TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 30, 1922 – James Varick is consecrated the first Black Bishop of the AME Zion Church.

http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aah/varick-james-1750-1827

QUOTE FOR THE WEEK

“For I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.”    —Mary McLeod Bethune

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 29, 1895 – First National Conference of Colored Women is held at the Charles Street AME Church in Boston, MA. The conference was organized and convened by Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin founder of the Women's New Era Club, a charitable organization of sixty prominent black women in Boston. Two years after the conference was held, the National Association of Colored Women was formed with Mary Church Terrell as its first president.

Mary Church Terrell

Mother Bethel AME Church, founded by Richard Allen, is dedicated in Philadelphia. It is among the first African-American churches established in the United States.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 28, 1868 – The 14^th Amendment to the United States Constitution is adopted. Its citizenship clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v. Sanford ruling by the United States Supreme Court (1857) that had held that blacks could not be citizens of the United States. 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 27, 2004 – Barack Obama, a candidate for the US Senate from Illinois, gives the keynote address that electrifies attendees at the Democratic National Convention held in Boston, MA. He would later become the first American-American President of the United States.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 26, 1847 – Liberia, a country in Africa settled by African Americans, both free and former slaves, declares its independence.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 25, 1948 – President Harry S. Truman issues Executive Order 9981, ending segregation in the United States Armed Forces.

July 24, 1807 – Ira Aldridge, the first Black actor to receive international recognition, is born in New York, NY.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 23, 1778 – Hundreds of Blacks participate in the Battle of Monmouth (NJ) during the American war for Independence.

July 22, 1862 – President Abraham Lincoln reads the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. It becomes law on January 1, 1863, becoming a first step toward freedom for more than 4 million African Americans held in Slavery. 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 21, 1896 – The National Association of Negro Colored Women is founded in Washington, DC. Mary Church Terrell is elected its first president.

July 20, 1967 – The first national “Black Power” conference is convened in Newark, NJ. More than 1,000 people attend.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 19, 1941 – The first Airmen’s School (US Army) for African Americans is dedicated in Tuskegee, AL. The US Military is segregated until 1948.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 18, 1918 – Nelson Mandela, South African freedom fighter and the first black to be elected president of his country is born.

Learn more about this great man at
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/multimedia/entry/conversations_with_myself_book_launch

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 17, 1967 – Innovative Jazz composer and performer John Coltrane dies from liver cancer.  Among his most popular albums were A Love Supreme and Expressions, released after his death.

http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist/music/detail.aspx?pid=10846&aid=2660

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 16, 1862 – Ida B. Wells, anti-lynching crusader, civil rights and women’s rights leader, is born in Holly Spring, MS.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 15, 1867 – Maggie Lena Walker, first woman and first African American woman to become president of a bank, is born in Richmond, VA.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 14, 1955 - George Washington Carver Monument, first national park honoring an African American, is dedicated in Diamond, Mo.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 13, 1965 – Thurgood Marshall, noted civil rights lawyer, becomes the first Black appointed United States Solicitor general.

Read more about him in Just us Books' forthcoming revised edition of Book of Black Heroes from A to Z scheduled for publication October 20, 2012.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 12, 1949 – Frederick M. Jones patents a portable air-cooling unit for trucks carrying perishable food. Portable cooling units designed by Jones were especially important during World War II, preserving blood, medicine, and food for use at army hospitals and on open battlefields.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 11, 1905 – The Niagara Movement, the forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is organized in Niagara Falls, NY. Among the organizers were W.E.B. DuBois, William Monroe Trotter, and Ida B. Wells Barnett.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 10, 1875 – Educator and Black leader Mary McLeod Bethune is born in Mayesville, SC.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 9, 1893 – Dr. Daniel Hale Williams performs the first successful open heart operation.

Learn more about Dr. Williams and others in Book of Black Heroes: Scientists, Healers and Inventors by Wade Hudson, published by Just Us Books.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 8, 1943   Faye Wattleton, first African American director of Planned Parenthood, is born. She led Planned Parenthood from 1978 to 1992. Currently, she serves as the President of the Center for the Advancement of Women, and also serves on the board of trustees at Columbia University.

Read more about Faye Wattleton in Book of Black Heroes: Great Women in the Struggle, published by Just us Books.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 7, 1948 – The Cleveland Indians of the American League of Major League Baseball, sign pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige. Just one year earlier, Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier when he played 1^st base for the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League. Satchel Paige had been one of Negro League Baseball’s brightest stars.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 6, 1957 – Althea Gibson wins the women’s singles title at Wimbledon in England, becoming the first African American to win a major tennis event.   

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 5, 1892 – Andrew Beard patents an improvement to the rotary stream engine.  

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

 

July 4, 1900 – Jazz pioneer Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong is born in New Orleans, LA

QUOTE FOR TODAY

“As long as there is poverty in the world I can never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the way our world is made. No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.”

                                                                                                                                              Martin Luther King, Jr.

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 3, 1688  A Quaker group in Germantown, PA signed a petition which was the first formal protest against slavery in the country by a religious group. The first blacks were brought to the American colonies in 1619. Then in 1654, John Castor, an African, became the first legally recognized “slave” in the colonies when a court in Northampton County, VA declared him “property for life” to be “owned” by his master. By 1688 when the Quaker group signed their petition, slavery was firmly established in the colonies.   

Today’s Quote

”I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”                                                        Harriet Tubman

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 2, 1872 – Black inventor Elijah McCoy patents his self-lubricating device which would help revolutionize railway transportation. 

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY

July 1, 1889  Abolitionist and Black leader Frederick Douglass is named United States Minister to Haiti.