films, including The Pawnbroker (1964), In the Heat of the Night (1967), and In Cold Blood (1967). Jones next worked for the A&M label from 1969 to 1981 (with a brief hiatus as he recovered from a brain aneurysm in 1974) and moved increasingly away from jazz toward pop music. During this time he became one of the most famous producers in the world, his success enabling him to start his own record label, Qwest, in 1980.
Jones’s best-known work includes producing an all-time best-selling album, Michael Jackson's Thriller(1982), organizing the all-star charity recording “
We Are the World” (1985), and producing the film The Color Purple (1985) and the television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990–96). In 1993, he founded the magazine Vibe, which he sold in 2006. Throughout the years, Jones has worked with a “who’s who” of figures from all fields of popular music. He was nominated for more than 75 Grammy Awards (winning more than 25) and seven Academy Awards and received an Emmy Award for the theme music he wrote for the television miniseries Roots (1977). Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones was published in 2001. In 2013 Jones was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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*Mildred McDaniel-Singleton (b. Mildred Louise McDaniel, November 4, 1933, Atlanta, Georgia – d. September 30, 2004, Pasadena, California), an athlete who competed mainly in the women's high jump event during her career and who won the gold medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
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*Lou Rawls, a jazz and blues singer, was born in Chicago, Illinois (December 1). Rawls would record over 30 albums.
Lou Rawls, (b. December 1, 1933, Chicago, Illinois — d. January 6, 2006, Los Angeles, California), American singer whose smooth baritone adapted easily to jazz, soul, gospel, and rhythm and blues.
As a child, Rawls sang in a Baptist church choir, and he later performed with Sam Cooke in the 1950s gospel group Teenage Kings of Harmony. In 1956 he stepped back from his burgeoning career to enlist in the army. After his discharge in 1958, he briefly performed with another gospel group, the Pilgrim Travelers, again with Cooke. However, after recovering from a 1958 car crash that sidelined him for a year, Rawls began to perform secular music.
Rawls’s debut album, Stormy Monday (1962), was a collection of jazz songs, but he did not have a hit single until the soulful “
*Mildred McDaniel-Singleton (b. Mildred Louise McDaniel, November 4, 1933, Atlanta, Georgia – d. September 30, 2004, Pasadena, California), an athlete who competed mainly in the women's high jump event during her career and who won the gold medal at the 1956 Summer Olympics held in Melbourne, Australia, was born in Atlanta, Georgia.
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*James Meredith, the first African American student admitted to the University of Mississippi, was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi (June 25).
James Howard Meredith (b. June 25, 1933, Kosciusko, Mississippi) is a writer, political adviser and Air Force veteran. In 1962, he became the first African American student admitted to the then segregated University of Mississippi, after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the African American Civil Rights Movement. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, Meredith decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the University of Mississippi. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans.
In 1966, Meredith planned a solo 220-mile March Against Fear from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. He wanted to highlight continuing racism in the South and encourage voter registration after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He did not want major civil rights organizations involved. The second day, he was shot by a white gunman and suffered numerous wounds. Leaders of major organizations vowed to complete the march in his name after he was taken to the hospital. While Meredith was recovering, more people from across the country became involved as marchers. He rejoined the march and when Meredith and other leaders entered Jackson on June 26, they were leading an estimated 15,000 marchers, in what was the largest civil rights march in Mississippi. During the course of it, more than 4,000 African Americans had registered to vote, and the march was a catalyst to continued community organizing and additional registration.
In 2002 and again in 2012, the University of Mississippi led year-long series of events to celebrate the 40th and 50th anniversaries of Meredith's integration of the institution. He was among numerous speakers invited to the campus, where a statue of him commemorates his role. The Lyceum-The Circle Historic District at the center of the campus has been designated as a National Historic Landmark for these events.
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*Leonard Edward Moore, a football halfback who played college football at Pennsylvania State University and professionally in the National Football League (NFL) for the Baltimore Colts from 1956 to 1967, was born in Reading, Pennsylvania (November 25).
Lenny Moore (b. November 25, 1933, Reading, Pennsylvania) was named the NFL Rookie of the Year in 1956 and was selected to the Pro Bowl seven times. His uniform number 24 was retired by Baltimore, and in 1969 a sportswriters' poll named him to the NFL's 50th Anniversary Team. Moore was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1975. In 1999, Moore was ranked number 71 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players. He is also the only player to have at least 40 receiving touchdowns and 40 rushing touchdowns.
*Wallace Muhammad, the founder of the American Society of Muslims, was born in Hamtramck, Michigan (October 30).
Warith Deen Mohammed (b. Wallace D. Muhammad; October 30, 1933, Hamtramck, Michigan – d. September 9, 2008, Chicago, Illinois), also known as "W. Deen Mohammed" or "Imam W. Deen Muhammad", was a progressive African American Muslim leader, theologian, philosopher, Muslim revivalist and Islamic thinker (1975–2008) who disbanded the original Nation of Islam in 1976 and transformed it into an orthodox mainstream Islamic movement, the World Community of Al-Islam in the West which later became the American Society of Muslims. He was a son of Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam from 1933 to 1975.
Wallace Muhammad became the national leader (Supreme Minister) of the Nation of Islam in 1975 after his father's death. As a result of his personal studies and thinking, he had led the vast majority of the members of the original NOI to mainstream, traditional Sunni Islam by 1978. With this merger, he oversaw the largest mass conversion to Islam in the history of the United States. He rejected the previous deification of Wallace Fard Muhammad, accepted whites as fellow-worshippers, forged closer ties with mainstream Muslim communities, and introduced the Five Pillars of Islam into his group's theology.
Splinter groups resisting these changes formed after Elijah Muhammad's death, particularly under Louis Farrakhan, who revived the name Nation of Islam for his splinter organization.
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*Lou Rawls, a jazz and blues singer, was born in Chicago, Illinois (December 1). Rawls would record over 30 albums.
Lou Rawls, (b. December 1, 1933, Chicago, Illinois — d. January 6, 2006, Los Angeles, California), American singer whose smooth baritone adapted easily to jazz, soul, gospel, and rhythm and blues.
As a child, Rawls sang in a Baptist church choir, and he later performed with Sam Cooke in the 1950s gospel group Teenage Kings of Harmony. In 1956 he stepped back from his burgeoning career to enlist in the army. After his discharge in 1958, he briefly performed with another gospel group, the Pilgrim Travelers, again with Cooke. However, after recovering from a 1958 car crash that sidelined him for a year, Rawls began to perform secular music.
Rawls’s debut album, Stormy Monday (1962), was a collection of jazz songs, but he did not have a hit single until the soulful “
Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing” (1966), off his first rhythm and blues album, Soulin’. Rawls won three Grammy Awards: for the single “
Dead End Street” (1967), for the track “
A Natural Man” (1971), and for the album Unmistakably Lou (1977). His biggest hit single, however, was the 1976 chart topper “
You’ll Never Find (Another Love like Mine).” In addition, Rawls ushered in the pre-rap era with spoken monologues in his songs, notably in “
Tobacco Road.” Rawls released more than 50 albums, and in later years he appeared in films and television commercials, lent his voice to children’s television shows, and helped raise more than $200 million for the United Negro College fund as the host of its annual telethon.
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*Mack Rice, a singer best known for his hit "Mustang Sally" was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi (November 10).
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*Singer Nina Simone, "High Priestess of Soul," was born in Tryon, North Carolina (February 21).
Nina Simone (b. Eunice Waymon, February 21, 1933, Tryon, North Carolina.— d. April 21, 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, France), was an American singer who created urgent emotional intensity by singing songs of love, protest, and black empowerment in a dramatic style, with a rough-edged voice. Originally noted as a jazz singer, she became a prominent voice of the 1960s civil rights movement with recordings such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “Old Jim Crow”; her best-known composition was “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” She also recorded songs by rock and pop songwriters. A precocious child, she played piano and organ in girlhood. She became sensitive to racism when at age 12 she gave a piano recital in a library where her parents had to stand in back because they were black. A student of classical music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, she began performing as a pianist. Her vocal career began in 1954 in an Atlantic City, N.J., nightclub when the club owner threatened to fire her unless she sang too. Her first album featured her distinctive versions of jazz and cabaret standards, including “I Loves You, Porgy,” which became a 1959 hit. In the 1960s she added protest songs, became a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and performed at civil rights demonstrations. Her popularity grew as she added folk and gospel selections as well as songs by the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan, and Screaming Jay Hawkins (“I Put a Spell on You”), to her repertoire. Angered by American racism, she left the United States in 1973 and lived in Barbados, Africa, and Europe for the rest of her life. Like her private life, her career was turbulent, and she gained a reputation for throwing onstage tantrums, insulting inattentive audiences, and abruptly canceling concerts. A 1980s Chanel television commercial that included her vocal “My Baby Just Cares for Me” helped introduce her to many new, younger listeners. Despite ill health, she continued to tour and perform, and she maintained a devoted international following to the end.
*Mack Rice, a singer best known for his hit "Mustang Sally" was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi (November 10).
Bonny "Mack" Rice (November 10, 1933 – June 27, 2016), sometimes credited as Sir Mack Rice, was anAmerican songwriter and singer.[1] His best-known composition, and biggest hit as a solo performer, was "Mustang Sally." He also wrote "Respect Yourself" with Luther Ingram.
Rice was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He began his work in the R&B field in the 1950s based in Detroit, performing with the Five Scalders in 1956 and with the Falcons, a group whose members included Eddie Floyd,Wilson Pickett and Joe Stubbs, from 1957 to 1963.[2] He performed as a solo vocalist in the years to follow, but his biggest successes were as songwriter for other artists on labels like Stax and others in the 1960s and following decades. He began his solo vocalist career at Stax in 1967, recording on Atco Records beginning in 1968. Rice is one of the few musicians whose career touched both Motown and Stax Records.
As a solo recording artist, he had two chart hits: "Mustang Sally", which reached number 15 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1965, and "Coal Man", which reached number 48 on the soul music chart in 1969.[3] Besides "Mustang Sally", which also became a major hit for Wilson Pickett in 1966, and "Respect Yourself", a hit for the Staple Singers, his other songs include "Betcha Can't Kiss Me (Just One Time)", "Cheaper to Keep Her", "Cadillac Assembly Line", "Money Talks", "Cold Women With Warm Hearts", "Do the Funky Penguin, Pt. 1", "It Sho Ain't Me", and "Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'". His compositions have been performed by many well-known artists, including the Staple Singers, Ike and Tina Turner, Albert King, Johnnie Taylor, Shirley Brown, Rufus Thomas, Etta James, Billy Eckstine, Eddie Floyd, Buddy Guy, The Rascals, The Kingsmen, Wilson Pickett, Albert Collins, Busta Rhymes, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Otis Clay and The Blues Brothers (in Blues Brothers 2000).
In 1992, backed by the soul band The Dynatones, Rice released his first solo album, Right Now on Blue Suit Records, recorded and mixed by Steve Scharren at Scharren Studios in Toledo, Ohio. On it he reprised a number of his hit songs along with a mixture of new tunes.
Rice continued to live in the Detroit area. He died at home in Detroit on June 27, 2016, aged 82, from complications of Alzheimer's disease.[2]
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*Singer Nina Simone, "High Priestess of Soul," was born in Tryon, North Carolina (February 21).
Nina Simone (b. Eunice Waymon, February 21, 1933, Tryon, North Carolina.— d. April 21, 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, France), was an American singer who created urgent emotional intensity by singing songs of love, protest, and black empowerment in a dramatic style, with a rough-edged voice. Originally noted as a jazz singer, she became a prominent voice of the 1960s civil rights movement with recordings such as “Mississippi Goddam” and “Old Jim Crow”; her best-known composition was “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” She also recorded songs by rock and pop songwriters. A precocious child, she played piano and organ in girlhood. She became sensitive to racism when at age 12 she gave a piano recital in a library where her parents had to stand in back because they were black. A student of classical music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, she began performing as a pianist. Her vocal career began in 1954 in an Atlantic City, N.J., nightclub when the club owner threatened to fire her unless she sang too. Her first album featured her distinctive versions of jazz and cabaret standards, including “I Loves You, Porgy,” which became a 1959 hit. In the 1960s she added protest songs, became a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and performed at civil rights demonstrations. Her popularity grew as she added folk and gospel selections as well as songs by the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan, and Screaming Jay Hawkins (“I Put a Spell on You”), to her repertoire. Angered by American racism, she left the United States in 1973 and lived in Barbados, Africa, and Europe for the rest of her life. Like her private life, her career was turbulent, and she gained a reputation for throwing onstage tantrums, insulting inattentive audiences, and abruptly canceling concerts. A 1980s Chanel television commercial that included her vocal “My Baby Just Cares for Me” helped introduce her to many new, younger listeners. Despite ill health, she continued to tour and perform, and she maintained a devoted international following to the end.
*Maurice Stokes, a professional basketball player who was the 1956 NBA Rookie of the Year, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (June 17).
Maurice Stokes (b. June 17, 1933, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – d. April 6, 1970, Cincinnati, Ohio) was a professional basketball player in the 1950s for the Cincinnati/Rochester Royals of the National Basketball Association (NBA) until his career — and later his life — was cut short by a debilitating injury.
Stokes was born in Rankin, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, one of four children — he had a twin sister and two brothers. His father worked in a steel mill and his mother was a domestic. When Maurice was age 8, the family moved to nearby Homewood, where he later attended Westinghouse High School. Stokes did not start his first two years at Westinghouse, but in his last two years, he helped lead the Bulldogs to back-to-back city championships in 1950 and 1951.
Stokes attended and graduated from Saint Francis College in Loretto, Pennsylvania. There he led the Saint Francis College Red Flash to the 1955 National Invitation Tournament (NIT) and was named Most Valuable Player although his team finished fourth in the tournament. Stokes remains St. Francis' all-time leading rebounder with 1,819 and is second in scoring with 2,282 points. The Red Flash were 79-30 during Stokes' four seasons. He was later inducted in the St. Francis University Athletic Hall of Fame.
Playing for the NBA's Rochester Royals (which became the Cincinnati Royals in 1957) from 1955 to 1958, Stokes averaged 16.3 rebounds per game during his rookie season and was named NBA Rookie of the Year in 1956. The next season, he set a league record for most rebounds in a single season with 1,256 (17.4 per game). Stokes was second in the NBA in rebounds and third in assists in 1957-58; a feat only Wilt Chamberlain has matched for a full season.
During his three seasons in the NBA (1955–58), he grabbed more rebounds than any other player with 3,492 (Bob Pettit was second with 3,417) and also amassed 1,062 assists, which was second in the NBA only to Boston Celtics' point guard Bob Cousy (1,583). Stokes was named an All-Star and All- NBA Second Team member three times in his tragically short career. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September 2004.
As of 2016, Stokes was one of only six NBA players who have recorded 4 consecutive triple-doubles. (The other five are Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Russell Westbrook.)
On March 12, 1958, in the last game of the regular 1957-58 NBA season, Stokes was knocked unconscious after he drove to the basket, drew contact, and struck his head as he fell to the court. He was revived with smelling salts and returned to the game. Three days later, after recording 12 points and 15 rebounds in an opening-round playoff game against the Detroit Pistons, he became ill on the team's flight back to Cincinnati. Stokes later suffered a seizure and was left permanently paralyzed. He was diagnosed with post-traumatic encephalopathy, a brain injury that damaged his motor-control center.
During the years that followed, Stokes would be supported and cared for by his lifelong friend and teammate, Jack Twyman, who became Stokes' legal guardian. Although permanently paralyzed, Stokes was mentally alert and communicated by blinking his eyes. He adopted a grueling physical therapy regimen that eventually allowed him limited physical movement. He spent three years typing his own autobiography, which was never published. He never missed voting, even for local elections. Stokes' condition deteriorated through the 1960s. He was later transferred to Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, where Twyman continued to be a regular visitor.
Twelve years after he went into the post-injury coma, he died at age 36 from a heart attack on April 6, 1970. At his own request, he was buried in Franciscan Friar Cemetery on the campus of Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania.
Jack Twyman organized a charity exhibition basketball game in 1958 to help raise funds for Stokes' medical expenses. That game, spearheaded by Milton Kutsher, became an annual tradition and was named the Maurice Stokes Memorial Basketball Game. It was later changed to the Maurice Stokes/Wilt Chamberlain Celebrity Pro-Am Golf Tournament due to NBA and insurance company restrictions regarding athletes.
Stokes' life, injury, and relationship with Twyman are all depicted in the 1973 National General Pictures film Maurie.
The Maurice Stokes Athletics Center (originally called the Maurice Stokes Physical Education Building when it opened in 1971) on the Saint Francis University campus is named after him.
On June 9, 2013, the NBA announced that both Stokes and Jack Twyman would be honored with an annual award in their names, the Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award, which recognizes the player that embodies the league's ideal teammate that season.
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*Louis Wade Sullivan, founder of the Morehouse School of Medicine and President George H. W. Bush's Secretary of Health and Human Services, was born in Atlanta, Georgia (November 3).
Louis Wade Sullivan was born on November 3, 1933, in Atlanta, Georgia, to Lubirda Priester and Walter Wade Sullivan. Sullivan served as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, in addition to founding Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
Sullivan graduated from Morehouse College in 1954 with a B.S. in biology. He earned an M.D. from the Boston University School of Medicine in 1958 and completed an internship and residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Sullivan focused on hematology. He began a career in education, teaching at Harvard Medical School and the New Jersey College of Medicine, while researching at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory. In 1966, he began serving his alma mater as the Co-director of Hematology at Boston University Medical Center. The next year, he founded the Boston University Hematology Service at Boston City Hospital. He continued as a faculty member at the Boston University School of Medicine until 1975, when he moved back to Atlanta to work for Morehouse College. There, he taught biology and medicine, founding the Medical Education Program at Morehouse College.
The Morehouse School of Medicine became independent from Morehouse College in 1981, with Sullivan as president and dean. He continued as president through 1989, when he took a leave of absence after being appointed to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services. As head of HHS, Sullivan's responsibility extended to the health and welfare of the country. He battled the tobacco industry and championed victims of AIDS. In 1993, he left his government post and returned to Morehouse School of Medicine as president.
Sullivan hosted the public television show "Frontiers of Medicine."
Etta Zuber Falconer (b. November 21, 1933, Tupelo, Mississippi – d. September 18, 2002, Atlanta, Georgia), an educator and mathematician who was one of the first African American women to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Flip Wilson (December 8, 1933 – November 25, 1998) was an African American comedian and actor. In the early 1970s, Wilson hosted his own weekly variety series, The Flip Wilson Show. The series earned Wilson a Golden Globe and twoEmmy Awards.[1]
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Notable Deaths
*There were 24 recorded lynchings of African Americans in the United States.
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*The last lynching in Maryland took place in the town of Princess Anne (October 18). George Armwood had been arrested two days earlier and charged with the rape of an 81-year-old woman. A mob of more than 1,000 people surrounded the Somerset County Jail, dragged him through the streets, hanged him, then brought the body back to the courthouse where it was hung from a telephone pole and burned.
*James Banning (b. November 5, 1899, Oklahoma - d. February 5, 1933, San Diego, California), a trailblazing aviator who made a transcontinental trip in his own self-built plane, was killed while flying as a passenger in another's plane that crashed in San Diego, California.
*George Wilson Becton, the controversial 43-year-old African-American evangelist, was murdered by two white gunmen as he and aides left a Philadelphia church after he preached a sermon there (May 21).
George Wilson Becton was one of the first of the colorful black preachers of Harlem. He began charismatic preaching in about 1930, after the decline of Marcus Garvey, and continued until he was mysteriously murdered in 1933. Becton's sermons were formal and presented in a dignified setting, with orchestral music and liveried pages. He was kidnapped and shot to death on May 21, 1933. He died without describing his attackers or explaining why anybody might have wanted him killed. Claude McKay wrote about Becton in his book Harlem, Negro Metropolis.
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*Grady Brooks was executed in Milledgeville, Georgia, for the murder of prison guard Lee Lindsay. Before going to the electric chair, the 19-year-old African-American confessed to 18 other murders, five of them when he was a 13-year-old child.
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*Sutton Griggs, the author of Imperium in Imperio, a utopian work that envisions a separate African American state within the United States, died in Houston, Texas.
Sutton Elbert Griggs (b. June 19, 1872, Chatfield, Texas - d. January 2, 1933, Houston, Texas) was an African American author, Baptist minister, and social activist. He is best known for his novel Imperium in Imperio, a utopian work that envisions a separate African-American state within the United States.
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*Soprano Sissieretta Jones, known as "Black Patti", died in Providence, Rhode Island (June 24). She sang at Carnegie Hall, the Madison Square Garden, and the White House.
Matilda Sissieretta Jones, née Joyner, byname Black Patti, or Madame Jones (b. January 5, 1869, Portsmouth, Virginia — d. June 24, 1933, Providence, Rhode Island), was an opera singer who was considered the greatest black American in her field in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Jones early revealed her talent as a singer, and for a time she studied at the Providence (Rhode Island) Academy of Music. She may have undertaken further studies at the New England Conservatory of Music in 1886 or 1887, but that information, like much of her early and late life, is obscure. In 1888 she made her singing debut in New York City and toured the West Indies as a featured artist with the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University. Her rich, powerful soprano voice led one critic to dub her “the Black Patti” (after Adelina Patti, the foremost opera diva of the day). Jones disliked the epithet.
Until 1896 Jones sang in concert, opera, and vaudeville halls in solo recitals or with such groups as the Patrick Gilmore band. She appeared at a “Grand African Jubilee” at Madison Square Garden in April 1892, sang for President Benjamin Harrison at the White House in that year, and appeared at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. Her tours took her to Canada, England, and continental Europe. She included much spiritual and ballad material in her repertoire, but she preferred selections from grand and light opera.
From 1896 to 1916 Jones toured continually with a troupe called, to her distaste, the Black Patti Troubadors, a motley group whose performances included blackface minstrel songs and “coon” songs and featured acrobats and comedians. Madame Jones, as she preferred to be known, restricted herself to operatic selections, which over the years grew to include costumes and scenery. Performing almost exclusively for white audiences who saw her as an oddity, she was nonetheless widely acclaimed the premier African-American singer of her time. After the breakup of the Black Patti Troubadors in 1916, she lived in obscurity until her death.
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*Charles Tindley, a Methodist minister and gospel music composer known as the "Prince of Preachers", died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 26).
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*Father Charles Uncles (? - d. July 21, 1933, Baltimore, Maryland), one of the first African-American Catholic priests, died in Baltimore, Maryland. His death left only two black Catholic priests in the United States, Norman Dukette and Charles Logan.
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*Billy Walker, a jockey who won the Kentucky Derby riding Baden-Baden, died In Louisville, Kentucky (September 20).
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Performing Arts
*A United States opera based on The Emperor Jones, Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play and composed by Louis Gruenberg, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, with baritone Lawrence Tibbett in the title role of a black escaped convict turned ruler (January 7). Tibbett, who was white, appeared in blackface, but several other cast members were African-Americans.
*Nina Mae McKinney became the first African American to perform on television, appearing on a broadcast made by John Logie Baird in London (February 17).
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*Caterina Jarboro became the first African-American opera singer to perform at a major opera house, appearing at the New York Hippodrome for the Chicago Civic Opera (Chicago Opera Company) in the title role of Aida (July 22).
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Publications
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*Freddie Keppard (sometimes rendered as Freddy Keppard) (b. February 27, 1889, New Orleans, Louisiana – d. July 15, 1933, Chicago, Illinois), an early jazz cornetist who once held the title of "King" in the New Orleans jazz scene, died in Chicago, Illinois. This title was previously held by Buddy Bolden and succeeded by Joe Oliver.
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*Lucy Craft Laney (b. April 13, 1854, Macon, Georgia – d. October 24, 1933, Augusta, Georgia), an early African-American educator who in 1883 founded the first school for black children in Augusta, Georgia, died in Augusta, Georgia (October 24). She was principal of the Haines Institute for Industrial and Normal Education for 50 years. While he was Governor of the State of Georgia, Jimmy Carter selected her portrait to hang in the Georgia State Capitol.
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*Charles Tindley, a Methodist minister and gospel music composer known as the "Prince of Preachers", died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 26).
Charles Albert Tindley (b. July 7, 1851, Berlin, Maryland – d. July 26, 1933, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a Methodist minister and gospel music composer who is often referred to as "The Prince of Preachers". He educated himself, became a minister and founded one of the largest Methodist congregations serving the African American community on the East Coast of the United States.
Tindley's father was a slave, but his mother was free. Tindley himself was thus considered to be free, but even so he grew up among slaves. After the Civil War, he moved to Philadelphia, where he found employment as a hod carrier (brick carrier). He and his wife Daisy attended the Bainbridge Street Methodist Episcopal Church. Charles later became the sexton, a job with no salary.
Never able to go to school, Tindley learned independently and by asking people to tutor him. He enlisted the help of a Philadelphia synagogue on North Broad Street to learn Hebrew and learned Greek by taking a correspondence course through the Boston Theological School. Without any degree, Tindley was qualified for ordination in the Methodist Episcopal Church by examination, with high ranking scores. He was ordained as a Deacon in the Delaware Conference in 1887 and as an elder in 1889. As was the practice of the Methodist Episcopal church, Tindley was assigned by his bishop to serve as an itinerant pastor staying a relatively short time at each charge: 1885 to Cape May, New Jersey, 1887 to South Wilmington, Delaware, 1889 to Odessa, Delaware. 1891 to Pocomoke, Maryland, 1894 to Fairmount, Maryland, and 1897 to Wilimington, Delaware at Ezion Methodist Church. In 1900, he became the Presiding Elder of the Wilmington District.
Tindley then became the pastor of the same church (Bainbridge Street Methodist Episcopal Church) at which he had been a janitor. Under his leadership, the church grew rapidly from the 130 members it had when he arrived. In 1906 the congregation moved from Bainbridge Street to Broad and Fitzwater Streets and was renamed East Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church. The property was purchased from the Westminster Presbyterian church and seated 900, though it was soon filled to overflowing. The congregation over time grew to a multi-racial congregation of 10,000. After his death, the church was renamed "Tindley Temple." The Tindley Temple United Methodist Church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.
Tindley was acquainted with politicians and business leaders in Philadelphia, including John Wanamaker. He worked with business leaders to assist his members in finding jobs. He also encouraged members to start their own businesses and purchase homes. The church formed the East Calvary Building and Loan Association to offer mortgages. Tindley also solicited donations from businessmen of food for the congregation's ministry of feeding the needy.
Tindley objected to social events that he considered degrading, including the 1912 Cake Walk and Ball, and The Soap Box Minstrels show at the Academy of Music on Broad and Locust Streets. In 1915, Tindley and other leaders, including Reverend Wesley Graham, led protesters in a march to the Forrest Theater to protest against the showing of D. W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation. They were attacked by whites with clubs, sticks, and bottles. Graham was hospitalized; Tindley's injuries were treated at home.
Tindley was the recipient of Doctor of Divinity Degrees from Bennett College and Morgan College in Baltimore, Maryland.
Tindley was a noted songwriter and composer of gospel hymns and is recognized as one of the founding fathers of American gospel music. Five of his hymns appear in the 1989 United Methodist Hymnal. His composition "I'll Overcome Someday" is credited by some observers to be the basis for the Civil Rights anthem "We Shall Overcome." (The song "We Shall Overcome" was composed by artists at the Highlander Folk School of Tennessee in 1947. However, Tindley's song had been brought to the school in the 1930s by tobacco workers from Charleston, South Carolina. Zilphia Horton, cultural worker and educator, taught the song at the school, where others, such as Pete Seeger and Guy Carawan, heard it. They altered Tindley's refrain "I'll Overcome Someday" to "We Shall Overcome" and the song was slowed down to be sung as a march hymn.) Another of Tindley's notable hymns is "(Take Your Burden to the Lord and) Leave It There" (1916), which has been included in several hymnals and has been recorded by numerous artists in a variety of styles. Others are "Stand by Me" (1905) and "What Are They Doing in Heaven?" (1901).
Tindley published his songs beginning in 1901, and published several hymn collections, including Soul Echoes in 1905 (enlarged edition "No. 2", 1909) and a series beginning with New Songs Of Paradise! in 1916. A posthumous New Songs of Paradise, No. 6 in 1941 was the first collection to bring together all 46 of Tindley's published hymns, though in some cases stanzas that had previously been published were left out. Beams of Heaven: Hymns of Charles Albert Tindley (1851-1933)(2006) restores the full original complement of verses.
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*Father Charles Uncles (? - d. July 21, 1933, Baltimore, Maryland), one of the first African-American Catholic priests, died in Baltimore, Maryland. His death left only two black Catholic priests in the United States, Norman Dukette and Charles Logan.
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*Billy Walker, a jockey who won the Kentucky Derby riding Baden-Baden, died In Louisville, Kentucky (September 20).
William "Billy" Walker (b. 1860, Versailles, Kentucky - d. September 20, 1933, Louisville, Kentucky) was a jockey.
Born a slave in near Versailles, Kentucky, Billy Walker was the leading rider at Churchill Downs in the fall racing season of 1875-76 and the spring campaigns of 1876 through 1878. He was the winning rider aboard Ten Broeck in a famous July 4, 1878, match race at Louisville, Kentucky, against the great California mare, Mollie McCarty.
For owner Dan Swigert and future United States Racing Hall of Fame trainer Edward D. Brown, Walker rode Baden-Baden to victory in the 1877 Kentucky Derby. Walker made his fourth and final appearance in the 1896 Derby, finishing seventh. He retired that year but stayed in horse racing as a trainer and as an adviser to renowned breeder, John E. Madden.
Billy Walker died in 1933 and was buried at the Louisville Cemetery. During the 1996 Kentucky Derby Week, Churchill Downs erected a headstone on his previously unmarked grave with an epitaph outlining his career.
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Performing Arts
*A United States opera based on The Emperor Jones, Eugene O'Neill's 1920 play and composed by Louis Gruenberg, premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, with baritone Lawrence Tibbett in the title role of a black escaped convict turned ruler (January 7). Tibbett, who was white, appeared in blackface, but several other cast members were African-Americans.
*Nina Mae McKinney became the first African American to perform on television, appearing on a broadcast made by John Logie Baird in London (February 17).
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*Caterina Jarboro became the first African-American opera singer to perform at a major opera house, appearing at the New York Hippodrome for the Chicago Civic Opera (Chicago Opera Company) in the title role of Aida (July 22).
Caterina Jarboro (1903-1986) sang the title role in Aida with the Chicago Opera Company in New York City. Born Catherine Yarboro in Wilmington, North Carolina, she began her career in Broadway musicals, including Shuffle Along (1921) and Running Wild (1923).
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*Hall Johnson's folk drama Run Little Chillun opened on Broadway.
The first folk opera by an African American to reach Broadway was Run, Little Chillun, by (Francis) Hall Johnson (1888-1970). It ran 126 performances. Johnson was one of the most successful choral directors of his time and had been choral director of Green Pastures in 1930.
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*Hall Johnson's folk drama Run Little Chillun opened on Broadway.
The first folk opera by an African American to reach Broadway was Run, Little Chillun, by (Francis) Hall Johnson (1888-1970). It ran 126 performances. Johnson was one of the most successful choral directors of his time and had been choral director of Green Pastures in 1930.
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*United Artists released the movie Emperor Jones, starring Paul Robeson in his first leading role. It was also the first Hollywood movie to star an African American with European American actors in supporting roles.
The Emperor Jones directed by Dudley Murphy and independently produced by John Krimsky and Gifford Cochran was to be the first of a series of film adaptations of Eugene O'Neill's plays. The film starred Paul Robeson. This movie employed an all-African American cast and was faithful to the play. It had a considerable success among critics and audiences. In creating an African American role of tragic grandeur, Robeson proved that African Americans need not be used only for light comedy or slapstick. In the context of the history of the African American in the cinema, this movie is a landmark in that it encouraged African American movie companies to make serious films.
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*Benny Goodman, a European American bandleader, began using African American musicians in recording sessions. In 1936, he would be the first major bandleader to have African Americans and European Americans playing together for the public.
*Benny Goodman, a European American bandleader, began using African American musicians in recording sessions. In 1936, he would be the first major bandleader to have African Americans and European Americans playing together for the public.
Benny Goodman began to use African American musicians for recordings. He later broke the convention against African Americans and European Americans playing together in public when Teddy Wilson, an African American, appeared with the Goodman band at the Hotel Congress in Chicago in 1936.
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*Katherine Dunham starred in Ruth Page's ballet La Guiablesse.
*Katherine Dunham starred in Ruth Page's ballet La Guiablesse.
*Choreographer Hemsley Winfield and his dance company appeared in the Metropolitan Opera's production of Emperor Jones, although they were not listed in the program.
*Run Little Chillun by Hall Johnson was a successful African American folk drama written by an African American. It ran 126 performances on Broadway.
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*The first black hero to be heard on network radio was Juano Hernandez's depiction of "John Henry: Black River Giant," which he performed in a series broadcast on CBS.
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*The first black hero to be heard on network radio was Juano Hernandez's depiction of "John Henry: Black River Giant," which he performed in a series broadcast on CBS.
Juano Hernández (b. July 19, 1896 – d. July 17, 1970) was an Afro-Puerto Rican stage and film actor who was a pioneer in the African American film industry. He made his silent film debut in The Life of General Villa, and his talking picture debut in an Oscar Micheaux film, The Girl from Chicago, which was directed at black audiences. Hernández also performed in a series of dramatic roles in mainstream Hollywood movies. His participation in the film Intruder in the Dust (1949) earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination nomination for "New Star of the Year." Later in life he returned to Puerto Rico, where he intended to make a film based on the life of Sixto Escobar.
Hernández (birth name: Juan G. Hernández) was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican father and a Brazilian mother. With no formal education, he worked as a sailor and settled in Rio de Janeiro. He was hired by a circus and became an entertainer, making his first appearance as an acrobat in Rio de Janeiro in 1922. He later lived in the Caribbean and made his living as a professional boxer, fighting under the name Kid Curley.
In New York City, Hernandez worked in vaudeville and minstrel shows, sang in a church choir and was a radio script writer. During his spare time he perfected his diction by studying Shakespeare thus enabling himself to work in radio. He co-starred in radio's first all-black soap opera We Love and Learn. He also participated in the following radio shows: Mandrake the Magician (opposite Raymond Edward Johnson and Jessica Tandy), The Shadow, Tennessee Jed, and Against the Storm. He became a household name after his participation in The Cavalcade of America, a series which promoted American history and inventiveness. He appeared in the Broadway shows Strange Fruit and Set My People Free. His Broadway debut was in the chorus of the 1927 musical production Showboat.
Hernández appeared in 26 films throughout his career. He portrayed a revolutionary soldier in the silent film The Life of General Villa, and his first "talkie" films were small roles in films produced by Oscar Micheaux, who made race films for black audiences. His talking film debut was Micheaux's The Girl from Chicago (1932), in which he was cast as a Cuban racketeer.
In 1949, he acted in his first mainstream film, based on William Faulkner's novel, Intruder in the Dust, in which he played the role of Lucas Beauchamp, a poor Mississippi farmer unjustly accused of the murder of a white man. The film earned him a Golden Globe nomination for "New Star of the Year". The film was listed as one of the ten best of the year by the New York Times.
In the 1950 western Stars In My Crown, directed by Jacques Tourneur, starring Joel McCrea, Hernández plays a freed slave who refuses to sell his land and faces an angry lynch mob.
He was singled out for praise for his performance in the 1950 film The Breaking Point with John Garfield. The New York Times called his performance "quietly magnificent."
He also received favorable notices for his performances in Trial (1955), about a politically charged court case, in which he played the judge, and Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker Sidney Lumet's (1965).
Over the years, Hernández made guest appearances on a dozen United States network television programs, appearing three times in 1960 and 1961 on the ABC series, Adventures in Paradise, starring Gardner McKay. In 1959, he starred in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents production of the Ambrose Bierce short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.
Other television shows in which Hernandez appeared were Naked City, The Defenders, The Dick Powell Show and Studio One. Hernández returned to Puerto Rico late in his life. Together with Julio Torregrosa he wrote a script for a movie about the life of Puerto Rico's first boxing champion, Sixto Escobar. He was unable to get funding in Puerto Rico and, therefore, he translated the script into English. He sent it to several companies in Hollywood and had it almost sold at the time of his death. In the last two years of his life he appeared in three films, The Extraordinary Seaman (1969) with David Niven, The Reivers (1969) with Steve McQueen, and They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) with Sidney Poitier.
He died in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 17, 1970 of a cerebral hemorrhage and was interred at Cementerio Buxeda Memorial Park, Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico.
Publications
*The weekly newspaper Negro World, which had been founded 15 years earlier by Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association, ceased publication (October 17).
*Carter G. Woodson published The Miseducation of the Negro.
*Carter G. Woodson published The Miseducation of the Negro.
*Leon H. Washington founded the Los Angeles Sentinel.
Religious Institutions
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Sports
*On September 10, the first Negro League baseball all-star game, dubbed the "East-West All-Star Game" for the Negro National League, was played one month after the white Major League Baseball teams held their first all-star game, and at the same venue, Comiskey Park in Chicago, where 20,000 attended. The West team beat the East, 11-7 with future Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Bill Foster, Mule Suttles, Willie Wells, and Turkey Stearnes, while the East had future Cooperstown inductees Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Judy Johnson, Biz Mackey, Cool Papa Bell, Jud Wilson, Oscar Charleston, Andy Cooper and Manager Pop Lloyd.
*Kid Chocolate (Eligio Montalvo) lost his title as the world junior lightweight champion, after being knocked out in the seventh round by Frankie Klick in Philadelphia (December 25).
Statistics
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Visual Arts
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*Solomon Lightfoot Michaux, a religious leader, founded the Good Neighbor League in Washington, D. C., an organization that fed 250,000 homeless and unemployed African Americans and later worked to organize the African American vote for Roosevelt.
The Good Neighbor League, founded in 1933 by Solomon Lightfoot (Elder) Michaux, a religious leader, fed 250,000 indigent persons at its Happy News Cafe in Washington, D. C. In 1932, Michaux had supported the Presidential candidacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt instead of the Republican Herbert Hoover. He later used the league as part of the Roosevelt political machine and organized the vote among African Americans.
Sports
*On September 10, the first Negro League baseball all-star game, dubbed the "East-West All-Star Game" for the Negro National League, was played one month after the white Major League Baseball teams held their first all-star game, and at the same venue, Comiskey Park in Chicago, where 20,000 attended. The West team beat the East, 11-7 with future Baseball Hall of Fame inductees Bill Foster, Mule Suttles, Willie Wells, and Turkey Stearnes, while the East had future Cooperstown inductees Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Judy Johnson, Biz Mackey, Cool Papa Bell, Jud Wilson, Oscar Charleston, Andy Cooper and Manager Pop Lloyd.
*Kid Chocolate (Eligio Montalvo) lost his title as the world junior lightweight champion, after being knocked out in the seventh round by Frankie Klick in Philadelphia (December 25).
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*More than 25% of urban African Americans were on relief, compared with about 12% of urban European Americans.
According to the October report of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the percentages of African Americans and European Americans on relief were: United States total: African Americans 17.8%, European Americans 9.5%; urban African Americans 26.7%, European Americans 9.6%; rural African Americans 10.9%, European Americans 9.6%; urban Northern African Americans 25.4%, European Americans 9.8%; urban Southern African Americans 26.5%, European Americans 13.6%; and rural Southern African Americans 3%, European Americans 3.8%.
*53,000 African Americans, or 9.8% of the total employees, worked for the Federal government. The figure rose to 82,000 in 1938, or 9.9% of all Federal employees.
Visual Arts
*E. Simms Campbell began contributing cartoons and artwork to Esquire magazine.
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