* Today in Black History - October 24 * 1892 - 25,000 African American workers strike in New Orleans, Louisiana. This is the first major job stoppage in U.S. labor history by African Americans. 1923 - The U.S. Department of Labor issues a report stating that approximately 500,000 African Americans had left the South in the preceding twelve months. 1935 - Langston Hughes's play "Mulatto" opens on Broadway. It will have the longest run of any play by an African American until Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun." 1935 - Italy invades Ethiopia. African Americans hold mass meetings of protest and raise funds for the Ethiopian defenders. 1936 - The Boston Chronicle blasts the soon-to-be-released movie "The Big Broadcast" of 1937 for featuring a white pianist who appears in the movie while Teddy Wilson actually plays the music: "The form of racial discrimination and falsification of acts...is frequently duplicated by many whites in their daily dealings with Negroes...Negro farm hands and laborers in other fields of industry produce billions of dollars of wealth, but the white landowners and sweat shop operators get all the profit." 1942 - In recognition of the influence of so-called race music, Billboard magazine creates its first ratings chart devoted to African American music, The Harlem Hit Parade. The number-one record is "Take It & Git" by Andy Kirk and His Twelve Clouds of Joy, featuring Mary Lou Williams on piano. 1948 - Frizzel Gerald Gray is born in Baltimore, Maryland. He will be better known as Kweisi Mfume, an adopted African name that means "Conquering Son of Kings." In 1978, he will be elected to the Baltimore City Council, serving there until 1986. His political stance will be against that of then-mayor William Donald Schaefer, who he believed had ignored the many poor neighborhoods of the city. It will be a contentious matter, but despite his strong opinions, he will learn the art of political compromise. He will be perceived by many to have had some success during his stay in office, a fact perhaps reflected by his subsequent election to the United States House of Representatives in 1986, despite a torrent of criticism, directed in no small part against his early past. Serving in Maryland's 7th Congressional district for five terms, he will make himself known as a Democrat with an apparent balance between strong progressive ideologies and a capacity for practical compromise, representing a district that included both West Baltimore and suburban and rural communities, though his primary goal was an increase in federal aid to American inner cities. In his fourth term, he will be made chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. In February 1996, he will leave the House to accept the presidency of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), stating that he could do more to improve American civil rights there than in the Congress. He will reform the association's finances to pay off its considerable debt while pursuing the cause of civil rights advancement for African Americans. Many citizens in Baltimore will want him to run for mayor in the 1999 election, but he will stay with the NAACP. He will serve in this position for nine years before stepping down in 2004. He will run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2006. In May 2013, he will be named Chairman of his alma mater, Morgan State University, assuming the position on July 1, 2013. 1964 - Kenneth David Kuanda becomes President of Zambia as Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) gains independence from Great Britain. 1972 - Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson joins the ancestors at the age of 53 in Stamford, Connecticut. 1980 - Monica Denise Arnold is born in College Park, Georgia. She will become a singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. She will begin performing as a child and became part of a traveling gospel choir at the age of ten. She will rise to prominence after she signs with Rowdy Records in 1993 and releases her debut album "Miss Thang" two years later. She will follow it with a series of successful albums, including the global bestseller "The Boy Is Mine (1998) as well as the number-one albums "After the Storm" (2003), "The Makings of Me" (2006) and "Still Standing" (2010). Throughout her career, several of her singles will become number-one hits on the pop and R&B record charts, including "Before You Walk Out of My Life", "Don't Take It Personal (Just One of Dem Days)", "Like This and Like That", "The Boy Is Mine", "The First Night", "Angel of Mine", "So Gone", and "Everything to Me". Her popularity will be further enhanced by her roles in television series such as Living Single, Felicity, and American Dreams, and films including Boys and Girls (2000), Love Song (2000), and Pastor Brown (2009). A contributor to the NBC talent show The Voice, in 2008, she will appear in the Peachtree TV reality show special Monica: The Single which tracked the recording of the song "Still Standing" along with her personal life and resulted in her own highly rated BET series Monica: Still Standing, containing a similar concept. She will sell 5.3 million albums in the United States and will be recognized as one of the most successful urban R&B female vocalists to emerge in the mid to late 1990s. According to Billboard, she is the youngest recording act to ever have two consecutive chart-topping hits on the Billboard Top R&B Singles chart, as well as the first artist to top the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart over the span of three consecutive decades (1990s, 2000s, and 2010s). In 2010, Billboard will list her at number 24 on its list of the Top 50 R&B and Hip Hop Artists of the past 25 years. A four-time nominee, she will win a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for "The Boy Is Mine" at the 41st awards ceremony and will be the recipient of one Billboard Music Award, one BET Award, and two BMI Pop Awards. 1986 - Aubrey Drake Graham is born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He will become a rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, and businessman. He will gain recognition as an actor on the teen drama television series Degrassi: The Next Generation in the early 2000s. Intent on pursuing a career in music, he will leave the series in 2007 after releasing his debut mixtape, "Room for Improvement." He will release two further independent projects, "Comeback Season" and "So Far Gone," before signing to Lil Wayne's Young Money Entertainment in June 2009. He will release his debut studio album "Thank Me Later" in 2010, which will debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 and will be soon certified platinum. His next two releases, 2011's "Take Care" and 2013's "Nothing Was the Same," will be critically and commercially successful; the former earning him his first Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. In 2015, he will release two mixtapes—the trap-influenced "If You're Reading This It's Too Late" and a collaboration with Future titled "What a Time to Be Alive"—both of which will earn platinum certification in the U.S. His fourth album, "Views" (2016), will break several chart records. The dancehall-influenced album will sit atop the Billboard 200 for 13 nonconsecutive weeks, becoming the first album by a male solo artist to do so in over 10 years. The album's second single, "One Dance", will top the charts in several countries, and will become his first number-one single as a lead artist. That year, he will lead both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Billboard 200 charts simultaneously for eight weeks. Among the world's best-selling music artists, with over 170 million records sold worldwide, he will be ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) as the world's highest- certified digital singles artist. He will hold several Billboard chart records. He will have the most charted songs (205) among solo artists in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, the most simultaneously charted Hot 100 songs in a single week (27), the most time on the Hot 100 (431 weeks) and the most Hot 100 debuts in a week (22). He will also have the most number one singles on the Hot Rap Songs, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and Rhythmic Charts. He will also win four Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, twenty-seven Billboard Music Awards and three Juno Awards. As an entrepreneur, he will found the OVO Sound record label with longtime collaborator 40 in 2012. 2017 - Robert Guillaume, Emmy Award-winning actor best known as the title character in the TV sitcom "Benson", joins the ancestors at the age of 89 after succumbing to prostate cancer. ______________________________________________________________ Munirah Chronicle is edited by Mr. Rene' A. Perry "The TRUTH shall make you free" E-mail: <[log in to unmask]> Archives: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/Munirah.html http://blackagenda.com/cybercolonies/index.htm _____________________________________________________________ To SUBSCRIBE send E-mail to: <[log in to unmask]> In the E-mail body place: Subscribe Munirah Your FULL Name ______________________________________________________________ Munirah(TM) is a trademark of Information Man. Copyright 1997 - 2016, All Rights Reserved by the Information Man in association with The Black Agenda.