*                  Today in Black History - January 4                *

1787 - Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic lodge,
        and others petition the Massachusetts legislative for funds to
        return to Africa.  The plan is the first recorded effort by
        African Americans to return to their homeland.

1832 - A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.

1920 - Andrew "Rube" Foster organizes the Negro National Baseball
        League.

1935 - Floyd Patterson is born in Waco, North Carolina.  He will become
        a boxer, winning a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympic Games
        in the middleweight class.  He will become the first gold
        medallist to win a world professional title.

1937 - Grace Ann Bumbry is born.  She grew up at 1703 Goode Avenue in St.
        Louis, Missouri.  She will join the Union Memorial Methodist
        Church's choir at eleven, and sing at Sumner High School.  She
        will be a 1954 winner on the "Arthur Godfrey Talent Scouts" show.
        After her concert debut in London in 1959, Bumbry debuts with the
        Paris Opera the next year.  In 1961, Richard Wagner's grandson
        features her in Bayreuth, Germany's Wagner Festival.  The first
        person of African descent to sing there, Bumbry will be an
        international sensation and win the Wagner Medal.  A mezzo-
        soprano who also successfully sang the soprano repertoire, Grace
        Bumbry will record on four labels and sing in concerts world
        wide.

1944 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is appointed the first African American
        official in the U.S. State Department.

1971 - Dr. Melvin H. Evans is inaugurated as the first elected governor
        of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

1985 - Congressman William H. Gray is elected chairman of the House
        Budget Committee, the highest congressional post, to date, held
        by an African American.

1986 - David Robinson blocks a N.C.A.A. record 14 shots while playing
        for the U.S. Naval Academy.

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