* Today in Black History - October 28 *
1862 - The First Kansas Colored Volunteers, while greatly outnumbered,
repulse and drive off a rebel force at Island Mound, Missouri.
This is the first engagement for African American troops in
the Civil War.
1873 - Patrick Healy becomes president of Georgetown University,
the oldest Catholic University in the United States and
becomes the first African American president of a
predominantly white university in the United States.
1914 - Omega Psi Phi fraternity is incorporated. It is founded in
1911 by three students, Frank Coleman, Oscar J. Cooper and
Edgar A. Love and their faculty adviser, Ernest Everett
Just. It will be the first predominantly African American
fraternity to be founded at a historically black university.
The fraternity will grow to have over 250,000 members in
chapters throughout the United States and abroad.
1927 - Clementine Dinah Bullock is born in Uxbridge, Middlesex,
England. She will become a jazz and pop singer and an actress,
known for her scat singing and for her vocal range and by the
name Cleo Laine. She will be the only female performer to have
received Grammy nominations in the jazz, popular and classical
music categories. She is the widow of jazz composer Sir John
Dankworth. She will not take up singing professionally until
her mid-twenties. Her early influences as a singer were Ella
Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Judy Garland and Lena Horne. She
will audition successfully, at the age of 24, for John
Dankworth's small group, the Dankworth Seven, and later his
orchestra, with which she will performed until 1958. She and
Dankworth will marry that year in secret at Hampstead Register
Office. She will play the lead in a new play at London's Royal
Court Theatre, home of the new wave of playwrights of the
1950s such as John Osborne and Harold Pinter. This will lead
to other stage performances, such as the musical Valmouth in
1959, the play A Time to Laugh (with Robert Morley and Ruth
Gordon) in 1962, Boots With Strawberry Jam (with John Neville)
in 1968, and eventually to her role as Julie La Verne in Wendy
Toye's production of Show Boat at the Adelphi Theatre in
London in 1971. Show Boat will have its longest run to date in
that London season with 910 performances staged. During this
period, she will have two major recording successes. "You'll
Answer to Me" will reach the British Top 10 while she was
"prima donna" in the 1961 Edinburgh Festival production of
Kurt Weill's opera/ballet The Seven Deadly Sins, directed and
choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan. In 1964 her Shakespeare
and All that Jazz album with Dankworth will be well received.
She and Dankworth will found the Stables theatre in 1970 in
what was the old stables block in the grounds of their home.
It was an immediate success, with 47 concerts given in the
first year. Her international activities will begin in 1972,
with a successful first tour of Australia. Shortly afterwards,
her career in the United States will be launched with a
concert at New York's Lincoln Center, followed in 1973 by the
first of many Carnegie Hall appearances. Coast-to-coast tours
of the US and Canada will soon follow, and with them a
succession of record albums and television appearances,
including The Muppet Show in 1977. This will lead, after
several nominations, to her first Grammy award, in
recognition of the live recording of her 1983 Carnegie
concert. She will continue to tour periodically, including
in Australia in 2005. She will collaborate with James Galway,
Nigel Kennedy, Julian Lloyd Webber and John Williams. Other
important recordings during that time will be duet albums
with Ray Charles (Porgy and Bess) as well as Arnold
Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, for which she will receive a
Grammy Award nomination. She will be famed for not only her
interpretative style, but also her almost-four-octave range
and vocal adaptability. As well as hitting deep soulful
notes, her scatting and top notes have become her signature.
Though her natural range is that of a contralto, she is
able to produce a G above high C. Derek Jewel of the Sunday
Times will dub her "quite simply the best singer in the
world."
1937 - Leonard Randolph "Lenny" Wilkens is born in Brooklyn, New
York. He will become a professional basketball player for
the St. Louis Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail
Blazers and Seattle Supersonics. He will also coach every
team for which he played. In 1995, he will surpass Red
Auerbach as the NBA winningest coach, with his 939th
victory. On March 1, 1996, he will become the first coach
to win 1,000 regular season games. He and John Wooden will
become the only two persons to be elected to the Basketball
Hall of Fame as a player and coach.
1948 - Telma Louise Hopkins is born in Louisville, Kentucky. She will
become a member of the 1970's group, "Tony Orlando and Dawn",
and later a television actress. She will be best known for
her roles in "Bosom Buddies," "Gimme a Break!," "Family
Matters," "Getting By," and "Half & Half."
1965 - Earl Bostic, popular jazz alto saxophonist and winner of the
1959 Playboy Jazz poll, joins the ancestors in Rochester,
New York. The Tulsa, Oklahoma native had begun his career
in the Midwest and, after studying music and playing with
bands in the South, landed with Lionel Hampton's big band,
among others.
1973 - Elmore Smith of the Los Angeles Lakers blocks 17 shots in a
game to establish a NBA record.
1981 - Edward M. McIntyre is elected as the first African American
mayor of Augusta, Georgia.
1987 - Christopher Edwin Cooksey is born in Long Beach, California.
He will become a singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer,
and photographer. He will be best known as Frank Ocean. He
will begin his musical career as a ghostwriter, prior to
joining hip hop collective Odd Future in 2010, and the
following year releasing Nostalgia, Ultra, his debut mixtape.
The mixtape will be a critical success and will generate the
single "Novacane", which will peak at number 82 on the
Billboard Hot 100 and will later be certified platinum. He
will subsequently secure a recording contract with Def Jam
Recordings in 2012. He will release his debut studio album,
Channel Orange, in July 2012; it will debut at number two
on the Billboard 200 and will soon be certified platinum.
The album will receive universal acclaim from critics and
will win him his first Grammy Award, for Best Urban
Contemporary Album. The album will contain the singles
"Thinkin Bout You", "Pyramids" and "Sweet Life", with the
former peaking inside the top 40 in the US and gaining
him a nomination for Record of the Year at the 55th Annual
Grammy Awards. His second album, Blonde, will be released
in 2016 and will be subject to controversy after he
endures protracted contract disputes with Def Jam, which
will lead to the album suffering repeated delays. In order
to fulfill his contract with Def Jam, he will release the
visual project Endless exclusively on Apple Music the day
before releasing Blonde. Released independently, Blonde
will debut at number one in several countries and will
also be highly acclaimed by critics. The album will
contain the single "Nikes" and will be eventually
certified platinum. In 2017, he will be featured on the
Calvin Harris single "Slide", opposite Migos; it will
become his highest charting song in the US, peaking at
number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. He will be known
for his idiosyncratic musical style, introspective and
elliptical songwriting, unconventional production
techniques, and wide vocal range. Music critics will
credit him with revitalizing R&B, with his distinctive
sound and style influencing numerous artists of various
music genres.
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