1935 The United States

The United States

Agriculture

*The average size of an African American operated farm in the South was 44 acres, compared to 131 acres for European American operated farms.

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George Washington Carver

*From 1935 to 1937, Carver participated in the United States Department of Agriculture Disease Survey. Carver had specialized in plant diseases and mycology for his master's degree.

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Civil Rights

*Tensions arising from racial discrimination and poverty fueled a riot in Harlem that killed three African Americans and caused over two million dollars in property damage (March 19).

A riot in Harlem on March 19 was set off when an African American boy was caught stealing a small knife from a 125th Street store.  He escaped, but rumors spread that he had been beaten to death.  Amid accusations of police brutality and merchant employment discrimination, African Americans smashed windos and looted.  Three African Americans were killed, 200 store windows were smashed and over $2,000,000 in damage was done.  An interracial committee on conditions in Harlem headed by E. Franklin Frazier, the African American sociologist, reported that the riot was caused by "resentments against racial discrimination and poverty in the midst of plenty."  Just prior to the riot, Harlem businessmen who had been forced through a boycott to hire African Americans had secured an injunction on the basis of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and subsequently had fired the African Americans.

At 2:30 in the afternoon on March 19, 1935, an employee at the Kress Five and Ten store at 256 W. 125th Street (just across the street from the Apollo Theater) caught 16-year-old black Puerto Rican Lino Rivera shoplifting a 10-cent penknife. When his captor threatened to take Rivera into the store's basement and "beat the hell out of him," Rivera bit the employee's hand. The manager intervened and the police were called, but Rivera was eventually released. In the meantime, a crowd had begun to gather outside around a woman who had witnessed Rivera's apprehension and was shouting that Rivera was being beaten. When an ambulance showed up to treat the wounds of the employee who had been bitten, it appeared to confirm the woman's story, and when the crowd took notice of a hearse parked outside of the store, the rumor began to circulate that Rivera had been beaten to death. The woman who had raised the alarm was arrested for disorderly conduct, the Kress Five and Ten store was closed early, and the crowd was dispersed.

In the early evening, a group called the Young Liberators started a demonstration outside the store, quickly drawing thousands of people. Handbills were distributed: One was headlined "CHILD BRUTALLY BEATEN". Another denounced "the brutal beating of the 12 year old boy [...] for taking a piece of candy."

At some point, someone threw a rock, shattering the window of the Kress Five and Ten store, and the destruction and looting began to spread east and west on 125th Street, targeting white-owned businesses between Fifth and Eighth Avenues.  Some stores posted signs that read "COLORED STORE" or "COLORED HELP EMPLOYED HERE". In the early hours of the morning, as the rioting spread north and south, Lino Rivera was picked up from his mother's apartment and photographed with a police officer. The photographs were distributed in order to prove that Rivera had not been harmed. New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia also had posters drawn up urging a return to peace.

By the end of the next day, the streets of Harlem were returned to order. District Attorney William C. Dodge blamed Communist incitement.  Mayor LaGuardia ordered a multi-racial Mayor's Commission on Conditions in Harlem headed by African-American sociologist E. Franklin Frazier and included Judge Hubert Thomas Delany, Countee Cullen, and A. Philip Randolph to investigate the causes of the riot. The committee issued a report, "The Negro in Harlem: A Report on Social and Economic Conditions Responsible for the Outbreak of March 19, 1935," which described the rioting as "spontaneous" with "no evidence of any program or leadership of the rioters." The report identified "injustices of discrimination in employment, the aggressions of the police, and the racial segregation" as conditions which led to the outbreak of rioting. The report congratulated the Communist organizations as deserving "more credit than any other element in Harlem for preventing a physical conflict between whites and blacks." Alain Locke was appointed to implement the report's findings.

The Harlem Riot of 1935 was the first modern race riot in that it symbolized that the optimism and hopefulness that had fueled the Harlem Renaissance was gone.  The Harlem Riot of 1935 was the first manifestation of a 'modern' form of racial rioting satisfying three criteria:

1. violence directed almost entirely against property
2. the absence of clashes between racial groups
3. struggles between the lower-class African American population and the police forces

Whereas previous race riots had been characterized by violent clashes between groups of African American and European American rioters, subsequent riots (including those of the early twenty-first century) would resemble the 1935 riot in Harlem.

*About 25,000 people in Harlem, New York marched in protest against the threatened Italian invasion of Ethiopia (August 3).

*In New York City, a fundraising rally was held in Madison Square Garden for the Italian Red Cross (December 14). The crowd cheered every mention of Mussolini's name and booed references to Britain and sanctions.  Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia spoke at the event but kept his comments politically neutral.

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The Communist Party

*Many African Americans left the Communist Party when it was revealed that Russia sold large quantities of oil, coal, tar and wheat to Mussolini, some of it directly to Africa, to be used against Ethiopia. 

Communism gained a following in Harlem in the 1930s, and continued to play a role through the 1940s. In 1935, the first of Harlem's five riots broke out. The incident started with a (false) rumor that a boy caught stealing from a store on 125th Street had been killed by the police. By the time it was over, 600 stores had been looted and three men were dead. The same year saw internationalism in Harlem politics, as Harlemites responded to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia by holding giant rallies, signing petitions and sending an appeal to the League of Nations. Such internationalism continued intermittently, including broad demonstrations in favor of Egyptian president Nasser after the Suez invasion of 1956.

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Father Divine

Father Divine's movement was largely apolitical until the Harlem Riot of 1935.  Based on a rumor of police killing a black teenager, it left four dead and caused over $1 million in property damage in Father Divine's neighborhood. Father Divine's outrage at this and other racial injustices fueled a keener interest in politics. 

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W. E. B. DuBois

Back in the world of academia at Atlanta University, Du Bois was able to resume his study of Reconstruction, the topic of the 1910 paper that he presented to the American Historical Association. In 1935, he published his magnum opus, Black Reconstruction in America. The book presented the thesis that black people, suddenly admitted to citizenship in an environment of hostility, displayed volition and intelligence as well as the indolence and ignorance inherent in three centuries of bondage. Du Bois documented how black people were central figures in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, and also showed how they made alliances with white politicians. He provided evidence to show that the coalition governments established public education in the South, as well as many needed social service programs. The book also demonstrated the ways in which African American emancipation – the crux of Reconstruction – promoted a radical restructuring of United States society, as well as how and why the country failed to continue support for civil rights for African Americans in the aftermath of Reconstruction.

The book's thesis ran counter to the orthodox interpretation of Reconstruction maintained by European American historians, and the book was virtually ignored by mainstream historians until the 1960s. Thereafter, however, it ignited a "revisionist" trend in the historiography of Reconstruction, which emphasized African Americans' search for freedom and the era's radical policy changes. By the twenty-first century, Black Reconstruction was widely perceived as the foundational text of revisionist African American historiography.

In the final chapter of the book – "XIV. The Propaganda of History", Du Bois evokes his efforts at writing an article for the Encyclopedia Britannica on the "history of the American Negro". After the editors had cut all reference to Reconstruction, he insisted that the following note appear in the entry: "White historians have ascribed the faults and failures of Reconstruction to Negro ignorance and corruption. But the Negro insists that it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools." The editors refused and, so, Du Bois withdrew his article. 

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Education

*A survey of elementary and secondary schools in 10 southern states revealed that an average of $17.04 was spent on each African American student as opposed to an average of $49.30 on each European American student.  African American schools also had more pupils per teacher, less transportation, a shorter school term, and poorer facilities than the European American schools.

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Marcus Garvey

In 1935, Garvey left Jamaica for London. He lived and worked in London until his death in 1940. During these last five years, Garvey remained active and in touch with events in war-torn Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) and in the West Indies.  In 1937, he wrote the poem Ras Nasibu Of Ogaden in honor of Ethiopian Army Commander (Ras) Nasibu Emmanual.  In 1938, he gave evidence before the West India Royal Commission on conditions there. Also in 1938 he set up the School of African Philosophy in Toronto to train UNIA leaders. He continued to work on the magazine The Black Man.
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The Labor Movement

*The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first official bargaining agent for African American railroad workers (October 1). 

A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979) founded the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first major nationwide African American union.  It would take ten years of struggle and new federal labor legislation before the union established a collective bargaining agreement with the Pullman Palace Car Company.  In 1957, Randolph became the first African American vice-president of the AFL-CIO.  He served until 1968.

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*After the American Federation of Labor (AFL) rejected proposals to unionize unskilled labor and to end discrimination, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was organized.  It created integrated unions in various industries, including the United Mine Workers.

When the AFL convention refused to unionize unskilled labor, the CIO was organized.  From the beginning, race was relatively unimportant and the CIO created interracial unions in steel, automobile, rubber and packinghouse plants and factories.  The generally integrated United Mine Workers was particularly instrumental in the maintenance of nondiscriminatory unionization.

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*The National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Club was founded.

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The Law


*The United States Supreme Court decided the case of Grovey v. Townsend (April 1).

Grovey v. Townsend 295 U.S. 45 (April 1, 1935), was a United States Supreme Court decision that held a reformulation of Texas' white primaries system to be constitutional. The case was the third in a series of Court decisions known as the "Texas primary cases".

In Nixon v. Herndon (1927), Nixon sued for damages under federal civil rights laws after being denied a ballot in a Democratic party primary election on the basis of race. The Court found in his favor on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, while not discussing his Fifteenth Amendment claim. After Texas amended its statute to authorize the political party's state executive committee to set voting qualifications, Nixon sued again.  In Nixon v. Condon (1932), the Court again found in his favor on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Democratic Party of Texas state convention then adopted a rule banning black voting in primary elections. R. R. Grovey, a black Texas resident, sued Townsend, a county clerk enforcing the rule, for violation of Grovey's civil rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. The Court unanimously upheld the party's rule as constitutional, distinguishing the discrimination by a private organization from that of the state in the previous primary cases. However, Grovey would be overturned nine years later in Smith v. Allwright (1944), another of the Texas primary cases.

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*The United States Supreme Court decided the case Patterson v. Alabama (April 1).

Patterson v. Alabama, 294 U.S. 600 (April 1, 1935), was a United States Supreme Court case which held that an African-American defendant is denied due process rights if the jury pool excludes African-Americans.

This case was the second landmark decision arising out of the Scottsboro Boys trials (the first was the 1932 case, Powell v. Alabama). Haywood Patterson, along with several other African-American defendants, were tried for raping two white women in 1931 in Scottsboro, Alabama. The trials were rushed, there was virtually no legal counsel, and no African-Americans were permitted on the jury. All defendants, including Patterson, were convicted. The Communist Party of the United States assisted the defendants and appealed to the Supreme Court, which overturned the convictions in 1932 (in the Powell v. Alabama decision) due to lack of legal counsel.  A second set of trials was then held in Decatur, Alabama. In spite of lack of evidence, the jury convicted Patterson and he was sentenced to death in the electric chair. Judge James Edwin Horton overturned the verdict, and a third trial was held in 1933. The third trial also resulted in a death penalty verdict. No African Americans were present in any of the juries, nor were any ever considered for jury duty in Alabama. This decision was appealed to the Supreme Court on the basis that the absence of African Americans from the jury pool denied the defendants due process.The Supreme Court agreed, and the convictions were overturned.  In 1936, the defendants were tried, some for the fourth time, again for rape. In this trial, the verdicts were again guilty, but sentences were long prison terms, rather than the death penalty.

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*In response to the Patterson v. Alabama decision, Alabama Governor Bibb Graves ordered that the names of colored persons be put on the jury rolls in all 67 state counties (April 5).

*An African American named Hollins had been convicted of rape in a trial in which he had no lawyer.  After a second Oklahoma trial, the NAACP received a stay of execution and brought the case (Hollins v. Oklahoma) to the Supreme Court on the question of jury procedure.  The Court ruled that the conviction of an African American by a jury from which all African Americans were excluded was a violation of due process and void.  A similar decision in Norris v. Alabama confirmed that exclusion of African Americans from juries was a violation of the 14th Amendment.

*Donald Murray attempted to integrate the University of Maryland Law School.  The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that the Maryland practice of providing scholarships for African Americans to attend out-of-state integrated law schools was an unequal practice and in violation of law and the Constitution.  The decision was appealed and was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1936.  Thurgood Marshall of the NAACP argued the case. 

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Literature

*George W. Henderson published his novel Ollie Miss.

Ollie Miss, a novel about African American sharecroppers, by the African American novelist George Wylie Henderson was published.  The novel's emphasis is on farm activities, picnics, ball games, parties, etc.  providing diversions from the everyday world.  The book's importance is primarily sociological, as a portrait of the effect of the Depression on life in the Black Belt cotton fields.

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*Black Man's Verse by Frank M. Davis was published.

*Mulatto, by Langston Hughes, culminated the protest-play cycle and was widely hailed by Brooks Atkinson and other New York critics.  For many years, it was second only to A Raisin in the Sun as far as being a financial success by an African American playwright.  Mulatto ran 373 performances at the Vanderbilt Theater in New York City.

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Music


*William G. Still's Afro-American Symphony was performed at the International Music Festival by the New York Philharmonic. 

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The NAACP


*Charles Hamilton Houston became the first full-time paid special counsel for the NAACP.

Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) devised a strategy at the NAACP which led to school desegregation.  The campaign against discrimination in education ended two decades later, after Houston's death, when the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.  During his career, Houston helped prepare civil rights cases in lower federal and state courts, and argued such cases before the United States Supreme Court.  Houston was born in Washington, D. C., and graduated from Amherst College and Harvard Law School, where he studied under Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.  Houston was the first African American to serve on the editorial board of the Harvard Law Review.  In 1929, he became dean of Howard University Law School, Washington, D. C., and led the school into full accreditation by the American Bar Association.  Civil rights and civil libertarian groups acknowledged him for his work at Howard and his philosophy of social engineering.  For his pioneering work in developing the NAACP legal campaign, Houston was posthumously awarded the Spingarn Medal on September 27, 1956.

*The NAACP issued statements chastising President Roosevelt for not proposing or supporting civil rights legislation.

*In its August issue, Crisis reported to African Americans "that the powers that be in the Roosevelt Administration have nothing for them."  In the October issue Walter White said, "The Attorney General continues his offensive against crime except crimes involving the privation of life and liberty to Negroes."

*Senators Wagner of New York and Costigan of Colorado reintroduced an NAACP-drafted Federal anti-lynching bill.  A filibuster killed this bill.  African Americans were lynched at the rate of one every three weeks in this year.

*The NAACP withdrew its support from President Roosevelt when he refused to give his practical support to their anti-lynching bill, and because no civil rights legislation had been proposed in his term.  

*The 26th annual convention of the NAACP met in St. Louis, and asked Harry L. Hopkins, Federal Emergency Relief administrator, to appoint an African American as deputy administrator in every state with a large African American population.

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The New Deal

*The Social Security Act indirectly discriminated against African Americans by its exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers.  Also, the sums received for old-age assistance were generally lower for African Americans than for European Americans.

*African American semi-skilled, skilled, clerical and professional workers had greater difficulty than European American workers in gaining employment with the Work Projects Administration (WPA).  This was demonstrated by percentages of skilled heads of families on relief in three representative states: Virginia, African Americans 25.7%, European Americans, 43.3%; North Carolina, African Americans 19%, European Americans 42.9%; and Mississippi, African Americans 11%, European Americans 35.4%.  In these same states, the percentages of skilled employed by WPA respectively were: African Americans 9.3%, 9.4%, and 5.7%; European Americans 27.2%, 28.8%, and 36.5%.

*The African American enrollment in the CCC was only 6.1% of the total enrollment, although African Americans constituted 10% of the population.  There were 265 camps for African American youths. 

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Notable Births

*Earlene Brown (née Dennis; b. June 11, 1935, Latexo, Texas – d. May 1, 1983, Compton, California), an athlete notable for her careers in track and field and roller games, was born in Latexo, Texas (June 11).  She competed at the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Olympics in the shot put and discus throw and won a bronze medal in the shot put in 1960.



*Actress and singer Carol Diahann Johnson, known as Diahann Carroll, was born in the Bronx, New York (July 17).  She would earn an Oscar nomination as best actress for her work in the movie Claudine.

*Paul Chambers, a jazz double bassist, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Paul Laurence Dunbar Chambers, Jr. (b. April 22, 1935, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – d. January 4, 1969) was a jazz double bassist.  A fixture of rhythm sections during the 1950s and 1960s, his importance in the development of jazz bass can be measured not only by the length and breadth of his work in this short period but also his impeccable time and intonation, and virtuosic improvisations. He was also known for his bowed solos.

*Eldridge Cleaver, the author of Soul On Ice, was born in Wabbaseka, Arkansas (August 31).

Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (b. August 31, 1935, Wabbaseka, Arkansas – d. May 1, 1998, Pomona, California), better known as Eldridge Cleaver, was an American writer, and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party.  His 1968 book Soul On Ice is a collection of essays, praised by The New York Times Book Review at the time of its publication as "brilliant and revealing".

Cleaver went on to become a prominent member of the Black Panthers, having the titles Minister of Information and Head of the International Section of the Panthers while a fugitive from the United States criminal justice system in Cuba and Algeria. As editor of the official Panther's newspaper, Cleaver's influence on the direction of the Party was rivaled only by founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale.  Cleaver and Newton eventually fell out with each other, resulting in a split that weakened the party.

Cleaver wrote in Soul on Ice: "If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America."

After spending seven years in exile in Cuba, Algeria, and France. Cleaver returned to the United States in 1975, where he became involved in various religious groups (Unification Church and CARP {Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles} ) before finally becoming a Mormon and joining the LDS Church, as well as becoming a conservative Republican, appearing at Republican events.

*George Coleman, a hard bop saxophonist, bandleader, and composer known chiefly for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s, was born in Memphis, Tennessee (March 8). He was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master 2015.

*Sugar Pie DeSanto (b. Umpeylia Marsema Balinton), a Filipino-African American rhythm and blues singer of the 1950s and 1960s, was born in Brooklyn, New York (October 16).

*Reverend Ike, a televangelist, was born in Ridgeland, South Carolina (June 1).

Frederick J. Eikerenkoetter II, better known as Reverend Ike (b. June 1, 1935, Ridgeland, South Carolina – d, July 28, 2009,  Los Angeles, California) was a minister and electronic evangelist based in New York City. He was known for the slogan "You can't lose with the stuff I use!" His preaching is considered a form of prosperity theology.

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*Gail Fisher, an actress who was the first African American woman to win a Golden Globe and an Emmy, was born in Orange, New Jersey (August 18).

Gail Fisher (b. August 18, 1935, Orange, New Jersey – d. December 2, 2000, Los Angeles, California) was one of the first African American women to play substantive roles in American television. She was best known for playing the role of secretary Peggy Fair on the television detective series Mannix from 1968 through 1975, a role for which she won two Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. Fisher became the first black woman to win a Golden Globe.

The youngest of five children, Fisher was born in Orange, New Jersey.  Her father died when she was two years old, and she was raised by her mother, Ona Fisher, who raised her family with a home-operated hair-styling business while living in the Potter's Crossing neighborhood of Edison, New Jersey. She graduated from Metuchen High School in Metuchen, New Jersey.  During her teenaged years, she was a cheerleader and entered several beauty contests, winning the titles of Miss Transit, Miss Black New Jersey, and Miss Press Photographer.

In a contest sponsored by Coca-Cola, Fisher won the opportunity to spend two years studying acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. As a student of acting in New York City, she worked with Lee Strasberg and became a member of the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center, where she worked with Elia Kazan and Herbert Blau. As a young woman, she also worked as a model.

Fisher made her first television appearance in 1960 at age 25, appearing in the syndicated program Play of the Week.  Also during the early 1960s, she appeared in a television commercial for All laundry detergent, which she said made her "the first black female -- no, make that black, period -- to make a national TV commercial, on camera, with lines." In 1965, Herbert Blau cast her in a theatrical production of Danton's Death. 

Fisher first appeared in Mannix during the second season, when Mannix left the detective firm Intertect and set up shop as a private investigator. In 1968, she made guest appearances on the television series My Three Sons; Love, American Style; and Room 222.  In 1970, her work on Mannix was honored when she received the Emmy Award for outstanding performance by an actress in a dramatic supporting role.  In winning the Emmy, she beat out Susan Saint James of The Name of the Game and Barbara Anderson of Ironside, becoming the first African American woman to win an Emmy Award. After Mannix was canceled in 1975, Fisher rarely appeared on television. She guest-starred in a 1980 episode of The White Shadow.

Fisher was married and divorced twice. She had two daughters, Samara and Jole, from her 1964 marriage to John Levy. Her marriage to Wali Muhammad (Walter Youngblood), famed cornerman to Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali, ended in divorce when he changed religions. Wali was also an assistant minister to Malcolm X at Nation of Islam Mosque No. 7. 

Gail Fisher died in Los Angeles in 2000, aged 65. 

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*Bob Gibson, a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, was born in Omaha, Nebraska (November 9).

Robert "Bob" Gibson (b. November 9, 1935, Omaha, Nebraska), a baseball pitcher who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals (1959–75), was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Nicknamed "Gibby" and "Hoot", Gibson tallied 251 wins, 3,117 strikeouts, and a 2.91 earned run average (ERA) during his career. A nine-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, he won two Cy Young Awards and the 1968 National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award.  In 1981, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The Cardinals retired his uniform number 45 in September 1975 and inducted him into the team Hall of Fame in 2014.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Gibson overcame childhood illness to excel in youth sports, particularly basketball and baseball. After briefly playing under contract to both the basketball Harlem Globetrotters team and the St. Louis Cardinals organization, Gibson decided to continue playing only baseball professionally. Once becoming a full-time starting pitcher in July 1961, Gibson began experiencing an increasing level of success, earning his first All-Star appearance in 1962. Gibson won two of three games he pitched in the 1964 World Series, then won 20 games in a season for the first time in 1965. Gibson also pitched three complete game victories in the 1967 World Series. 

The pinnacle of Gibson's career was 1968, when he posted a 1.12 ERA for the season and then followed that by recording 17 strikeouts during Game 1 of the 1968 World Series.  Over the course of his career, Gibson became known for his fierce competitive nature and the intimidation factor he used against opposing batters. Gibson threw a no-hitter during the 1971 season, but began experiencing swelling in his knee in subsequent seasons. After retiring as a player in 1975, Gibson later served as pitching coach for his former teammate Joe Torre.  At one time a special instructor coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, Gibson was later selected for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. 

*James Timothy "Mudcat" Grant (b. August 13, 1935 in Lacoochee, Florida), a Major League Baseball pitcher who played for the Cleveland Indians (1958–64), Minnesota Twins (1964–67), Los Angeles Dodgers (1968), Montreal Expos (1969), St. Louis Cardinals (1969), Oakland Athletics (1970 and 1971) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1970–71) was born in Lacoochee, Florida. He was named to the 1963 and 1965 American League All-Star Teams.

*Earl G. Graves, publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, was born in Brooklyn, New York (January 9).

*Vernice "Bunky" Green, a jazz alto saxophonist and educator, was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (April 23).

*Gloria Conyers Hewitt, a mathematician who became the third African-American woman to receive a PhD in Mathematics, was born Sumter, South Carolina (October 26).  Hewitt entered Fisk University in 1952 and graduated in 1956 with a degree in secondary mathematics education. She received her PhD in mathematics in 1962 from the University of Washington (completing her masters in 1960).

Z. Z. Hill, a blues singer known for his hit "Down Home Blues", was born in Naples, Texas (September 30).

Arzell Hill (b. September 30, 1935, Naples, Texas – d. April 27, 1984, Dallas, Texas), known as Z. Z. Hill was a blues singer best known for his recordings in the 1970s and early 1980s, including his 1982 album for Malaco Records, Down Home, which stayed on the Billboard soul album chart for nearly two years. The track "Down Home Blues" has been called the best-known blues song of the 1980s. 

*Sculptor Richard Hunt was born in Chicago (September 7).

*Alvin Neill Jackson, affectionately referred to as "Little" Al Jackson, a former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who played from 1959 to 1969, was born in Waco Texas (December 26). His 43 wins with the New York Mets were the franchise record until Tom Seaver eased past the mark in 1969.

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*Rafer Johnson, a decathlete who became the 1960 Olympic gold medalist, was born in Hillsboro, Texas (August 18).


Rafer Lewis Johnson (b. August 18, 1935, Hillsboro, Texas) a decathlete who won the 1960 Olympic gold medal, after getting a silver in 1956 and a gold in the 1955 Pan American Games, was born in Hillsboro, Texas. He was also the flag bearer at the 1960 Olympics and lit the Olympic Flame when the Olympics came to Los Angeles in 1984. Johnson was a real life hero, along with Rosey Grier tackling Sirhan Sirhan moments after he had mortally wounded Robert F. Kennedy.After the Olympics, Johnson turned his celebrity into acting, sportscasting and public service, and was instrumental in creating the California Special Olympics. His acting career included appearances in The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961), the Elvis Presley film Wild in the Country (1961), Pirates of Tortuga (1961), None but the Brave (1965), two Tarzan films with Mike Henry, The Last Grenade (1970), Roots: The Next Generations (1979), and the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill, opposite Timothy Dalton.

*Track star Rafer Johnson was born in Hillsboro, Texas (August 18).  He would win a gold medal in the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Rafer Lewis Johnson (b. August 18, 1935, Hillsboro, Texas) was born in Hillsboro, Texas, but the family moved to Kingsburg, California, when he was 5. For a while, they were the only black family in the town. A versatile athlete, he played on Kingsburg High School's football, baseball and basketball teams. He was also elected class president in both junior high and high school. At 16, he became attracted to the decathlon after seeing double Olympic champion Bob Mathias, the local hero from Tulare and 24 miles (40 km) from Kingsburg compete.

He competed in his first meet in 1954 as a freshman at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His progress in the event was impressive; he broke the world record in his fourth competition. He pledged Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, America's first non-discriminatory fraternity, and was class president at UCLA. In 1955, in Mexico City, he won the decathlon title at the Pan American Games.

Johnson qualified for both the decathlon and the long jump levents for the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.  However, he was hampered by an injury and forfeited his place in the long jump. Despite this handicap, he managed to take second place in the decathlon behind compatriot Milt Campbell.  It would turn out to be his last defeat in the event.

Due to injury, Johnson missed the 1957 and 1959 seasons (the latter due to a car accident), but he broke the world record in 1958 and 1960.

At the 1960 Games, the decathlon competition became a duel between Johnson and Taiwan's Yang Chuan-kwang (C. K. Yang), who was Johnson’s friend and teammate at UCLA. After the first day, Johnson led Yang by 55 points, despite the fact that Yang had finished ahead of Johnson in four of the five competitions. On the second day, Johnson fell from the lead when he hit the first hurdle in the 110-meter hurdles and finished 0.7 second behind Yang. The two traded positions in the standings again after the discus throw, and Johnson increased his lead with a career-best performance in the pole vault and a better throw than Yang in the javelin. Yet victory for Johnson was far from certain at the start of the final event, the 1,500 meters. He led by only 67 points, and Yang, favored in this event, needed to beat Johnson by 10 seconds to win the decathlon. Johnson ran a personal best of 4 minutes 49.7 seconds and finished only 1.2 seconds behind Yang. Johnson won the gold medal, and Yang took the silver medal—the first medal of any kind won by a Taiwanese athlete. For his Olympic performance, Johnson received the James E. Sullivan Memorial Award as the outstanding amateur athlete of 1960.

Johnson subsequently embarked on an acting career. His credits included such films as The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961) and License to Kill (1989) and various television shows, notably Lassie, Dragnet 1967, Mission: Impossible, and The Six Million Dollar Man. A campaign worker on Robert F. Kennedy's presidential bid, he was present when Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 and helped subdue the gunman, Sirhan Sirhan. Johnson was later involved in the Special Olympics. In 1984, he lit the torch signaling the opening of the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. His autobiography, The Best That I Can Be (co-written with Philip Goldberg), was published in 1998.

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*Jazz tenor saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio (August 7).  He would become famous for making his own instruments and playing more than one at a time.

*Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., a United States Air Force officer and the first African-American astronaut, was born in Chicago, Illinois (October 2).

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*Leon Lynch, the first African American national officer of the AFL-CIO Steel Workers Union was born (June 4). 

As vice-president, Leon Lynch (b. June 4, 1935 - d. May 4, 2012, Memphis, Tennessee) was the first African American national officer of the AFL-CIO Steel Workers Union.  Lynch began to work for the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company as a loader in 1956.  In 1967, he took a B. S. at Roosevelt University in Chicago, Illinois, and began to work as a union staff representative in 1968. 

As a boy, Lynch's family settled in Indiana, where he learned the bass violin. He played with the Count Basie Orchestra when it appeared in East Chicago, Indiana. He was not quite 18 at the time and the club where the band was playing served alcohol, so during breaks between sets, Mr. Lynch would have to step outside.

After high school, he went to work in the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Company steel mill in East Chicago, where he was a tally man, keeping count of the production totals.

There he met co-worker Joe Jackson, whose sons were forming a band. For a time, Mr. Lynch played the bass as part of the band that backed up the Jackson 5.

At the mill, Lynch became involved in the union, writing grievances.

Lynch was a hard worker.  In 1958, Lynch realized a strike at the mill would be a long one, so he went out and got two jobs, one delivering milk and the other selling shoes to support his family. When he was not working, he was on the picket line at the mill.

In 1968, Lynch was hired by the United Steel Workers of America (USW) as an organizer and was sent to Memphis, after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, to organize the African-American workers there.

He worked hard in Memphis, and when Local 7655 opened its first union hall there, the members hung a sign out front that said "Leon Lynch Union Hall."

In 1976, he was appointed to be the international vice president for human affairs of the USW and was elected to the post for six consecutive terms, the first African-American to be an international vice president of a major labor union. In October 1995, he was elected to the executive council of the AFL-CIO.

Lynch believed that the labor movement was the way to build a black middle class.

In 2005, USW Local 1011 in East Chicago, where he started his career, dedicated the Leon Lynch Learning Center where steelworkers are prepared for opportunities in today's job market.

Lynch died on  May 4, 2012at the Methodist Hospice Residence in Memphis, Tenn. He was 76 and had prostate cancer.

*Singer Johnny Mathis was born in Gilmer, Texas (September 30).  He would earn more than 50 gold and platinum records.

*"Little" Esther Phillips, a singer best known for the songs "And I Love Him" and "Release Me", was born in Galveston, Texas (December 23). 

*Boxer Floyd Patterson was born in Waco, North Carolina (January 4).  He would become the first Olympic gold medalist (1952) to win a world professional boxing title.

*Frank Robinson, a Hall of Fame baseball player, was born in Beaumont, Texas (August 31).

Frank Robinson (b. August 31, 1935, Beaumont, Texas) played for five teams from 1956 to 1976, and became the only player to win league MVP (Most Valuable Player) honors in both the National and American Leagues. He won the Triple Crown, was a member of two teams that won the World Series (the 1966 and 1970 Baltimore Orioles), and amassed the fourth-most career home runs at the time of his retirement. Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982. 

Robinson was the first African-American hired to serve as manager in Major League history. He managed the Cleveland Indians during the last two years of his playing career, compiling a 186–189 record. He went on to manage the San Francisco Giants, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals.  

*Otis Rush, a blues musician, singer and guitarist, was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi (April 29). His distinctive guitar style features a slow-burning sound and long bent notes. With similar qualities to Magic Sam and Buddy Guy, his sound became known as West Side Chicago blues and was an influence on many musicians including Michael Bloomfield, Peter Green, and Eric Clapton.

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*David Smyrl, Mr. Handford on Sesame Street, was born in North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

David Langston Smyrl (b. September 13, 1935, North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - d. March 22, 2016, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania) was an actor and writer who played Mr. Handford, the owner of Hooper's Store, on Sesame Street from 1990 to 1998 (replacing Leonard Jackson). Smyrl also co-wrote the songs in episode 3717 with Ian James. 

Smyrl began his career as a coffeehouse poet in the 1960s, and appeared in the Broadway musical Working (1978). In 1980, relocating to California, Smyrl became a staff writer on the sitcom Benson. He subsequently worked on The Cosby Show as a gag writer, audience warm-up man, and recurring guest performer, appearing in five episodes, notably as contractor Sam Lucas. Film credits include a small role in The Preacher's Wife, and on television, Smyrl appeared twice on Law & Order.  An active voice-over performer, Smyrl was heard in many national commercials, in addition to narrating Ralph Bakshi's two Malcolm and Melvin shorts for Cartoon Network and voicing Henry Radiman in the online animated series Anarchy.

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*Lionel Thomas Taylor, a football wide receiver who led the American Football League (AFL) in receptions each year for the first six years of the league's existence, was born in Kansas City, Missouri (August 15).

*Joe Tex, a rhythm and blues singer known for "Hold What You've Got", was born in Rogers, Texas (August 8).

Joseph Arrington, Jr. (b. August 8, 1935, Rogers, Texas – d. August 13, 1982, Navasota, Texas), better known as Joe Tex, was a musician who gained success in the 1960s and 1970s with his brand of Southern soul, which mixed the styles of country, gospel and rhythm and blues.

The career of Joe Tex started after he was signed to King Records in 1955 following four wins at the Apollo Theater. Between 1955 and 1964, he struggled to find hits and by the time he finally recorded his first hit, "Hold What You've Got", in 1964, he had recorded thirty prior singles that were deemed failures on the charts. He went on to have four million-selling hits, "Hold What You've Got" (1965), "Skinny Legs and All" (1967), "I Gotcha" (1972), and "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" (1977). 

 *Bobby Timmons, a jazz pianist and composer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (December 19). 

Robert Henry "Bobby" Timmons (b. December 19, 1935, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – d. March 1, 1974, New York City, New York), a jazz pianist and composer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a sideman in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers for two periods (July 1958 to September 1959; February 1960 to June 1961), between which he was part of Cannonball Adderley's band. Several of Timmons' compositions written when part of these bands – including "Moanin", "Dat Dere", and "This Here" – enjoyed commercial success and brought him more attention. In the early and mid-1960s he led a series of piano trios that toured and recorded extensively.

Timmons was strongly associated with the soul jazz style that he helped initiate; this link to apparently simple writing and playing, coupled with drug and alcohol addiction, led to a decline in his career. Timmons died, aged 38, from cirrhosis.

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*Jacqueline Vaughn, the first African American woman president of the Chicago Teachers Union, was born in St. Louis, Missouri (July 27). Vaughn began to teach in the Chicago schools in 1956, and was a vice-president of the Illinois Federation of Teachers in 1969.

Jacqueline Barbara Vaughn (née Robinson; b. July 27, 1935, St. Louis, Missouri – d. January 22, 1994, Chicago, Illinois) was an American Chicago Public Schools special education teacher and labor leader. She was the first African-American and first woman to head the nation's third largest teachers union local. She served as President of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) from 1984 to 1994, the Illinois Federation of Teachers (1989–94), and Vice-President of the American Federation of Teachers (1974–1994). She led what has been called one of the "mightiest teachers unions in the nation." Vaughn was famous for her fashion sense and her no-nonsense negotiation style in contract talks. Her ability to build consensus between the leadership team, the teachers and school support staff garnered respect from those in and out of the educational system. Vaughn spent much of her career trying to reform the educational system. Through her vision, the CTU Quest Center was created to give school professionals a place to design more effective teaching methods and student learning techniques.

Born Jacqueline Barbara Robinson on July 27, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, Robinson moved to Chicago after both parents died at an early age. She was raised by an aunt, Mae A. Bibbs, a first grade teacher at Douglas Elementary School. Bibbs helped to guide the young girl to a career as a teacher. Vaughn attended Morgan Park High School and graduated from Chicago Teachers College in 1956. She worked various teaching assignments before becoming a special education teacher at Einstein Elementary School and later a language arts specialist. During that time, Vaughn rose through the ranks of the Chicago Teachers Union. She served as a union delegate from 1957 to 1961, field representative from 1961 to 1963,  and Elementary Functional Vice President from 1963 to 1968.

In 1968, Vaughn was elected to Executive leadership in the CTU as recording secretary under then President, John Desmond. In 1972, Vaughn was elected vice-president, a post she held until Robert Healey stepped down as president in 1984. Vaughn became one of Chicago's most visible union leaders during her tenure as CTU president, making regular appearances on the nightly news voicing the concerns and interests of both teachers and students during difficult negotiations with the Chicago School Board. Between 1969 and 1987, the union authorized nine strikes to improve educational conditions.

The strike in 1987 lasted 4 weeks, from September 8 to October 4 and resulted in a pay increase for teachers and reductions in class size. It was the longest strike in Chicago history.

Vaughn died on January 22, 1994 after a long battle with breast cancer.  In 1992, Under her direction the Chicago Teachers Union became the first labor organization to receive a $1 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation to fund the CTU Quest Center. The center provides teachers and paraprofessionals with continuous learning opportunities that can help improve teaching and student learning.  On April 1, 1993, Wilson High School on the northwest side of Chicago was renamed Jacqueline B. Vaughn Occupational High School after the former special education teacher and labor leader. The school provides special needs students with practical skills to become a viable part of the greater community. On March 11, 1998, Roosevelt Road in the south Loop area of downtown Chicago between The Dan Ryan Expressway and Museum Plaza by the city's lakefront was officially renamed the Honorary Jacqueline B. Vaughn Way .