01 October 1851 – 1991

1851 – William “Jerry” Henry, a runaway slave and craftsman who had settled in Syracuse, New York, is arrested by a United States Marshal and scheduled to be returned to slavery.  Ten thousand citizens of the city will storm the sheriff’s office and courthouse, free Henry, and aid his escape to Canada via the underground railroad.

1872 – Morgan State College (now University) is founded in Baltimore, Maryland.

1886 – Kentucky State College (now University) is founded in Frankfort, Kentucky.

1903 – Virginia Proctor Powell, first female African American librarian is born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania.

1937 – The Pullman Company formally recognizes the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

1937 – The Spingarn Medal is awarded to Walter White, NAACP secretary, for his leadership and work in the anti-lynching movement.

1945 – Donny Hathaway is born in Chicago, Illinois.  He will be an influential pop and Rhythm & Blues singer of the 1970s whose hit songs will include “The Ghetto” and “The Closer I Get to You” (with Roberta Flack).

1945 – Rod Carew, baseball Hall of Famer and American League Rookie of the Year in 1967, is born.

1945 – Heavyweight champion,  Joe Louis, is discharged from the army.

1947 – United States’ control of Haitian Custom Service and governmental revenue ends.

1948 – The California Supreme Court voids state statute banning interracial marriages.

1948 – Edward Dudley is named Ambassador to Liberia.

1951 – The 24th Infantry Regiment, last of the all African American military units authorized by Congress in 1866, is deactivated  in Korea.

1954 – The British colony of Nigeria becomes a federation.

1960 – Nigeria proclaims its independence from Great Britain.

1961 – East & West Cameroon merge and become the Federal Republic of Cameroon.

1963 – Nigeria becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth.

1966 – The Black Panther party is founded in Oakland, California by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.

1977 – Brazilian soccer great, Pele’, retires with 1,281 goals in 1,363 games.

1989 – Dallas Cowboy, Ed “Too Tall” Jones records his 1,000th NFL tackle.

1991 – Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell assumes her duties as dean of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. A noted art historian, Schmidt had previously served as commissioner of cultural affairs, director of the Studio of Harlem, and chair of the Smithsonian Institution’s Advisory Committee that recommended creation of a national African American museum.

02 October 1800 – 1989

1800 – Nat Turner is born in Southampton, Virginia. Believing himself called by God to free his fellow bondsmen, Turner will become a freedom fighter leader of one of the most famous slave revolts, resulting in the death of scores of whites and involving 60 to 80 slaves.

1833 – The New York Anti-Slavery Society is organized.

1898 – Otis J. Rene’ is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. With his younger brother Leon, he will move to Los Angeles, California, and establish Exclusive and Excelsior Records in the 1930’s. By the mid-1940’s, the brothers will be leading independent record producers whose artists will include Nat King Cole, Herb Jeffries, and Johnny Otis.

1929 – Moses Gunn is born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He will become an actor and will appear in “Amityville II,” “Shaft,” and “Good Times.”

1932 – Maury Wills is born.  He will become a professional baseball player and shortstop for the Dodger organization. He will become the National League Most Valuable Player in 1962.

1936 – Johnnie Cochran is born.  He will become a criminal defense attorney and will be best known for his defense of Black Panther Party member Geronimo Pratt and ex-NFL superstar O.J. Simpson.

1958 – The Republic of Guinea gains independence under the leadership of Sekou Toure.

1965 – Bishop Harold Robert Perry of Lake Charles, Louisiana, is named auxiliary bishop of New Orleans by Pope Paul IV.

1967 – Thurgood Marshall becomes the first African American member of the United States Supreme Court.

1967 – Robert H. Lawrence, who was named the first African American astronaut, joins the ancestors after being killed in a plane crash before his first mission.

1968 – Bob Gibson, of the St. Louis Cardinals, sets a world series record of 17 strikeouts.

1980 – Larry Holmes retains the WBC heavyweight boxing title defeating Muhammad Ali.

1981 – Hazel Scott, renown jazz singer and pianist, joins the ancestors at the age of 61.

1986 – The United States Senate overrides President Ronald Reagan’s veto of legislation imposing economic sanctions against South Africa. The override is seen as the culmination of efforts by Trans-Africa’s Randall Robinson, Rep. Mickey Leland, and others begun almost two years earlier with Robinson’s arrest before the South African Embassy in Washington, DC.

1989 – “Jump Start” premiers in 40 newspapers in the United States. The comic strip is the creation of 26-year-old Robb Armstrong, the youngest African American to have a syndicated comic strip. He follows in the footsteps of Morrie Turner, the creator of “Wee Pals,” the first African American syndicated comic strip.

03 October 1856 – 1994

1856 – T. Thomas Fortune is born in Marianna, Florida.  An advocate of full equality for African Americans, he will found the Afro-American League in 1887, serve as editor of the weekly New York Globe, and founder of the New York Freeman (later the New York Age) and the Washington Sun.

1904 – The Daytona Normal and Industrial School opens in Daytona Beach, Florida.   In 1923, the school merges with Cookman Institute and becomes Bethune-Cookman College.  One of the leading institutions for training teachers, founder Mary McLeod Bethune will later say the college was started on “faith and a dollar and a half.”

1926 – Marques Haynes is born.  He will become a professional basketball player, and become “The World’s Greatest Dribbler,” and Harlem Globetrotters’ ace.

1935 – Ethiopia is invaded by Italy, despite Emperor Haile Selasse’s pleas for help to the League of Nations.

1941 – Ernest Evans is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Later adopting the name “Chubby Checker” after the renowned Fats Domino, his best-known recording will be the 1960’s ” The Twist,” which will spark the biggest dance craze since the Charleston in the 1920’s.

1949 – The first African American owned radio station, WERD-AM in Atlanta, Georgia, is founded by Jesse Blanton, Sr.

1950 – Ethel Waters becomes the first African American star in a TV series, when “Beulah” is aired.

1951 – Dave Winfield is born in St. Paul, Minnesota.   He will be selected in four major sports league drafts in 1973 – NFL, NBA, ABA, and MLB.  He will choose baseball and play in 12 All-Star Games over a 20-year career with the San Diego Padres, the New York Yankees, and the California Angels.

1974 – Frank Robinson is named manager of the Cleveland Indians.  He becomes the first African American manager in major league baseball.

1979 – Artist Charles White, joins the ancestors at the age of 61 in Los Angeles, California.

1989 – Art Shell is named head coach of the Los Angeles Raiders.  He is the first African American coach named in the National Football League in over 60 years.

1994 – U.S. soldiers in Haiti raid the headquarters of a pro-army militia that is despised by the general Haitian population.

1994 – Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy announces his resignation because of questions about gifts he had received.

1994 – South African President Nelson Mandela addresses the United Nations, urging the world to support his country’s economy.

04 October 1864 – 1994

1864 – The National Black Convention meets in Syracuse, New York.

1864 – The New Orleans Tribune, the first African American daily newspaper, is founded by Dr. Louis C. Roudanez. The newspaper, published in both English and French, starts as a tri-weekly, but soon becomes an influential daily.

1934 – Malvin Gray Johnson joins the ancestors in New York City. His deceptively simple paintings, with their warm colors and serene, sensuous charm, had earned him a large and loyal group of admirers during the Harlem Renaissance.

1935 – Joe Walcott, World Welterweight Boxing Champion during the early 1900 s, joins the ancestors after being struck and killed by a car.  He is perhaps the only West Indian (from Barbados), universally recognized as a boxing legend.  Walcott stood at five feet, one and a half inches, his fighting weight at 142 pounds, basically a midget version of Mike Tyson.  His short powerful physique enabled him to bob and weave, catching his opponent s punches on his powerful shoulders and his granite-like head.

1937 – Lee Patrick Brown is born in Wewoka, Oklahoma.  He will become one of the top-ranking law-enforcement executives in the United States, first as Public Safety Commissioner in Atlanta, Georgia, then as the first African American police chief in Houston, Texas, the second African American police commissioner for New York City, and the first African American mayor of Houston.

1943 – H. Rap Brown is born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  He will become a Black nationalist and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

1944 – Dancer Pearl Primus makes her Broadway debut at the Belasco Theater. She will become widely known for blending the African and American dance traditions.

1944 – Patricia Holt is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She will become a singer known as Patti LaBelle and will be a lead with the Ordettes, the Bluebells, and LaBelle.   She will eventually debut a solo career performing over 90 concerts a year.  She will publish her life story, “Don’t Block The Blessings: Revelations of a Lifetime.”

1945 – Clifton Davis is born in Chicago, Illinois.  He will become an actor and singer, performing in “That’s My Mama,” and “Amen” on television.  He will also become a minister in the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

1966 – Lesotho (Basutoland) gains its independence from Great Britain.

1976 – Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz resigns in the wake of a controversy over a joke he had made about Blacks.

1991 – The Harold Washington Library in Chicago, Illinois is dedicated in the memory of its beloved former mayor.

1994 – Exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide vows in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, to return to Haiti in 11 days.

1994 – President Clinton welcomes South African President Nelson Mandela to the White House.

05 October 1867 – 1992

1867 – Monroe Baker, a well-to-do African American businessman, is named mayor of St. Martin, Louisiana.  He is probably the first African American to serve as mayor of a town.

1872 – Booker T. Washington leaves Malden, West Virginia to enter Hampton Institute.

1878 – George B. Vashion joins the ancestors after succumbing to yellow fever in Rodney, Mississippi. He was the first African American lawyer in the state of New York and an educator and poet whose most famous work was “Victor Oge” (1854), the first narrative, nonlyrical poem by an African American writer.

1929 – Autherine Lucy (later Foster) is born in Shiloh, Alabama. She will be the first African American student to enroll at the University of Alabama (1956).

1932 – Perle Yvonne Watson is born in Los Angeles, California. As Yvonne Braithwaite, she will serve as staff attorney on the McCone Commission investigating the causes of the Watts riots and will become the first African American woman elected to the California state assembly, as well as the first African American woman elected to the House of Representatives.   She also will be the first woman to sit on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors as a result of an appointment by Governor Brown.  Some years later, she will become the first woman elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

1985 – Grambling’s coach Eddie Robinson wins his record 324th college football game.

1992 – Eddie Kendrick, one of the original members of the Motown group, The Temptations, joins the ancestors after succumbing to lung cancer.

06 October 1776 – 1994

1776 – Henri Christophe is born a slave in Grenada.  He will become a Haitian revolutionist and ruler and also become provisional chief of northern Haiti. He will establish himself as King Henri I in the north and build Citadelle Laferriere.

1847 – National Black convention meets in Troy, New York, with more than sixty delegates from nine states.  Nathan Johnson of Massachusetts is elected president.

1868 – An African American state convention at Macon, Georgia, protests expulsion of African American politicians from the Georgia legislature.

1871 – The Fisk Jubilee Singers begin their tour to raise money for the school. Soon they will become one of the most popular African American folk-singing groups of the late 19th century, performing throughout the U.S. and Europe and raising large sums for Fisk’s building program.

1917 – Fannie Lou Hamer is born near Ruleville, Mississippi.  She will become a leader of the civil rights movement during the 1960’s and founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in Montgomery County, Mississippi.

1921 – Joseph Echols Lowery is born in Huntsville, Alabama.  An early civil rights activist, he will become a founder, chairman of the board, and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.  He will lead SCLC to great levels of civil rights activism including a 2,700-mile pilgrimage to extend and strengthen the Voting Rights Act, protesting toxic waste sites in African American communities, and actions against United States’ corporations doing business in apartheid South Africa.

1965 – Patricia Harris takes the post as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, becoming the first African American U.S. ambassador.

1981 – Anwar Sadat, president of Egypt, is assassinated by extremists while reviewing a military parade.

1986 – Abram Hill joins the ancestors in New York City. He was the founder of the city’s American Negro Theatre in 1940, where the careers of Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, and Sidney Poitier were launched. Hill’s adaptation of the play “Anna Lucasta” premiered on Broadway in 1944 and ran successfully for 900 performances.

1991 – Williams College’s exhibit of African American photography – “Black Photographers Bear Witness: 100 Years of Social Protest” opens. The exhibit includes photography by C.M. Battey, James Van Der Zee, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Moneta Sleet, Carrie Mae Weems, and others.

1991 – Anita Hill, a former personal assistant to Supreme Court justice nominee Clarence Thomas, accuses Thomas of sexual harassment (from 1981-83) during his confirmation hearings.

1994 – South African President, Nelson Mandela, addresses a joint session of Congress.  He will warn against the lure of isolationism, saying the U.S. post-Cold War focus should be on eliminating “tyranny, instability and poverty” across the globe.

07 October 1821 – 1997

1821 – William Still is born in Burlington County, New Jersey.  He will become an abolitionist and will be involved in the anti-slavery movement working for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.  After the Civil War, he will chronicle the personal accounts of former runaway slaves, who had traveled on the Underground Railroad.  His publication, “Underground Railroad,” published in 1872, will provide a revealing look into the activities of the flight of fugitive slaves.   Still will be a civil rights activist, researcher and writer, until he joins the ancestors in 1902.

1856 – Moses Fleetwood Walker is born in Steubenville, Ohio.  He will become a baseball player when he and his brother Welday join the first baseball team at Oberlin College.   He will become a professional baseball player after leaving Oberlin when he joins the Toledo Blue Stockings of the Northwestern League in 1883. When he plays his first game for the Blue Stockings in the American Association the next year, he will become the first African American to play in the major leagues. After the 1884 season, no other African Americans will play in the major leagues until Jackie Robinson in 1947.

1873 – Henry E. Hayne, secretary of state, is accepted as a student at the University of South Carolina.  Scores of African-Americans will attend the university in 1874 and 1875.

1886 – Spain abolishes slavery in Cuba.

1888 – Sargent C. Johnson is born in Boston, Massachusetts.  He will be a pioneering artist of the Harlem Renaissance, known for his wood, cast stone, and ceramic sculptures.   Among his most famous works will be “Forever Free” and “Mask.  “

1889 – Clarence Muse is born in Baltimore, Maryland.  He will become a pioneer film and stage actor.  He will appear in the second talking movie ever made and go on to appear in a total of 219 films.  His career will span over 60 years.

1891 – Archibald John Motley, Jr. is born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will become one of the more renowned painters of the 1920’s and 1930’s.

1897 – Elijah Poole is born in Sandersville, Georgia.  He will become better known as The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, one of the most influential leaders in the Nation of Islam.   Poole will be trained by Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, founder of the Nation of Islam, and will lead the organization to become the largest African American movement since Garveyism until his death on February 25, 1975.

1931 – Desmond Mpilo Tutu is born in Klerksdorp, South Africa.  He will become the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1984, and Archbishop of the Anglican Church (First Anglican bishop of African descent) of Johannesburg, South Africa.

1934 – LeRoi Jones is born in Newark, New Jersey.  He will be better known as Amiri Baraka, influential playwright, author, and critic of the African American experience.

1954 – Marian Anderson becomes the first African American singer hired by the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York.

1981 – Egypt’s parliament names Vice President Hosni Mubarak to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat.

1984 – Walter Payton passes Jim Brown as NFL’s career rushing leader.

1985 – Lynette Woodward, is chosen as the first woman to play with the Harlem Globetrotters.

1989 – Ricky Henderson steals a record 8 bases in a play off (5 games).

1993 – Writer, Toni Morrison, is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.

1995 – Coach Eddie Robinson, of Grambling State University, wins his 400th game and sets a NCAA record that clearly establishes him as a legend.

1997 – MCA Records offers, for sale, fifteen previously unreleased tracks of legendary guitarist, Jimi Hendrix.   Hendrix joined the ancestors in 1970.

08 October 1775 – 1999

1775 – A council of general officers decides to bar slaves and free African Americans from serving in the Continental Army.

1930 – Faith Ringgold is born in New York City. She will become a multimedia artist whose paintings, face masks, fabric and soft sculptures, and quilts will earn her praise for her reaffirmation of African American women’s values and unique perspective.

1941 – Rev. Jesse L. Jackson is born in Greenville, South Carolina.  He will be a civil rights leader and founder of Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity) in 1971, an organization that will focus attention on the economic disparity between whites and African Americans. In 1988, he will be a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

1950 – Robert “Kool” Bell is born. He will become a rhythm and blues singer and will become the leader of his own group, “Kool & the Gang.”

1963 – The Sultan of Zanzibar cedes his mainland possessions to Kenya.

1969 – Police officers and African Americans exchange sniper fire on Chicago’s West Side.  One youth is killed and nine policemen are injured.

1992 – The Nobel Prize for literature is awarded to West Indies poet, Derek Walcott.

1993 – The U.N. General Assembly lifted almost all its remaining economic sanctions against South Africa, begun in the 1960s and built up in subsequent years because of Pretoria’s policy of racial apartheid.

1999 – Laila Ali, the 21-year-old daughter of Muhammad Ali, makes her professional boxing debut by knocking out opponent April Fowler 31 seconds after the opening bell in Verona, New   York.

09 Ocotber 1823 – 1999

1823 – Mary Ann Shadd (later Cary) is born free in Wilmington, Delaware, the eldest of thirteen children.  She will become the publisher of Canada’s first anti-slavery newspaper, “The Provincial Freeman”, devoted to displaced African Americans living in Canada. This also makes her the first woman in North America to publish and edit a newspaper.  She will then become a teacher, establishing or teaching in schools for African Americans in Wilmington, Delaware, West Chester, Pennsylvania, New York, Morristown, New Jersey, and Canada. She will also be the first woman to speak at a national Negro convention. In 1869, she will embark on her second career, becoming the first woman to enter Howard University’s law school. She will become the first African American woman to obtain a law degree and among the first women in the United States to do so.  She will join the ancestors in 1893.

1906 – Leopold Senghor is born in Joal, Senegal, French West Africa (now in Senegal).  He will become a poet and president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980.  Senghor will try to modernize Senegal’s agriculture, instill a sense of enlightened citizenship, combat corruption and inefficiency, forge closer ties with his African neighbors, and continue cooperation with the French. He will advocate an African socialism based on African realities, free of both atheism and excessive materialism. He will seek an open, democratic, humanistic socialism that shunned such slogans as “dictatorship of the proletariat.” A vigorous spokesman for the Third World, he will protest unfair terms of trade that work to the disadvantage of the agricultural nations. In 1984, Senghor will be inducted into the French Academy, becoming the first black member in that body’s history.

1929 – Ernest “Dutch” Morial is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He will become the first African American mayor of New Orleans in 1978 and be re-elected in 1982.

1940 – The White House releases a statement which says that government “policy is not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations.”

1959 – Mike Singletary is born in Houston, Texas.  He will become a second-round draft pick for the Chicago Bears in 1981.   He will be the first or second leading tackler for each of his eleven seasons. Over his career he will amass 1488 tackles (885 solo), 51 passes defended, 13 fumble recoveries, and 7 interceptions.  He will be an All-NFC selection nine straight years from 1983-1991, will be selected to ten consecutive Pro Bowls, and Defensive Player of the Year in 1985 and 1988. He will be enshrined in the Football Hall of Fame in 1998.

1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.

1962 – Uganda gains its independence from Great Britain.

1963 – Uganda becomes a republic within the British Commonwealth.

1989 – The first NFL game with a team coached by an African American, Art Shell, takes place as his Los Angeles Raiders beat the New York Jets 14-7 on Monday Night Football.

1999 – Milt Jackson, a jazz vibraphonist who made the instrument sing like the human voice as a longtime member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, joins the ancestors at the age of 76.   He succumbed to liver cancer in a Manhattan hospital.

10 Ocotber 1874 – 1991

1874 – South Carolina Republicans carry the election with a reduced victory margin.  The Republican ticket is composed of four whites and four Blacks.

1899 – J.W. Butts, inventor, receives a patent for a luggage carrier.

1899 – I. R. Johnson patents his bicycle frame.

1901 – Frederick Douglass Patterson is born in Washington, DC.  He will receive doctorate degrees from both Iowa State University and Cornell University.  Dr. Patterson will serve as the president of Tuskegee Institute from 1935 to 1955.   In 1943, he will organize a meeting of the heads of Black colleges to conduct annual campaigns for funds needed to help meet the operating expenses of 27 Black colleges and universities.   This will result in the formation of the United Negro College Fund. Dr. Patterson will serve as its first president.

1917 – Thelonious Monk is born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  He will become an innovative jazz pianist and composer of  Round Midnight.’ Monk will be considered one of the fathers of jazz improvisation and in 1961 will be featured on the cover of Time magazine, only one of three jazz musicians so honored at that time.

1935 – George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” premieres at the Alvin Theater in New York City.

1946 – Ben Vereen is born in Miami, Florida.  He will become a dancer and multi-faceted entertainer.

1953 – Gus Williams is born. He will become a professional basketball player and NBA guard with the Golden State Warriors, Seattle Supersonics, and Washington Bullets.

1957 – President Eisenhower apologizes to the finance minister of Ghana, Komla Agbeli Gbdemah, after he is refused service in a Dover, Delaware restaurant.

1961 – Otis M. Smith is appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court and becomes the first African American on the high court.

1978 – Congressman Ralph H. Metcalfe joins the ancestors in Chicago at the age of 68.

1989 –  South African President F.W. de Klerk announces that eight prominent political prisoners, including African National Congress official Walter Sisulu, would be unconditionally freed, but that Nelson Mandela would remain imprisoned.

1991 – Redd Foxx (John Elroy Sanford), comedian (Sanford & Sons), joins the ancestors at the age of 68.

11 Ocotber 1864 – 1994

1864 – Slavery is abolished in Maryland.

1865 – Jamaican national hero, Paul Bogle leads a successful protest march to the Morant Bay Courthouse.   Poverty and injustice in Jamaican society and lack of public confidence in the central authority had urged Paul Bogle to lead the march.  A violent confrontation with official forces will follow the march, resulting in the death of nearly 500 people.  Many others will be flogged and punished before order is restored.  Paul Bogle will be captured and hanged on October 24, 1865.  His forceful demonstration will pave the way for the establishment of just practices in the courts and bring about a change in official attitude, making possible the social and economic betterment of the Jamaican people.

1882 – R. Nathaniel Dett, is born in Ontario, Canada.  He will become an acclaimed concert pianist, composer, arranger, and choral conductor.  He will receive his musical education at the Oliver Willis Halstead Conservatory in Lockport, NY, Oberlin College (BM, 1908, composition and piano), and the Eastman School of Music (MM, 1938).  He will become President of the National Association of Negro Musicians from 1924-1926.   His teaching tenures will include Lane College in Tennessee, Lincoln Institute in Missouri, Bennett College in North Carolina, and Hampton Institute in Virginia.  It will be at Hampton Institute that he develops the choral ensembles which will receive international acclaim and recognition.

1887 – A. Miles registers a patent on an elevator.

1919 – Art Blakey is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Blakey, a jazz drummer credited as one of the creators of bebop, will be best known as the founder of the Jazz Messengers. The band will become a proving ground for some of the best modern jazz musicians, including Horace Silver, Hank Mobely, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter, Sonny Rollins, Wynton Marsalis, and Branford Marsalis.

1939 – Coleman Hawkins records his famous “Body and Soul” in New York City.

1939 – The NAACP organizes the Education and Legal Defense Fund.

1972 – A major prison uprising occurs at the Washington, DC jail.

1976 – The United Nations Day of Solidarity with South Africa is declared by the membership of the United Nations.  A special day of solidarity is observed with the numerous political prisoners who are being held in South Africa.

1980 – Billy Thomas joins the ancestors after a heart attack in Los Angeles, California.  He was an actor, most notable as the third child to portray Buckwheat in the Our Gang comedies, a role he played in some 80 episodes of the popular film series.

1985 – President Reagan bans the importation of South African gold coins known as Krugerrands.

1994 – U.S. troops in Haiti take over the National Palace.

12 Ocotber 1904 – 1999

1904 – William Montague Cobb is born in Washington, DC. He will become a physician, longtime professor of anatomy, and editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association from 1949 to 1977.

1908 – Ann Petry is born in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  She will become the author of “The Street and the Juvenile Work”, and “Harriet Tubman, Conductor of the Underground Railroad.”

1925 – Xavier University, America’s only African American Catholic college, becomes a reality, when the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is established.  The first degrees were awarded three years later. (The Normal School was founded in 1915.)

1929 – Napoleon Brown is born in Charlotte, North Carolina.  He will become a blues singer better known as “Nappy” Brown.  He will begin his career as the lead singer for the gospel group, The Heavenly Lights, recording for Savoy Records.   In 1954, Savoy will convince Brown to cross over to secular music.  For the next few years, he will ride the first wave of rock and roll until his records stop selling.  After years away from the limelight, Nappy Brown will resurface in 1984 with an album for Landslide Records.  Since then, he has been regularly performing and currently records for the New Moon Blues independent label.

1932 – Richard Claxton Gregory is born in St. Louis, Missouri. He will be better known as “Dick” Gregory and in the 1960’s will become a comedic pioneer, bringing a new perspective to comedy and opening many doors for Black entertainers. Once he achieves success in the entertainment world, he will shift gears and use his talents to help causes in which he believes.  He will serve the community for over forty years as a comedian, civil and human rights activist and health/nutrition advocate. On October 9, 2000, his friends and supporters will honor him at a Kennedy Center gala, showing him their “appreciation for his uncommon character, unconditional love, and generous service.”

1935 – Samuel Moore is born in Miami, Florida.  He will become a rhythm and blues singer and one half of the group: Sam & Dave (Dave Prater).  The two singers will be brought together onstage at Miami’s King of Hearts nightclub during an amateur night venue. Sam and Dave will record for the Alston and Roulette labels before being discovered by Atlantic Records’ Jerry Wexler, who caught their act at the King of Hearts in 1964 and then sent them to Memphis-based Stax to record the next year.  They will be best know for their hits, “Hold On! I’m a Comin'”, “Soul Man”, “I Thank You”, and “You Got Me Hummin'”.  Sam and Dave will finally call it quits after a performance in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve in 1981.  Samuel Moore will live to see the induction of Sam and Dave into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 (Dave Prater will be killed in an automobile accident in 1988).

1968 – Equatorial Guinea gains independence from Spain.

1972 – Forty-six African American and white sailors are injured in a racially motivated insurrection aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, off the coast of North Vietnam.

1989 – George Beavers, Jr., the last surviving founder of Golden State Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles, California, joins the ancestors. He co-founded this company in 1925, which is the third largest African American life insurance company, with $120 million in assets and $5 billion of insurance in force.

1989 – Herschel Walker is traded from the Dallas Cowboys to the Minnesota Vikings for 12 players.  The trade will turn out a lot better for Dallas than for Minnesota.

1999 – Wilt Chamberlain joins the ancestors.  He succumbs to a heart attack at the age of 63 in his Bel Air home in Los Angeles, California. Chamberlain was a center so big, agile and dominant that he forced basketball to change its rules and was the only player to score 100 points in an NBA game.

13 Ocotber 1831 – 2000

1831 – Jo Anderson, a slave, helps invent the grain harvester reaper.

1876 – Meharry Medical College, formally opens as Central Tennessee College.

1901 – Edith Spurlock (later Sampson) is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  She will graduate from the John Marshall Law School in Chicago in 1925 with a Bachelor of Laws degree.  In 1927, she will become the first African American woman to receive a Masters of Laws degree from Loyola University. She will become a member of the Illinois bar in 1927, and be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court in 1934.  She will become the first African American woman to be named a delegate to the United Nations.   She will serve from 1950 to 1953, first as an appointee of President Harry S. Truman and later during a portion of the Eisenhower Administration.  She will join the ancestors in 1979.

1902 – Arna Bontemps is born in Alexandria, Louisiana.  He will become a prolific poet, librarian, and author of historical and juvenile fiction.  Among his best-known works will be “God Sends Sunday” and “Black Thunder”, the juvenile books “We Have Tomorrow” and “The Story of the Negro”, and “American Negro Poetry”, which he edited.

1906 – J. Saunders Redding is born in Wilmington, Delaware.  He will become a literary and social critic and author of non-fiction works on the African American experience, such as “To Make a Poet Black”, “On Being Negro in America”, and “Cavalcade: Negro American Writing from 1760 to the Present.”

1914 – Garrett Augustus Morgan, the son of former slaves, receives a patent for an invention he calls the “Safety Hood and Smoke Protector,” which came to be known as a gas mask.

1924 – Nipsey Russell is born in Atlanta, Georgia.  He will become a comedian and actor. He will star in “Car 54 Where Are You?” (the movie), “Barefoot in the Park,” “Masquerade Party, and Varsity Blues.”  He will also be a panelist on “Match Game” and “Hollywood Squares.”

1925 – Garland Anderson’s “Appearances” opens at the Frolic Theatre on Broadway.  It is the first full-length Broadway play by an African American.

1946 – Demond Wilson is born in Valdosta, Georgia.  He will become an actor and will be best known as Lamont Sanford on the long-running television show, “Sanford & Son.”

1962 – Jerry Rice is born in Starkville, Mississippi.  He will become a professional football player, selected as the 16th pick overall in the first round of the NFL draft by the San Francisco 49ers in 1985.  Considered to be the greatest NFL receiver of all time, Rice has amassed the following records as of 1999: Career Receptions – 1,158, Career Receiving Yardage – 17,802, Consecutive games with a catch – 198, Career Touchdowns – 175, Career Receiving Touchdowns – 165, Career 100-Yard Receiving Games – 64, Career 1,000-Yard Receiving Seasons – 12, and Most Receiving Yards in a Season – 1,848.

1979 – Clarence Muse joins the ancestors in Perris, California at the age of 90.  He was a pioneer film and stage actor who appeared in 219 films. His first film was the second talking movie ever made.

2000 – Isiah Thomas and Bob McAdoo are enshrined into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

14 Ocotber 1834 – 1999

1834 – Henry Blair of Glen Ross, Maryland, receives a patent for a corn planting machine.

1864 – The first African American daily newspaper, the New Orleans Tribune, is published in both French and English.

1916 – Sophomore tackle and guard Paul Robeson is excluded from the Rutgers football team when Washington and Lee University refuse to play against an African American. The exclusion will be temporary and the young Robeson will go on to be named a football All-American twice.

1947 – Charlie Joiner is born in Many, Louisiana.  He will become a professional football player after being picked in the fourth round of the 1969 NFL draft.  He will be a wide receiver for the Houston Oilers from 1969-1972, the Cincinnati Bengals from 1972-1975, and the San Diego Chargers from 1976-1986.  In eighteen seasons, he will play in 239 games (most ever for a wide receiver) and compile career record of 750 catches, 12,146 yards, and 65 touchdowns.  He will catch 586 passes as a Charger and was a key element in vaunted “Air Coryell” offense. He exceeded 50 catches in seven seasons, was a 100-yard receiver in 29 games, and played in three Pro Bowls.  In his last thirteen years, he will miss only one game.  He will be inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 1996.

1958 – The District of Columbia Bar Association votes to accept African Americans as members.

1964 – Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. is announced as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights activities.  King is the second African American to win the Peace Prize.

1969 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1971 – Two people are killed in a Memphis, Tennessee racially motivated disturbance.

1980 – Bob Marley performs in his last concert before his untimely death from cancer.

1995 – Sports Illustrated places Eddie Robinson on the cover of its magazine.  He is the first and only coach of an Historically Black College or University (HBCU) to appear on the cover of any major sports publication in the United States.

1999 – Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president, joins the ancestors in a London hospital at age 77.

15 Ocotber 1834 – 1999

1834 – Henry Blair of Glen Ross, Maryland, receives a patent for a corn planting machine.

1864 – The first African American daily newspaper, the New Orleans Tribune, is published in both French and English.

1916 – Sophomore tackle and guard Paul Robeson is excluded from the Rutgers football team when Washington and Lee University refuse to play against an African American. The exclusion will be temporary and the young Robeson will go on to be named a football All-American twice.

1947 – Charlie Joiner is born in Many, Louisiana.  He will become a professional football player after being picked in the fourth round of the 1969 NFL draft.  He will be a wide receiver for the Houston Oilers from 1969-1972, the Cincinnati Bengals from 1972- 1975, and the San Diego Chargers from 1976-1986.  In eighteen seasons, he will play in 239 games (most ever for a wide receiver) and compile career record of 750 catches, 12,146 yards, and 65 touchdowns.  He will catch 586 passes as a Charger and was a key element in vaunted “Air Coryell” offense. He exceeded 50 catches in seven seasons, was a 100-yard receiver in 29 games, and played in three Pro Bowls.  In his last thirteen years, he will miss only one game.  He will be inducted into the Football Hall of Fame in 1996.

1958 – The District of Columbia Bar Association votes to accept African Americans as members.

1964 – Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. is announced as the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights activities.  King is the second African American to win the Peace Prize.

1969 – A racially motivated civil disturbance occurs in Springfield, Massachusetts.

1971 – Two people are killed in a Memphis, Tennessee racially motivated disturbance.

1980 – Bob Marley performs in his last concert before his untimely death from cancer.

1999 – Julius Nyerere, Tanzania’s first president, joins the ancestors in a London hospital at age 77.