*		    Today in Black History - May 5		 *

1857 - The Dred Scott decision, in the famous U.S. Supreme Court 
	case, declares that no black--free or slave--could claim 
	United States citizenship, therefore could not sue.  It 
	also stated that Congress could not prohibit slavery in 
	United States territories.  The ruling will arouse angry 
	resentment in the North and will lead the nation a step 
	closer to civil war. It also will influence the 
	introduction and passage of the 14th Amendment to the U.S.
	Constitution after the Civil War (1861-1865).  The 
	amendment, adopted in 1868, will extend citizenship to 
	former slaves and give them full civil rights.

1865 - Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. is born near Martin's Mill in 
	Franklin County, Virginia.  He will be a social and 
	religious leader at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, 
	after becoming the pastor in 1908. Under his leadership, 
	he will expand the role of the church in the community and 
	increase its membership to 10,000. When he retires in 
	1937, Abyssinian Baptist Church will be the largest 
	Protestant church in the United States. He will be 
	succeeded in the pulpit by his son, Adam CLayton Powell, 
	Jr., who will become a future congressman. He will join 
	the ancestors on June 12, 1953.

1883 - Josiah Henson joins the ancestors in Dawn, Ontario, Canada 
	at the age of 93. He had escaped slavery in Maryland and 
	settled in Canada. He had been part of the creation of a 
	settlement for fugitive slaves near Dawn, Ontario.  

1905 - Robert Sengstacke Abbott founds the Chicago Defender, 
	calling it "The World's Greatest Weekly."

1919 - The NAACP awards the Spingarn Medal to William Stanley 
	Braithwaite. Braithwaite's publication of essays and verse 
	in notable mainstream magazines and editorial efforts on 
	three books of verse and poetry anthologies had earned him 
	wide acclaim among African Americans and whites.

1931 - Edwin A. Harleston joins the ancestors in Charleston, South 
	Carolina. One of the most popular and influential African 
	American painters of the day, his work will be exhibited at 
	the Harmon Foundation, the Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, 
	and in the exhibit "Two Centuries of Black American Art."

1935 - Jesse Owens, of the United States, sets the long jump record 
	at 26' 8".

1943 - Maximiliano Gomez Horatio is born in San Pedro de Macoris, 
	Dominican Republic. After working in the sugar refineries 
	in his home area, be will become a politician, leading the 
	Dominican Popular Movement. He believed that the Dominican 
	Republic should be guided by its own historical and social 
	environment, not on any European model. He will participate 
	in an insurrection that is ended by a U.S. invasion in 1965. 
	He will later be imprisoned and after his release, he will 
	go into exile.  He will join the ancestors under suspicious
	circumstances in Brussels, Belgium, on May 23, 1971.

1965 - Edgar Austin Mittelholzer joins the ancestors in Farnham, 
	Surrey, England, after committing suicide at the age of 55. 
	He had been the first author from the Carribean to earn his 
	living as a writer. He was considered the father of the 
	novel in the English-speaking Caribbean.

1969 - Moneta Sleet becomes the first African American to win a 
	Pulitzer Prize for his photograph of Mrs. Martin Luther 
	King, Jr. and her daughter at her husband's funeral.

1971 - A race riot occurs in the Brownsville section of New York 
	City.

1975 - Hank Aaron surpasses Babe Ruth's RBI mark.  He will finish 
	his career with 755 home runs and over 2200 RBIs.  Both 
	records will stand for many years.  Aaron will be inducted 
	into Baseball's Hall of Fame on August 1, 1982.

1977 - The Afro-American Historical and Genealogy Society is 
	founded in Washington, DC.  The society's mission is to 
	encourage scholarly research in African American genealogy. 

1988 - Eugene Antonio Marino, is installed as the archbishop of 
	Atlanta, becoming the first African American Roman Catholic
	archbishop in the United States.

2003 - Walter Sisulu, a major player in the fight against apartheid 
	in South Africa with Nelson Mandela, joins the ancestors at 
	the age of 90 after a long illness.

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