28 DAYS Of FEBRUARY
Our Nations Black and Diversified History
FEBRUARY 28, 1703
ELIAS NEAU
Elias Neau, a Frenchman, opened school for Blacks in New York City
Elias Neau was another well-to-do Huguenot, (French Protestant of the 16th–17th centuries) whom unlucky chance condemned to the galleys. There were about 1,500 African-American slaves living in New York City at the beginning of the 1700s, nearly all illiterate and intellectually degraded. Elias Neau, a French Huguenot who had found asylum in New York after being persecuted, imprisoned, and driven out of his native France for his Protestant religion, was moved by his faith to aid slaves and native Americans in his new city. He asked the Church of England and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to support him in opening a school for these two neglected populations. They agreed.
His “constant prayer” was that God would grant him “pleasure in this pain, in oppression and persecution“. Thus his persecutors deprived him of all human relief, but God offered him the opportunity to reshape himself in conformity with Christ. Neau was eventually released in 1697 and rejoined his wife and two children in New York where he later opened a school for escaped negro slaves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Neau
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FEBRUARY 28, 1984
WYNTON MARSALIS
First person to win and nominated Grammy Awards in Best Jazz album and Best Classical
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is a trumpeter, composer, teacher, music educator, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City, United States. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards. In 1983 and 1984, he became the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards for both jazz and classical records. Honorary degrees Marsalis has received include those conferred by New York University, Columbia, Harvard, Howard, the State University of New York, Princeton, University of Vermont, Northwestern University. In November 2005, Marsalis received the National Medal of Arts. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan proclaimed Marsalis an international ambassador of goodwill for the United States by appointing him a UN Messenger of Peace (2001).
Marsalis won the Dutch Edison Award and the French Grand Prix du Disque. The Mayor of Vitoria, Spain, awarded him the city’s Gold Medal, its most coveted distinction. In 1996, Britain’s senior conservatoire, the Royal Academy of Music, made Marsalis an honorary member, the Academy’s highest decoration for a non-British citizen. The city of Marciac, France, erected a bronze statue in his honor. The French Ministry of Culture appointed Marsalis the rank of Knight in the Order of Arts and Literature, and in the fall of 2009, Marsalis received France’s highest distinction, the insignia Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, an honor that was first awarded by Napoleon Bonaparte.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynton_Marsalis
FEBRUARY 27, 2013
YITYISH ‘TITI’ AYNAW
The First Miss Israel of African Ancestry
Yityish “Titi” Aynaw was crowned Miss Israel on February 27, 2013. She made history when she became the first Miss Israel of African ancestry. Born in Gondar Province, Ethiopia, Aynaw arrived in Israel in March 2003 along with her older brother and grandparents at the age of 12 after the death of her mother in 2002. Her father died when she was two years old. After graduating from high school, Aynaw—like all school graduates, male and female—served in the Israeli Defense Forces. She was a Lieutenant in the Military Police Corps of the Israel Defense Forces and served as a military police commander responsible for fellow soldiers. In this position, she instructed soldiers how to fire weapons, perform security checks at checkpoints, and detect and detonate bombs.
On March 2013, Aynaw was invited by the US President Barack Obama and the White House administration to attend a gala with Shimon Peres and Obama as he appreciated Israel crowning a black woman as Miss Israel and Aynaw having Obama as her “role model”. According to CNN‘s report “African Voices,” Aynaw represented Israel in Miss Universe 2013. She was later named by The Jerusalem Post as 39th most influential Jew for that year.
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FEBRUARY 27, 1956
RAJO JACK
(Dewey Gatson & AKA Jack De Soto)
ONE OF THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN RACERS IN AMERICA
(July 28, 1905 in Tyler, Texas – February 27, 1956) was an American racecar driver. He is known as one of the first African American racers in America. He won races up and down the West Coast of the United States in stock cars, midgets, big cars and motorcycles. Rajo Jack raced in a time of racial prejudice, and he was frequently a target of racism. He raced long before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger, and over a decade before Jackie Robinson first played in Major League Baseball. When he first started racing, he would duck his head behind the cowling when someone was taking a picture.
He often claimed to be a Portuguese man named Jack DeSoto to be able to race. Other times he claimed that he was a Native American to get around the color barrier. But fans’ acceptance had limits. His wife Ruth had to be with him every time he won because she would do the trophy girl’s job: give him the trophy and a kiss. He once let the other driver win in a two lap match race because he knew that he couldn’t kiss the white trophy girl. Jack was considered a true “outlaw” racer since he never raced in the AAA, the prominent racing association of the time in the United States. Only AAA members raced in the Indianapolis 500, the premiere race in the country. He claimed that he would never pass the physical examination because he was blind in one eye. His fellow racers knew it was because of his skin color.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajo_Jack
FEBRUARY 26, 1943
BILL DUKE
Producer * Director * Actor
William Henry “Bill” Duke, Jr. (born February 26, 1943) is an American actor and film director. Known for his physically imposing frame, Duke’s work frequently dwells within the action and crime drama genres but also appears in comedy. Duke’s first movie role came in 1976 when he portrayed a fierce young Black Muslim revolutionary named “Abdullah Mohammed Akbar” in Car Wash. Duke’s television directorial debut came in 1982 when he directed episodes of Knot’s Landing, Falcon Crest, and Flamingo Road for Lorimar Productions. Duke’s most prominent and critically acclaimed television work, however, has been his direction of teleplays for the PBS series American Playhouseincluding “The Killing Floor,” “A Raisin in the Sun,” and “The Meeting,” a 90-minute drama that depicted an imaginary meeting between Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.
During the 1980s, Duke amassed more than 100 television directing credits, including more than 70 episodes of roughly 20 television series such as Miami Vice, Dallas, Crime Story, Cagney and Lacey and Hill Street Blues. Duke directed his first feature film in 1990, a film adaptation of Chester Himes’ novel A Rage in Harlem. Duke went on to direct many other films including Deep Cover, Sister Act 2, Hoodlum and Deacons for Defense. In 2004, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed Duke to the California Film Commission, which works to enhance the economic climate of the state by keeping film industry jobs in California. Duke also works with non-profit and charity organizations such as Educating Young Minds, an organization that helps inner-city students excel at school and in life. Duke is the recipient of numerous awards including the AFI’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the NAACP’s Special Award for Outstanding Achievement, SCLC’s Drum Major for Justice Film Award and a Cable Ace Award. President Bill Clinton appointed Duke to the National Endowment for the Humanities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Duke
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FEBRUARY 26, 1860
THE WIYOT MASSACRE
Tutulwat (Indian Island) Near Eureka California
On February 26, 1860, about one hundred Wiyot men, women and children were massacred during a World Renewal Ceremony. The massacre was carried out by European immigrants who had settled in the area since 1850 as part of the California Gold Rush. There were few survivors. The Wiyot Indians are an indigenous people of California living near the Humboldt Bay and surrounding areas. The Wiyot were a peaceful tribe that had never fought with white settlers and had no reason to expect an attack. The tribes of a few thousand Wiyot and Karok people living within that area in 1850 changed drastically after the 1860 massacre. And by 1910, there were fewer than 100 full blood Wiyot people living within the Wiyot territory of California.
California has more Native American Indian Tribes than any other state
The rapid decline in population was from disease, slavery, dying in protective custody, being herded from place to place in what survivors’ and their descendants describe as “death marches,” target practice and out right murder.
https://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/an-american-genocide/Content?oid=4116592
FEBRUARY 25, 1965
VERONICA WEBB
First African-American to have a Major Cosmetics Contract
Veronica Webb is an African American model, actress, writer, and television personality. Webb was the first African American to have a major cosmetics contract when she signed with Revlon in 1992. Webb also appeared on the covers of Vogue, Essence, and Elle magazines and had the opportunity to be on the runway for Victoria’s Secret and Chanel. Webb was born on February 25, 1965, in Detroit, Michigan. In 1991 Webb made her feature film debut in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. Her film credits include Someone Like You…, The Big Tease, and Malcolm X. Webb was named to American Vogue’s best dressed list three times.
In 1995, she modeled for the first annual show of Victoria’s Secret. In 1998, Miramax Books published Veronica Webb Sight: Adventures In The Big City, a collection of autobiographical essays. Harvey Weinstein, chairman of Miramax, approached her while she was in line at the White House about publishing her essays as a memoir. In 2010, Webb was named a member of the Eucerin Skin First Council to promote skin health. Veronica launched a business mentoring program, through which she took a young Detroit native under her wings. The program provided its recipient with the opportunity to be mentored by Veronica and join her as a consultant for Rodan and Fields. The first recipient of the competition was journalist Ashley Lyles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_Webb
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FEBRUARY 25, 1975
DANIEL “CHAPPIE” JAMES, JR.
First African American Four Star General
Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. (February 11, 1920 – February 25, 1978) was an American fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, who in 1975 became the first African American to reach the rank of Four-Star General. He attended the famous Tuskegee Institute and instructed African American pilots during World War II. He flew combat missions during the Korean Warand Vietnam War, and received the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two Air Force Distinguished Service Medals, two Legion of Merits, three Distinguished Flying Crosses, Meritorious Service Medal and fourteen Air Medals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_James_Jr.
General James’ military awards include the following –
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FEBRUARY 24, 1972
DR. JAYFUS DOSWELL
1993 Receives Ford Mellon Scholarship
Researching Implication Of Education Technology On Learning Performance
Jayfus Doswell was born February 24, 1972. In 1995, Doswell graduated from Oberlin College with his B.A. degrees in psychology and computer science. His B.A. thesis was presented at Williams College in Massachusetts. He went on to earn his M.S. degree in systems and computer management from Howard University in 1998, and his Ph.D. degree in information technology from George Mason University. As early as 1997, Doswell discussed the implications of virtual reality learning technology in Black Issues In Higher Education. While earning his Ph.D. degree at George Mason University, Doswell conceived of Juxtopia, LLC and the Juxtopia Group, Inc., which develop products to integrate into a human’s daily routine and provide services to improve human health and learning. Doswell’s findings have been published in various scientific journals.
- 2005, Juxtopia Group board chairperson, Dr. Jayfus Doswell earns Information Technology PhD. May, 2005 Juxtopia Group board chairperson graduated from George Mason University with a PhD in Information Technology. His dissertation, entitled, “Building the Virtual Instructor: An Architecture for Developing Pedagogical Embodied Conversational Agents for Mixed Reality Environments,” focused on Mixed Reality learning environments. 2012,
- 2012, The Governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley celebrates the opening of the 1st Juxtopia® Urban Innovation and Cooperative Entrepreneurship (JUICE ™) lab at the Emerging Technology Center located at 1101 East 33rd Street in Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
http://www.juxtopia.org/about/history/
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FEBRUARY 24, 2006
OCTAVIA E. BUTLER
FIRST SCIENCE FICTION WRITER TO RECEIVE A MACARTHUR FELLOWSHIP
Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006). Butler’s rise to prominence began in 1984 when “Speech Sounds” won the Hugo Award for Short Story and, a year later, Bloodchild won the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Science Fiction Chronicle Reader Award for Best Novelette. In the meantime, Butler traveled to the Amazon rainforest and the Andes to do research for what would become the Xenogenesis trilogy: Dawn (1987), Adulthood Rites (1988), and Imago (1989). These stories were republished in 2000 as the collection Lilith’s Brood. Dawn is currently being adapted for television by producers Ava DuVernay and Charles D. King’s Macro Ventures, alongside writer Victoria Mahoney. This is the first time that Octavia Butler’s work has been adapted for television.[54] There’s no projected release date for the adaptation yet. In 1995, she became the first science-fiction writer to be awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, an award that came with a prize of $295,000.
From an early age, an almost paralyzing shyness made it difficult for Butler to socialize with other children. Her awkwardness, paired with a slight dyslexia that made schoolwork a torment, led her to believe that she was “ugly and stupid, clumsy, and socially hopeless,” becoming an easy target for bullies. As a result, she frequently passed the time reading at the Pasadena Central Library. She also wrote reams of pages in her “big pink notebook”. Hooked at first on fairy tales and horse stories, she quickly became interested in science fiction magazines, such as Amazing Stories, Galaxy Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. She began reading stories by John Brunner, Zenna Henderson, and Theodore Sturgeon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
FEBRUARY 23, 1993
LOWER MANHATTAN SLAVE CEMETERY
DESIGNATED HISTORICAL LANDMARK
New York City declares an eighteenth century black burial ground in lower Manhattan an historical landmark.
The site contains the remains of more than 419 Africans buried during the late 17th and 18th centuries in a portion of what was the largest colonial-era cemetery for people of African descent, some free, most enslaved. Historians estimate there may have been 10,000–20,000 burials in what was called the “Negroes Burial Ground” in the 1700s. The five to six acre site’s excavation and study was called “the most important historic urban archeological project in the United States.” The Burial Ground site is New York’s earliest known African-American “cemetery”; studies show an estimated 15,000 African American people were buried here. The discovery highlighted the forgotten history of African slaves in colonial and federal New York City, who were integral to its development.
In addition to earning designation of the site as a National Historic Landmark and National Monument, the discoveries of the African Burial Ground have changed thinking about early African-American history in New York and the nation. Many new books have been published on this topic. In 2005 the New-York Historical Society mounted its first exhibit ever on slavery in New York; the planned six-month run was extended into 2007 because of its popularity.
When the visitor center at the burial ground opened in 2010, Edward Rothstein wrote,
A revision in popular understanding has taken place about slavery’s history in New York City, evident in several recent books and an impressive series of shows at the New-York Historical Society. In the 18th century slaves may have constituted a quarter of the New York work force, making this city one of the colonies’ largest slave-holding urban centers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Burial_Ground_National_Monument
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FEBRUARY 23, 1965
CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY
Constance Baker Motley elected Manhattan Borough President
The first African-American woman ever to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, in Meredith v. Fair she won James Meredith‘s effort to be the first black student to attend the University of Mississippi in 1962. She was the first African American woman to sit in the State Senate. Chosen on February 23, 1965, as Manhattan Borough President—-the first woman in that position. In September 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, making her the first African American woman federal judge. Motley handed down a breakthrough decision for women in sports broadcasting in 1978, when she ruled that a female reporter must be allowed into a Major League Baseball locker room.
She received a Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1984. In 1993, she was inducted into National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Citizens Medal. The NAACP awarded her the Spingarn Medal, the organization’s highest honor, in 2003. Motley was a prominent honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. An award-winning biographical documentary, Justice is a Black Woman: The Life and Work of Constance Baker Motley, was first broadcast on Connecticut Public Television in 2012. A documentary short, The Trials of Constance Baker Motley, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 19, 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Baker_Motley
FEBRUARY 22, 1888
HORACE HARDING PIPPIN
Pippin is considered one of the major American painters of his period.
Horace Pippin, a self-taught African-American painter, was born February 22, 1888, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Pippin was the first African-American painter to explore experiences of war and social-political injustices in his art. After working a series of jobs, he joined the army in 1917 and fought in France during World War I. During the war, he kept illustrated journals about his experiences. He received the prestigious French Croix de Guerre and the American Purple Heart, but his right arm was crippled from injuries by the time he left the army in 1919. He used art as a therapeutic outlet for his memories of war. He completed his first oil painting about the war in 1931, and this work jump started his career as an artist.
Pippin’s most famous works including a series of paintings about the abolitionist John Brown and President Abraham Lincoln. He also painted themes based on the Bible and the work of fellow artist Edward Hicks in addition to scenes of everyday life for African-Americans in the early twentieth century. Pippin died of a stroke in 1946. Major exhibitions of his work have continued to be curated after his death by institutions such as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
http://teachers.phillipscollection.org/biography-pippin
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FEBRUARY 22, 1928
ARCHIBALD MOTLEY
February 22, 1928 Archibald Motley becomes first artist of any race to appear on the cover of the “New York Times”
He is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance, or the New Negro Movement, a time in which African-American art reached new heights not just in New York but across America – its local expression is referred to as the Chicago Black Renaissance. His use of color and notable fixation on skin-tone, demonstrated his artistic portrayal of blackness as being multidimensional. Motley himself was of mixed race, and often felt unsettled about his own racial identity. Thus, his art often demonstrated the complexities and multifaceted nature of black culture and life.
It is important to note, however, that it was not his community he was representing—he was among the affluent and elite black community of Chicago. He married a white woman and lived in a white neighborhood, and was not a part of that urban experience in the same way his subjects were. During the 1930s, Motley was employed by the federal Works Progress Administration to depict scenes from African-American history in a series of murals, some of which can be found at Nichols Middle School in Evanston, Illinois. After his wife’s death in 1948 and difficult financial times, Motley was forced to seek work painting shower curtains for the Styletone Corporation. In the 1950s, he made several visits to Mexico and began painting Mexican life and landscapes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Motley
FEBRUARY 21, 1978
AYISHA MCMILLAN CRAVOTTA
First African American Dancer Role of Clara In The Nutcracker
Ayisha McMillan Cravotta was born on February 21, 1978. In 2004, she became the first African American dancer to play the role of Clara in The Nutcracker. At a young age, McMillan made extraordinary sacrifices for her craft. During the summer months, beginning in 1989, she attended the Boston Ballet School in Massachusetts where she was mentored by ballet great, Elaine Bauer. In addition, McMillan was selected for private instruction by Asaf and Mikhail Messerer of the Bolshoi Ballet.
In 1990, at age twelve, McMillan danced in the Soviet-American ballet production of Coppelia. She also attended the Soviet-American Ballet School. At thirteen, she attended the Von Heideke Ballet School. In 1992, when McMillan was fourteen years old, she won a full scholarship to the Houston Ballet Academy. After high school, McMillan attended Rice University, where she graduated as an anthropology and art history major while dancing professionally with the Houston Ballet. McMillan retired from the stage in 2007 at the age of 29.
http://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/ayisha-mcmillan-cravotta
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FEBRUARY 21, 1961
FRED MCKINLEY JONES
African-American Inventor
Winner of the National Medal of Technology, and inductee of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Frederick McKinley Jones (May 17, 1893 – February 21, 1961). His innovations in refrigeration brought great improvement to the long-haul transportation of perishable goods. He co-founded Thermo King, manufacturer of transport temperature control systems for trucks, trucks, trailers, shipboard containers and railway cars as well as HVAC systems for bus, shuttle and passenger rail applications. Jones was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 17, 1893. After he was virtually orphaned at the age of seven, he was raised by a priest at a Catholic rectory in Cincinnati.
In 1944, Jones became the first African American to be elected into the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers, and during the 1950s he was a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense and the Bureau of Standards. In 1991, the National Medal of Technology was awarded to Joseph A. Numero and Frederick M. Jones. President George Bush presented the awards posthumously to their widows at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Jones was the first African American to receive the award. He died of lung cancer in Minneapolis on February 21, 1961. He was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_McKinley_Jones
FEBRUARY 20, 1869
WALTER MOSES BURTON
First Black Sheriff In The United States
Walter Moses Burton holds the distinction of being the first black elected sheriff in the United States. Burton was also a State Senator in Texas.
Burton was brought to Fort Bend County, Texas as a slave from North Carolina in 1850 at the age of twenty-one. While enslaved, he was taught how to read and write by his master, Thomas Burton. After the Civil War his former owner sold Burton several large plots of land for $1,900 making him one of the wealthiest and most influential blacks in Fort Bend County. In 1869, Walter Burton was elected sheriff and tax collector of Fort Bend County. Along with these duties, he also served as the president of the Fort Bend County Union League.
Burton also served the Republican Party as a member of the State Executive Committee at the state convention of 1873, as vice president of the 1878 and 1880 conventions, and as a member of the Committee on Platform and Resolutions at the 1892 state convention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Moses_Burton
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FEBRUARY 20, 1952
EMMETT L. ASHFORD
First African-American MLB Umpire
In 1951, Ashford took a leave of absence from his post office job to umpire in the Southwestern International League, becoming the first black umpire in the traditionally white professional baseball system. When he was offered a full-season umpiring job, Ashford resigned from the postal service. Ashford spent 12 years in the PCL, and became known for his exuberance, showmanship and energy, even interacting with the crowd between innings. During the off-seasons, Ashford refereed Pac-8 basketball games and college football. He also umpired in the Caribbean winter leagues, and ran several umpiring clinics. In 1963, Ashford was named the PCL’s umpire-in-chief, making him responsible for training crews and advising the league on disputed games or rules.
While some observers believed that his race prevented him from working in the majors earlier than he did, others maintained that his flashy style actually delayed his major league debut due to general disdain for umpires to draw attention to themselves. The Sporting News stated that “For the first time in the history of the grand old American game, baseball fans may buy a ticket to watch an umpire perform.” Ashford died of a heart attack at age 65 in Marina del Rey, California. Upon his death, Bowie Kuhn issued a statement, saying, “As the first black umpire in the major leagues, his magnanimous nature was sternly tested, but he was unshaken and uncomplaining, remaining the colorful, lively personality he was all his life.” At his funeral, Ashford was eulogized by Kuhn and former USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux. Ashford was cremated, and his ashes were interred in Cooperstown, New York.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Ashford
FEBRUARY 19, 1919
W.E.B. DUBOIS
ORGANIZES PAN-AFRICAN CONGRESS
Pan-African Congress, organized by W.E.B. DuBois, met at the Grand Hotel, Paris. There were 57 delegates, 16 from the United States and 14 from Africa as well as others from 16 countries and colonies.
In February 1919, the first Pan-African Congress was organized by W. E. B. Du Bois and Ida Gibbs Hunt, wife of US Consul William Henry Hunt, who was at that time working at the American consulate in Saint-Étienne, France. There were 57 delegates representing 15 countries, a smaller number than originally intended because British and American governments refused to issue passports to their citizens who had planned on attending.[7] Their main task was petitioning the Versailles Peace Conference held in Paris at that time. Among their demands were that:
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The Allies should be in charge of the administration of former territories in Africa as a Condominium on behalf of the Africans who were living there.
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Africa be granted home rule and Africans should take part in governing their countries as fast as their development permits until at some specified time in the future.
Du Bois’ mission on behalf of the Congress was multi-layered. After the end of World War I in 1918, the allied victors laid claim to lands formally seized by enemy forces as laid out during the Paris Peace Conference. The Congress demanded that the Allies lead the transfer of former territories to Africans who lived in the occupied lands. Du Bois also intended to interview African-American soldiers for an upcoming book, regarding their dealings as part of World War I and was shadowed by U.S. authorities to validate any findings of soldiers being mistreated abroad. Du Bois returned from Europe with renewed dedication to fighting for equal rights for African Americans. With the emergence of the “New Negro” personification, many Blacks returned home from war with aims of establishing themselves in northern cities with measurable dignity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois
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FEBRUARY 19, 2002
VONETTA FLOWERS
African-American woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics.
Vonetta Flowers became the first African-American woman to win a gold medal in the Winter Olympics. She and partner Jull Brakken won the two-person bobsled event. Flowers was a star sprinter and long jumper at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and originally aspired to make the U.S. Summer Olympic Team. After several failed attempts, Flowers turned to bobsledding, and found success as a brakewoman almost immediately.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vonetta_Flowers
FEBRUARY 18, 1931
TONI MORRISON, Birth
1993 Nobel Prize for Literature & 1998 Pulitzer Prize Winner for ‘Beloved’
American novelist, essayist, editor, teacher, and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Toni Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; born February 18, 1931, won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for Beloved. The novel was adapted into a film of the same name (starring Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover) in 1998. Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993. In 1996, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected her for the Jefferson Lecture, the U.S. federal government’s highest honor for achievement in the humanities. She was honored with the 1996 National Book Foundation‘s Medal of Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Although her novels typically concentrate on black women, Morrison does not identify her works as feminist. When asked in a 1998 interview “Why distance oneself from feminism?” she replied: “In order to be as free as I possibly can, in my own imagination, I can’t take positions that are closed. In 2012, she responded to a question about the difference between black and white feminists in the 1970s. “Womanists is what black feminists used to call themselves,” she explained. “They were not the same thing. And also the relationship with men. Historically, black women have always sheltered their men because they were out there, and they were the ones that were most likely to be killed.” Morrison’s papers are part of the permanent library collections of Princeton University. Morrison’s decision to add her papers to Princeton instead of her alma mater Howard University was criticized by some within the historically black colleges and universities community.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toni_Morrison
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FEBRUARY 18, 1965
DR. DRE, Birth
“Richest Man in Hip Hop“
Considered The Most Influential Rapper Of All Time
Andre Romelle Young (born February 18, 1965), better known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. Dre began his career as a member of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru and later found fame with the influential gangsta rap group N.W.A with Eazy-E, Ice Cube, MC Ren, and DJ Yella, which popularized the use of explicit lyrics in rap to detail the violence of street life. He has produced albums for and overseen the careers of many rappers, including 2Pac, The D.O.C., Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Xzibit, Knoc-turn’al, 50 Cent, The Game, and Kendrick Lamar. He is credited as a key figure in the popularization of West Coast G-funk, a style of rap music characterized as synthesizer-based with slow, heavy beats. As of 2017, he is the third richest figure in hip hop according to Forbes with a net worth of $740 million.
In July 2008, Dr. Dre released his first brand of headphones, Beats by Dr. Dre. The line consisted of Beats Studio, a circumauralheadphone; Beats Tour, an in-ear headphone; Beats Solo & Solo HD, a supra-aural headphone; Beats Spin; Heartbeats by Lady Gaga, also an in-ear headphone; and Diddy Beats. In autumn 2009, Hewlett-Packard participated in a deal to bundle Beats By Dr. Dre with some HP laptops and headsets. In May 2014, technology giant Apple Inc. made a bid for the Beats by Dre brand for a reported $3 billion. This makes the takeover Apple’s most expensive purchase by far. The deal reportedly made Dr. Dre the “Richest Man in Hip-Hop”, surpassing former leader, Diddy. During May 2013, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine donated a $70 million endowment to the University of Southern California to create the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation. The goal of the Academy has been stated as “to shape the future by nurturing the talents, passions, leadership and risk-taking of uniquely qualified students who are motivated to explore and create new art forms, technologies, and business models.” The first class of the Academy began in September 2014.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre
FEBRUARY 17, 1963
MICHAEL JORDAN, Birth
Air Jordan, His Airness
Michael Jeffrey Jordan (born February 17, 1963), also known by his initials, MJ. His biography on the NBA website states: “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” In 1999, he was named the greatest North American athlete of the 20th century by ESPN, and was second to Babe Ruth on the Associated Press‘s list of athletes of the century. In 2015, Jordan became the first billionaire NBA player in history as a result of the increase in value of NBA franchises. He is the third-richest African-American, behind Oprah Winfrey and Robert F. Smith. Jordan has also appeared on the front cover of Sports Illustrated a record 50 times. Jordan is one of the most marketed sports figures in history. He has been a major spokesman for such brands as Nike, Coca-Cola, Chevrolet, Gatorade, McDonald’s, Ball Park Franks, Rayovac, Wheaties, Hanes, and MCI.
In June 2010, Jordan was ranked by Forbes magazine as the 20th-most powerful celebrity in the world with $55 million earned between June 2009 and June 2010. Most of Jordan’s endorsement deals, including his first deal with Nike, were engineered by his agent, David Falk. Jordan has described Falk as “the best at what he does” and that “marketing-wise, he’s great. He’s the one who came up with the concept of ‘Air Jordan.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan
FEBRUARY 17, 1909
GERONIMO (Goyathlay)
APACHE WAR CHIEF GERONIMO DIES
Naturally, Geronimo isn’t remembered merely for his name. His legend is rooted in real deeds of bravery and bloodshed. Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans originally from the Southwest United States. The current division of Apachean groups includes the Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan and Plains Apache (formerly Kiowa-Apache). The Apache-United States conflict was itself a direct outgrowth of the much older Apache-Mexican conflict which had been ongoing in the same general area since the beginning of Mexican/Spanish settlement in the 1600s. By 1886 — with Native American contemporaries like Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Quanah Parker either dead or resigned to reservation life — Geronimo defiantly remained the “last of the holdouts.”
“Geronimo was a living legend in his time,” said Towana Spivey, Fort Sill’s historian. “The late timing of his life contributed a lot to his legacy. In a lot of ways, his story isn’t unlike other Native American warriors who resisted white encroachment on their land. “He even lived into old age and into the 20th Century where he was able to capitalize on his notoriety.” Geronimo shrewdly used his celebrity to earn money. Geronimo dies of pneumonia two days after falling from his horse drunk and lying overnight in a puddle where he fell. At the time of his death Geronimo reportedly had $10,000 in the bank. In his old age, Geronimo became a celebrity. He appeared at fairs, including the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where he reportedly rode a ferris wheel and sold souvenirs and photographs of himself. However, he was not allowed to return to the land of his birth. He died at the Fort Sill hospital in 1909. He was still a prisoner of war. He is buried at the Fort Sill Indian Agency Cemetery surrounded by the graves of relatives and other Apache prisoners of war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan
FEBRUARY 16, 1904
JAMES BASKETT
First Black Male Performer To Receive An Oscar
James Baskett, the first male African American to win an Academy Award, was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on February 16, 1904. Baskett won an Honorary Oscar in 1948 for his performance as Uncle Remus in the Disney film, “Song of the South.” Although it was an honorary award, Baskett was still the first black man to take home an Academy Award of any kind. Baskett first appeared on film in a feature role in Harlem is Heaven, and continued on in such films as Policy Man and Straight to Heaven. Baskett was not confined to film and theater; he also played Gabby Gibson, a slick-talking lawyer on the popular radio program Amos ‘n’ Andy.
In 1947, after some lobbying by popular Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, Baskett was awarded a special Academy Award “for his able and heartwarming characterization of Uncle Remus, friend and storyteller to the children of the world.” Yet, although the film was praised by the academy, Baskett and Disney both met with heavy criticism from many in the African American community who felt that the film was rife with racist undertones and that it encouraged harmful stereotypes. The debate over Song of the South continues, and due to this Disney has refused to release the film on home video in the United States. James Baskett passed away on July 9, 1948.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baskett
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FEBRUARY 16, 1946
WARREN WESLEY BUCK, III
Physicist
Buck has been recognized for his work as an educator and a researcher, being elected to membership in the American Physical Society (APS) and creating the popular Hampton University Graduate Studies (HUGS) summer school for nuclear physics graduate students worldwide. After graduating from Morgan State University in 1968 with his B.S. degree in mathematics, Buck enrolled at the College of William and Mary where he received his M.S. degree in experimental and theoretical plasma physics in 1970 and his Ph.D. degree in theoretical relativistic nuclear physics in 1976.
In 2001, Buck was named a “Giant in Science,” by the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network. Buck has served on many advisory boards and committees, including the Committee on Education of the American Physical Society. He has also served on the board of directors of the Pacific Science Center. Buck was given the Hulon Willis Association Impact Award for his work within the African American community at the College of William and Mary.
http://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/warren-buck
FEBRUARY 15, 1851
SHADRACH MINKINS, Fugitive Slave Rescued
Black Abolitionists Invaded Boston Courtroom
On this day in 1851, a group of outraged African American men burst into a courtroom in Boston and rescued Shadrach Minkins, the first escaped slave seized in New England under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. Under the new law, northern authorities were required to help owners recapture slaves who had escaped to the North. When Shadrach Minkins’s master found out that he was in Boston, he had U.S. marshals arrest him. They took him to the federal courthouse in Boston, where an angry crowd gathered. They stormed the courtroom and freed Minkins. He was taken to a hiding place on Beacon Hill. That night, he began his journey on the Underground Railroad. Six days later, he arrived safely in Canada.
He also used the pseudonyms Frederick Wilkins and Frederick Jenkins. He is known for being freed from a courtroom in Boston after being captured by United States marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Members of the Boston Vigilance Committee freed and hid him, helping him get to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Minkins settled in Montreal, where he raised a family. Two men were prosecuted in Boston for helping free him, but they were acquitted by the jury.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadrach_Minkins
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FEBRUARY 15, 1851
ROBERT MORRIS, SR.
FIRST BLACK LAWYER TO WIN A LAWSUIT
At an early age, Morris had some formal education at Master Dodge’s School in Salem. With the agreement of his family, he became the student of Ellis Gray Loring, a well known abolitionist and lawyer. Vehemently opposed to slavery, he worked with William Lloyd Garrison, Ellis Loring and Wendell Philips and others to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. On February 15, 1851 with the help of Lewis Hayden, Robert Morris managed to remove from the court house, newly arrested fugitive slave Shadrack and helped him to get to Canada and freedom. Arrests were made but Morris and the others were acquitted of the charges.
By the early 1850s, Robert Morris was appointed a justice of the peace and was admitted to practice before U.S. district courts. He occasionally served as a magistrate in courts in Boston and nearby Chelsea, Massachusetts. Although these were not high judicial offices, his service gave him the distinction of being the first African American to have exercised some judicial power. With the Civil War began, Morris welcomed President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers but objected to enlistment of African Americans unless they received fair and equal treatment and were offered positions as officers. He helped in the recruitment of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first officially sanctioned African American unit in the U.S. Army but he continued to speak out against discrimination against them and other black soldiers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morris_(lawyer)
FEBRUARY 14, 1991
LONNIE JOHNSON
SUPERSOAKER WATER GUN INVENTED & CREATED BY LONNIE JOHNSON RECEIVED A PATENT
Lonnie George Johnson (born October 6, 1949) is an American inventor and engineer who holds more than 80 patents. Johnson is best known for inventing the Super Soaker water gun, which has ranked among the world’s top 20 best-selling toys every year since its release. After college, Johnson joined the U.S. Air Force, where he worked on the stealth bomber program. Later, he worked at NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Lab with the nuclear power source for the Galileo mission to Jupiter. More recently, he teamed up with scientists from Tulane University and Tuskegee University to develop a method of transforming heat into electricity with the goal of making green energy more affordable.
Johnson discovered he was underpaid royalties for the Super Soaker and several “Nerf line of toys, specifically the N-Strike and Dart Tag brands.” In November 2013, Johnson was awarded nearly $73 million in royalties from Hasbro Inc. in arbitration. According to Hasbro, the Super Soaker is approaching sales of $1 billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Johnson_(inventor)
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FEBRUARY 14, 2005
MARVEL COMICS BLACK PANTHER
Marvel Comics announced that Marvel’s first Black Superhero, the Black Panther would be making a comeback with the hopes of sparking the imaginations of a new generation of black youth.
In September 2005, Marvel chairman and CEO Avi Arad announced Black Panther as one of the ten Marvel films that would be developed by Marvel Studios and distributed by Paramount Pictures. In February 2007, Kevin Feige, president of production for Marvel Studios, reiterated that Black Panther was on Marvel’s development slate. In January 2011, Marvel Studios hired documentary filmmaker Mark Bailey to write a script for Black Panther to be produced by Feige.[74] In October 2013, Feige said “I don’t know when it will be exactly, but we certainly have plans to bring [Black Panther] to life some day”, noting that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had already introduced the metal vibranium, which comes from Black Panther’s home nation Wakanda.
We’ve yet to have a major black comic book hero on the screen. Especially the Black Panther, which is such a rich, interesting life. It’s a dream come true to originate something that nobody’s ever seen before.
–Actor Wesley Snipes, who worked on early iterations of Black Panther
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(film)
FEBRUARY 13, 2012
RITA FRANCIS DOVE
UNITED STATES BESTOWS HIGHEST HONOR – NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS
On February 13, 2012, Rita Francis Dove received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an individual artist by the United States, from President Barack H. Obama. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, from Miami University in 1973 and her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1977. From 1981 to 1989, she taught at Arizona State University and since then has taught at the University of Virginia. Dove has published nine volumes of poetry, including “Thomas and Beulah” for which she received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1987. She was the second African American to receive that prize. In addition to her poetry, Dove has published a book of short stories, “Fifth Sunday” (1985), a collection of essays, “The Poet’s World” (1995), and a novel, “Through the Ivory Gate” (1992).
In 2011, she edited “The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry.” In 1993, Dove was named Poet Laureate of the United States by the Library of Congress, a position she held until 1995. She is the youngest person and the first African American to hold that position. From 1999 to 2000, she served as Special Bicentennial Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress. In 2004, she was appointed to a two year position as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia. On January 9, 1997, Dove was presented the National Humanities Medal, for work that has “deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened our citizen’s engagement with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand American’s access to important resources in the humanities,” by President William Clinton. Dove has received 22 honorary doctorate degrees and the 2009 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Dove
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FEBRUARY 13, 2012
ANDRE WATTS
UNITED STATES BESTOWS HIGHEST HONOR – NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS
February 13, 2012 Andre Watts received the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor bestowed on an individual artist by the United States from President Barack H. Obama. Watts was born June 20, 1946 in Nuremberg, Germany but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At nine, he appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He graduated from the Philadelphia Musical Academy in 1963 and that same year made his television debut in a nationally televised concert with the New York Philharmonic. In 1964, Watts won the Grammy Award for Best New Classical Artist and he made his European debut in 1966 with the London Symphony Orchestra. By 1969, he was on a full-scale concert tour, playing 150 concerts a year by the mid-1970s. In 1976, his PBS Sunday telecast was the first solo recital presented on Live from Lincoln Center and the first full-length recital to be aired nationally in prime time.
Watts continues to be one of the world’s most in demand pianist, performing on the most prestigious concert stages and with the most preeminent orchestras and conductors. By the mid-1970s, Watts was giving 150 concerts, recitals, and chamber performances per season, performing about eight months out of the year. In 1976, at age thirty, he celebrated his tenth consecutive appearance in the Lincoln Center Great Performers Series at Avery Fisher Hall. The PBS Sunday afternoon telecast was the first solo recital presented on Live from Lincoln Center and the first full-length recital to be aired nationally in prime time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Watts
FEBRUARY 12, 1900
JAMES ELDEN JOHNSON
Lift Every Voice and Sing — often called “The Negro National Anthem”
Written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938) and then set to music by his brother John Rosamond Johnson (1873–1954) in 1900.
It was first performed in public in the Johnsons’ hometown of Jacksonville, Florida as part of a celebration of Lincoln‘s Birthday on February 12, 1900by a choir of 500 schoolchildren at the segregated Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was principal. Singing this song quickly became a way for African Americans to demonstrate their patriotism and hope for the future. In calling for earth and heaven to “ring with the harmonies of Liberty,” they could speak out subtly against racism and Jim Crow laws — and especially the huge number of lynchings accompanying the rise of the Ku Klux Klan at the turn of the century.
In 1919, the NAACP adopted the song as “The Negro National Anthem.” By the 1920s, copies of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” could be found in black churches across the country, often pasted into the hymnals. He was appointed under President Theodore Roosevelt as US consul in Venezuela and Nicaragua for most of the period from 1906 to 1913. In 1934 he was the first African-American professor to be hired at New York University. Later in life he was a professor of creative literature and writing at Fisk University, a historically black university. Throughout the 1920s, Johnson supported and promoted the Harlem Renaissance, trying to help young black authors to get published. Shortly before his death in 1938, Johnson supported efforts by Ignatz Waghalter, a Polish-Jewish composer who had escaped the Nazis of Germany, to establish a classical orchestra of African-American musicians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Weldon_Johnson
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FEBRUARY 12, 1599
BATTLE OF ACOMA (Now New Mexico)
Battle at Acoma between natives and Spaniards. Juan de Onate becomes infamous for his brutality during this battle.
One of Onate’s soldiers stopped at Acoma for provisions. While there, the Acomas accused them of stealing, and violating an Acoma woman, and killed thirteen of the soldiers for this. Onate sent more men to Acoma in retaliation, resulting in a three-day battle. When the fighting ended, several hundred Indians were dead, and hundreds of surviving Acomas were and taken to Santa Domingo Pueblo to stand trial. Of the seventy Acoma indians tried for battling with the Spaniards on December 4, 1598, all seventy are found guilty. Today Juan de Onate orders their punishment. All men over twenty-five years old have one foot cut off and serve as slaves for twenty years. Everyone from twelve to twenty-five only half a foot cut off.
Young women over twelve years of age were given twenty years of servitude. Sixty young girls were sent to Mexico City to serve in the convents there, never to see their homeland again. Two Hopi men caught at the Acoma battle had their right hand cut off and were set free to spread the news of Spanish retribution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoma_Massacre
FEBRUARY 11, 1958
RUTH CAROL TAYLOR
First African American Flight Attendant in the USA
Hired in December 1957, on February 11, 1958, Taylor was the flight attendant on a Mohawk Airlines flight from Ithaca to New York, the first time such a position had been held by an African American. She was let go within six months as a result of Mohawk’s then-common marriage ban. While she is most commonly known for her achievement in the airline industry, she spent much of her career as an activist for minority and women’s rights. She attended Elmira College in New York and in 1955 graduated from the Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City as a registered nurse. After working for several years as a nurse, Taylor decided to break the color barrier that existed in the career of airline stewardesses.
Now called flight attendants, stewardesses at the time were hired primarily based on physical attractiveness and height/weight conformity. Wishing to be the first African American stewardess, Taylor applied to Trans World Airline (TWA) but was rejected and subsequently filed a complaint against the company with the New York State Commission on Discrimination. In a 1997 Jet interview, Taylor admitted that she had no long-term career aspirations as a flight attendant but merely wanted to break the color barrier. Six months after making aviation history, Taylor married Rex Legall and was forced to resign from Mohawk due to restrictions that flight attendants remain single.
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FEBRUARY 11, 1861
COCHISE vs. LIEUTENANT GEORGE BASCOM
“THE BASCOM AFFAIR“
The Bascom Affair Hangings, Apache War Triggers. The retaliatory executions a U.S. Army lieutenant carried out on this date in 1861 helped set in motion a decade-long war with the Apaches. Three years out of West Point and brand new to Arizona’s Fort Buchanan, George Bascom in retrospect was probably not the ideal ambassador to send out with orders to retrieve a young half-Apache boy kidnapped from a ranch by an Indian raid. (Along with all the cattle.) Since nobody was present at the time, the identity of the raiders just wasn’t known — but someone’s suspicions affixed on the wily and dangerous* Chiricahua warrior Cochise. The Chiriachuas were just one group among the Apache peoples; they ranged from Mexico to southeastern New Mexico and southwestern Arizona, and were divided into many small local groups each with their own leader — like Cochise.
Lt. Bascom would be killed in a Civil War engagement a year after the events in this post without leaving posterity his memoirs, so his understanding of Apache society can only be guessed at. But his on-the-make bullheadedness is universal to every time and place where young men can be found. “Bascom was a fine-looking fellow, a Kentuckian, a West Pointer, and of course a gentleman,” Arizona frontiersman Charles Poston later remembered. “But he was unfortunately a fool.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bascom_affair
FEBRUARY 10, 1927
LEONTYNE PRICE, Born
1950’s & 1960 International Acclaim as one of the first African Americans to become a leading artist at the Metropolitan Opera.
Among her many honors are the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964), the Spingarn Medal (1965), the Kennedy Center Honors (1980), the National Medal of Arts (1985), numerous honorary degrees, and 19 Grammy Awards for operatic and song recitals and full operas, and a special Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989, more than any other classical singer. In October 2008, she was one of the recipients of the first Opera Honors given by the National Endowment for the Arts.
From 1952 to 1954 Price toured Europe with George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, playing the role of Bess. Her 1954 concert debut at the Town Hall Theater in New York earned her widespread critical acclaim. The following year she broke historical precedent by becoming the first black singer to appear in a televised opera when she sang the title role in Puccini’s Tosca for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).
Beginning in the 1970s, Price shifted her attention away from the opera and focused more on concert performances and recordings, partly to avoid the inevitable vocal damage that follows a long operatic career. She sang her last opera in 1985.
In the following years, Price was enthusiastically received at many major opera houses including the San Francisco Opera (California), the Arena di Verona in Italy, Covent Garden (the Royal Opera House), in Great Britain, the Vienna Staatsoper in Austria, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Illinois). Her debut performance at New York’s Metropolitan Opera as Leonora in Verdi’s Il Trovatore in 1961 was met with over forty minutes of applause, the longest ovation the Metropolitan had ever seen. Beginning in the 1970s, Price shifted her attention away from the opera and focused more on concert performances and recordings, partly to avoid the inevitable vocal damage that follows a long operatic career. She sang her last opera in 1985. After her retirement from the opera stage in 1985, she continued to appear in recitals and orchestral concerts until 1997.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leontyne_Price
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FEBRUARY 10, 1851
RICHARD FREEMAN, Dies
Owner San Diego House (Saloon), Freeman-Light House.
First African American law enforcement officer in California’s history.
City Marshal of the newly incorporated city of San Diego.
Richard Freeman, deputy city marshal and entrepreneur in the early years of San Diego, California, was born somewhere in the Eastern United States. His date of birth is unknown and so are his parents’ names. In fact, there is little information known about his life before he came to San Diego. Some historians have speculated that he may have been a fugitive slave. We do know that Freeman came to San Diego with Allan B. Light, another early black settler, in 1845, and then were the only two African American settlers to reside in what is now Old Town San Diego. At the time, San Diego was part of Mexican California, but a number of people like Freeman and Light, both of whom were born in the United States, had settled there.
Richard Freeman also served as the settlement’s unofficial postmaster until 1850. In May of 1851, three years after the United States claimed jurisdiction over San Diego and the rest of California, Agoston Haraszthy, a Hungarian count and successful local businessman, won election as city marshal of the newly incorporated city of San Diego. He appointed Richard Freeman to serve as deputy city marshal, which made him the first African American law enforcement officer in California’s history.
FEBRUARY 9, 2005
OSSIE DAVIS, Dies
(1917-2005)
Ossie Davis was a twentieth century renowned African-American film and television artist and Broadway actor. Besides that, he was also known for his work as a playwright, poet, author and activist. He was married to Ruby Dee, with whom he frequently performed, until his death in 2005. Davis was named Raiford Chatman Davis on his birth. He was born on December 18, 1917, in Cogdell, Clinch County, Georgia. He came to known as Ossie when a country clerk mistaken R. C for Ossie upon his birth. After experiencing career as an actor, he aspired to become a director. Eventually, Ossie Davis became one of the stellar directors of his time along with Melvin Van Peebles, and Gordon Parks.
In addition to acting and directing, Davis also wrote plays for theater. His Paul Robeson: All-American was often performed in various theaters and enjoyed by the youth. It was not until his late acting career that he received recognition by working in films such as Jungle Fever, Do The Right Thing and She Hate Me. Moreover, he worked as a voice-over artist in the early 1990s CBS sitcom, Evening Shade. Having a unique personality, Davis was requested to host the annual National Memorial Day Concert from Washington, DC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossie_Davis
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FEBRUARY 9, 1944
ALICE WALKER, Born
The first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Alice Walker was born the eighth child of sharecroppers Willie Lee and Minnie Lou Grant Walker, on February 9, 1944, in Eatonton, Georgia. Walker became the valedictorian of her segregated high school class, despite an accident at age eight that impaired the vision in her left eye. Before transferring to Sarah Lawrence College, where she received a B.A. degree, she attended Atlanta’s Spelman College for two years, where she became a political activist, met Dr. Martin L. King, Jr., and participated in the 1963 March on Washington.
Also, during her undergraduate studies, Walker visited Africa as an exchange student. She later registered voters in Georgia and worked with the Head Start program in Mississippi, where she met and married civil rights attorney Melvyn Rosenthal (the marriage lasted ten years), became the mother of daughter Rebecca, and taught at historically black colleges Jackson State College and Tougaloo College. Walker has also taught at Wellesley College, University of Massachusetts at Boston, the University of California at Berkeley, and Brandeis University. At Brandeis she is credited with teaching the first American course on African American women writers. Walker continued working in the civil rights movement while teaching at various universities. During this time she also became a major voice in the emerging feminist movement led by mostly white middle-class women. Aware of the issues of race in that movement, Walker later created a specific black woman centered feminist theory, which she called “womanism,” to identity and assess the oppression based on racism and classism that African American women often experience.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Walker
FEBRUARY 8, 1986
DEBI THOMAS
First African-American to win the Women’s Singles of the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship
On Feb. 8, 1986, figure skater Debi Thomas became the first African-American to win the Women’s Singles of the U.S. National Figure Skating Championship competition while studying as a pre-med student at Stanford University. She was the first Black woman to win a national figure skating title. Thomas won both the 1986 U.S. national title and the 1986 World Championships; those achievements earned Thomas the ABC‘s Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year award that year. She was the first female athlete to win those titles while attending college full-time since Tenley Albright in the 1950s. She was the first African-American to hold U.S. National titles in ladies’ singles figure skating. Thomas was a pre-med student at Stanford University during this time although it was unusual for a top U.S. skater to go to college at the same time as competing. That year she received a Candace Award for Trailblazing from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women.
In February 1989, Thomas ranked 12th in the Q Score athlete standings, the only woman in the top 22. She was inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 2000. She was also selected by President George W. Bush to be part of the U.S. Delegation for the Opening Ceremonies of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin Italy along with other former Olympians: Dorothy Hamill, Eric Heiden, Kerri Strug, and Herschel Walker. Thomas returned to the ice briefly to participate in “The Caesars Tribute: A Salute to the Golden Age of American Skating”, an event which featured many of the greatest legends and icons of American figure skating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debi_Thomas
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FEBRUARY 8, 1944
HARRY MCALPHIN
First African-American Reporter to attend a U.S. Presidential News Conference
On this date, February 8th, in 1944, Harry S. McAlpin— a former Navy war correspondent and reporter for the National Negro Press Association and the Atlanta Daily World–was accredited as the first Black journalist to attend a White House press conference.
McAlpin was born July 21, 1906 in Louisville, Kentucky. By 1944, he was working for the National Negro Press Association and the Atlanta Daily World. Although he was advised by the head of the White House Correspondents Association that he was not welcome, McAlpin attended the press conference and at the end was welcomed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Later McAlpin was accepted into the WHCA and covered Presidents Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman for 51 Black newspapers.
He was also a navy war correspondent and spokesman for the United States Department of Agriculture. Later, McAlpin practiced law in Louisville and served as chair of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. McAlpin died July 18, 1985. He was posthumously honored by the WHCA who created a scholarship in his name in 2014. Although accredited at the White House, McAlpin was rejected when he applied for a congressional press pass. The Standing Committee of Correspondents that controlled accreditation for the newspaper press galleries at the Capitol regarded him as a reporter for mostly weekly papers, while the Periodical Press gallery rejected him because he reported for newspapers rather than magazines. McAlpin believed that these actions were influenced “by my racial identity rather than the flimsy technicality publicly stated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_McAlpin
FEBRUARY 7, 1984
MICHAEL JACKSON’S THRILLER ALBUM
ENTERS GUINNESS WORLD BOOK OF RECORDS
The King of Pop set a world record when his sixth studio album, Thriller, reached record-high international and domestic sales. On Feb. 7, 1984, it was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records for best-selling album of all time.
Its worldwide success made it one of the best-selling albums in the world. For weeks after Thriller’s studio release, it would remain No. 1 on music charts across the globe — from Canada to Japan and Australia to Italy.
The album included hits such as “Thriller,” “P.Y.T.” and “Beat It.”Along with a Guinness record, the album went on to score eight Grammy wins, including Album of the Year, and eight American Music Awards in 1984. In just over a year, Thriller became—and currently remains—the world’s best-selling album, with estimated sales of 66 million copies. It is the best-selling album in the United States and the first album to be certified 33× multi-platinum, having shipped 33 million album-equivalent units. The album won a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984, including Album of the Year. It produced seven singles—”The Girl Is Mine“, “Billie Jean“, “Beat It“, “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’“, “Human Nature“, “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)“, and “Thriller“—all of which reached the top 10 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. Thriller broke racial barriers in pop music, enabling Jackson’s appearances on MTV and meeting with President Ronald Reagan at the White House. The album was one of the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools, and the videos for the songs “Thriller”, “Billie Jean”, and “Beat It” all received regular rotation on MTV.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(Michael_Jackson_album)
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FEBRUARY 7, 1861
CHOCTAW INDIAN SUPPORT CONFEDERACY
CONVINCED THEY WILL RECEIVE BETTER TREATMENT FROM THE SOUTHERN GOVERNMENT THAN FROM THE ONE IN WASHINGTON D.C.
On February 7, 1861, the Choctaw nation in the Indian Territory, present day Oklahoma, announced its adherence to the Confederacy. This marks the beginning of the Civil War in the Indian Territory, a fascinating war within the Civil War, that receives scant treatment in most Civil War histories. This is a pity. The War in the Indian territory involved seven battles and innumerable skirmishes, and is full of vivid characters, shifting loyalties and endless drama.
Over the next few years as the 150th anniversary of the Civil War is observed, I intend to do my part to bring this aspect of the War to the readers of Almost Chosen People. The Resolution of the Choctaw Nation:
FEBRUARY 6, 2007
WILLYE B. WHITE, Dies
1st Woman To Compete For USA In Five Olympics
Two-time Olympic Track & Field Medalist
Was the first American track and field athlete to take part in five Olympics, from 1956 to 1972. She was America’s best female long jumper of the time and also competed in the 100 meters sprint. White was a Tennessee State University Tigerbelle under Coach Ed Temple. White was a 16-year-old sophomore in high school when she won a silver medal in the long jump in the 1956 games in Melbourne, Australia. It marked the first time an American woman ever won a medal in that event. She won her second silver medal in 1964 as a member of the 400-meter relay team, along with Wyomia Tyus, Marilyn White and Edith McGuire.
Born in Money, Mississippi, and raised by her grandparents, she picked cotton to help her family earn money, while at the same time competing in sports. A longtime Chicago-area resident, she credited her experience as an athlete with allowing her to see beyond the racism and hatred that surrounded her as a child.
White moved to Chicago in 1960 and became a nurse, first at Cook County Hospital, then at the Greenwood Medical Center. In 1965 she got a job of a public health administrator at the Chicago Health Department, and in 1976 earned a bachelor’s degree from Chicago State University. In those years White was active as an athletics coach, preparing the national team to the 1981 World Cup and 1994 U.S. Olympic Festival. In 1999, Sports Illustrated for Women named her one of the 100 greatest women athletes in the 20th century.
http://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/willye-b-white-39
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FEBRUARY 6, 1945
BOB MARLEY, Birth
Singer * Songwriter * Musician
Robert Nesta Marley, (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican singer-songwriter who became an international musical and cultural icon, blending mostly reggae, ska and rocksteady in his compositions. Starting out in 1963 with the group the Wailers, he forged a distinctive songwriting and vocal style that would later resonate with audiences worldwide. Marley pursued a solo career upon his relocation to England that culminated in the release of the album Exodus in 1977, which established his worldwide reputation and elevated his status as one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time, with sales of more than 75 million records. Exodus stayed on the British album charts for 56 consecutive weeks. It included four UK hit singles: “Exodus”, “Waiting in Vain“, “Jamming“, and “One Love“. In 1978, he released the album Kaya, which included the hit singles “Is This Love” and “Satisfy My Soul”. The greatest hits album, Legend, was released in 1984, three years after Marley died. It subsequently became the best-selling reggae album of all time.
Marley has also evolved into a global symbol and inspired numerous items of merchandise. Bob Marley was born 6 February 1945 on the farm of his maternal grandfather in Nine Mile, Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica, to Norval Sinclair Marley (1885–1955) and Cedella Booker (1926–2008). Norval Marley was a white Jamaican originally from Sussex, England, whose family claimed Syrian Jewish origins. Norval claimed to have been a captain in the Royal Marines; at the time of his marriage to Cedella Booker, an Afro-Jamaican then 18 years old. He was employed as a plantation overseer.
FEBRUARY 5, 1952
HERBIE HANCOCK
On February 5, 1952, at age 11 along with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.26 in D Major, K. 537 (Coronation)
Herbie began studying piano at the age of 7, he started his education with classical music. He graduated from Grinnell College in 1960, by that time he was already performing with Coleman Hawkins and Donald Byrd, in Chicago Jazz clubs. In 1963, Hancock received considerable attention when Byrd invited him to join his quintet in New York.
He joined Miles Davis Quintet in May, 1963. Along with working with Davis’s quintet, Hancock composed several tunes which have become jazz standards, including, Dolphin Dance, Maiden Voyage, Cantaloupe Island, The Socerer and Speak Like a Child. Hancock started with a sextet, his first venture into electronic music. This also included elements of rock, jazz, African and Indian music. This sextet was influenced by Davis’s early fusion recordings. Through this Hancock got more into electronic music and instruments, playing the Fender-Rhodes piano through a variety of signal processors such as wa-wa and fuzz pedals. ‘Headhunters’ was the first on which Hancock used a synthesizer in 1973. It became the largest selling jazz album in history.
In 2010, Herbie Hancock released The Imagine Project, in the same year he received an Alumni Award from his alma mater. Kennedy Center Honors award was given to him for the achievement in performing arts with artists like Snoop Dogg and Mixmaster Mike.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Hancock
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FEBRUARY 5, 1992
NICOMEDES SANTA CRUZ, dies
The Most Important Black Intellectual In Twentieth-Century Peru
Nicomedes Santa Cruz was, without a doubt, the most important black intellectual in twentieth-century Peru, and one of the most important in Latin America. Yet, his life, work, and legacy remain relatively unknown, except within academic circles and among Afro-Peruvian organizations. Between the late 1950s and 1992, the year of his death, he was a restless and passionate cultural entrepreneur, folklorist, poet, and playwright. He was in fact one of the most active intellectuals in Peru: he published about ten books in various genres, essays, short stories, and especially poetry (some of them with several reprints of up to 10,000 copies), hundreds of pieces in newspapers and magazines, and dozens of academic articles on different aspects of black history, culture, religion, poetry, oral traditions, music, and religion. He also recorded a dozen albums that sold thousands of copies, directed radio and TV programs, represented Peru in various international festivals, participated in numerous international conferences, and offered poetry readings in festivals and solidarity events in numerous countries.
Santa Cruz also wrote and directed plays and participated in the staging of theater and music performances. His audience and intellectual connections were not limited to Peru. He became acquainted with intellectuals in the Americas and around the world and conducted research and published works on black music and cultural traditions in other parts of the Americas such as Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Panama. But even more remarkable is the fact that Nicomedes Santa Cruz was a self-taught intellectual who never went to college and only completed elementary school. Three major themes informed the work of Nicomedes Santa Cruz from the mid-1950s through the early 1990s: a celebration of the importance and value of black culture, history, and traditions; the need to fight against racism and discrimination; and his commitment to social justice and anti-imperialism. He was the first black intellectual to merge in his work and efforts an agenda for social justice with a deep preoccupation to fight against black people’s invisibility and oppression.
Nicomedes Santa Cruz: A Black Public Intellectual in Twentieth-Century Peru
FEBRUARY 4, 1794
JEAN-BAPTISTE BELLEY-MARS
Credited With Persuading The French National Convention Body To Abolish Slavery
Jean-Baptiste Belley-Mars, who represented Saint-Domingue in the French National Convention in Paris in 1794, is widely credited with persuading that body to abolish slavery in France. Belley-Mars as a boy was kidnapped by slave catchers on the island of Goree near Dakar, Senegal, and shipped off to the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti). He purchased his freedom from his owner, enlisted in the military, and served in a contingent of black and mulatto troops called Volunteer Chasseurs that was sent to fight against the British in Georgia during in the American Revolutionary War. Returning to Saint-Domingue, Belley-Mars became a well-to-do planter with a penchant for politics.
On February 4, 1794, after having their credentials authenicated, the three delegates from Saint-Domingue were welcomed into the hall of the Convention with exuberant applause, hugs, and, as customary in France, kisses on both cheeks. The next morning, Belley-Mars further secured his place in history when he delivered to the Convention a lengthy, emotionally-charged speech which denounced the inhumanity of slavery and demanded its abolition. Carried away by the moment, a white delegate rose to voice his shame and rebuked the nation for the horrors it allowed in the colonies. Then, by acclamation, the Convention voted to end slavery. Belley-Mars, the man of the hour, returned to the rostrum to receive embraces and unrestrained congratulations.
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FEBRUARY 4, 1973
CAMARA YERO KAMBON
Music Composer Music Producer
Music composer and music producer Camara Yero Kambon was born on February 4, 1973, in Baltimore, Maryland to Anana Maisha Kambon, a preschool teacher, and Kwame Sietu Kambon, an artist. At the age of two, Kambon started studying drums. He moved to the piano at age four and composed his first musical riffs by the age of six. While living in Baltimore, Maryland, Kambon attended Cross Country Elementary and attended Fallstaff Middle School where he began to play other instruments besides the piano. After graduating from middle school, Kambon attended St. Paul’s School for Boys in Lutherville, Maryland.
In 1996, Kambon won an Emmy Award for the music he composed for the HBO film, Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion. At the age of twenty-three, he was the youngest composer ever to receive a national Emmy Award. Kambon then became head of Inflx Entertainment, a musical production company in Hollywood, California, specializing in film, television and records. Kambon has worked as the composer for two television series, A Different World and Living Single. He has also worked as a keyboard player for producer and rapper, Dr. Dre. In addition, Kambon composed Korikabaya, which was performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
http://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/camara-kambon-41
FEBRUARY 3, 1956
AUTHERINE LUCY FOSTER
First African American Enrolled at University of Alabama
Even though Lucy got admitted the school suspended her shortly after claiming they couldn’t protect from racist mobs. She sued them, but lost. Then they expelled her claiming she slandered the school. Years later she was able to get her Masters degree from the University.
However, she was barred from all dormitories and dining halls. At least two sources have said that the board hoped that without Hudson, the more outgoing and assured of the pair and whose idea it originally was to enroll at Alabama, Lucy’s own acceptance would mean little or nothing to her, and she would voluntarily choose not to attend. But Hudson and others strongly encouraged her, and on February 3, 1956, Lucy enrolled as a graduate student in library science, becoming the first African American ever admitted to a white public school or university in the state.
On the third day of classes, a hostile mob assembled to prevent Lucy attending classes. The police were called to secure her admission but, that evening, the University suspended Lucy on the grounds that it could not provide a safe environment. Lucy and her attorneys filed suit against the University to have the suspension overturned. However, this suit was not successful and was used as a justification for her permanent expulsion. University officials claimed that Lucy had slandered the university and they could not have her as a student.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autherine_Lucy
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FEBRUARY 3, 1936
GEORGE HENDERSON
First Black Phi Beta Kappa
Born a slave in Clark County, Virginia, George Washington Henderson graduated from the University of Vermont in 1877 and became the first African American to be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), the highest academic honor society. He later received a bachelor’s degree in divinity from Yale University, spending a career in academics and theology. George Washington Henderson was illiterate when he arrived as a teen in northwestern Vermont at the end of the Civil War, perhaps working as the servant of a Vermont resident he met during the war. Henderson spent the next eight years in tutoring at the Underhill Academy and was admitted into the University of Vermont in 1873.
Henderson then earned a master’s of arts degree from the University of Vermont, a bachelor’s degree of divinity from Yale University, and further studied at the University of Berlin in Germany under a Hooker-Dwight fellowship. Henderson also served as principal of the Craftsbury Academy and Newport Graded School, both in Vermont.
FEBRUARY 2, 1936
DUANE JONES ACTOR
First African American With Starring Role In Horror Film
‘NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD’
1936: Actor Duane Jones was born on this day in New York City. He was the first African American to have a starring role in a mainstream horror film – Night of the Living Dead in 1968. Jones was a former English professor who directed at the Maguire Theater at the Old Westbury campus of New York State University, and he additionally served as artistic director at the Richard Allen Center in New York City. He died in 1988 from heart failure. He was only 52.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Jones
Jones was executive director of the Black Theater Alliance, a federation of theater companies, from 1976 through 1981. He also taught acting styles at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. As executive director of the Richard Allen Center for Culture and Art (RACCA), he promoted African-American theater. After leaving the American Academy of Dramatic Arts he taught a select group of students privately in Manhattan, by invitation only. His hand-selected students were of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The students were picked from his Acting Styles classes at American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
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FEBRUARY 2, 1887
Law Passed Prohibiting Indian Language In Schools
In his annual report, Commision of Indian Affairs J.D.C. Atkins emphasizes that the use of Indian languages in reservation schools is prohibited. The only permissible language in Indian schools will be English. In December 1886, Atkins directed that “in all schools conducted by missionary organizations it is required that all instructions shall be given in the English language.” Atkins reminded teachers about this policy. From Annual report of the Commision of Indian Affairs, 1887:
In reply I have to advise you that the rule applies to all schools on Indian reservations, whether they be Government or mission schools. The instruction of the Indians in the vernacular is not only of no use to them, but is detrimental to the cause of their education and civilization, and no school will be permitted on the reservation in which the English language is not exclusively taught.
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FEBRUARY 1, 1997
First 24-Hour Black Movie Channel
BET Holdings and Encore Media Corp. Launch BET/Movie Starz
The First Black 24 Hour Movie Channel
Black Entertainment Television (BET, stylised as BET⭐) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the BET Networks division of Viacom. It is the most prominent television network targeting African American audiences, with approximately 88,255,000 American households (75.8% of households with television) receiving the channel.
http://www.aprilsims.com/today-in-black-history-february-1/
Programming on the network consists of original and acquired television series and theatrically and direct-to-video-released films. The network has also aired a variety of stand-up comedy, news, and current affairs programs, and formerly aired mainstream rap, hip-hop and R&B music videos; the latter of which now air on its branded sister networks.
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1834:
The state of Georgia has begun the process of seizing CHEROKEE property.
Much of the land will be given to white settlers under a lottery. The CHEROKEEs are forced out at gunpoint, in many cases. Today, CHEROKEEs will begin arriving at the Cherokee Agency in eastern Tennessee to be moved to Indian Territory. The first boats will leave the agency on March 14, 1834.
