1930
Pan-African Chronology
Pan-African Chronology
*****
January 1
*Clarence Adams, an African American soldier during the Korean War who was captured by the Chinese and who later defected to China, was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Adams was captured on November 29, 1950, when the People's Liberation Army overran his all-black artillery unit's position. Adams was held as a prisoner of war (POW) until the end of the war. Instead of returning to the United States during Operation Big Switch, Adams was one of 21 American soldiers who chose to settle in the People's Republic of China. As a result of their decision, those 21 Americans were considered defectors.
Clarence Adams (b. January 1, 1930, Memphis, Tennessee - d. 1999) grew up poor in Memphis, Tennessee. He dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army in 1947, at the age of 17.
After basic training, Adams became an infantry machine gunner. He was sent to Korea shortly after the war between North Korea and South Korea erupted in June 1950. He was posted to Battery A of the 503rd Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. This was his second tour in Korea, as he had first been posted there in 1948. Adams was captured on November 29, 1950.
During his time a prisoner of war, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. Because of this and other collaboration with his captors, his prosecution by the Army was likely upon his repatriation. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling African American soldiers not to fight:
*****
Clarence Adams (b. January 1, 1930, Memphis, Tennessee - d. 1999) grew up poor in Memphis, Tennessee. He dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army in 1947, at the age of 17.
After basic training, Adams became an infantry machine gunner. He was sent to Korea shortly after the war between North Korea and South Korea erupted in June 1950. He was posted to Battery A of the 503rd Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. This was his second tour in Korea, as he had first been posted there in 1948. Adams was captured on November 29, 1950.
During his time a prisoner of war, Adams took classes in Communist political theory, and afterwards lectured other prisoners in the camps. Because of this and other collaboration with his captors, his prosecution by the Army was likely upon his repatriation. During the Vietnam War, Adams made propaganda broadcasts for Radio Hanoi from their Chinese office, telling African American soldiers not to fight:
Adams married a Chinese woman and lived in China until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution began to impact his family.
Adams returned to the United States from China via Hong Kong on May 26, 1966, citing that he missed his mother. The House Un-American Activities Committee subpoenaed Adams upon his return but did not question him publicly. He later started a Chinese restaurant business in Memphis.
Adams died in 1999. His autobiography An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China was posthumously published in 2007 by his daughter Della Adams and Lewis H. Carlson.
*****
January 3
*Cyrus Wiley, an educator who became the president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth (now known as Savannah State University), died from pneumonia in Atlanta, Georgia.
Cyrus Gilbert Wiley (b. August 13, 1881, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – d. January 3, 1930, Atlanta, Georgia) served as president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth from 1921 and until 1926 succeeding Richard R. Wright.
Wiley was a 1902 graduate of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth.
Wiley succeeded Richard R. Wright as president of the college in 1921. During his term as president the first female students were admitted as boarding students on the campus. Additionally, the college was established as a federal agricultural extension center.
The Willcox-Wiley Physical Education Complex, built in 1954 on the university's campus, is named in honor of Cyrus G. Wiley.
In 1974, Savannah State University established the Cyrus G. Wiley Distinguished Alumni Award to be designated annually. Wiley, Class of 1902, was the first alumnus of Georgia State Industrical College for Colored Youth to become its president.
*****
January 9
*Lolis Elie, a civil rights lawyer who helped to desegregate New Orleans, was born in New Orleans.
Lolis Edward Elie (b. January 9, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. April 4, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana) was a civil rights attorney. A native of New Orleans, Elie attended Howard University and Dillard University. He later graduated in 1959 from Loyola Law School. After graduation, Elie started a legal practice with Loyola classmate Nils Douglas and Louisiana State University Law School graduate Robert Collins.
In 1960, the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asked Elie and his firm to represent CORE after a sit-in campaign. Elie and his firm defended CORE Chapter President Rudy Lombard and three others (the "CORE Four") who were arrested for staging a sit-in protest at the lunch counter of the McCrory Five and Ten Store in New Orleans. Elie and his firm appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court which, in its decision in the case of Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267 (1963), declared the city's ban on sit-ins unconstitutional and nullified the arrests.
Elie's firm also provided free legal counsel to the Consumers' League, a group of black civil rights activists who protested discriminatory practices. Elie was one of seven supporters of the Freedom Riders who met with then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1961, when Kennedy encouraged them to shift their efforts to registering black Southerners to vote. Elie later organized a law firm with a European American attorney, Al Bronstein. The pair argued civil rights cases and also established a training program for new black lawyers.
*****
January 23
*Derek Walcott, the 1992 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Castries, Saint Lucia.
*Percy Bassett, an featherweight professional boxer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Percy Bassett (b. January 3, 1930, Danville, Virginia – d. July 7, 1993) was born in Danville, Virginia in 1930, but his family moved to West Philadelphia when Bassett was 6 years old. Bassett went to Overbrook High School (Wilt Chamberlain later went there) but he dropped out once he began boxing. He had 16 amateur fights and won the prestigious Inquirer Diamond Belt championship in 1947. He turned pro later that year.
Bassett made his professional debut at the age of 17, on July 31, 1947. The result in his first professional bout was a third round knockout of Joe Camarata. Bassett fought frequently, and had compiled a record of 25-0 before losing for the first time, an eight-round points loss to Brown Lee on December 23, 1948. Bassett avenged that loss just eight days later, with a ten-round decision. Bassett continued to fight often, and to win most of the time. Unfortunately for Bassett, he had no mob connections. At the time, the mob controlled the Philadelphia fight game. Thus, Bassett never got a title fight. He did get an interim belt while Sandy Saddler was in the army, but never had the privilege of fighting for the championship. Nevertheless, Bassett faced a number of the top small fighters of his era, including Mario Pacheco, Miguel Acevedo, Redrop Davis, Jimmy Carter, Frankie Sodano, Federico Plummer, Ray Famechon, Lulu Perez and others. Bassett's retirement due to a detached retina came after his last fight, a tenth round technical knockout (TKO) of undefeated (16-0) Seraphin Ferrer. Bassett's final record was 64 wins (41 by knockout), 12 losses, and 1 draw.
Bassett's most famous fight was with Sonny Boy West. On December 20, 1950, Bassett fought Sonny Boy West, a well-regarded veteran lightweight from Baltimore with a professional record of 46-7-1. Between the sixth and seventh rounds, West began to complain in his corner of double vision, but the fight was allowed to continue. After West was hurt by body punches thrown by Bassett, he was floored by a Bassett right hand. As West fell, he landed hard on his head. West died of injuries suffered in this bout on December 21, 1950. The official cause of death was given as a 'inter-cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a cerebral concussion.
*****
*Hulda Stumpf, a Christian missionary and vocal opponent to female genital mutilation, was murdered in her home near the Africa Inland Mission station in Kijabe, Kenya.Bassett made his professional debut at the age of 17, on July 31, 1947. The result in his first professional bout was a third round knockout of Joe Camarata. Bassett fought frequently, and had compiled a record of 25-0 before losing for the first time, an eight-round points loss to Brown Lee on December 23, 1948. Bassett avenged that loss just eight days later, with a ten-round decision. Bassett continued to fight often, and to win most of the time. Unfortunately for Bassett, he had no mob connections. At the time, the mob controlled the Philadelphia fight game. Thus, Bassett never got a title fight. He did get an interim belt while Sandy Saddler was in the army, but never had the privilege of fighting for the championship. Nevertheless, Bassett faced a number of the top small fighters of his era, including Mario Pacheco, Miguel Acevedo, Redrop Davis, Jimmy Carter, Frankie Sodano, Federico Plummer, Ray Famechon, Lulu Perez and others. Bassett's retirement due to a detached retina came after his last fight, a tenth round technical knockout (TKO) of undefeated (16-0) Seraphin Ferrer. Bassett's final record was 64 wins (41 by knockout), 12 losses, and 1 draw.
Bassett's most famous fight was with Sonny Boy West. On December 20, 1950, Bassett fought Sonny Boy West, a well-regarded veteran lightweight from Baltimore with a professional record of 46-7-1. Between the sixth and seventh rounds, West began to complain in his corner of double vision, but the fight was allowed to continue. After West was hurt by body punches thrown by Bassett, he was floored by a Bassett right hand. As West fell, he landed hard on his head. West died of injuries suffered in this bout on December 21, 1950. The official cause of death was given as a 'inter-cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a cerebral concussion.
*****
Hulda Jane Stumpf (b. January 10, 1867, Big Run, Pennsylvania – d. January 3, 1930, Kijabe, Kenya) was a European American Christian missionary who was murdered in her home near the Africa Inland Mission station in Kijabe, Kenya, where she worked as a secretary and administrator.
Stumpf may have been killed because of the mission's opposition to female genital mutilation (FGM, also known as female circumcision). Kenya's main ethnic group, the Kikuyu, regarded FGM as an important rite of passage, and there had been protests against the missionary churches in Kenya because they opposed it. The period is known within Kenyan historiography as the female circumcision controversy.
Stumpf is reported to have taken a firm stand against FGM in the Kijabe Girls' Home, which she helped to run. Some apparently unusual injuries on her body suggested to the governor of Kenya at the time that, before or after smothering her, her killer(s) had genitally mutilated her, although a court concluded that there was no evidence she had been killed because of her opposition to FGM.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting or female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within communities from countries in which FGM is common. In 2016, UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) estimated that 200 million women living today in 30 countries—27 African countries, Indonesia, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Yemen—have undergone the procedures.
*****
Cyrus Gilbert Wiley (b. August 13, 1881, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina – d. January 3, 1930, Atlanta, Georgia) served as president of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth from 1921 and until 1926 succeeding Richard R. Wright.
Wiley was a 1902 graduate of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth.
Wiley succeeded Richard R. Wright as president of the college in 1921. During his term as president the first female students were admitted as boarding students on the campus. Additionally, the college was established as a federal agricultural extension center.
The Willcox-Wiley Physical Education Complex, built in 1954 on the university's campus, is named in honor of Cyrus G. Wiley.
In 1974, Savannah State University established the Cyrus G. Wiley Distinguished Alumni Award to be designated annually. Wiley, Class of 1902, was the first alumnus of Georgia State Industrical College for Colored Youth to become its president.
*****
*Lolis Elie, a civil rights lawyer who helped to desegregate New Orleans, was born in New Orleans.
Lolis Edward Elie (b. January 9, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. April 4, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana) was a civil rights attorney. A native of New Orleans, Elie attended Howard University and Dillard University. He later graduated in 1959 from Loyola Law School. After graduation, Elie started a legal practice with Loyola classmate Nils Douglas and Louisiana State University Law School graduate Robert Collins.
In 1960, the New Orleans chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) asked Elie and his firm to represent CORE after a sit-in campaign. Elie and his firm defended CORE Chapter President Rudy Lombard and three others (the "CORE Four") who were arrested for staging a sit-in protest at the lunch counter of the McCrory Five and Ten Store in New Orleans. Elie and his firm appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court which, in its decision in the case of Lombard v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 267 (1963), declared the city's ban on sit-ins unconstitutional and nullified the arrests.
Elie's firm also provided free legal counsel to the Consumers' League, a group of black civil rights activists who protested discriminatory practices. Elie was one of seven supporters of the Freedom Riders who met with then-Attorney General Robert Kennedy in 1961, when Kennedy encouraged them to shift their efforts to registering black Southerners to vote. Elie later organized a law firm with a European American attorney, Al Bronstein. The pair argued civil rights cases and also established a training program for new black lawyers.
*****
January 23
*Derek Walcott, the 1992 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, was born in Castries, Saint Lucia.
Derek Alton Walcott (b. January 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia - d. March 17, 2017, Cap Estate, Saint Lucia) was a West Indian poet and playwright noted for works that explore the Caribbean cultural experience. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.
Walcott was educated at St. Mary's College in Saint Lucia and at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He began writing poetry at an early age, taught at schools in Saint Lucia and Grenada, and contributed articles and reviews to periodicals in Trinidad and Jamaica. Productions of his plays began in Saint Lucia in 1950, and he studied theater in New York City in 1958–59. He lived thereafter in Trinidad and the United States, teaching for part of the year at Boston University.
Walcott was best known for his poetry, beginning with In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960 (1962). This book is typical of his early poetry in its celebration of the Caribbean landscape’s natural beauty. The verse in Selected Poems (1964), The Castaway (1965), and The Gulf (1969) is similarly lush in style and incantatory in mood as Walcott expresses his feelings of personal isolation, caught between his European cultural orientation and the black folk cultures of his native Caribbean. Another Life (1973) is a book-length autobiographical poem. In Sea Grapes (1976) and The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), Walcott uses a tenser, more economical style to examine the deep cultural divisions of language and race in the Caribbean. The Fortunate Traveller (1981) and Midsummer (1984) explore his own situation as a black writer in America who has become increasingly estranged from his Caribbean homeland.
Walcott’s Collected Poems, 1948–1984, was published in 1986. In his book-length poem Omeros (1990), he retells the dramas of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in a 20th-century Caribbean setting. The poems in The Bounty (1997) are mostly devoted to Walcott’s Caribbean home and the death of his mother. In 2000 Walcott published Tiepolo’s Hound, a poetic biography of West Indian-born French painter Camille Pisarro with autobiographical references and reproductions of Walcott’s paintings. (The latter are mostly watercolors of island scenes. Walcott’s father had been a visual artist, and the poet began painting early on.) The book-length poem The Prodigal (2004), its setting shifting between Europe and North America, explores the nature of identity and exile. Selected Poems, a collection of poetry from across Walcott’s career, appeared in 2007. Aging is a central theme in White Egrets (2010), a volume of new poems.
Of Walcott’s approximately 30 plays, the best-known are Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967), a West Indian’s quest to claim his identity and his heritage; Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958), based on a West Indian folktale about brothers who seek to overpower the Devil; and Pantomime (1978), an exploration of colonial relationships through the Robinson Crusoe story. The Odyssey: A Stage Version appeared in 1993. Many of Walcott’s plays make use of themes from black folk culture in the Caribbean.
The essays in What the Twilight Says (1998) are literary criticism. They examine such subjects as the intersection of literature and politics and the art of translation.
*****
January 27
January 27
*Bobby "Blue" Bland, a legendary blues singer, was born in Rosemark, Tennessee.
Bobby (“Blue”) Bland, byname of Robert Calvin Bland, (b. January 27, 1930, Rosemark, Tennessee - d. June 23, 2013, Germantown, Tennessee), was an African American rhythm-and-blues (R&B) singer noted for his rich baritone voice, sophisticated style, and sensual delivery. From 1957 to 1985, he scored 63 single hits on the R&B charts.
Bland began his career in Memphis, Tennessee, with bluesman B. B. King and ballad singer Johnny Ace (all three were part of a loose aggregation of musicians known as the Beale Streeters). Bland, who, in addition to R&B, was influenced by gospel and by pop singers such as Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, became famous with his early 1960s hits for Duke Records, including “Cry Cry Cry,” “I Pity the Fool,” “Turn on Your Love Light,” and “That’s the Way Love Is.” Joe Scott’s arrangements were pivotal to those successes, in which Bland alternated between smooth, expertly modulated phrases and fiercely shouted, gospel-style ones. For a time Bland, long a particular favorite of female listeners, sang some disco material along with his blues ballads, and in later years he developed the curious habit of snorting between lines. His 1974 song “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” was covered by the band Whitesnake and singers Paul Weller and Paul Carrack; it was also reworked (“Heart of the City [Ain’t No Love]”) for rapper Jay-Z's album The Blueprint (2001).
Although his recording output slowed in the early 2000s, Bland maintained an active touring schedule, and he was a guest performer with B. B. King and singer-songwriter Van Morrison. Bland was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1981 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. He was awarded a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1997.
*****
January 30
*Sandy Amoros, a Cuban left fielder in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers and the Detroit Tigers best known for his defensive play in the 1955 World Series which enabled the Brooklyn Dodgers to win their first World Series, was born in Havana, Cuba.
Edmundo "Sandy" Amorós Isasi (b. January 30, 1930, Havana, Cuba – d. June 27, 1992, Miami, Florida) was a Cuban left fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers and the Detroit Tigers. He both batted and threw left-handed, and was listed as 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall and 170 pounds (77 kg). Sandy played for the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues in 1950. Dodgers scout Al Campanis signed him in 1951, struck by the small man's speed.
*Sandy Amoros, a Cuban left fielder in Major League Baseball for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers and the Detroit Tigers best known for his defensive play in the 1955 World Series which enabled the Brooklyn Dodgers to win their first World Series, was born in Havana, Cuba.
Edmundo "Sandy" Amorós Isasi (b. January 30, 1930, Havana, Cuba – d. June 27, 1992, Miami, Florida) was a Cuban left fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers and the Detroit Tigers. He both batted and threw left-handed, and was listed as 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m) tall and 170 pounds (77 kg). Sandy played for the New York Cubans of the Negro Leagues in 1950. Dodgers scout Al Campanis signed him in 1951, struck by the small man's speed.
Amorós, nicknamed for his resemblance to boxing champ Sandy Saddler, had a brief but hugely underrated period in his Major League career. From 1954–57, his value to the Brooklyn Dodgers as a hitter was remarkable. This was not understood at the time partly because Amorós was overshadowed by Dodgers stars like Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson, and partly because of Amorós's skin color, personality and nation of origin. However, mostly he was underrated because the concept of On Base Percentage (OBP) was not yet a part of player evaluations. Amorós's batting averages were mediocre but, because he drew a large number of walks, his on base percentages between 1954 and 1957 were .353, .347, .385 and .399.
*****
The defining moment of Amorós' career with the Brooklyn Dodgers was one of the memorable events in World Series history. It was the sixth inning of the decisive Game 7 of the 1955 World Series. The Dodgers had never won a World Series and were now trying to hold a 2–0 lead against their perennial rivals, the New York Yankees. The left-handed Amorós came into the game that inning as a defensive replacement, as the right-handed throwing Jim Gilliam moved from left field to second base in place of Don Zimmer. The first two batters in the inning reached base and Yogi Berra came to the plate. Berra, notorious for swinging at pitches outside the strike zone, hit an opposite-field shot toward the left field corner that looked to be a sure double, as the Brooklyn outfield had just shifted to the right. Amorós seemingly came out of nowhere, extended his gloved right hand to catch the ball and immediately skidded to a halt to avoid crashing into the fence near Yankee Stadium's 301 distance marker in the left field corner. He then threw to the relay man, shortstop Pee Wee Reese, who in turn threw to first baseman Gil Hodges, doubling Gil McDougald off first. Hank Bauer then grounded out to end the inning, and the Dodgers went on to win the game 2-0, and the Series 4-3. The 1955 World Series victory was the first for the Dodgers franchise and was the only World Series championship while the Dodgers were in Brooklyn and were named the Brooklyn Dodgers.
*****
*****
No comments:
Post a Comment