1930 The United States: Notable Births

Notable Births

*Muhal Abrams, the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, was born in Chicago, Illinois (September 19).

Muhal Richard Abrams (b. September 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois) is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the free jazz medium.

Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago. By 1946, he enrolled in music classes at Roosevelt University, but did not stay. He then decided to study independently.  The books of Joseph Schillinger were very influential in Abrams' development.

Abrams' first gigs were playing the blues, R&B, and hard bop circuit in Chicago and working as a sideman with everyone from Dexter Gordon and Max Roach to Ruth Brown and Woody Shaw.  In 1950 he began writing arrangements for the King Fleming Band, and in 1955 played in the hard-bop band Modern Jazz Two + Three, with tenor saxophonist Eddie Harris.  After this group folded he kept a low profile until he organized the Experimental Band in 1962, a contrast to his earlier hard bop venture in its use of free jazz concepts. This band, with its fluctuating lineup, evolved into the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), emerging in May 1965 with Abrams as its president. Rather than playing in smoky night clubs, AACM members often rented out theaters and lofts where they could perform for attentive and open-minded audiences. The album Levels and Degrees of Light (1967) was the landmark first recording under Abrams' leadership. On this set, Abrams was joined by the saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Maurice McIntyre, vibraphonist Gordon Emmanuel, violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist Leonard Jones and vocalist Penelope Taylor. Abrams also played with saxophonists Eddie Harris, Gordon, and other more bop-oriented musicians during this era.

Abrams moved to New York permanently in 1975 where he was involved in the local Loft Jazz scene. In 1983, he established the New York chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians.

In the 1970s, Abrams composed for symphony orchestras, string quartets, solo piano, voice, and big bands in addition to making a series of larger ensemble recordings that included harp and accordion. He is a widely influential artist, having played sides for many musicians early in his career, releasing important recordings as a leader, and writing classical works such as his "String Quartet No. 2", which was performed by the Kronos Quartet, on November 22, 1985, at the Carnegie Recital Hall in New York. He has recorded extensively under his own name (frequently on the Black Saint label) and as a sideman on others' records. Notably regarding the latter he has recorded with Anthony Braxton (Duets 1976 on Arista Records), Marion Brown and Chico Freeman. 

Abrams has recorded and toured the United States, Canada and Europe with his orchestra, sextet, quartet, duo and as a solo pianist. His musical affiliations is a "who's who" of the jazz world, including Max Roach, Dexter Gordon, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Art Farmer, Sonny Stitt, Anthony Braxton,The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Eddie Harris and many others. In 1990 Abrams won the Jazzpar Prize, an annual Danish prize within jazz. In 1997 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In May 2009 the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Abrams would be one of the recipients of the 2010 NEA Jazz Masters Award. In June 2010, Abrams was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by New York City's premier jazz festival, known as the Vision Festival.

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*Clarence Adams, a soldier during the Korean War who was captured  by the Chinese and who later defected to China, was born in Memphis, Tennessee (January 1).   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.  Adams and his family were both usual and unusual citizens of the African American part of Memphis, Tennessee. They were usual because they were part of the second wave of urban bound, fractured family units and because they were habitually victimized by the racism of that time and place. Adams was unusual because he recognized all that was happening to him, knew that it was unjust, and was able to articulate his dissatisfaction as well as his plans for self improvement.

Adams dropped out of high school and joined the United States Army in 1947, at the age of 17.
Adams entered the army on the run from the consequences of an incident in a train yard where black youths entertained themselves with the dangerous sport of train hopping. While train hopping, Adams and his friends administered a spontaneous beating to a white transient because of his persistent demand that they provide him with a black woman to gratify his sexual urges. The next day, police arrived at Adams's home ostensibly to arrest him for that transgression.  But Adams was given a way out of jail. Thus, like many men of his position, Adams joined the army to escape incarceration... and oppression.

After basic training Adams became an infantry machine gunner. He traveled to Korea shortly after the war between North and South erupted in June 1950 and 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.

In the army, Adams worked himself into the soon-to-be "integrated" army, learned his Military Occupational Specialty of Infantry machine gunner, and was sent to Korea and Japan. He returned to Korea when the war started in June 1950. The army was officially integrated by Executive Order from President Harry Truman in 1948, one year after Adams enlisted. In practical terms, however, Truman's order made little difference for Adams and others like him. While he was in training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, he found the same level of racism on and off the base that he had run from in the South. Waitresses refused to serve him in a restaurant, and his officers and non-commissioned officers were all white.

The racism followed Adams in his overseas postings as well. When he served his first tour of duty in Korea with the 159th Military Patrol, Adams was confronted by racist treatment or military inefficiency, or both, when he was court-martialed for driving a fire truck through a wall because he had no idea how to drive it. When he went to Japan the next year, he found that there were cities and postings for whites only, and that the racist mythology about black sexuality followed him and his unit. Nevertheless, through both postings, Adams showed the cultural curiosity and adaptability that would help him survive the Korean War and his years as a prisoner. He never shied away from the indigenous population in either country, and unlike most Americans of any color, he was not intimidated by the prospect of learning the local language and culture.

Adams was sent back to Korea in June 1950 instead of receiving his expected discharge from service. He served with Battery A of the 503rd Artillery Regiment, attached to the 2nd Infantry Division. His officers, with the exception of one, were all white; while from the non-commissioned officers downward, it was an all black unit. Despite misgivings about the face of the so-called newly integrated army, Adams advanced from ammunition bearer to gunner on the base gun, the field gun that shot for accuracy for the entire battery. He also partook in the strategic counterattack at Inchon that took Douglas McArthur's beleaguered forces from the Pusan Perimeter at the southern end of the peninsula to the fateful Yalu River crossing that brought the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the People's Republic of China into the war.

The PLA counterattack began on November 1, 1950, and it rolled over Adams' artillery unit on November 29. Adams' mostly black unit was left behind without support to provide covering fire for predominately white units that were retreating. Adams' was captured and began a struggle to live long enough to get to the prisoner of war camp ... and then to survive it. Adams' attempts to survive were exacerbated by the first winter's hardships of weather as well as lack of medical treatment. He was forced to endure long lonely marches in the dead of the Korean winter, and only his incredible mental toughness enabled his to carry on even after he amputated three of his toes without anesthesia.

As Adams and his fellow prisoners settled into what would be a three-year incarceration in Korea, first under the Koreans, then under the Chinese, they adapted, survived, and waited anxiously for the end of the war. It was during that time that Adams and other African Americans formed a group called the Progressives to negotiate for better conditions and treatment of all prisoners. From then on, his time as a prisoner was also a period of intellectual growth abetted by the Chinese. He was introduced to literary figures, like Maxim Gorky (the Russian dramatist), Lu Xun (the Chinese literary reformer), and W. E. B. DuBois (the controversial African American scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries). In effect, Adams was allowed to acquire the education denied him in the United States because of his class and race.

As the war drew to a close and the prisoners avidly discussed the conditions of the armistice, Adams and many Progressive members became proactive petitioners and speakers on controversial issues related to the war. They were especially concerned with the issues of repatriation of both themselves and the Chinese who were prisoners of the United States. The approach of the armistice also heightened racial and political controversy in the camp, and a number of threats of violence were directed at Adams. Because of those threats and the lifelong accumulation of racism, he made the decision to go to China when he was released.

Once Adams and twenty-two others from his camp arrived in China, they stayed for twelve years. It was during that time that he created, with much assistance from the Chinese government, a life that would have been impossible in the United States. He spent two years in Beijing and five years in Wuhan, China, where he received the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in Chinese language and literature. He was posted to the Beijing office of the Foreign Language Press as a translator. Adams also participated in the politics of the era, joining the Xia Fang labor movement. He married Liu Lin Feng, a college student in Beijing, and they had two children, Della and Louis before they left China. In short, Adams finally got to participate in a society as a full citizen with no diminution of his rights, but he had to live in a so-called Communist dictatorship instead of his own country to do those things.

However, the political circumstances began to change drastically in China in 1966 with the advent of the China's Cultural Revolution.  The social upheaval in the country stressed the relationship between Adams and his wife, estranged him from long-time friends, and even forced him and his wife to make the culturally devastating decision to leave their extended family and move to the United States for their personal safety.

Adams returned to the United States from China via Hong Kong on Thursday, May 26, 1966 citing that he missed his mother.  However, in the eyes of many he was deemed to be a defector and a traitor.

Adams was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee in Washington, D.C. It was there, before that committee, that Adams once again revealed the courage, intellect, and insightful critique of American society that had been his lifelong habit. The committee wished to question him about radio broadcasts and statements he made from China in opposition to the Vietnam War. However, rather than meekly submit to their charges of treason, Adams insisted on his first amendment rights to freedom of speech. Then, while he had the ear of the public, he once again called the United States to task for the fundamental inconsistency of sending African American soldiers to Vietnam to guarantee freedoms for the Vietnamese that black citizens were routinely denied at home.

The ordeal with the House Un-American Activities Committee did pass and Clarence Adams was left to quietly resume his life.  However, the social and economic adjustment that Adams and his family made to life in America was not without its difficulties.  The Adams family were immigrants ... a people who had fled violence and oppression in China for the safer shores of the United States. They came to American shores by boat. Once they arrived, they too took employment well below their qualifications just to make ends meet. Then, they pursued the American dream by applying all the values ascribed to immigrant success to their first struggling neighborhood restaurant, a local chop suey restaurant. Eventually, they were able to turn that first venture into a string of entrepreneurial successes and secured for themselves the American dream, ... a secure middle-class life. 

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*Russell Adams, an author, professor and Chairperson of the Afro-American Studies Department at Howard University, was born in Baltimore, Maryland (August 13).

Russell L. Adams (b. August 13, 1930, Baltimore, Maryland), was born to James Russell and Lilly B. (Ponder) Adams. He received his elementary and high school education in Quitman, Georgia.  He received his bachelor of arts degree at Morehouse College in 1952, a master of arts degree at the University of Chicago in 1954, and later a Ph.D. in 1971.

In 1965, Adams worked as an assistant professor and chair department of political science at the North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina.  In 1969, Adams became an associate professor at the University of the District of Columbia. In 1971, Adams was hired as chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. 

Throughout his work, Adams focused on the emergence of the Afro-American Studies as an academic field in addition to his long interest in cultural and curriculum diversity. Adams published and edited several books, numerous articles, and collections. He is the author of the popular biographical reference book Great Negroes Past and Present (1963), “leading American Negroes”, a series of film strips for which he received the George Washington Honor Medal (1966), and The Pursuit of Power in Black America in the Nineteenth Century: A Study of the Emergence of Black Politically Oriented Voluntarism (1971).

Adams was a member of many political science and history organizations including National Conference of Black Political Scientists, National Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Adams married Eleanor McCurine and had two children, Sabrina and Russell Lowell Adams. 

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*Benny Andrews, a painter, printmaker, creator of collages and an educator, was born in Plainview, Georgia (November 13).

Benny Andrews (b. November 13, 1930, Plainview, Georgia – d. November 10, 2006) was born into a family of ten on November 13, 1930 in small community called Plainview, Georgia. His mother Viola was very strict on her beliefs, and constantly promoted education, religion and most importantly, freedom of expression. George, Andrew’s father, also taught the same beliefs to his children. George, internationally known as the "Dot Man," was a self-taught artist, and produced many illustrative drawings that influenced Andrews.

Although the importance of education was stressed, Andrews’ number of absences accumulated due to the days he was needed in the field. Andrews graduated in 1948 from Burney Street High School in Madison, making him the first in his family to graduate from high school. Andrews attended Fort Valley College on a two-year scholarship. There was only one art program offered at the institution, however, due to poor grades and the end of his scholarship Andrews left and joined the United States Air force in 1950.

Afterwards, the G. I. Bill of Rights afforded him training at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his bachelor of fine arts degree. His first New York solo show was in 1962. From 1968 to 1997, Andrews taught at Queens College, City University of New York and created a prison arts program that became a model for the nation.

After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago he received the John Hay Whitney Fellowship for 1965-1966 and a CAPS award from the New York State Council on the Arts in 1971 the same year he created the painting No More Games, a noted work which is about the plight of black artists and an iconic reflection of his emerging social justice work in the art world.

In 1969, Andrews co-founded the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition (BECC) an organization that protested the 'Harlem on my Mind' exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They protested the fact that no African-Americans were involved in organizing the show and that it contained no art only photo reproductions and copies of newspaper articles about Harlem. The BECC then persuaded the Whitney museum to launch a similar exhibition of African American Artists, but later boycotted that show as well for similar reasons. In 2006, Andrews traveled to the Gulf Coast to work on an art project with children displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

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*Dorothy Ashby, an American jazz harpist and composer, was born in Detroit, Michigan (August 6).

Dorothy Jeanne Thompson (b. August 6, 1930, Detroit, Michigan – d. April 13, 1986, Santa Monica, California), better known as Dorothy Ashby, established the harp as an improvising jazz instrument, beyond earlier use as a novelty or background orchestral instrument, showing the harp could play bebop as adeptly as a saxophone. Her albums were of the jazz genre, but often moved into R&B, world music and other styles, especially on her 1970 album The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby, where she demonstrates her talents on another instrument, the Japanese koto, successfully integrating it into jazz.

Dorothy Thompson grew up around music in Detroit, where her father, guitarist Wiley Thompson, often brought home fellow jazz musicians. Even as a young girl, she would provide support and background to their music by playing the piano. She attended Cass Technical High School, where fellow students included such future musical talents and jazz greats as Donald Byrd, Gerald Wilson and Kenny Burrell. While in high school she played a number of instruments (including the saxophone and string bass) before coming upon the harp.

She attended Wayne State University in Detroit, where she studied piano and music education. After she graduated, she began playing the piano in the jazz scene in Detroit, though by 1952 she had made the harp her main instrument. At first her fellow jazz musicians were resistant to the idea of adding the harp, which they perceived as an instrument of classical music and somewhat ethereal in sound in jazz performances. So Ashby overcame their initial resistance and built support for the harp as a jazz instrument by organizing free shows and playing at dances and weddings with her trio. She recorded withm Ed Thigpen, Richard Davis, Frank Wess and others in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During the 1960s, she also had her own radio show in Detroit.

Ashby's trio, including her husband, John Ashby, on drums, regularly toured the country, recording albums for several record labels. She played with Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, among others. In 1962, Down Beat magazine's annual poll of best jazz performers included Ashby. Extending her range of interests and talents, she also worked with her husband in a theater company, the Ashby Players, which her husband founded in Detroit, and for which Dorothy often wrote the scores. In the 1960s, Dorothy Ashby, together with her husband, formed a theatrical group to produce plays that would be relevant to the African American community of Detroit. This production group went by several names depending on the theater production.

They created a series of theatrical musical plays that Dorothy and John Ashby produced together as the theatrical company, the Ashby Players. In the case of most of the plays, John Ashby wrote the scripts and Dorothy Ashby wrote the music and lyrics to all the songs in the plays. Dorothy Ashby also played harp and piano on the soundtracks to all of her plays. She starred in the production of the play "3–6–9" herself. Most of the music that she wrote for these plays is available only on a handful of the reel to reel tapes that Dorothy Ashby recorded herself. Only a couple of the many songs she created for her plays later appeared on LPs that she released. Later in her career, she would make recordings and perform at concerts primarily to raise money for the Ashby Players theatrical productions.

The theatrical production group "The Ashby Players" not only produced black theater in Detroit and Canada but provided early theatrical and acting opportunities for black actors. Ernie Hudson (of Ghostbusters) was a featured actor in the Artists Productions version of the play "3–6–9". In the late 1960s, the Ashbys gave up touring and settled in California, where Dorothy broke into the studio recording system as a harpist
 through the help of the soul singer Bill Withers, who recommended her to Stevie Wonder. As a result, she was called upon for a number of studio sessions playing for more pop-oriented acts.

Ashby died from cancer on April 13, 1986 in Santa Monica, California. 

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*Alvin Aubert, a poet and scholar who championed African American culture and rural life along the southern Mississippi River, was born (March).

Alvin Bernard Aubert (b. March 1930 – d. January 7, 2014, Trenton, New Jersey) was a poet and scholar who championed African American culture and rural life along the southern Mississippi River. He grew up in Lutcher, Louisiana, and attended Southern University, the University of Michigan and the University of Illinois.  He taught at Southern University, SUNY Fredonia, and Wayne State University.  

A singular voice that emerged in the 1960s, when many others composed fiery poems intended to change the world, Alvin Bernard Aubert wrote primarily about personal experiences from his childhood and adolescence in Louisiana. In 1975, he founded Obsidian: Black Literature in Review, which published aspiring writers and acted as a forum for critical discussion of works by African and African-American writers. Aubert retired in 1992 as professor emeritus of English from Wayne State.

He died on January 7, 2014, in Trenton, New Jersey.  The works of Alvin Aubert include Against the Blues (1972); Feeling Through (1975);  A Noisesome Music (1979); South Louisiana: New and Selected Poems (1985);  If Winter Come: Collected Poems 1967–1992 (1994); and  Harlem Wrestler and Other Poems (1995).

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*Ethel Ayler, a veteran African American character actress with a career spanning over five decades most notably in the role as Carrie Hanks, the mother of Claire Huxtable of the The Cosby Show, was born in Whistler, Alabama (May 1).

In 1957, Ethel Ayler made her off-Broadway debut in the Langston Hughes musical, Simply Heavenly.  Later that year, she debuted on Broadway in the multiple Tony Award nominated musical, Jamaica as an understudy for Lena Horne (also making her Broadway debut).

Another notable early performance was in Jean Genet's play, The Blacks: A Clown Show, which ran Off-Broadway for 1,408 performances and received three Obie Awards including for Best New Play. The impressive cast of black actors included three future Academy Award nominees: James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson and Louis Gossett, Jr.

Throughout her career, Ayler appeared frequently with the Negro Ensemble Company. This included notable performances in The First Breeze of Summer, Eden and Nevis Mountain Dew.

On television, Ayler had a recurring role as Carrie Hanks, Claire Huxtable's mother on The Cosby Show.  She also made memorable performances in the films To Sleep with Anger (1990) and Eve's Bayou (1997).

For her work in To Sleep with Anger,  Ayler received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best supporting female.

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*Thomas Barnes, the first African American Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, was born (November 16).

Thomas N. Barnes (b. November 16, 1930 – d. March 17, 2003, Sherman, Texas) was the fourth Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force (CMSAF) and the first African-American in that position. He was also the first African-American Senior Enlisted Advisor in any of the Armed Forces of the United States. CMSAF Barnes served as Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force from October 1973 to July 1977. He was key in bringing many African-American related issues to the attention of senior military leaders.

In April 1949, Barnes enlisted the United States Air Force and received his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. He later attended Aircraft and Engine School and Hydraulic Specialist School at Chanute Technical Training Center, Illinois.  In October 1950, he was assigned to the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron of the 62nd Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base, Washington.

In November 1950, Barnes transferred with the 4th Troop Carrier Squadron to Ashiya, Japan, in support of the Korean War.  Shortly after arrival in Japan, he completed on-the-job training for flight engineer duties. Then, due to low unit manning, he performed both flight engineer and hydraulic specialist duties. In September 1951 he transferred to Tachikawa, Japan, and continued flight engineer duties.

Chief Barnes transferred in June 1952 to the 30th Air Transport Squadron, Westover Air Force Base, Massachusetts, where he attended C-118 school and continued his flight engineer duties in that aircraft. In September 1952, he volunteered for temporary duty with the 1708th Ferrying Group at Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, and participated in ferrying aircraft from various depots to Air Force organizations in Hawaii, Japan and Northeast Air Command. Upon completion of temporary duty, he returned to Westover.

In December 1952, Barnes transferred to Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, and served as crew chief and flight engineer on B-25, T-11, C-45 and C-47 aircraft in support of various requirements of United States Air Force, Headquarters Military Air Transport Service, and the Air Research and Development Command. It was during this time that Barnes applied for commissioning and was accepted but had to turn down the opportunity because the pay cut which officer candidates experience while undergoing training would not allow him to continue to support his wife and children.

Chief Barnes transferred in June 1958 to the 42nd Bombardment Wing at Loring Air Force Base, Maine, and as a B-52 crew chief, flight chief and senior controller. In September 1965 he went to Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington, and continued duties as senior controller.

In October 1966, he entered the F-4 Field Training Detachment at George Air Force Base, California, and in December 1966 went to Southeast Asia. There he served with the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing as non-commissioned officer in charge, reparable processing center; senior controller; and non-commissioned officer in charge, maintenance control.

In December 1967, Barnes returned from Southeast Asia to Laughlin Air Force Base, Texas, where his duties were T-38 section line chief; non-commissioned officer in charge, maintenance control; and senior enlisted advisor to the commander of the 3646th Pilot Training Wing. He was promoted to the grade of chief master sergeant on December 1, 1969, and was transferred to Headquarters Air Training Command in October 1971 to assume duties as command senior enlisted adviser.

On October 1, 1973,  Barnes was appointed chief master sergeant of the Air Force. At the expiration of the initial two-year tenure, he was extended for an additional year by the chief of staff. In February 1976 he was selected by the chief of staff to serve an unprecedented second year extension. He retired on July 31, 1977. He flew for nine years as a flight engineer on a variety of aircraft, seeing duty in Korea, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Vietnam.

Following his retirement from the Air Force, Barnes worked at the First National Bank of Fort Worth as an Employee Relations Officer for seven years. He was then hired by the Associates Corporation of North America and promoted to Vice President/Director of Employee Relations at the corporate headquarters in Las Colinas. After retiring to Fannin County, Texas, he raised Longhorn cattle and two years in a row won the team penning at the Kueckelhan Rodeo.

He died from cancer in Sherman, Texas, where he had been undergoing treatment.

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*Percy Bassett, a featherweight professional boxer, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (January 3).

Percy Bassett (b. January 3, 1930, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – d. July 7, 1993, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a native and resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He made his professional debut at the age of 17, on July 31, 1947. The result in his first professional bout was a 3rd round knockout of opponent 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, and 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. Despite this, Bassett faced a number of the top small fighters of his era, including Mario Pacheco, Miguel Acevedo, Redtop 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 TKO of undefeated (16-0) Seraphin Ferrer.  Bassett's final record was 64 wins (41 by knockout), 12 losses, and 1 draw.

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 he was hurt to the body by Bassett, West was floored by a right hand. As he fell, he landed hard on his head. West died of injuries suffered in this bout on December 21st. The official cause of death was given as a "inter-cerebral hemorrhage resulting from a cerebral concussion."

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*Bobbie Beard, an African American child actor best known for portraying "Cotton" in several Our Gang short films from 1932 to 1934, was born in Los Angeles, California (August 2).

Bobbie Beard (b. August 2, 1930, Los Angeles, California – d. October 16, 1999, Los Angeles, California) was a native of Los Angeles, California. His older brother was Matthew "Stymie" Beard, one of the series' most popular and best-remembered characters.

As older brother Stymie was the main breadwinner for the Beard family, his success with the Our Gang series opened the door for his siblings. Bobbie Beard appeared as Stymie's younger brother in Hi'-Neighbor!i, Forgotten Babies, Fish Hooky, A Lad an' a Lamp and Birthday Blues. His most memorable appearance was in A Lad an' a Lamp, in which Spanky McFarland keeps wishing that Cotton could be a monkey. Despite his notable presence in several films, Beard never spoke a word.

After departing Our Gang, Beard became an auction dealer in the Los Angeles area. In later years, Beard worked at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles and became good friends with Groucho Marx.  He later served in the Korean War, and spent his final years working for the Los Angeles School Board. 

Beard died on October 16, 1999.

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*Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., the first tenured African American Professor of Law at Harvard Law School who is largely credited as one of the originators of critical race theory (CRT), was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (November 6). He was a visiting professor at New York University School of Law from 1991 until his death. He was also a dean of the University of Oregon School of Law.  

Derrick Albert Bell, Jr., (b. November 6, 1930, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania — d. October 5, 2011, New York, New York) was a legal scholar and educator who strove uncompromisingly to reveal and confront the pernicious racism that he found ingrained in American legal and social structures. He was involved in the desegregation of more than 300 schools. Bell made headlines by quitting several high-profile jobs on the grounds of ethical protest, and he provoked both criticism and praise from his peers by frequently substituting parables and allegories for traditional analysis in his legal writings. He earned a bachelor’s degree (in 1952) from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, and an LL.B. (in 1957) from the University of Pittsburgh Law School, where he was the only black student. He was hired (in 1969) as a lecturer at Harvard Law School and became (in 1971) that institution’s first tenured African American professor. Bell was appointed dean of the University of Oregon School of Law in 1980 but resigned in 1985 after a female Asian American faculty member was not granted tenure and returned to Harvard the following year. Four years later he left Harvard under similar circumstances, informing the faculty and the public that he would not return until the school offered tenure to an African American woman. Bell’s most influential book, Race, Racism and American Law (1973), was a trailblazing work on critical race theory and became a mainstay for law schools.

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*Greg Bell, a long jumper who won the gold medal in the long jump at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, was born in Terre Haute, Indiana (November 7).

Greg Bell (b. November 7, 1930, Terre Haute, Indiana) won three national Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) championships, two National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships, earned NCAA All-American status three times and was a four-time national AAU All-American. From 1956 to 1958, he was ranked first in the world in the long jump. He set an NCAA record in the long jump, which stood for seven years, and became a charter member of both the Indiana Track and Field and Indiana University Athletic halls of fame.

Bell was inducted into the USA Track and Field (USATF) Hall of Fame in 1988.

As the top long jumper in the 1950s, Greg Bell highlighted an outstanding track and field career by winning the long jump gold medal at the 1956 Olympic Games, jumping 25' 8 1/4" while a sophomore at Indiana University. His longest jump came in 1957 when he won the national collegiate title with a 26' 7" effort, a meet record that stood for seven years. That same year, he was voted the Most Outstanding Athlete at the Penn Relays for his victories in both the 100 yards and the long jump. Almost 10 years earlier, Bell was second in the long jump at the 1948 Indiana high school championships. His interest in track and field revived during 1950 while he was stationed in the Army near Bordeaux, France. After a few weeks' training, he won the European Armed Forces Championship in Nuremberg, Germany. Following his discharge in 1954, he enrolled at Indiana University. Throughout his college career, Bell was undefeated in the long jump, winning three NCAA championships. He won the first of three National AAU titles in 1955. Rated the world's best long jumper three times, Bell wound up with a total of 13 26-foot long jumps, the most by any long jumper in history up to that time. Bell was also second in the 1959 Pan American Games and competed in the USA-USSR dual meet that same year. He later became a dentist in Logansport, Indiana, and director of dentistry at Logansport State Hospital.

*****

*Walter Benton, an African American jazz tenor saxophonist, was born in Los Angeles, California (September 8).

Walter Benton (b.September 8, 1930, Los Angeles, California - d. August 14, 2000) first began playing saxophone as a high schooler in Los Angeles. After three years of service in the Army in the early 1950s, Benton played with Perez Prado, including on a tour of Asia. He worked with Quincy Jones in 1957 and Victor Feldman in 1958-59. He led his own group from 1959, recording under his own name in 1960 with Freddie Hubbard, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Tootie Heath. That same year he worked with Max Roach and Julian Priester. In 1961, he recorded with Abbey Lincoln, Roach again, Eric Dolphy, and Slide Hampton.  Later in the 1960s, he worked with Gerald Wilson and John Anderson.  

*****

*Bill Berry, a jazz trumpeter best known for playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 1960s and for leading his own big band, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan (September 14).

William Richard Berry (b. September 14, 1930, Benton Harbor, Michigan – d. November 13, 2002, ), known as Bill Berry, was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of a bass player in a touring dance band.  He spent his early years traveling with his parents.  From the age of five, he took piano lessons at his parents' home in South Bend, Indiana. In high school in Cincinnati, he switched to trumpet, which he played in a Midwest band led by Don Strickland, then served four years in the Air Force.  He studied at the Cincinnati College of Music and Berklee College of Music in Boston and played trumpet with the Woody Herman and Maynard Ferguson orchestra. In 1961, he became one of the Duke Ellington orchestra's first white members.

After his working with Ellington, he played with the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra and led his own big band in New York.  In 1965, he joined The Merv Griffin Show, where he remained for fifteen years, moving to Los Angeles with Griffin and reforming his group as the L.A. Big Band in 1971.  Among the most successful of his own recordings was Shortcake (Concord, 1978), an album of jazz for small group in the Ellington style.  He appeared on many albums by other musicians, including Rosemary Clooney (Everything's Coming Up Rosie), Scott Hamilton (Scott Hamilton Is a Good Wind Who Is Blowing Us No Ill), Jake Hanna (Live at Concord), and Coleman Hawkins (Wrapped Tight).

*****

*Ancella Bickley, a historian known for her role in preserving African Amercan history in West Virginia, was born in Huntington, West Virginia (July 4).

Ancella Radford Bickley (b. July 4, 1930, Huntington, West Virginia) earned a bachelor's degree in English from West Virginia State College, now West Virginia State University, in 1950,  a master's degree in English from Marshall University  (where she was the first full-time African American student) in 1954, and an Ed. D. in English from West Virginia University in 1974.

With Lynda Ann Ewen, she co-edited Memphis Tennessee Garrison: The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman, published by Ohio University Press. Bickley authored stories and articles in West Virginia's cultural magazine, Goldenseal.  She also conducted and published interviews at Marshall University for the Oral History of Appalachia Program.

In 1993, Bill Drennen, commissioner of the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, recorded a thirty-minute interview with Bickley for the Cultural Conversations series.

Bickley was a Rockefeller Foundation Scholar funded through the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Gender in Appalachia (CSEGA) at Marshall University, in 1999.

The West Virginia State Archives house a collection of documents gifted to them by Bickley, half of the materials relating to the annual West Virginia Conferences on Black History begun in 1988. Another portion of materials donated pertain to the Alliance for the Collection, Preservation, and Dissemination of West Virginia's Black History.

*****

*Robert Blair, a gospel musician and leader of The Fantastic Violinaires, was born (August 6).

Robert Earl Blair (b. August 6, 1930 – d. March 19, 2001) was the leader of The Fantastic Violinaires originating from Detroit, Michigan, from 1965 until his death. He started his music career, in 1965, with the release of Stand by Me by Checker Records. His third album, The Pink Tornado, was released in 1988 by Atlanta International Records, and this was his breakthrough release upon the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart. He released fourteen albums over the course of his career.

His music recording career commenced in 1965, with the album, Stand by Be, and it was released by Checker Records.  He released an album in 1988 with Atlanta International Records, The Pink Tornado, and it was his breakthrough release upon the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart at No. 34. His music career ended at his death in 2001, and by that time he released fourteen albums with several labels.

Blair died on March 19, 2001 of a heart attack.

*****

*Bobby "Blue" Bland, a legendary blues singer best known for the songs "I Pity the Fool" and "That's the Way Love Is", was born in Rosemark, Tennessee (January 27).

Bobby “Blue” Bland, byname of Robert Calvin Bland (b. January 27, 1930, Rosemark, Tennessee, United States — d. June 23, 2013, Memphis, Tennessee), was a blues singer noted for his rich baritone voice, sophisticated style, and sensual delivery.

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). Influenced by gospel and by pop singers such as Tony Bennett and Andy Williams, as well as by rhythm and blues, Bland became famous with early 1960s hits for Duke Records such as “Cry Cry Cry,” “I Pity the Fool,” “Turn on Your Lovelight,” and “That’s the Way Love Is.” Joe Scott’s arrangements were pivotal to these successes in which Bland alternated between smooth, expertly modulated phrases and fiercely shouted, gospel-style ones. Long a particular favorite of female listeners, Bland for a time sang some disco material along with his blues ballads. While 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 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and he was awarded a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 1997.

*****

*Eddie Bo, a singer and pianist known for his blues,soul and folk recordings, was born in New Orleans, Louisiana (September 20).

Edwin Joseph Bocage (b. September 20, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana – d. March 18, 2009, Picayune, Mississippi), known as Eddie Bo, debuted on Ace Records in 1955 and released more single records than anyone else in New Orleans other than Fats Domino.

Eddie Bo worked and recorded for more than 40 different record labels, including Ace, Apollo Records,  Arrow, At Last, Blue-Jay, Bo-Sound, Checker, Chess, Cinderella, Nola, Ric (for which business his carpentry skills were used to build a studio), Scram, Seven B, and Swan.

Eddie Bo grew up in Algiers, Louisiana, and in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. He came from a long line of ship builders with the male members of his family being bricklayers, carpenters and masons by day and musicians by night. Eddie's mother was a self-taught pianist in the style of friend, Professor Longhair. The Bocage family was involved in the traditional jazz community with cousins Charles, Henry and Peter, who played with Sidney Bechet, contributing to jazz orchestras before World War II. 

Eddie graduated from Booker T. Washington High School before going into the army. After his army stint, he returned to New Orleans to study at the Grunewald School of Music. There he learned piano, music theory and to sight read, and arrange music. It was at this time that he was influenced by Russian classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz and was introduced to bebop pianists Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. He began playing in the New Orleans jazz scene, but made a switch to R&B after deciding it was more popular and brought in more money.  Like a lot of other local musicians Eddie frequented the premier blues venue in town, the Dew Drop Inn on LaSalle Street. He played at the Club Tijuana under the name of Spider Bocage, later forming the Spider Bocage Orchestra, which toured the country supporting singers Big Joe Turner, Earl King, Guitar Slim, Johnny Adams, Lloyd Price, Ruth Brown, Smiley Lewis, and The Platters.

Bo's first released record in 1955 was "Baby", recorded for Johnny Vincent's Ace Records. His next release, in 1956 on Apollo Records, was "I'm Wise" which Little Richard later recorded as "Slippin' and Slidin'". After several releases on Ace, he recorded "My Dearest Darling" in 1957 for Chess Records,  the song, co-written by Bo and Paul Gayten, became a national chart hit in 1960 when recorded by Etta James.  From 1959, he recorded for Ric Records, and had regional hits including "Every Dog Has Its Day" and "Tell It Like It Is", and in 1961 recorded the novelty dance song "Check Mr Popeye", reissued nationally by Swan Records, which became one of his best-known recordings though not a national hit.

During the 1960s, Bo continued to release singles on a string of local record labels, including Rip, Cinderella, and Blue Jay, though only a few achieved national distribution. On these records, his style got funkier, and he used more of his jazz training, helping to create a distinctively different and influential New Orleans piano style. He recorded the renowned "Pass The Hatchet" under the nom de disque, Roger and the Gypsies for Joe Banashak's Seven B label as well as "Fence of Love" and "SGB" (Stone Graveyard Business) under his own name. He either wrote or produced most of the titles on Seven B records. He also worked as a record producer, with musicians including Irma Thomas, Chris Kenner, Johnny Adams, Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, Art Neville, Chuck Carbo, Mary Jane Hooper, Robert Parker, and The Explosions. In 1969, at the height of funk, he had his only national chart hit, "Hook and Sling, Pts. 1 & 2," which reached number 13 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 73 on the pop chart. The song, on the Scram label, was recorded in just one take. He then formed his own label, Bo-Sound, and had another regional hit with "Check Your Bucket."

From the early 1970s Bo worked in the music business only sporadically, after setting up his own renovation business. In 1977 he released two albums, The Other Side of Eddie Bo and Watch for the Coming, which he produced himself. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he recorded with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band with whom he toured Europe, and resurrected his Bo-Sound label. He joined Willy DeVille to play on two DeVille records, Victory Mixture, and Big Easy Fantasy, and he toured with DeVille as well. He later joined up with Raful Neal and Rockin' Tabby Thomas playing and recording under the names The Louisiana Legends, The District Court and The Hoodoo Kings. He continued to perform frequently in New Orleans and at festivals elsewhere, and toured intermittently. He also bought a doctor's office and salon on Banks Street which he and his manager converted into an eatery for fans called "Check Your Bucket" after his 1970 hit. Like his home and recording studio it was hit by Hurricane Katrina while Bo was on tour in Paris. Due to Bo's carpentry and bricklaying skills he took on the task of completing the hurricane damage repairs himself.

Eddie Bo died on March 18, 2009, in Picayune, Mississippi, United States, of a heart attack. 

*****

*Richard Boone, a jazz musician and scat singer who became a resident of Denmark, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas (February 24).

Richard Bently Boone (b. February 24, 1930, Little Rock, Arkansas – d. February 8, 1999, Copenhagen, Denmark) sang in his Baptist church choir as a boy, then began playing the trombone at the age of twelve. He served with the United States Army from 1948 to 1953 where he played trombone in a military band. Out of the Army, he returned to Little Rock to study music at Philander Smith College. In 1956 Boone moved to Los Angeles where he played venues with other jazz musicians such as Dolo Coker, Sonny Criss, and Dexter Gordon.

Boone worked in the backup band for Della Reese between 1962 and 1966 then became a member of the Count Basie band. In 1970, he followed other African American jazz musicians such as pianist Kenny Drew and saxophonist Ben Webster, and moved permanently to Copenhagen, Denmark. 

In 1973 Boone was hired to play with the Danish Radio Big Band where he performed until 1986. Using Denmark as a home base, Boone was able to tour Europe.

In 1998 Boone issued his final album called "Tribute to Love." It was backed by two other American transplants along with a Danish vocalist and musicians.

On his death in 1999, Richard Boone was interred in Assistens Kirkegard in Copenhagen.

Richard Boone has a street named after him in southern Copenhagen, "Richard Boones Vej" (eng. Richard Boone St.).

Boone's collection of private memorabilia is in the Jazz Collections at the University Library of Southern Denmark.

*****

*Jim Boyd, the winner of an Olympic boxing gold medal in the Light Heavyweight (173 pound) Division at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina (November 30). 

James "Jim" Boyd (b. November 30, 1930, Rocky Mount, North Carolina – d. January 25, 1997, Baltimore, Maryland) joined the Army in 1947 and learned to box while stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. He fought in countless matches during a 10-year military career and seldom lost.

Boyd was the National Golden Gloves Light Heavyweight Champion of 1956.  

At 26, Boyd qualified for the 1956 Olympics and won three Olympic matches en route to the gold medal. Instead of immediately turning professional after the Olympics, he re-enlisted for another year in the Army before embarking on a boxing career.

As a pro, Mr. Boyd was managed and trained by Cus D'Amato, the famed boxing aficionado who later would train heavyweight Mike Tyson.  However, at the time he trained Boyd, D'Amato also managed and trained the more flamboyant Floyd Patterson, who then was also an aspiring light heavyweight. Boyd felt that D'Amato showed favoritism toward Patterson.

Additionally, D'Amato would not let his two boxers fight because he was afraid Boyd would win.

Boyd turned pro in 1959 and had limited success. He retired in 1962 having won 2, lost 2, and drawn 3, with 1 KO.

After retiring, Boyd moved to Baltimore in the early 1960s and began working as a nursing assustabt at the Veterans Administration Hospital, then located in Northeast Baltimore. He retired in 1996.

*****

*Art Bragg, a sprinter who competed in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Olympics in the 100 meter dash, was born in Baltimore, Maryland (December 3).

Arthur "Art" George Bragg (b. December 3, 1930, Baltimore, Maryland) attended Baltimore's Morgan State College.

In 1952, he was eliminated in the semi-finals of the Olympic 100 meter event. Running with a pulled muscle, he finished 'a miserable last' in his race. Bragg had been considered the favorite for the title having won the United States Olympic Trials 100 meter in the absence, through injury, of the man judged to be the best American sprinter, Jim Golliday.

The year before the Helsinki Olympics, at the 1951 Pan American Games, Bragg was a member of the American relay team which won the gold medal in the 4×100 meters competition. In the 100 meters contest as well as in the 200 meters event Bragg won the silver medal. In both races he lost narrowly to Cuba's Rafael Fortun.

Bragg continued running after leaving college. In 1954 he won the 100 and 220 yards titles at the AAU Championships. In both, he established new AAU meet records of 9.4 and 21.1 s respectively.

Bragg was famed at the time he was racing for his often slow start to his races with a subsequent fast finish and the disappointments he suffered in his career at the major championships.

In 1954, Bragg was one of the candidates for the prestigious James E. Sullivan Award that is presented annually by the AAU to the outstanding American athlete. If he had won, he would have been the first African-American recipient of the award. In the end, the award went to Mal Whitfield.

Bragg left for California in 1956 and never returned to Maryland. In later years, Bragg lived in Los Angeles and worked for the Los Angeles County Probation Department as a Deputy Probation Officer. 

*****

*Johnny Bright, a professional football player in the Canadian Football League and a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the National Football Foundation's College Football Hall of Fame, the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame, the Edmonton Eskimos Wall of Honour, the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame, and the Des Moines Register's Iowa Sports Hall of Fame, was born Fort Wayne, Indiana (June 11).

Johnny D. Bright (b. June 11, 1930, Fort Wayne, Indiana – d. December 14, 1983, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) played college football at Drake University. In 1951, Bright was named a First Team College Football All-American, and was awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award. In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. Bright is the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school.  In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium, in Des Moines, Iowa, was named in his honor. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the Canadian Football League's Top 50 players (No. 19) of the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN.

In addition to his outstanding professional and college football careers, Bright is perhaps best known for his role as the victim of an  intentional, most likely racially motivated, on-field assault by an opposing college football player from Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State University) on October 20, 1951, that was captured in a widely disseminated and Pulitzer Prize winning photo sequence, and eventually came to be known as the "Johnny Bright Incident". 

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on June 11, 1930, Bright was the second oldest of five brothers. Bright lived with his mother and step father Daniel Bates, brothers, Homer Bright, the eldest, Alfred, Milton, and Nate Bates, in a working class, predominantly African American neighborhood in Fort Wayne.  

Bright was a three-sport (football, basketball, track and field) star at Fort Wayne's Central High School. Bright, who also was an accomplished softball pitcher and boxer, led Central High's football team to a City title in 1945, and helped the basketball team to two state tournament Final Four appearances.

Following his graduation from Central High in 1947, Bright initially accepted a football scholarship at Michigan State University, but, apparently unhappy with the direction of the Spartans football program, transferred to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he accepted a track and field scholarship that allowed him to try out for the football an basketball squads. Bright eventually lettered in football, track, and basketball, during his collegiate career at Drake..

Following a mandatory freshman redshirt year, Bright began his collegiate football career in 1949, rushing for 975 yards and throwing for another 975 to lead the nation in total offense during his sophomore year, as the Drake Bulldogs  finished their season at 6–2–1. In Bright's junior year, the halfback/quarterback rushed for 1,232 yards and passed for 1,168 yards, setting an NCAA record for total offense (2,400 yards) in 1950, and again led the Bulldogs to a 6–2–1 record.

Bright's senior year began with great promise. Bright was considered a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate, candidate, and was leading the nation in both rushing and total offense with 821 and 1,349 yards respectively, when the Drake Bulldogs, winners of their previous five games, faced Missouri Valley Conference foe Oklahoma A&M at Lewis Field (now Boone Pickens Stadium) in Stillwater, Oklahoma, on October 20, 1951.

Bright's participation as a halfback/quarterback in Drake's game against Oklahoma A&M on October 20, 1951, was controversial, as it marked the first time that such a prominent African American athlete, with national notoriety (Bright was a pre-season Heisman Trophy candidate and led the nation in total offense going into the game) and of critical importance to the success of his team (Drake was undefeated and carried a five-game winning streak into the contest, due in large part to his rushing and passing), had played against Oklahoma A&M in a home game at Lewis Field, in Stillwater.

During the first seven minutes of the game, Bright had been knocked unconscious three times by blows from Oklahoma A&M defensive tackle Wilbanks Smith. While the final elbow blow from Smith broke Bright's jaw, Bright was able to complete a 61-yard touchdown pass to halfback Jim Pilkington a few plays later before the injury finally forced Bright to leave the game. Bright finished the game with 75 yards (14 yards rushing and 61 yards passing), the first time he had finished a game with less than 100 yards in his three-year collegiate career at Drake. Oklahoma A&M eventually won the game 27-14.

A photographic sequence by Des Moines Register cameramen Don Ultang and John Robinson clearly showed that Smith's jaw breaking blow to Bright had occurred well after Bright had handed off the ball to fullback Gene Macomber, and that the blow was delivered well behind the play.  The pictures won a Pulitzer Prize in 1952 for the photographer, Don Ultang of The Des Moines Sunday Register. Years later, Ultang said that he and Robinson were lucky to capture the incident when they did; they'd only planned to stay through the first quarter so they could get the film developed in time for the next day's edition.

It had been an open secret before the game that A&M was planning to target Bright. Even though A&M had integrated two years earlier, the Jim Crow spirit was still very much alive in Stillwater. Both Oklahoma A&M's student newspaper, The Daily O'Collegian, and the local newspaper, The News Press, reported that Bright was a marked man, and several A&M students were openly claiming that Bright "would not be around at the end of the game." Ultang and Robinson had actually set up their camera after rumors of Bright being targeted became too loud to ignore.

When it became apparent that neither Oklahoma A&M nor the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) would take any disciplinary action against Smith, Drake withdrew from the MVC in protest and stayed out until 1956 (though it did not return for football until 1971). Fellow member Bradley University pulled out of the league as well in solidarity with Drake; while it returned for non-football sports in 1955, Bradley never played another down of football in the MVC (it dropped football in 1970).

The "Johnny Bright Incident", as it became widely known, eventually provoked changes in NCAA football rules regarding illegal blocking, and mandated the use of more protective helmets with face guards.

Recalling the incident without apparent bitterness in a 1980 Des Moines Register interview noted three years before Bright's death:

There's no way it couldn't have been racially motivated. Bright went on to add: What I like about the whole deal now, and what I'm smug enough to say, is that getting a broken jaw has somehow made college athletics better. It made the NCAA take a hard look and clean up some things that were bad.

Bright's jaw injury limited his effectiveness for the remainder of his senior season at Drake, but he finished his college career with 5,983 yards in total offense, averaging better than 236 yards per game in total offense, and scored 384 points in 25 games. As a senior, Bright earned 70 percent of the yards Drake gained and scored 70 percent of the Bulldogs' points, despite missing the better part of the final three games of the season.

Despite irrefutable evidence of the incident, Oklahoma A&M officials denied anything had happened. Indeed, Oklahoma A&M/State refused to make any further official comment on the incident for over half a century. This was the case even when Drake's former dean of men, Robert B. Kamm,  became president of OSU in 1966. Years later, he said that the determination to gloss over the affair was so strong that he knew he could not even discuss it. Finally, on September 28, 2005, Oklahoma State President David J. Schmidly wrote a letter to Drake President David Maxwell formally apologizing for the incident, calling it "an ugly mark on Oklahoma State University and college football." The apology came twenty-two years after Bright's death.

In February 2006, the football field at Drake Stadium, in Des Moines, Iowa, was named in Bright's honor.

Following his final football season at Drake (1951), Bright was named a First Team College Football All-American and finished fifth in the balloting for the 1951 Heisman Trophy. Bright was also awarded the Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Sportsmanship Award, and played in both the post-season East-West Shrine Game and the Hula Bowl.

In 1969, Bright was named Drake University's greatest football player of all time. He is also the only Drake football player to have his jersey number (No. 43) retired by the school.

Bright was the first pick of the Philadelphia Eagles in the first round of the 1952 National Football League draft.  Bright spurned the NFL, electing to play for the Calgary Stampeders of the Western Interprovinciai Football Union (WIFU), the precursor to the West Division of the Canadian Football League. Bright later commented:

I would have been their (the Eagles') first Negro player. There was a tremendous influx of Southern players into the NFL at that time, and I didn't know what kind of treatment I could expect.

Bright joined the Calgary Stampeders as a fullback/linebacker in 1952, leading the Stampeders and the WIFU in rushing with 815 yards his rookie season. Bright played fullback/linebacker with the Stampeders for the 1952, 1953, and part of the 1954 seasons. In 1954, the Calgary Stampeders traded Bright to the Edmonton Eskimos in mid-season. Bright would enjoy the most success of his professional football career as a member of the Eskimos.

Though Bright played strictly defense as a linebacker in his first year with the Eskimos, he played both offense (as a fullback) and defense for two seasons (1955-1956), and played offense permanently after that (1957-1964).  He, along with teammates Rollie Miles, Normie Kwong, and Jackie Parker, helped lead the Eskimos to successive Grey Cup titles in 1954, 1955, and 1956 (where Bright rushed for a then Grey Cup record of 171 yards in a 50–27 win over the Montreal Alouettes). In 1957, he rushed for eight consecutive 100-yard games, finishing the season with 1,679 yards. In 1958, he rushed for 1,722 yards. In 1959, following his third straight season as the Canadian pro rushing leader with 1,340 yards, Bright won the Canadian Football League's Most Outstanding Player Award, the first African American or African Canadian athlete to be so honored.

Bright was approached several times during his Canadian career by NFL teams about playing in the United States, but in the days before the blockbuster salaries of today's NFL players, it was common for CFL players such as Bright to hold regular jobs in addition to football, and he had already started a teaching career in 1957, the year he moved his family to Edmonton.

Bright retired in  1964 as the CFL's all-time leading rusher. Bright rushed for 10,909 yards in 13 seasons, had five consecutive 1,000 yard seasons, and led the CFL in rushing four times. While Bright, as of 2017, was 15th on the All-Pro Rushing list, his career average of 5.5 yards per carry is the highest among 10,000+ yard rushers (National Football League Hall of Famer Jim Brown is second at 5.2 yards per carry). At the time of his retirement, Bright had a then-CFL record thirty-six 100-plus-yard games, carrying the ball 200 or more times for five straight seasons. Bright led the CFL Western Conference in rushing four times, winning the Eddie James Memorial Trophy in the process, and was a CFL Western Conference All-Star five straight seasons from 1957 to 1961. Bright played in 197 consecutive CFL games as a fullback/linebacker. Bright's No. 24 jersey was added to the Edmonton Eskimos' Wall of Honour at the Eskimo's Commonwealth Stadium in 1983. Bright was inducted into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame on November 26, 1970. In November 2006, Bright was voted one of the CFL's Top 50 players (No. 19) for the league's modern era by Canadian sports network TSN. 

Bright earned a Bachelor of Science degree in education at Drake University in 1952, becoming a teacher, coach, and school administrator, both during and after his professional football career, eventually rising to the seat of principal of D.S. Mackenzie Junior High School and Hillcrest Junior High School in Edmonton, Alberta. He became a Canadian citizen in 1962.

Bright died of a massive heart attack on December 14, 1983, at the University of Alberta Hospital  in Edmonton, while undergoing elective surgery to correct a knee injury suffered during his football career. He was survived by his wife and four children.

Bright is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, in Edmonton.

In September 2010, Johnny Bright School, a kindergarten through grade 9 school, was named in Bright's honor, and opened in the Rutherford neighborhood of Edmonton. The school was officially opened on September 15 by representatives of the school district and Alberta Education Minister Dave Hancock, and included tributes from Bright's family, several dignitaries, and former colleagues of Bright from both his athletic and educational careers.

*****

*Ronnell Bright, a jazz pianist and actor, was born in Chicago, Illinois (July 3).

Ronnell Bright (b. July 3, 1930, Chicago, Illinois), a jazz pianist, also dabbled in the area of acting,  Bright made a guest appearance as a piano player in the Season 1 episode of The Jeffersons titled "Lionel, The Playboy". as well as similar cameo appearances on two other hit 1970's TV series, CBS-TV's The Carol Burnett Show, and NBC-TV's Sanford and Son.
Bright played piano from a very young age, and won a piano competition when he was nine years old. In 1944, he played with the Chicago Youth Piano Symphony Orchestra. He studied at Juilliard, graduating early in the 1950s. Moving back to Chicago, he played with Johnny Tate and accompanied Carmen McRae before relocating to New York City in 1955. There he played with Rolf Kuhn and put together his own trio in 1957. In 1957-58, he was with Dizzy Gillespie, and acted as an accompanist for Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne, and Gloria Lynne over the next few years. His compositions were recorded by Vaughan as well as by Cal Tjader, Horace Silver, and Blue Mitchell. In 1964, Bright became Nancy Wilson's arranger and pianist after moving to Los Angeles. Later in the decade he found work as a studio musician, playing in Supersax from 1972 to 1974.

*****

*Charles Decatur Brooks, a Seventh-day Adventist evangelist best known for his Breath of Life television ministry (July 24).

Charles Decatur Brooks, also known as C. D. Brooks, (b. July 24, 1930, Greensboro, North Carolina - d. June 5, 2016, Laurel, Maryland) was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on July 24, 1930, the tenth child of Marvin and Mattie Brooks. Although Methodists at the time, shortly after C.D.’s birth the Brooks family began observing the seventh-day Sabbath in honor of a pledge Mattie Brooks made to God while in a hospital bed suffering from a near-fatal illness. Learning more truth years later from reading Ellen G. White's The Great Controversy, C.D., along with his mother and six sisters, was baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church on a Sabbath in 1940. In 1947 after attending an evangelistic tent meeting, C.D. remained under the tent long after the last person had departed. “Charles, I want you to make truth clear,” C.D. distinctly heard a voice say, and then had a vision of himself standing behind the pulpit at the front of the tent, proclaiming the truth with power and clarity. Brooks immediately jettisoned his career plans for dentistry for the ministry, setting his sights on Oakwood.

At Oakwood, Brooks met the love of his life, Walterene Wagner, daughter of John H. Wagner, Sr., a stalwart of 20th century black Adventism. Along with other roles, Wagner was the first president of Allegheny Conference, one of the five inaugural leaders of regional conferences in 1945.

In 1951, Brooks graduated from Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in Huntsville, Alabama, with a degree in theology.
 
Brooks and Walterene were united in marriage on September 14, 1952, at the Ebenezer Seventh-day Adventist Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brooks would go on to serve the Columbia Union as a pastor, evangelist and administrator until 1971, working mostly in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, and Ohio.

In 1971. C.D. Brooks was asked by General Conference (GC) president Robert Pierson to serve as a field secretary for the Seventh-day Adventist world church, a role he held until 1995, making him the longest tenured field secretary in church history. While serving at the GC, Brooks took on the dual role as speaker/director for the Breath of Life Ministry, a new television ministry of the GC that was produced at the Adventist Media Center in Thousand Oaks, California. Brooks partnered with Walter Arties, Louis B. Reynolds, and the Breath of Life Quartet to produce television programming that reached out to audiences all around the world. As speaker-director of Breath of Life, Brooks took his place among legendary Adventist media revolutionaries such as H.M.S. Richards, George Vandeman, and William Fagal. In 1989 the ministry was broadcast on Black Entertainment Television (BET), and reached a potential audience of more than 90 million people a week.

Brooks was speaker-director of Breath of Life Ministries for 23 years, from 1974 to 1997. In his time at the helm, the ministry brought approximately 15,000 people to Christ, established 15 Breath of Life congregations, and was viewed by untold millions. In 1994 Brooks was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers and Collegium of Scholars at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1996 health challenges forced Brooks to retire from the General Conference and in 1997 he stepped down as speaker-director for Breath of Life. Brooks had a long and productive retirement and in 2007, in honor of E.E. Cleveland, Charles Bradford, and C.D. Brooks, the Bradford-Cleveland-Brooks Leadership Center (BCBLC) was established. The center is housed on the campus of Oakwood University in a 10,000-square-foot, $2.5 million state-of-the-art edifice.

On December 1, 2010, the Ellen G. White Estate elected Brooks a lifetime member of the Ellen G. White Estate Board. The North American Division invited Brooks to be its chaplain in residence in 2013, a position he held until his death.

*****

Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956), a.k.a. "Brownie", was an American jazz trumpeter. He died at the age of 25 in a car accident,^[1] leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Arturo Sandoval and Freddie Hubbard.^{[citation needed]} He was also a composer of note: two of his compositions, "Joy Spring"^[2] and "Daahoud",^[3] have become jazz standards.^[4]

Brown won the Down Beat critics' poll for the "New Star of the Year" in 1954; he was inducted into the Down Beat "Jazz Hall of Fame" in 1972 in the critics' poll.^[1]

Brown was born into a musical family in a progressive East-Side neighborhood of Wilmington, Delaware. His father organized his four youngest sons, including Clifford, into a vocal quartet. Around age ten, Brown started playing trumpet at school after becoming fascinated with the shiny trumpet his father owned. At age thirteen, upon entering senior high, his father bought him his own trumpet and provided him with private lessons. As a junior in high school, he received lessons from Robert Boysie Lowery and played in "a jazz group that Lowery organized." He even began making trips to Philadelphia. Brown took pride in his neighborhood and earned a good education from Howard High.^[5]

Brown briefly attended Delaware State University^[6] as a math major, before he switched to Maryland State College, which was a more prosperous musical environment. As Nick Catalano points out, Brown's trips to Philadelphia grew in frequency after he graduated from high school and entered Delaware State University; it could be said that, although his dorm was in Dover, his classroom was in Philadelphia. Brown played in the fourteen-piece, jazz-oriented, Maryland State Band. In June 1950, he was seriously injured in a car accident after a successful gig. During his year-long hospitalization, Dizzy Gillespie visited the younger trumpeter and pushed him to pursue his musical career.^[7] Brown's injuries limited him to the piano for months; he never fully recovered and would routinely dislocate his shoulder for the rest of his life.^[5] Brown moved into playing music professionally, where he quickly became one of the most highly regarded trumpeters in jazz.^[1]

Brown was influenced and encouraged by Fats Navarro,^[7] sharing Navarro's virtuosic technique and brilliance of invention. His sound was warm and round, and notably consistent across the full range of the instrument. He could articulate every note, even at very fast tempos which seemed to present no difficulty to him; this served to enhance the impression of his speed of execution. His sense of harmony was highly developed, enabling him to deliver bold statements through complex harmonic progressions (chord changes), and embodying the linear, "algebraic" terms of bebop harmony. In addition to his up-tempo prowess, he could express himself deeply in a ballad performance.

His first recordings were with R&B bandleader Chris Powell,^[7] following which he performed with Tadd Dameron, J. J. Johnson, Lionel Hampton, and Art Blakey before forming his own group with Max Roach. The Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet was a high-water mark of the hard bop style, with all the members of the group except for bassist George Morrow contributing original songs. Brown's trumpet was originally partnered with Harold Land's tenor saxophone. After Land left in 1955 in order to spend more time with his wife, Sonny Rollins joined and remained a member of the group for the rest of its existence. In their hands the bebop vernacular reached a peak of inventiveness.^[1]

The clean-living Brown escaped the influence of heroin on the jazz world. Brown stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol.^[1] Rollins, who was recovering from a heroin addiction, said that "Clifford was a profound influence on my personal life. He showed me that it was possible to live a good, clean life and still be a good jazz musician."^[8]

In June 1956, Brown and Richie Powell embarked on a drive to Chicago for their next appearance. Powell's wife Nancy was at the wheel so that Clifford and Richie could sleep. While driving at night in the rain on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, west of Bedford, she is presumed to have lost control of the car, which went off the road. All three were killed in the resulting crash.^[9] Brown is buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery, in Wilmington, Delaware.^[10]

Benny Golson, who had done a stint in Lionel Hampton's band with Brown, and were members of Tadd Dameron's Big 10, wrote "I Remember Clifford" to honor his memory. The piece became a jazz standard, as musicians paid tribute by recording their own interpretations of it.

Duke Pearson who had yet to record for Blue Note records wrote "Tribute To Brownie", which was recorded by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet on his 1957 album, Sophisticated Swing. It also appeared on an album by trumpeter Louis Smith, Here Comes Louis Smith with Cannonball again on alto saxophone.

Helen Merrill, who recorded with Brown in 1954 (Helen Merrill, EmArcy), recorded a tribute album in 1995 entitled Brownie: Homage to Clifford Brown. The album features solos and ensemble work by trumpeters Lew Soloff, Tom Harrell, Wallace Roney, and Roy Hargrove.

Arturo Sandoval's entire second album after fleeing from his native Cuba, entitled I Remember Clifford, was likewise a tribute to Brown.

Each year, Wilmington hosts the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival.

Brownie Speaks, a video documentary, is the culmination of years of research by Wilmington-born jazz pianist Don Glanden, research that has included interviews with Brown's friends, family, contemporaries, and admirers. Glanden's son Brad edited these interviews, along with archival materials and newly shot video footage. The documentary premiered in 2008 at the "Brownie Speaks" Clifford Brown Symposium hosted by The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The three-day symposium featured performances from close friends and bandmates of Brown such as Golson and Lou Donaldson and other artists inspired by Brown, including Marcus Belgrave, Terence Blanchard, and John Fedchock.

Spanish exploitation film director Jesús Franco often used Clifford Brown as a screen pseudonym in homage to one of his musical heroes.

In 1994, Brown's widow, LaRue Brown Watson, established the Clifford Brown Jazz Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to Brown's memory and inspiring a love for jazz among young people. The Foundation is currently^[when?] under the direction of Clifford Brown III, Brown's grandson and a respected Bay Area trumpeter and music producer.

*****

*Cloves Campbell, the first African American elected to the Arizona State Senate, was born in Elizabeth, Louisiana.

Cloves Campbell, Sr. (b. 1930, Elizabeth, Louisiana - d. 2004, Arizona) moved to Arizona in 1945 and earned a bachelor's degree in Education from Arizona State University. Campbell was elected to the Arizona House of Representatives in 1962, and after two terms he became the first African American to be elected to the Arizona State Senate. During his last year in the Senate, Campbell became the first legislator in the United States to introduce a bill calling for a state holiday to honor the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. The bill did not pass, but after two decades of struggle, Arizona approved a King holiday through a ballot measure in 1992. Campbell’s community presence included service as a school board chairman, member of the boards of the Better Business Bureau, the Consumers Council, the YMCA Youth Center, president of the Maricopa County, Arizona NAACP branch, and chairman of NAACP West Coast Region I. During the late 1960s, Cloves Campbell, and his brother Charles Campbell, purchased the Arizona Informant newspaper. Their newspaper was the only organ in Arizona that reported exclusively on issues of interest to the African American community. 

*****

*Jazz singer Betty Carter, popularly known as "Betty Bebop" was born in Flint, Michigan (May 16).

Betty Carter (also known as Lillie Mae Jones, Lorraine Carter, Lorene Carter or Betty Bebop) (b. May 16, 1930, Flint, Michigan - d. September 26, 1998, Brooklyn, New York) was an American jazz singer who is best remembered for the scat and other complex musical interpretations that showcased her remarkable vocal flexibility and musical imagination.

Carter studied piano at the Detroit Conservatory of Music in her native Michigan.  At age 16, she began singing in Detroit jazz clubs, and after 1946, she worked in African American bars and theaters in the Midwest, at first under the name Lorene Carter.  

Influenced by the improvisational nature of bebop and inspired by vocalists Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan.  Carter strove to create a style of her own.  Lionel Hampton asked Carter to join his band in 1948.  However, her insistence on improvising annoyed Hampton and prompted him to fire her seven times in two and a half years.  Carter left Hampton's band for good in 1951 and performed around the country in such jazz clubs as Harlem's Apollo Theater and the Vanguard in New York, the Showboat in Philadelphia, and Blues Alley in Washington, D. C., with such jazz artists as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, and Thelonious Monk.

After touring with Ray Charles from 1960 to 1963 and making a recording of duets with him in 1961, Carter put her career on hold to get married.  Her marriage did not last, however, and she returned to the stage in 1969 backed by a small acoustic ensemble consisting of piano, drums, and bass.  In 1971, she released her first album on her own label, Bet-Car Productions.

Beginning in the 1970s, Carter performed on the college circuit and conducted several jazz workshops.  After appearing at Carnegie Hall as part of the Newport Jazz Festival in 1977 and 1978, she went on concert tours throughout the United States and Europe.  Her solo albums include Betty Carter (1953), Out There (1958), The Modern Sound of Betty Carter (1960), The Audience with Betty Carter (1979), and Look What I Got! (1988), which won a Grammy Award.  Determined to encourage an interest in jazz among younger people, in April 1993 Carter initiated a program she called Jazz Ahead, an annual event at which twenty young jazz musicians spend a week training and composing with her.  In 1997, she was awarded a National Medal of Arts by United States President Bill Clinton.

*****

*Ray Charles, a jazz, soul, and pop singer, was born in Albany, Georgia (September 23).  Blind by the age of six, he would become one of  America's most-beloved performing artists.

Ray Charles (also known as Ray Charles Robinson) (b. September 23, 1930, Albany, Georgia - d. June 10, 2004, Beverly Hills, California) was an pianist, singer, composer, and bandleader, a leading African American entertainer billed as "the Genius."  Charles was credited with the early development of soul music, a style based on a melding of gospel, rhythm and blues, and jazz music. 

When Charles was an infant his family moved to Greenville, Florida, and he began his musical career at age five on a piano in a neighborhood cafe.  He began to go blind at six, possibly from glaucoma, and had completely lost his sight by age seven.  He attended the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind, where he concentrated on musical studies, but left school at age 15 to play the piano professionally after his mother died from cancer (his father had died when the boy was 10).  Charles built a remarkable career based on the immediacy of emotion in his performances.  After emerging as a blues and jazz pianist indebted to Nat King Cole's style in the late 1940s.  Charles recorded the boogie-woogie classic "Mess Around" and the novelty song "It Should've Been Me" in 1952-53. His arrangement for Guitar Slim's "The Things That I Used To Do" became a blues million-seller in 1953.  By 1954, Charles had created a successful combination of blues and gospel influences and signed on with Atlantic Records.  Propelled by Charles' distinctive raspy voice,"I've Got a Woman" and "Hallelujah I Love You So" became hit records.  "What'd I Say" led the rhythm and blues sales charts in 1959 and was Charles' own first million-seller. 

Charles' rhythmic piano playing and band arranging revived the "funky" quality of jazz, but he also recorded in many other musical genres.  He entered the pop market with the best-sellers "Georgia on My Mind" (1960) and "Hit the Road Jack" (1961).  His album Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music (1962) sold more than a million copies, as did its single "I Can't Stop Loving You."  Thereafter, his music emphasized jazz standards and renditions of pop and show tunes.  From 1955, Charles toured extensively in the United States and elsewhere with his own big band nd in gospel-style female backup quartet called the Raeletts.  He also appeared on television and worked in films such as Ballad in Blue (1964) and The Blues Brothers (1980) as a featured act and sound track composer.  He formed his own custom recording labels, Tangerine in 1962 and Crossover Records in 1973.  The recipient of many national and international awards, he received 13 Grammy Awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1987.  In 1986, Charles was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received a Kennedy Center Honor.  He published an autobiography, Brother Ray, Ray Charles' Own Story (1978), written with David Ritz. 

In 2003, Charles had successful hip replacement surgery and was planning to go back on tour, until he began suffering from other ailments. On June 10, 2004, as a result of acute liver disease, Charles died at his home in Los Angeles, California, surrounded by family and friends. He was 73 years old. His funeral took place on June 18, 2004, at the First AME Church in Los Angeles, with musical peers such as Little Richard in attendance.  B. B. King, Glen Campbell, Stevie Wonder and Wynton Marsalis each played a tribute at Charles' funeral. Charles was interred in the Inglewood Park Cemetery. 

Ray Charles Robinson was sometimes referred to as "The Genius".  He pioneered the genre of soul music during the 1950s by combining rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records.  He also contributed to the racial integration of country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records,  most notably with his two Modern Sounds albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company.

Charles was blind from the age of seven. Charles cited Nat King Cole as a primary influence, but his music was also influenced by jazz, blues, rhythm and blues, and country artists of the day, including Art Tatum, Louis Jordan, Charles Brown and Louis Armstrong. Charles' playing reflected influences from country blues, barrelhouse and stride piano styles.  His best friend in music was South Carolina-born James Brown, the "Godfather of Soul".

Frank Sinatra called him "the only true genius in show business", although Charles downplayed this notion. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Charles at number ten on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and number two on their November 2008 list of the "100 Greatest Singers of All Time". 

*****

*Ornette Coleman, the principal initiator and leading exponent of free jazz, was born in Fort Worth, Texas (March 9).

Ornette Coleman (Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman) (b. March 9, 1930, Fort Worth, Texas), was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader who was the principal initiatior and leading exponent of free jazz in the late 1950s.

Coleman began playing alto, then tenor saxophone as a teenager and soon became a working musician in dance bands and rhythm-and-blues groups.  Early in his career, his approach to harmony was already unorthodox and led to his rejection by established musicians in Los Angeles, where he lived for most of the 1950s.  While working as an elevator operator, he studied harmony and played an inexpensive plastic alto saxophone at obscure nightclubs.  Until the, all jazz improvisation had been based on fixed harmonic patterns.  In the "harmolodic theory" that Coleman developed in the 1950s, however, improvisers abandoned harmonic patterns ("chord changes") in order to improvise more extensively and directly upon melodic and expressive elements.  Because the tonal centers of such music changed at the improvisers' will, it became known as "free jazz."

In the late 1950s Coleman formed a group with trumpeter Don Cherry, drummery Billy Higgins, and bassist Charlie Haden, with whom he recorded his first album, Something Else (1958).  His classic recordings, The Shape of Jazz to Come and Change of the Century in 1959 preceded his move that year to New York City, where his radical conception of structure and the urgent emotionality of his improvisations aroused widespread controversy.  His recordings Free Jazz (1960), which used two simultaneously improvising jazz quartets, and Beauty Is a Rare Thing (1961), in which he successfully experimented with free meters and tempos, also proved influential.

In the 1960s, Coleman taught himself to play the violin and trumpet, using unorthodox techniques.  By the 1970s, he was performing only irregularly, preferring instead to compse.  His most notable extended composition is the suite Skies of America, which was recorded in 1972 by the London Symphony Orchestra joined by Coleman on alto saxophone.  Influenced by his experience of improvising with Rif musicians of Morocco in 1973, Coleman formed an electric band called Prime Time, whose music was a fusion of rock rhythms with harmonically free collective improvisations, this band remained his primary performance vehicle until the 1990s.

Coleman's early style influenced not only fellow saxophonists but also players of all other instruments in jazz.  In recognition of such accomplishment, Coleman received the Japan Art Association's Praemium Imperiale prize for music in 2001.  In 2005, with a quartet made up of two acoustic double bass players (one bowing his instrumennt, the other plucking), a drummer, and Coleman himself (playing alto saxophone, trumpet, and violin), he recorded Sound Grammar during a live performance in Italy; the work, which was said to hearken back to his music of the 1960s, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music in 2007. 

Coleman was largely a self-taught musician, although in 1959 he attended the School of Jazz at Lenox, Massachusetts.  Coleman first played with Peewee Cranton's Rhythm and Blues Band in New Orleans.  From 1952 to 1954, he had his own band in Fort Worth, Texas.  He then moved to Los Angeles and made his first recording in Hollywood on also saxophone.  In 1959, he formed his own quartet.  Coleman, a composer as well as a saxophonist, violinist and trumpeter, toured Europe and influenced European jazz.  Though infrequently heard, and with only a few LP's, Coleman is, nevertheless, one of the giants of modern music, and was hailed as the first true innovator since bop. 

*****

*Cardiss Robertson Collins was born in St. Louis, Missouri (September 24).  In 1973, she would be elected to the United States House of Representatives.

Cardiss Hortense Collins, (née Robertson) (b. September 24, 1931, St. Louis, Missouri – d. February 3, 2013, Alexandria, Virginia), was a Democratic politician from Illinois who served in the United States House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. She was the first African American woman to represent the Midwest in Congress. Collins was elected to Congress in the June 5, 1973 special election to replace her husband, George, who had died in the December 8, 1972 United Airlines Flight 553 plane crash. The seat had been renumbered from the 6th district to the 7th when she took the seat. She had previously worked as an accountant in various state government positions.

Throughout her political career, she was a champion for women’s health and welfare issues. In 1975, she was instrumental in prompting the Social Security Administration to revise Medicare regulations to cover the cost of post-mastectomy breast prosthesis, which before then had been considered cosmetic.  In 1979, she was elected as president of the Congressional Black Caucus, a position she used to become an occasional critic of President Jimmy Carter. She later became the caucus vice chairman. In the 1980s, Collins warded off two primary challenges from Alderman Danny K. Davis, who would finally be elected to replace her in 1996. In 1990, Collins, along with 15 other African-American women and men, formed the African-American Women for Reproductive Freedom. In 1991, Collins was named chair of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Her legislative interests were focused on establishing universal health insurance, providing for gender equity in college sports, reforming federal child care facilities. Collins gained a brief national prominence in 1993 as the chairwoman of a congressional committee investigating college sports and as a critic of the NCAA. During her last term (1995–1997), she served as ranking member of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee. She also engaged in an intense debate with Representative Henry Hyde over Medicaid funding of abortion that year. 

Collins did not seek re-election in 1996, citing her age and the Republican majority in the House. In 2004, she was selected by Nielsen Media Research to head a task force examining the representation of African Americans in TV rating samples. Collins lived in Alexandria, Virginia until her death on February 3, 2013, at the age of 81. 

*****

*Lolis Elie, a civil rights lawyer who helped to desegregate New Orleans, was born in New Orleans (January 9).

Lolis Elie (b. January 9, 1930, New Orleans, Louisiana - d. April 4, 2017, New Orleans, Louisiana) attended Howard University and Dillard University, and later graduated 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 to represent CORE after a sit-in campaign.  Elie and his firm defended CORE chapter President Rudy Lombard and three others who were arrested for stagmg a sit-in protest at the lunch counter of the McCrory Five and Ten Cent Store in New Orleans.  They appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court which, in its decision, declared the city's ban on sit-ins unconstitutional.  Elie's firm also provided free legal counsel to the Consumers' League, a group of black civil rights activists who protested discriminatory employment 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 white attorney Al Bronstein.  The pair argued civil rights cases and also established a training program for new black lawyers.

*****

*Playwright Lorraine Hansberry, the author of A Raisin in the Sun, was born in Chicago (May 19),

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (b. May 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois – d. January 12, 1965, New York City, New York) was an American playwright and writer. Hansberry inspired Nina Simone's song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black". 

She was the first black woman to write a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun,  highlights the lives of African Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.  The title of her most famous play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"

After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she dealt with intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois.  Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggle for liberation and their impact on the world. Hansberry has been identified as a lesbian, and sexual freedom is an important topic in several of her works. She died of cancer at the age of 34.

Lorraine Hansberry was born in a comfortable, middle-class family in Chicago, and was educated at the University of Wisconsisn  and Roosevelt University.  She first appeared in print in Paul Robeson's Freedom, a monthly newspaper, during the early 1950's.  In 1959, A Raisin in the Sun, her first play, was produced on Broadway.  It was among the first full-length African American plays to be taken seriously by a European American audience.  

The success of A Raisin in the Sun catapulted Hansberry to an early fame.  She was expected to be a spokesperson for the African American poor, when in fact she was more attuned to the aspirations of the African American bourgeoisie.  Hansberry was very militant about integration and not supportive of black nationalist or separatist movements.

*****

*Pat Hare, a blues guitarist and singer, was born in Cherry Valley, Arkansas (December 20).

Auburn "Pat" Hare (b. December 20, 1930, Cherry Valley, Arkansas - d. September 26, 1980, St. Paul, Minnesota), was a Memphis electric blues guitarist and singer.  His heavily distorted, power chord-driven electric guitar music in the early 1950s is considered an important precursor to heavy metal music.  His guitar work with Little Junior's Blue Flames had a major influence on the rockabilly style, while his guitar playing on blues records by artists such as Muddy Waters was influential among 1960s British Invasion blues rock bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds. 

Hare was born in Cherry Valley, Arkansas.  He recorded at the Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, serving as a sideman for Howlin' Wolf, James Cotton, Muddy Waters, Bobby Bland and other artists. Hare was one of the first guitarists to purposely use the effects of distortion in his playing.

In 1951, he joined a blues band formed by Junior Parker, called Little Junior's Blue Flames. He played the electric guitar solo on "Love My Baby" (1953), which later inspired the rockabilly style. One of their biggest hits was "Next Time You See Me," which in 1957 reached #5 on the Billboard R&B charts and #74 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

His guitar solo on James Cotton's electric blues record "Cotton Crop Blues" (1954) was the first record to use heavily distorted power chords, anticipating elements of heavy metal music. 

Reported to have been an unassuming man in private (once married to Dorothy Mae Good, with whom he had three children — a son and two daughters), Hare had serious, and ultimately fatal, drinking problems.  In December 1963, Hare shot his girlfriend dead and also shot a policeman who came to investigate. At the time of his arrest, he was playing in the blues band of Muddy Waters. He was replaced in the band by guitarist James "Pee Wee" Madison.  Hare spent the last 16 years of his life in prison, where he formed a band named Sounds Incarcerated. Hare succumbed to lung cancer in prison, and died on September 26, 1980 in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

*****

*Odetta, the folksinger and activist known as the "Voice of the Civil Rights Movement" was born in Birmingham, Alabama (December 31). 

Odetta (also known as Odetta Holmes) (b. December 31, 1930, Birmingham, Alabama - d. December 2, 2008, New York, New York) was a folk singer who was noted especially for her versions of spirituals and who became for many the voice of the civil rights movement of the early 1960s.

After her father's death in 1937, Odetta moved with her mother to Los Angeles.  She began classical voice training at age 13, and she earned a degree in classicl music from Los Angeles City College.  Though she had heard the music of the Deep South as a child.  It was not until 1950, on a trip to San Francisco, that she began to appreciate and participate in the emergent folk scene.  She soon learned to play, the guitar and began to perform traditional songs.  Her distinctive blend of folk, blues, ballads, and spirituals was powered by her rich vocal style, wide range, and deep passion.  Within a few years her career took off.  In the early 1950s, she moved to New York City, where she met singers Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, who became loyal supporters.  Her debut solo recording, Odetta Sings Ballads and Blues (1956), was soon followed by At the Gate of Horn (1957).  Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan later said that hear Odetta on record "turned me on to folk singing."  She performed at the Newport (Rhode Island) Folk Festival four times during 1959-65, and she subsequently appeared on television and in several films.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Odetta continued to record as a leading folk musician -- although recordings did not do her performances justice.  Her music and her politics suited the growing civil rights movement, and in 1963, she sang at the historic March on Washington led by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.  Inevitably, as the movement waned and interest in folk music declined, Odetta's following shrank, although she continued to perform.  In 1999, President Bill Clinton awarded her the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given in the arts in the United States, and in 2003 she was named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress.

*****

*Katherine Jackson, the matriarch of the Jackson musical family, was born in Clayton, Alabama. 

Katherine Esther Jackson (nee Scruse; b. Kattie B. Screws, May 4, 1930, Clayton, Alabama) was born Kattie B. Screws in Clayton, Alabama, to Martha (née Upshaw; December 14, 1907 – April 25, 1990) and Prince Albert Screws (October 16, 1907 – January 21, 1997). When Jackson was four, her father changed his surname to "Scruse", and renamed his daughter to Katherine Esther. The eldest of two daughters, Katherine contracted polio at two but survived the disease. Effects of the disease left her with a noticeable permanent limp.

At four, Katherine's family moved to East Chicago, Indiana, an industrial city in northwest Indiana near Chicago.  As a child, Katherine aspired to become an actress or country singer, but was dismayed to find that there were no notable black country stars. Katherine's parents divorced when she was still a youngster. While attending Washington High School, Katherine joined the local high school band. In 1947, Katherine met Joseph Jackson also living in East Chicago. Joseph obtained an annulment of an earlier marriage and began dating Katherine. After a year-long courtship, they married on November 5, 1949. In January 1950, they purchased a two-bedroom house in Gary, Indiana.  During the couple's early years, they sang together, with Joe playing guitar. After Joe's dream of a boxing career was dashed, he continued working at nearby East Chicago's Inland Steel Company.  During the 1950s, until 1966, Katherine gave birth to ten children, including a pair of twins, Marlon and Brandon, the latter of whom died a few hours after birth.

In the late 1950s, Katherine began working part-time as a store clerk in a local Sears in Gary. In 1963, Katherine, who was raised a Baptist, joined the Jehovah's Witness faith.  After her conversion in 1965, all of her children followed her into the faith. While Joe, who was brought up in the Lutheran faith, also practiced the religion, he decided not to convert. As Katherine's brood grew, she quit her position at Sears and settled primarily as a housewife, keeping her children closer to home. By the early 1960s, several of Katherine's sons began to show off their musical talents. In 1963, Joe formed The Jackson Brothers with three of their eldest sons, namely Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine. Around the same time, Katherine's younger son Michael began showing off his talent, which was discovered first by Katherine, who noticed Michael, at the age of four, singing along to the radio while dancing to the rhythm. But when she tried to tell Joe of Michael's talent, he brushed her aside. But Katherine persisted.

A year later, Joe enlisted Michael and older brother Marlon Jackson into the group not as vocalists, but as backing instrumentalists, playing percussion. It would not be until 1966 that Joe began to see seven-year-old Michael's overall talents. By the end of 1966, Michael was positioned as the second front man of the group after Jermaine. Acting on advice from a schoolteacher, Joe changed the group's name to The Jackson Five. In 1967, after winning several talent shows in Gary, Joe Jackson decided to make the group a professional act when Gordon Keith an owner and producer at Gary's Steeltown Records, discovered and signed them to their first contract on November 21. Their first single, "Big Boy", produced by Keith, was released on January 31, 1968 and became a local hit. Katherine began designing the group's costumes, which she continued until the group found national fame months after signing with Motown Records in March 1969. During the Jackson 5's 1970-71 heyday, Katherine - along with her three daughters and youngest son - was barely mentioned in the press. This changed in 1974 when Joe began building careers around his three younger children and eldest daughter. Michael often mentioned Katherine lovingly. Katherine started to become part of her husband's management team when the grown-up members of the group (which renamed themselves The Jacksons after splitting from Motown in 1975) reunited for the Victory Tour in 1984. On his 1982 album, Thriller, Michael dedicated the album to her. Janet Jackson would do the same following the release of her 1989 album, Rhythm Nation 1814, the first album where she wasn't under the watchful eye of her father following the success of Control, and after Janet had fired Joe months after its release. In 1985, acknowledging what was then a positive impact on her children's successful music careers, national urban magazine Essence honored her as "Mother of the Year".

In 1990, Jackson released her autobiography, My Family, which documented her early years and her relationship with her husband and their children, eight of whom wrote salutes to their mother in the book's foreword. She detailed that her husband on more than a few occasions had committed adultery. These infidelities prompted Katherine to file for divorce on March 9, 1973, although she was finally convinced to rescind the divorce papers at the urging of elders at her Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall.

The following year, Joh'Vonnie Jackson, Joe's daughter with another woman named Cheryl Terrell was born on August 30, 1974. The birth of Joh'Vonnie, led Joe and Cheryl to a 25-year affair.  Jackson attempted once again to divorce her husband in or around 1979, but again was persuaded to drop the action. Consequently, Katherine and Joe remained officially married.

In an unauthorized biography of Janet Jackson, a confrontational family incident was described. This biography claims that, in 1979, Katherine and her two youngest children, Randy and Janet, confronted a woman who worked for Joseph's company, whom Katherine had often reportedly accused of cheating with Joseph. That incident was re-dramatized for the 1992 miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream. However, in the miniseries, Katherine was shown confronting Joseph instead of the woman about the alleged incident.

In the late 1980s, Katherine began experiencing an estrangement with her daughter La Toya after she was being managed by  Jack Gordon.  In her 1991 memoirs, La Toya: Growing Up in the Jackson Family,  La Toya alleged that Katherine was emotionally abusive, charges Katherine denied to the press and blamed Gordon, who married La Toya in 1989, for "brainwashing" her. In 1997, La Toya and Katherine reconciled after she filed for divorce from Gordon.

Katherine was portrayed by Angela Bassett in the 1992 miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream. Patricia Idlette portrayed her in the 2004 film Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story.

On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died from an overdose of propofol at the hands of his personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray. Katherine, along with the rest of her family, attended his memorial on July 7, 2009. On June 29, 2009, Jackson was granted temporary guardianship of Michael's three children: Prince, Paris, and Blanket. Court documents indicated that she was also seeking control over the three children's interests in their late father's estate. Although Debbie Rowe, the biological mother of Michael's two oldest children, had not seen or interacted with the children for years; on July 4, 2009, she petitioned the courts for custody of her children. On July 30, 2009, Jackson and Debbie Rowe reached a settlement pertaining to the care of Michael's children allowing Prince, Paris, and Blanket to be raised by Katherine with Rowe having visitation rights and continuing to receive the yearly payments to which Michael had agreed.

On August 3, 2009, the judge named Jackson as the children's permanent guardian. On July 25, 2012, Jackson's guardianship of the children was suspended by the court amid allegations that she may have been held against her will by several Jackson family members as a result of a financial dispute between those family members and the Michael Jackson Estate. Guardianship of the children was temporarily given to Michael's nephew TJ Jackson, one of Tito's sons. The guardianship resumed with TJ Jackson added as a co-guardian.

10 children, 7 sons and 3 daughters were born to Katherine and Joe Jackson:
Maureen Reillette "Rebbie" Jackson (born May 29, 1950)
Sigmund Esco "Jackie" Jackson (born May 4, 1951)
Toriano Adaryll "Tito" Jackson(born October 15, 1953)
Jermaine La Jaune Jackson (born December 11, 1954)
La Toya Yvonne Jackson (born May 29, 1956)
Marlon David Jackson (born March 12, 1957)
Brandon Jackson (March 12, 1957 - March 13, 1957)
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009)
Steven Randall "Randy" Jackson (born October 29, 1961)
Janet Damita Jo Jackson (born May 16, 1966)

*****

*Ahmad Jamal,  (b. Frederick Russell Jones), an American jazz pianist known for his rendition of But Not ForMe, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (July 2). 

Ahmad Jamal began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does," he said in 2001) and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen, at which point he was recognized as a "coming great" by the pianist Art Tatum. 

Born to Baptist parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jamal did not discover Islam until his early 20s. While touring in Detroit (where there was a sizable Muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s), Jamal became interested in Islam and Islamic culture. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950. In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, Jamal said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to "re-establish my original name." In 1986, Jamal sued critic Leonard Feather for using his former name in a publication.

After the recording of the best-selling album But Not For Me, Jamal's music grew in popularity throughout the 1950s. In 1959, he took a tour of North Africa to explore investment options in Africa. Jamal, who was twenty-nine at the time, said he had a curiosity about the homeland of his ancestors, highly influenced by his conversion to the Muslim faith. He also said his religion had brought him peace of mind about his race, which accounted for his "growth in the field of music that has proved very lucrative for me."

Upon his return to the United States after a tour of North Africa, the financial success of Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club called The Alhambra in Chicago. In 1962, The Three Strings disbanded and Jamal moved to New York City, where, at the age of 32, he took a three-year hiatus from his musical career.

In 1964, Jamal resumed touring and recording, this time with the bassist Jamil Nasser and recorded a new album, Extensions, in 1965. Jamal and Nasser continued to play and record together from 1964 to 1972. He also joined forces with Vernel Fournier (again, but only for about a year) and drummer Frank Gant (1966–76), among others. He continued to play throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in trios with piano, bass and drums, but he occasionally expanded the group to include guitar. One of his most long-standing gigs was as the band for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Blues Alley in Washington, D. C., from 1979 through the 1990s. Until 1970, he played acoustic piano exclusively. The final album on which he played acoustic piano in the regular sequence was The Awakening. In the 1970s, Jamal played electric piano as well. It was rumored that the Rhodes piano was a gift from someone in Switzerland.

In 1985, Jamal agreed to do an interview and recording session with his fellow jazz pianist, Marian McPartland on her NPR show Piano Jazz. Jamal, who said he rarely plays "But Not For Me" due to its popularity since his 1958 recording, played an improvised version of the tune – though only after noting that he has moved on to making ninety percent of his repertoire his own compositions. He said that when he grew in popularity from the Live at the Pershing album, he was severely criticized afterwards for not playing any of his own compositions.

In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts.  The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet. 

In 2007 the French Government inducted Mr. Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.   

Mr. Jamal’s previous recording A Quiet Time (Dreyfus Records), released in January 2010, was the number No. 1 CD on jazz radio for the year 2010.  Also this year the French Jazz Academy has voted "The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-1962" released by Mosaïc "Best reissue of the year with outstanding research work".  His music remains, youthful, fresh, imaginative and always influential.  
 
In December of 2011, Mr. Jamal was awarded with DownBeat’s 76th Reader’s Poll Hall of Fame.  

*****

*Jerry Donal Jewell, the first African American to serve as governor of Arkansas, was born in Chatfield, Arkansas (September 16).  A dentist who was the president pro tem of the state senate, Jewell held the post of Governor of Arkansas for three days, as Governor Jim Guy Tucker attended the Presidential inauguration of former Governor Bill Clinton.

Jerry Donal Jewell (b. September 16, 1930, Chatfield, Arkansas - d. August 17, 2002, Little Rock, Arkansas) was the first African American to serve in the Arkansas Senate in the twentieth century.  He was also Arkansas' first ever African American acting governor, albeit for only a temporary four day period during Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration in 1993.  Jewell moved his dental practice from North Little Rock (Pulaski County) to Little Rock (Pulaski County) in 1978, where he continued to work during his political career and up until his death in 2002.
Jewell was born on September 16, 1930, in Chatfield (Crittenden County).  His parents, James M. Jewell and Ruth Lee Taylor Jewell, who were both sharecroppers, came from Mississippi.  He had four sisters, only two of who survived past infancy.  Around 1936, Jewell and his family moved to West Memphis (Crittenden County), where his father worked for a while for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and then an oil company.
While growing up in West Memphis, Jewell attended segregated schools in two different districts.  He then attended a boarding school in west Tennessee, where he completed his high school education.  He made the honor roll at all of the schools and was active in sports teams. 
In 1949, Jewell attended the Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (AM&N) in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County), now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB).  He majored in pre-medical and pre-dental.  Jewell then studied dentistry at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in 1957.  He then joined the Army Dental Corps and served in Texas and Missouri for two years.  Jewell married Ometa Payne.  They had five children.
In 1959, Jewell moved to North Little Rock, where he set up a dental practice.  The practice was later relocated to Little Rock.  The same year, Jewell became a member of the Little Rock branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).  In 1963, he became branch president, taking over from the Reverend J. C. Crenchaw.  Jewell held the office until 1967.  In 1965, Jewell became president of the NAACP Arkansas State Conference of branches.
Jewell was elected to the Arkansas Senate in 1972, making him the first African American state senator in the twentieth century. He was a member of the Senate until 1994.  During his Senate career, Jewell served as chair and vice chair of the Legislative Affairs Committee, chair of the Agricultural Economic Development Committee, chair of the Retirement Committee, chair of the Education Committee, and vice chair of the Insurance and Commerce Committee.  He also served on the Energy Committee.  In 1992, Jewel was elected president pro tempore of the Arkansas Senate.  In that capacity, when Governor Jim Guy Tucker went to Washington, D. C. to attend President Bill Clinton's inauguration in January 1993, Jewell became acting governor of Arkansas from Sunday, January 17, at 7:00 a.m. until Wednesday, January 21, at 4:00 p.m. (there being no lieutenant governor since Tucker assumed the office of governor upon Clinton's election to the presidency).  He was the first African American ever to hold that position.
However, the four days were not without controversy.  Jewell pardoned two convicts and extended clemency to three others.  The most notable of those pardons was that of Tommy McIntosh, the son of Robert "Say" McIntosh, who was convicted in 1987 of cocaine possession and intent to distribute, and sentenced to fifty years in prison and a fine of $250,000.  Upon release, Tommy McIntosh failed to make his monthly payments, paying less than $4,000 of his fine before it was canceled in 2003.  Many believe that Jewell lost his Senate seat in the 1994 Democratic primary elections to Bill Walker in part because of these pardons.
Jerry Jewell died on August 17, 2002.  

*****

*Leslie Lee, a Tony Award-nominated playwright, was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania (November 6).

Leslie Lee (b. November 6, 1930, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania - d. January 20, 2014, New York City)was a Tony Award-nominated playwright.

Leslie Lee was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on November 6, 1930. He was Executive Director of the Negro Ensemble Company and a founding artist of La Mama E.T.C. He was also Signature Theatre's Playwright-in-Residence during the 2008-2009 Season celebrating the Historic Negro Ensemble Company. His plays have been produced both on and off Broadway, and he wrote extensively for film and television.

After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology and English from The University of Pennsylvania, Lee worked for several years in cancer research at Wyeth Laboratories in Villanova, Pennsylvania. He earned his Master of Arts degree in Theatre from Villanova University.

Lee taught for The Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing Program at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, MiddleSex Community College, Hunter College, Wesleyan College, Rutgers University, The New School University, Goddard College, The Negro Ensemble Company, and The Frederick Douglas Playwriting Workshop. In 2008, the U.S. Department of State sent Lee as a Cultural Envoy to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to teach Playwriting at the Intwasa Arts Festival.

Lee's acclaimed play The First Breeze of Summer, directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson and starring Leslie Uggams, enjoyed a successful revival in 2008 at Signature Theatre, winning nine Audelco Awards. The First Breeze of Summer was originally produced by the Negro Ensemble Company and went on to win an Obie Award for Best New American Play as well as an Outer Critics Circle Award. Subsequently, the play moved to the Palace Theatre on Broadway, where it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. Many of his plays have been produced by the Negro Ensemble Company, the Black Rep in St. Louis, and Crossroads Theatre Company in New Jersey. His plays include The War Party, Colored People's Time, Blues in a Broken Tongue, The Rabbit's Foot, Black Eagles, Elegy to a Down Queen, Cops and Robbers, Hannah Davis, The Ninth Wave, The Book of Lambert, Mina, Sundown Names and Night-Gone Things and the musicals Golden Boy with songs by Charles Strouse and Lee Adams, and Phillis with Micki Grant. His new musical Before The Dream, written with Charles Strouse, had a recent reading in New York.

Lee's television and film work includes The Vernon Johns Story, with James Earl Jones and Mary Alice; Two Mothers, Two Sons; The Killing Floor, with Alfre Woodard and Moses Gunn; and adaptations of Richard Wright's short story Almos' A Man, with LeVar Burton, and The First Breeze of Summer. His documentary work includes Langston Hughes, the Dreamkeeper; The Massachusetts Fifty-Fourth Regiment; Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey; and Culture Shock: Huckleberry Finn.

Leslie Lee passed away at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York City due to complications from congestive heart failure on January 20, 2014, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as he was making final revisions to his musical about King (written in collaboration with Charles Strouse).

*****

*Abbey Lincoln (b. Anna Marie Wooldridge, August 6, 1930, Chicago, Illinois –  d, August 14, 2010, New York City, New York), was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress, who wrote and performed her own compositions. She was a civil rights advocate during the 1960s.  

Anna Marie Wooldridge (b. August 6, 1930, Chicago, Illinois – d. August 14, 2010, New York City, New York), known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was born in Chicago but raised in Calvin Center, Cass County, Michigan, Lincoln was one of many singers influenced by Billie Holiday.  She often visited the Blue Note jazz club in New York City. Her debut album, Abbey Lincoln's Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love, was followed by a series of albums for Riverside Records.  In 1960 she sang on Max Roach's landmark civil rights-themed recording, We Insist! Lincoln’s lyrics were often connected to the civil rights movement in America.

During the 1980s, Lincoln’s creative output was smaller and she released only a few albums during that decade. Her song "For All We Know" is featured in the 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy.  During the 1990s and until her death, however, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records. After a tour of Africa in the mid-1970s, she adopted the name Aminata Moseka. 

The Verve Records albums are highly regarded and represent a crowning achievement in Lincoln’s career. Devil’s Got Your Tongue (1992) featured Rodney Kendrick, Grady Tate, J. J. Johnson, Stanley Turrentine, Babatunde Olatunji and The Staple Singers, among others. In 2003, Lincoln received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.  In 1956 Lincoln appeared in The Girl Can't Help It,  for which she wore a dress that had been worn by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and interpreted the theme song, working with Benny Carter. She also played a dancing housekeeper in the film.

With Ivan Dixon, she co-starred in Nothing But a Man (1964), an independent film written and directed by Michael Roemer.  In 1968 she also co-starred with Sidney Poitier and Beau Bridges in For Love of Ivy, and received a 1969 Golden Globe nomination for her appearance in the film.

Television appearances began in 1968 with The Name of the Game.  In March 1969 for WGBH-TV Boston,  in one episode of a 10-episode series of individual dramas written, produced and performed by blacks, "On Being Black," was her work in Alice Childess' Wine in the Wilderness. She later appeared in Mission: Impossible (1971), the telemovie Short Walk to Daylight (1972),  Marcus Welby, M. D. (1974), and All in the Family (1978).

In the 1990 Spike Lee movie Mo' Better Blues, Lincoln played the young Bleek's mother, Lillian.  Lincoln was married from 1962 to 1970 to drummer Max Roach, whose daughter from a previous marriage, Maxine, appeared on several of Lincoln’s albums.

Lincoln died on August 14, 2010 in Manhattan, eight days after her 80th birthday.

*****

*Eddie Locke (b. .August 2, 1930 – d. September 7, 2009, Ramsey, New Jersey), a jazz drummer who became a member of the Coleman Hawkins Quartet in the 1960s, was born.

Eddie Locke was a part of the fertile and vibrant Detroit jazz scene during the 1940s and 1950s, which brought forth many great musicians including the Jones brothers (Hank, Thad, and Elvin), Kenny Burrell, Lucky Thompson, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris,  and so many others. Locke eventually formed a variety act with drummer Oliver Jackson called Bop & Locke which played the Apollo Theater. He moved to New York City in 1954, and worked there with Dick Wellstood, Tony Parenti, Red Allen, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Teddy Wilson amongst others. During this time he came under the tutelage of the great Jo Jones, and eventually became known as a driving and swinging drummer who kept solid time and supported the soloist. During the late 1950s he formed two of his most fruitful musical relationships, one with Roy Eldridge, and the other with Coleman Hawkins.  His recording debut came with Eldridge in 1959 on "On The Town". He later became a member of the Coleman Hawkins Quartet in the 1960s along with pianist Tommy Flanagan and bassist Major Holley.  That group made many fine records including the exquisite album "Today and Now", in 1963. Throughout the 1970s, he played with Roy Eldridge at Jimmy Ryan's in Manhattan, and wound out his career freelancing, as well as teaching youngsters at the Trevor Day School on Manhattan's upper west side.

Eddie died on Monday morning, September 7, 2009, in Ramsey, New Jersey.

*****

*Frank Lucas, a former heroin dealer, who operated in Harlem during the late 1960s and early 1970s, was born in La Grange, North Carolina (September 9). He was particularly known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly from his source in the Golden Triangle.  Rather than hide the drugs in the coffins, Lucas hid drugs in the pallets underneath the coffins of dead American servicemen as depicted in the 2007 feature film American Gangster in which Lucas was played by Denzel Washington, although the film fictionalized elements of Lucas' life for dramatic effect.

Frank Lucas (b. September 9, 1930, La Grange, North Carolina) raised in Greensboro, North Carolina.  He was the son of Mahalee (née Jones 1909-2003) and Fred Lucas. He drifted through a life of petty crime until one particular occasion when, after a fight with a former employer, he fled to New York on the advice of his mother. In Harlem, he indulged in petty crime and pool hustling before he was taken under the wing of gangster Bumpy Johnson. 

After Johnson's death, Lucas traveled around and came to the realization that, to be successful, he would have to break the monopoly that the Italian Mafia held in New York. Traveling to Bangkok, Thailand, he eventually made his way to Jack's American Star Bar, an R&R hangout for black soldiers.  It was here that he met former United States Army Sergeant Leslie "Ike" Atkinson, a country boy from Goldsboro, North Carolina, who happened to be married to one of Lucas' cousins.

Atkinson, nicknamed "Sergeant Smack" by the Drug Enforcement Administration, shipped drugs in furniture, not caskets. Whatever method he used, Lucas smuggled the drugs into the country with this direct link from Asia.

Lucas only trusted relatives and close friends from North Carolina to handle his various heroin operations. Lucas thought relatives and close friends were less likely to steal from him and be tempted by various vices in the big city. His product -- his heroin -- "Blue Magic", was 98–100% pure when shipped from Thailand and, by selling it, enabled Lucas to accumulate over $50 million.

The huge profit margin from his drug trade allowed Lucas to buy property all over the country, including office buildings in Detroit, and apartments in Los Angeles and Miami.  He also bought a several-thousand-acre ranch in North Carolina on which he ranged 300 head of Black Angus cattle, including a breeding bull worth $125,000.

Lucas rubbed shoulders with the elite of the entertainment, politics, and crime worlds. Though he owned several mink and chinchilla coats and other accessories, Lucas much preferred to dress casually and corporately so as not to attract attention to himself. When he was arrested in the mid-1970s, all of Lucas' assets were seized.

In January 1975, Lucas' house in Teaneck, New Jersey, was raided by a task force consisting of 10 agents from Group 22 of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and 10 New York Police Department detectives attached to the Organized Crime Control Bureau (OCCB). In his house authorities found $584,683 in cash. He was later convicted of both federal and New Jersey state drug violations. The following year he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Once convicted, Lucas provided evidence that led to more than 100 further drug-related convictions. For his safety, in 1977, Lucas and his family were placed in the witness protection program. In 1981, after 5 years in custody, his 40-year Federal term and 30-year state term were reduced to time served plus lifetime parole. In 1984, he was caught and convicted of trying to exchange one ounce of heroin and $13,000 for one kilogram of cocaine. He was defended by his former prosecutor Richie Roberts and received a sentence of seven years. He was released from prison in 1991.

Lucas married Julianna Farrait, a homecoming queen from Puerto Rico. The two often bought each other expensive gifts, including a coat for which she paid $125,000 and a matching hat for which she paid $40,000 cash.

Farrait was also jailed for her role in her husband's criminal enterprise, and spent five years behind bars. After she came out of prison they lived separately for some years, and Farrait moved back to Puerto Rico. However, they reconciled in 2006 and were married for more than 40 years.

*****

*Jazz trumpeter Richard "Blue" Mitchell was born in Miami, Florida (March 13).

Richard Allen (Blue) Mitchell (March 13, 1930 – May 21, 1979) was an American jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, rock, and funk trumpeter, known for many albums recorded as leader and sideman on Blue Note Records. 

Mitchell was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He began playing trumpet in high school where he acquired his nickname, Blue. 

After high school he played in the rhythm and blues ensembles of Paul Williams, Earl Bostic, and Chuck Willis. After returning to Miami he was noticed by Cannonball Adderley, with whom he recorded for Riverside Records in New York in 1958. He then joined the Horace Silver Quintet playing with tenor Junior Cook, bassist Gene Taylor and drummer Roy Brooks. Mitchell stayed with Silver’s group until the band’s break-up in 1964. After the Silver quintet disbanded, Mitchell formed a group employing members from the Silver quintet substituting the young pianist Chick Corea for Silver and replacing a then sick Brooks with drummer Al Foster. This group produced a number of records for Blue Note disbanding in 1969, after which Mitchell joined and toured with Ray Charles until 1971. From 1971 to 1973 Mitchell performed with John Mayall on Jazz Blues Fusion. From the mid – 70s he recorded, and worked as a session man, performed with the big band leaders Louie Bellson, Bill Holman and Bill Berry and was principal soloist for Tony Bennett and Lena Horne. Other band leaders Mitchell recorded with include Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Philly Joe Jones, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Al Cohn, Dexter Gordon and Jimmy Smith. Blue Mitchell kept his hard-bop playing going with the Harold Land quintet up until his death from cancer on May 21, 1979, in Los Angeles, at the age of 49.

*****

*Clarence Pendleton, Jr. was born in Louisville, Kentucky (November 10).  Pendleton would become the first African American chairperson of the United States Civil Rights Commission in 1981.

Clarence McClane Pendleton, Jr. (November 10, 1930 - June 5, 1988), was the politically conservative African American chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a position that he held from 1981 until his death during the administration of United States President Ronald W. Reagan. 

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Pendleton was raised in Washington, D. C., where he graduated from historically black Dunbar High School and then Howard University, where his father was the first swimming coach at the institution. After high school, Pendleton like his grandfather and father before him, enrolled at Howard, where in 1954 he earned a Bachelor of Science degree. After a three-year tour of duty in the United States Army during the Cold War, Pendleton returned to Howard, where he was on the physical education faculty and pursued his master's degree in education. Pendleton succeeded his father as the Howard swimming coach, and his teams procured ten championships in eleven years. He also coached rowing, football, and baseball at Howard.

From 1968 to 1970, Pendleton was the recreation coordinator under the Model Cities Program in Baltimore, Maryland.  In 1970, he was named director of the urban affairs department of the National Recreation and Park Association.  In 1972, then San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson, later a United States Senator and Governor California, recruited Pendleton to head the Model Cities program in San Diego, California.  In 1975, Pendleton was named director of the San Diego branch of the National Urban League. 

A former liberal Democrat, Pendleton switched to the Republican Party in 1980 and supported Reagan for President. Pendleton claimed that minorities had become dependent on government social programs which create a cycle of dependence. African Americans, he said, should build strong relations with the private sector and end ties to liberal bureaucrats and philosophies.

In his first year in office (on November 16, 1981), President Reagan named Pendleton to replace the liberal Republican commission chairman, Arthur Sherwood Flemming, who had been the United States Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during the final years of the Eisenhower administration. The Republican-majority U.S. Senate approved the nomination, and Pendleton became the first black chairman of the commission. He supported the Reagan social agenda and hence came into conflict with long-established civil rights positions.  He opposed the use of cross-town school busing to bring about racial balance among pupils. He challenged the need for affirmative action policies because he claimed that African Americans could succeed without special consideration being written into law. Pendleton was as outspoken on the political right as was the later Democratic chairman Mary Frances Berry on the left. Pendleton made headlines for saying black civil rights leaders were "the new racists" because they advocated affirmative action, racial quotas, and set-asides. He likened the feminist issue of equal pay for equal work, written into law in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, to be "like reparations for white women."

Pendleton denounced the feminist concept of comparable worth in the establishment of male and female pay scales as "probably the looniest idea since Looney Tunes came on the screen." The headlines from his remarks dominated and distorted the debate over the issue.

Under the Pendleton chairmanship, congressional funding for the agency was reduced. This prompted some staff members either to lose their positions or to leave the agency in discouragement. Pendleton was considered ascerbic by his liberal critics. William Bradford Reynolds, Reagan's Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, described his friend Pendleton as "a man of candor who felt very deeply that the individuals in America should deal with one another as brothers and sisters totally without regard to race and background."

On December 23, 1983, with two Democratic members named by the House dissenting, Pendleton was re-elected to a second term as commission chairman. 

Under Pendleton's tenure, the commission was split by an internal debate over fundamental principles of equality under the law. The commission narrowed the description of legal and political rights at the expense of social and economic claims. The debate centered principally between Pendleton and Mary Frances Berry, an original appointee of President Jimmy Carter. Democrat Morris B. Abram, also a Reagan appointee, was vice chairman under Pendleton. He described "an intellectual sea change" at the agency with the conservative view dominant at that time. Authorized under the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the commission was reconstituted by a 1983 law of Congress after Reagan dismissed three commissioners critical of his policies.

On June 5, 1988, Pendleton collapsed while working out at the San Diego Hilton Tennis Club. He died an hour later of a heart attack at a hospital.  A memorial bench dedicated in Pendleton's honor is located in the De Anza Cove section of Mission Bay Park in San Diego.

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*Edward Melvin Porter, the first African American elected to the Oklahoma state senate and the co-owner and publisher of Black Voices magazine, was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma (May 22).

Edward Melvin Porter (b. May 22, 1930, Okmulgee, Oklahoma – d. July 26, 2016, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) was an American lawyer, politician, and civil rights activist in the state of Oklahoma.  Porter attended Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, and Shorter College. He passed the Oklahoma Bar examination in 1960. A lawyer, Porter was married twice and had seven children. In 1961, Porter served as president of the Oklahoma City National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

After an unsuccessful campaign for a seat in the State House in 1962, Porter was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 1964 to serve the newly redrawn district 48. He was the first African American to sit in the Oklahoma State Senate. He served until 1987. Porter died on July 26, 2016 at his home in Oklahoma City.

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*Charles Rangel, a New York Congressman, was born in New York City (June 11).

Charles Bernard "Charlie" Rangel (b. June 11, 1930), the United States Representative for New York's 13th Congressional District. Rangel was the first African American Chair of the influential House Ways and Means Committee.  He was also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus. 

Rangel was born in Harlem in New York City. He earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for his service in the United States Army during the Korean War, where he led a group of soldiers out of a deadly Chinese army encirclement during the Battle of Kunu-ri in 1950. Rangel graduated from New York University in 1957 and St. John's University School of Law in 1960. He then worked as a private lawyer, Assistant United States Attorney, and legal counsel during the early-mid-1960s. He served two terms in the New York State Assembly, from 1967 to 1971, and then defeated long-time incumbent Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. in a primary challenge on his way to being elected to the House of Representatives.  

Once there, Rangel rose rapidly in the Democratic ranks, combining solidly liberal views with a pragmatic approach towards finding political and legislative compromises. His long-time concerns with battling the importation and effects of illegal drugs led to his becoming chair of the House Select Committee on Narcotics, where he helped define national policy on the issue during the 1980s. As one of Harlem's "Gang of Four", he also became a leader in New York City and State politics. He played a significant role in the creation of the 1995 Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corporation and the national Empowerment Zone Act, which helped change the economic face of Harlem and other inner-city areas. Rangel was known both for his genial manner, with an ability to win over fellow legislators, and for his blunt speaking; he has long been outspoken about his views and has been arrested several times as part of political demonstrations. He was a strong opponent of the George W. Bush administration and the Iraq War, and he put forth proposals to reinstate the draft during the 2000s. 

Beginning in 2008, Rangel faced a series of allegations of ethics violations and failures to comply with tax laws. The House Ethics Committee focused on whether Rangel improperly rented multiple rent-stabilized New York apartments, improperly used his office in raising money for the Rangel Center at the City College of New York, and failed to disclose rental income from his villa in the Dominican Republic. In March 2010, Rangel stepped aside as Ways and Means Chair. In November 2010, the Ethics Committee found Rangel guilty of 11 counts of violating House ethics rules, and on December 2, 2010, the full House approved a sanction of censure against him. 

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*The artist Faith Ringgold was born in New York (October 8).

Faith Ringgold (b. October 8, 1930, New York, New York), was an artist and author who became famous for innovative, quilted marrations that communicate her political beliefs.

Ringgold grew up in New York City's Harlem, and while still in high school she decided to be an artist.  She attended City College of New York, where she received B. S. (1955) and M. A. (1959) degrees.  In the mid-1950s she began teaching art in New York public schools.  By the 1960s, her work had matured, reflecting her burgeoning political consciousness, study of African arts and history, and appreciation for the freedom of form used by her young students.

In 1963 Ringgold began a body of paintings called the American People series, which portrays the civil rights movement from a female perspective. In the 1970s she created African-style masks, painted political posters, lectured frequently at feminist art conferences, and actively sought the racial integration of the New York art world. She originated a demonstration against the Whitney Museum of American Art and helped win admission for black artists to the exhibit schedule at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970 she cofounded, with one of her daughters, the advocacy group Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation.
Among Ringgold’s most renowned works, her “story quilts” were inspired by the Tibetan tankas (paintings framed in cloth) that she viewed on a visit to museums in Amsterdam. She painted these quilts with narrative images and original stories set in the context of African American history. Her mother frequently collaborated with her on these. Examples of this work includes Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?(1984), Sonny’s Quilt (1986), and Tar Beach (1988), which Ringgold adapted into a children’s book in 1991. The latter book, which was named Caldecott Honor Book in 1992, tells of a young black girl in New York City who dreams about flying. Ringgold’s later books for children include Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky (1992) and My Dream of Martin Luther King (1995). Her memoirs, We Flew over the Bridge, were published in 1995.

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*Sonny Rollins (b. Theodore Walter Rollins, September 7, 1930), an American jazz tenor saxophonist, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians, was born in New York, New York.  A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", became jazz standards. 

Sonny Rollins, byname Newk, original name Theodore Walter Rollins (b. September 7, 1930, New York City,  New York) was a tenor saxophonist who was among the finest improvisers on the instrument to have ever been.
Rollins grew up in a neighborhood where Thelonious Monk, Coleman Hawkins (his early idol), and Bud Powell were playing. After recording with the latter in 1949, Rollins began recording with Miles Davis in 1951. During the next three years, he composed three of his best-known tunes, “Oleo,” “Doxy,” and “Airegin,” and continued to work with Davis, Charlie Parker,  and others. Following his withdrawal from music in 1954 to overcome a heroin addiction, Rollins re-emerged with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach quintet in 1955, and the next four years proved to be his most fertile.
Beginning with a style drawn primarily from Parker, Rollins became a master of intelligent and provocative spontaneity that was combined with an excellent command of the tenor sax. The clarity of thought evident in his improvisations stands out in jazz history. Rollins displayed an interest in unaccompanied saxophone improvisation and gross manipulations of tone color long before such techniques became common in modern jazz. He was also one of the first to successfully improvise when alternately ignoring tempo and swinging within a single solo while his accompanists adhered to a preset tempo and chord progression. In these respects he was particularly influential with avant-garde saxophonists of the 1960s and ’70s.
Rollins was the recipient of numerous honors, including several Grammy Awards. In 2010 he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. The following year Rollins received a Kennedy Center Honor.

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*Leander Shaw, a jurist who served on the Florida Supreme Court from 1983 until 2003 and was Chief Justice from 1990 to 1992, was born in Salem, Virginia (September 6).

Leander Jerry Shaw, Jr. (b. September 6, 1930, Salem, Virginia – d. December 14, 2015, Tallahassee, Florida) went to Lylburn Downing School in Lexington, Virginia. He graduated from West Virginia State University in 1952. He then served in the United States Army during the Korean War. In 1957, Shaw received his law degree from Howard University School of Law. In 1957, Shaw moved to Tallahassee, Florida, and was a law professor at Florida A&M University.  He was admitted to the Florida bar in 1960 and practiced law in Jacksonville, Florida. Shaw served on the Florida State Attorney staff in 1969. In 1972, Shaw was appointed to the Florida Industrial Relations Commission. From 1979 to 1983, Shaw served on the Florida District Courts of Appeal.  Shaw served on the Florida Supreme Court from 1983 until 2003 and was Chief Justice of that court from 1990 to 1992. He also served as judge in residence at Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. Shaw died on December 14, 2015 in Tallahassee, Florida.

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*Willie Thrower, the first African American to appear at the quarterback position in the National Football League, was born New Kensington, Pennsylvania (March 22).

Willie Lee Thrower (b. March 22, 1930 – d. February 20, 2002) was an American football quarterback. Born near Pittsburgh in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, Thrower was known as "Mitts" for his large hands and arm strength compared to his 5'11" frame.  He was known to be able to toss a football 70 yards.  Thrower was part of the 1952 Michigan State Spartans who won the national championship.  He became the first African American to appear at the quarterback position in the National Football League (NFL), playing for the Chicago Bears in 1953. 

Thrower played halfback in the single-wing formation for New Kensington High (present-name: Valley High School) as a freshman just after the end of World War II in 1945. Single wing halfbacks received a direct center snap, and then had run, handoff, or pass options. The team lost 2 games. However, head coach Don Fletcher moved Thrower to quarterback. From his sophomore to senior years, New Kensington won 24 straight games, including the 1946 and 1947 Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League (WPIAL) Class AA championships. As quarterback, Thrower would only lose one game in his career. As a dual-threat quarterback, Thrower was also an All-WPIAL and all-state first team honors, and he was named captain for an All-American scholastic selection covering the nation east of the Mississippi River. His final high school record was 35-3-1.

Despite his accomplishments, Thrower still experienced racism. In 1947, the Miami, Florida Peanut Bowl, featuring top high school teams around the country, rescinded the invitation it had extended to New Kensington High School to play in the annual prep classic game when organizers saw a photograph of its star. In addition, many colleges opted not to extend Thrower a scholarship when they discovered his ethnicity.

After graduating, Thrower chose to play collegiate football for the Michigan State Spartans alongside some of his high school teammates William Horrell, Joseph Klein, Renaldo Kozikowski, Vincent Pisano, and the Tamburo brothers, Harry and Richard. He would remain in East Lansing from 1949–1952, competing for playing time at quarterback with All-Americans Al Dorow and Tom Yewcic.  Under head coach Clarence "Biggie" Munn, Thrower became the first black quarterback to play in the Big Ten Conference in 1950 in his first year of varsity eligibility (NCAA rules dictated no freshman on varsity preventing Thrower, who was a freshman in 1949, to play) although during the first two years of his varsity career, he had only attempted 14 passes.

During the 1952 championship season, Thrower was an integral part of the title run, completing 59 percent of his passes (29-of-43) for 400 yards and five touchdowns. In a crucial game with Notre Dame, Thrower stepped in for an injured Tom Yewcic and threw a touchdown in a 21-3 win. In his final game in a Spartan uniform, Thrower completed seven of his 11 attempts for 71 yards and a touchdown, and added a rushing touchdown in a dominating 62-13 win over Marquette that sealed the nation's No. 1 ranking, and championship, for Michigan State.

Although Thrower was not drafted in 1953,  he was offered a one year, $8,500 contract with the Chicago Bears. He became the backup quarterback and roommate to future Pro Football Hall of Famer George Blanda.

As a professional, Thrower did not play until October 18, 1953 against the San Francisco 49ers.  Bears coach George Halas was unhappy with Blanda's play and pulled him, sending in Thrower. He moved the team to the 15-yard line of the 49ers, but was denied a chance to score a touchdown when Halas put Blanda back into the game. The Bears eventually lost the game 35-28. Thrower completed 3 out of 8 passes for 27 yards, and had one interception. He would only play one more game for the Bears, who released Thrower after the 1953 season.

In 1979, Thrower was elected to the Westmoreland County Sports Hall of Fame. In 1981, he was inducted into AK Valley Hall of Fame. In 2003, an official state marker was dedicated to him in his high school. In 2011, he was inducted into the WPIAL Hall of Fame. Although, Thrower was the first African-American quarterback in the NFL, Fritz Pollard was the first African American to play on a championship team (1920), as well as the first African American quarterback (1923) and coach (1919).

He died of a heart attack in New Kensington on February 20, 2002, at the age of 71.

In 2006, a statue of Thrower was erected near Valley High School in New Kensington to honor his accomplishments. The statue was unveiled during a Valley High School football game in September attended by Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney as well as Thrower's family. Willie Thrower was also mentioned by former NFL quarterback Warren Moon in his Pro Football Hall of Fame acceptance speech. Moon thanked Thrower, among others, for giving him inspiration during a time when few African-Americans played the quarterback position in the NFL.

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*Mel Triplett, a star running back for the New York Giants, was born in Indianola, Mississippi (December 24).

Melvin C. Triplett (b. December 24, 1930, Indianola, Mississippi – d. July 26, 2002, Toledo, Ohio) was a football running back in the National Football League who played for six seasons with the New York Giants.  He played high school football at Girard High School in Girard, Ohio. He graduated from Girard in 1951 and was inducted into the Girard Hall of Fame in 1997. He played college football at the University of Toledo and was drafted by the Giants in the 1955 National Football League Draft, where he played for six seasons. He scored the opening touchdown against the Chicago Bears in the 1956 championship game, won by the Giantes 47-7. He was named New York's outstanding offensive player in the game. He left the Giants for the Minnesota Vikings, where he played in 1961 and 1962. Including both teams, he totaled 2,857 yards and 14 touchdowns in his NFL career.

Among the fans of Mel Triplett during his days on the New York Giants was a young basketball player in New York named Lew Alcindor, later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Abdul-Jabbar says in his 1983 memoir Giant Steps that it was largely Triplett's wearing of uniform #33 that made Abdul-Jabbar adopt #33 as well, a number Abdul-Jabbar made famous in another sport.

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