2023: January 1930 Chronology

 

1930

Pan-African Chronology

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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.   

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:

You are supposedly fighting for the freedom of the Vietnamese, but what kind of freedom do you have at home, sitting in the back of the bus, being barred from restaurants, stores and certain neighborhoods, and being denied the right to vote. ... Go home and fight for equality in America.

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.

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*Jessie Price, a veterinary microbiologist specializing in avian diseases, was born in Montrose, Pennsylvania.

See Appendix 23: Jessie Isabelle Price, the Duck Doctor.

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January 3

*Percy Bassett, a 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 an inter-cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a cerebral concussion.


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*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.

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.

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See also Appendix 36: Female Genital Mutilation.

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*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.

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January 4

*Henry Wilkins, an African American politician who served in the Arkansas House of Representatives, was born.

Henry Wilkins III (b. January 4, 1930 – d. February 20, 1991) was an American politician and educator who served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1973 to 1991. Alongside Richard Mays and William Townsend, Wilkins was the first African American to serve in the Arkansas Legislature since the Reconstruction era. His wife, Josetta Wilkins, and their son, Henry "Hank" Wilkins IV, also served as state legislators.

Wilkins was a professor of political science at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.  Alongside lawyer Richard Mays and optometrist William Townsend, Wilkins was the first African American to serve in the Arkansas Legislature since the Reconstruction era. Wilkins was narrowly elected in 1972 to represent a Black-majority district of Jefferson County, Arkansas, in the Arkansas House of Representatives.  Elected to ten consecutive terms, he served in the Arkansas House until his death in 1991. He also served as a delegate to the 1970 and the 1980 Arkansas Constitutional Conventions (he was the sole African American delegate to the 1970 convention) and co-founded the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus in 1989. Wilkins and state senator Jerry Jewell were instrumental in the 1977 passage of legislation establishing a state civil rights commission.

Wilkins died from cancer on February 20, 1991. His wife, Josetta Wilkins, won a special election to fill the remainder of his term in the House. She was reelected four times. Her son, Henry "Hank" Wilkins IV, succeeded his mother in the House in 1999 and served fourteen years in the state legislature. Their daughter, Cassandra Wilkins, married Rodney E. Slater, who served as United States Secretary of Transportation under President Bill Clinton. 

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January 8

*Davey Whitney, an American college basketball coach, was born in Midway, Kentucky.

Davey Lee Whitney Sr. (b. January 8, 1930, Midway, Kentucky – d. May 10, 2015, Biloxi, Mississippi), also known as "The Wiz", was an American college basketball coach and the head basketball coach at Texas Southern University from 1964 to 1969 and Alcorn State University from 1969 to 1989 and 1996 to 2003. He amassed a total record of 566 wins and 356 losses in 33 seasons of coaching at both institutions.

Davey Lee Whitney Sr. was born in Midway, Kentucky, and attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington while living with friends. At Dunbar, Whitney played at guard on the basketball team and led his school to the 1947 and 1948 tournaments of the Kentucky High School Athletic League, the state's black high school league, and the 1948 league title.

He attended Kentucky State University and graduated in 1952. At Kentucky State, Whitney lettered in basketball, baseball, football, and track. After college, Whitney started out playing Negro American League baseball for the Kansas City Monarchs as shortstop and third baseman from 1952 to 1954.

Whitney began his coaching career in 1954 as varsity basketball head coach at Burt High School in Clarksville, Tennessee. In ten seasons, Whitney led Burt to over 200 victories and the 1961 National Negro High School Basketball Championship. He had his first collegiate job as head coach of Texas Southern University in 1964 but had only one winning season in five years. In 1969, he moved on to Alcorn A&M (which became Alcorn State in 1974).  Alcorn A&M had the reputation as a football school in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC).

Mainly recruiting local talent, Whitney was instrumental in making the Alcorn State men's basketball program a force in the SWAC during the 1970s and 1980s, with nine SWAC regular season titles. He led the Braves to the 1974 NAIA Division I men's basketball tournament championship game. Two years after, the Braves followed the SWAC to Division I. Whitney's Braves advanced to the second round of the 1979 National Invitation Tournament following an upset of Mississippi State in the first round.

In 1980, Alcorn State became the first HBCU (Historically Black College or University) to win a game in the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, after beating South Alabama in the first round. During his time at Alcorn, Whitney earned the nickname "The Wiz".

In 1989, Alcorn State fired Whitney after three straight losing seasons in which they only won 18 games total. Whitney later became an assistant coach for the Wichita Falls Texans of the Continental Basketball Association and was part of the Texans' 1991 championship team. He later was an assistant for the Mississippi Coast Gamblers of the United States Basketball League. Whitney returned to Alcorn State in 1996, taking over a program that had tallied only one winning season since his departure. Within three years, he had the Braves back in the NCAA Tournament. He retired for good in 2003.

Whitney was known as a stern taskmaster, and his teams were a reflection of his hard-nosed personality. They were known for strong rebounding and tenacious defense. His 1998-99 team, for instance, was eighth in the nation in rebounding and gave up only 66.7 points per game.

Whitney set many records during his career at Alcorn, establishing himself as the second winningest coach in HBCU college basketball history behind Clarence "Big House" Gaines, who coached at Winston-Salem State University.  Whitney also owns the only postseason wins (NCAA and NIT) in Alcorn's history.

Whitney returned to Alcorn State two years after the Braves' home arena had been renamed the Davey Whitney Complex in his honor. He is thus one of the few Division I coaches to coach in an arena named after him.

Davey Whitney was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Whitney died at his home in Biloxi, Mississippi, on May 10, 2015.

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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. 


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January 11

*Layachi Yaker, an Algerian diplomat and a National Liberation Front politician, was born in Souk Ahras, Algeria.

Layachi Yaker (b. January 11, 1930, Souk Ahras, French Algeria – d. November 25, 2023, Algiers, Algeria) was an Algerian diplomat and politician of the National Liberation Front (Front de libération nationale - FLN). 

The eldest of twelve children, Layachi Yaker was born on January 11, 1930, in Souk-Ahras to a family from Tamazirt, a commune of Irdjen, Tizi Ouzou. He became engaged, at age 17, in the Algerian National Movement in the framework of the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA). Self-taught, he combined political action with salaried work while training as an accountant.

Sent to Paris by his firm in order to become a chartered accountant, Yaker was elected vice-president of the General Union of Algerian Muslim Students in July 1955.  This was a key election for the communist youth of Algeria in their struggle for liberation. During the Algerian War, Yaker was a fundraising agent for the FLN in France. 

In February 1957, Yaker was arrested by the French government and spent two and a half years in French prisons (La Santé and Fresnes Prison). After several hunger strikes, he obtained the status of political prisoner. He was released on parole in October 1959.

Layachi Yaker joined the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) in Cairo, Egypt in January 1961. In November of the same year, he was appointed Representative of the GPRA to India and Bangladesh.

After Algeria's independence in July 1962, Layachi Yaker returned to the country and was appointed a senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was nominated Minister of Commerce in June 1969, serving until April 1977. He then served in the People's National Assembly from 1977 to 1979. From September 1979 to August 1984, he served as Ambassador of Algeria to the Soviet Union (1979-1982) and to the United States (1982-1984).

In 1989, Yaker joined the United Nations system. He served as Special Advisor to the Director-General of UNESCO in Paris until 1992, and then as Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) from 1992 to 1995 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. 

From 1995 to 1997, Yaker was President of the International Ocean Institute (IOI).

Throughout his career, Layachi Yaker was very actively involved in strengthening and improving relations between developed countries and so-called Third World countries, in particular as a Member of the Brandt Commission and co-editor of the North-South Report.

Layachi Yaker died in Algiers on November 25, 2023.

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January 14

*Rupert Florence Richardson, an American civil rights activist and civil rights leader who served as the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was born in Navasota, Texas.

Rupert Florence Richardson (b. January 14, 1930, Navasota, Texas – d. January 24, 2008, Baton Rouge, Louisiana) was an American civil rights activist and civil rights leader who served as the national president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from 1992 to 1995, and as the national president emeritus of the NAACP following her term as president. She also worked in the Louisiana state government for 30 years.

Rupert Florence Richardson was born on January 14, 1930, in Navasota, Texas, to Albert S. Richardson and Mary Samuels Richardson. She was raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where her family moved to shortly after her birth, and attended public schools there. She married James A. Clemons Jr. of Lake Charles Louisiana, and the couple had eight children. In 1952, Richardson received a Bachelor of Science from Southern University (Baton Rouge), becoming a second-generation college graduate after her mother.  In 1962, ten years after graduating from Southern University, Richardson graduated from McNeese State University with a Master of Counselling and Master of Psychology.

In 1965, Richardson found employment as a counselor in the Louisiana Department of Labor. Nine years later, she left that department to work at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals. While involved in the health department, Richardson centered her work on mental health and substance abuse services. She eventually became deputy assistant secretary of the department. From 1992 to 1994, Richardson was also deputy assistant secretary of state at the Louisiana Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse.

Richardson then struck out on her own, forming a healthcare consulting firm — Rupert Richardson and Associates. She also served on several boards for the state, which included the Louisiana Gaming Control Board, Louisiana Commission on Human Rights, Louisiana Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the Louisiana State University School of Social Welfare Advisory Committee, and the Governor's Council for Drug-Free Schools.

Richardson first joined the NAACP as a teenager in the 1940s, working in the anti-lynching movement and against racial segregation.  She rose to become president of the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP for sixteen years. Richardson was also active in the NAACP's national governance, serving on the NAACP board from 1981 to her death, as the NAACP vice president from 1984 to 1991, and as the president of the NAACP from 1992 to 1995. After leaving the presidency in 1995, Richardson was made president emerita of the NAACP.

As president, she oversaw an expansion of the NAACP's work to include increased focus on economic and health care disparities and environmental racism.  After a 1995 scandal in which the NAACP's executive director Benjamin Chavis was revealed to have misused the organization's funds, Richardson worked to repair the NAACP's image. She created partnerships with groups such as the Harvard Business School.

From 1999 to 2008, Richardson chaired the NAACP's Health Committee, which she had advocated for the creation of, focusing on HIV/AIDS in the United States among minority groups. Towards the end of her life, Richardson remained active in civil rights, advocating on behalf of the Jena Six in 2006 and 2007.  She was known as the "grand dame" of the organization. Julian Bond, an activist at the NAACP, said that "Rupert Richardson was in many ways the conscience of the NAACP".

On January 24, 2008, Richardson died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Her body lay in state at the Old Louisiana State Capitol.  After her death, Bobby Jindal, then Governor of Louisiana, declared January 31, 2008 to be "Rupert F. Richardson Day".

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January 22

*Pierre Petit (b. January 22, 1930, Martinique, France – d. February 4, 2022) a Martinican politician who was elected to the French National Assembly in 1993 was born in Martinique, France.  He died on February 4, 2022, at the age of 92.

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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.

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See also Appendix 29: Derek Walcott, The 1992 Nobel Prize Recipient for Literature.

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*Roderick Walcott, a Saint Lucian playwright, was born in Castries, Saint Lucia.

Roderick Aldon Walcott (b. January 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia – d. March 6, 2000, Toronto, Canada), was a Saint Lucian playwright, screenwriter, painter, theatre director, costume and set designer, lyricist and literary editor. As a dramatist, he was recognized as one of the most committed figures in the effort to develop a distinctive Caribbean theatre in the region.  He was the twin brother of Nobel laureate Derek Walcott.

Roderick Aldon Walcott was born in Castries, Saint Lucia, the son of Alix (Maarlin) and Warwick Walcott.  He was educated at Saint Mary's College there. In 1950, he (together with his brother Derek and friends) was instrumental in founding the Saint Lucia Arts Guild, to read and perform plays.  He wrote, produced and directed plays with the Arts Guild during the 1950s and 1960s, and is regarded as one of the founders of modern Caribbean theatre, building and fostering a local homegrown audience.

In 1968, he moved to Canada, where he studied Theatre Arts at York University in Toronto from 1969 to 1973. He returned temporarily to Saint Lucia in 1977 to become the first Director of Culture (1977–80).

He was the author of several plays, many of them published by the Extra-Mural Department of the University of the West Indies. His play The Harrowing of Benjy is the most produced play in the English-speaking Caribbean. He also wrote numerous musicals, of which The Banjo Man, a collaboration with the composer Charles Cadet, was successfully staged at Carifesta 1972 in Guyana and throughout the greater Caribbean. Walcott is also acknowledged as a pioneer of Carnival in St Lucia.

Roderick Walcott died at his home in Toronto, Canada, in 2000 at the age of 70, after a long illness. His death is a theme in his brother Derek's 2004 work, The Prodigal.

In 2009, a collection of Roderick Walcott's works was donated to the University of the West Indies Open Campus in St Lucia.

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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.

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See also Appendix 18: The Blues

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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.

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.

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