* Today in Black History - July 8 *
1753 - Lemuel Haynes is born in West Hartford, Connecticut. He is born to a
African American father he never knew and a white mother who
refused to acknowledge him. As a child, he will be made an
indentured servant to a white family in Granville, Massachusetts,
who will treat him as one of their children. His indenture will end
in 1774, when he will become a Minuteman in the Continental Army.
During the Revolutionary War he will fight at the siege of Boston
and Fort Ticonderoga. After the war he will study Latin and Greek
with local ministers and be ordained by the Congregationalists,
becoming the first African American ordained by a mainstream white
denomination. Throughout the next five decades he ministered to
white congregations in New England and New York. Haynes also
received considerable attention for a sermon he preached rebutting
Hosea Ballou's theory of universal salvation from a Calvinist
perspective. Haynes's book "Universal Salvation, A Very Ancient
Doctrine", ran some 70 editions. In 1804 Middlebury College awarded
Haynes an honorary master's degree becoming the first African
American to receive that honor from any institution. He will join
the ancestors on September 28, 1833.
1876 - White terrorists attack African American Republicans in Hamburg,
South Carolina, killing five.
1910 - Govan Archibald Munyelwa Mbeki is born in Nqamakwe, Transkei, South
Africa. He will become a political activist, leading member of the
African National Congress (ANC) and a member of the South African
Communist Party (SACP). After attending a mission school, he will
attend the University of Fort Hare, in Alice, and will obtain his
bachelor of arts degree in 1937. He will join the ANC while a
student in 1935. While teaching at Adams College, he will be
dismissed for political activity. He will then manage a cooperative
store and edit the Territorial Magazine from 1938 to 1944. In 1943
he will be elected to the United Transkeian General Council, or
Bunga. In the same year Mbeki will assist the ANC prepare a
document called African Claims, which will be a response to the
Atlantic Charter, the declaration of human rights issued during
World War II (1939-1945) by the United States and Great Britain.
African Claims became the basis for the ANC Freedom Charter of
1955. After returning to teaching, Mbeki will be dismissed again
for political activity, and will become the Port Elizabeth editor
of New Age, a left-wing paper, in 1955 and will make no secret of
his left-wing sympathies. Mbeki will become deeply involved in ANC
politics and stand trial with Nelson Mandela and others for
treason, charged with conspiring to overthrow the government. In
1964 he will be sentenced to life imprisonment on Robben Island.
The same year, his book The Peasants' Revolt was published in
Great Britain and banned in South Africa. In 1977, while on Robben
Island, Mbeki will have an honorary doctorate of social sciences
conferred on him by the University of Amsterdam for the publication.
After being released in November 1987 by the South African
government, he will continue to be a member of both the ANC and the
SACP. He will be resume his place on the executive committee of the
ANC in 1990. In May, 1994, Mbeki will be elected deputy president
of the Senate. His son Thabo Mbeki, the future president of South
Africa, will be elected deputy president of South Africa.
1914 - William Clarence ("Billy") Eckstine is born in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. He will become famous in the 1950s as the smooth-
voiced baritone singer of such hits as "Fools Rush In" and
"Skylark," but music critics and serious jazz fans know him as the
man whose big-band launched such renowned performers as Dizzy
Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dexter Gordon, and Sarah
Vaughan. He will begin his musical career on a piano his father
had bought for his two sisters. After attending Howard University,
he will begin singing with various groups, touring in the Midwest
before settling in Chicago in 1939, where he will join the band led
by Earl "Fatha" Hines. It was with Hines that he will have his
first hit, the blues song "Jelly Jelly," which he will write and
sing. In 1944 he will form his own big-band. The band, always a
favorite with other musicians, will help to pioneer the then-new
bebop sound. Its avant-garde musicianship often overshadowed his
more traditional vocals, and the band suffered from being badly
recorded. His solo career will take off after the band dissolves in
1947. With his deep, romantic voice, elegant presence, and matinee-
idol good looks, he become a popular performer. Often referred to
as "Mr. B," he will also garner several film roles in the following
decades, and many will refer to him as the first black sex symbol.
He will join the ancestors on March 8, 1993.
1938 - Julia Carson in born in Louisville, Kentucky. She will be raised in
Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1965, while working as a secretary for
the United Auto Workers union, Carson was hired by Indiana
congressman Andrew Jacobs Jr. She will work on his staff for eight
years. In 1972 she will be elected to the Indiana House of
Representatives, and in 1976 she will be elected to the Indiana
Senate, where she will serve on the Finance Committee and the
Health Committee. In 1990 Carson will be elected trustee of Center
Township and directed an agency that provided assistance to the
needy. After congressman Jacobs retires in 1996, Carson will run
successfully for his position. She will win 52 percent of the vote
and become the first African American to represent Indianapolis.
Carson will represent Indiana's Tenth Congressional District. It is
located in the city of Indianapolis and includes a mixture of
African American and white neighborhoods. In 1997 Carson will be
assigned seats on the Banking and Financial Services Committee and
the Veterans' Affairs Committee. She will also be a member of the
Congressional Black Caucus.
1943 - Alice Faye Wattleton is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will
become the president of Planned Parent Federation of America in
1978 and be known for almost 14 years as an outspoken champion
of women's reproductive rights. She will use her position in
Planned Parenthood to advocate reproductive rights. Along with
other abortion-rights groups, she will fight to secure federal
funding for birth control and prenatal programs; to forbid states
from restricting abortions; and to legalize the sale in the United
States of RU-486, the French-made pill that induces abortions. Her
efforts and the efforts of others encountered a number of setbacks,
including the Supreme Court's 1989 decision in Webster v.
Reproductive Health Services to allow states to restrict abortions.
She will use such defeats to further mobilize activists and donors.
She will leave Planned Parenthood in 1992 to develop her own talk
show, in Chicago, Illinois, devoted to discussions of women's
issues.
1943 - Nebraska's first African American newspaper, "The Omaha Star",
is founded by Mildred Brown.
1966 - John H. Johnson wins the Spingarn Medal for his "contributions
to the enhancement of the Negro's self-image" through his
publications including "Negro Digest", "Ebony", and "Jet"
magazines, and books such as "Before the Mayflower", written
by historian Lerone Bennett, Jr.
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