* Today in Black History - February 12 *
1793 - Congress makes it a crime to hide or protect a runaway slave by
passing the first fugitive slave law.
1865 - Henry Highland Garnet, preacher and abolitionist, becomes the
first African American to preach in the rotunda of the Capitol
to the House of Representatives. It is on the occasion of a
Lincoln birthday memorial.
1896 - Isaac Burns Murphy, considered the greatest American jockey of
all time, joins the ancestors. He was the first jockey to win
the Kentucky Derby two years in a row and became the first
jockey to win the Kentucky Derby three times. In 1955, Isaac
Murphy was the first jockey voted into the Jockey Hall of Fame
at the National Museum of Racing, in Saratoga Springs, New York.
1900 - For a Lincoln birthday celebration, James Weldon Johnson writes
the lyrics for "Lift Every Voice and Sing." With music by his
brother, J. Rosamond, the song is first sung by 500 children
in Jacksonville, Florida. It will become known as the "Negro
National Anthem."
1909 - When six African Americans were killed and 200 others driven out
of town in race riots in Springfield, Illinois in the summer of
1908, many Americans were shocked, because they associated such
violence only with racism in the south. Springfield was not
only a northern city, but the home of Abraham Lincoln. Three
people, Mary Ovington, William E. Walling, and Dr. Henry
Moskowitz, alarmed at the deterioration of race relations,
decided to open a campaign to oppose the pervasive discrimination
against racial minorities. They issue a call for a national
conference on "the Negro question", and for its symbolic value,
they will choose the centennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln,
February 12, 1909, as the date for the conference. Held in New
York City, it will draw an interracial group of 60 distinguished
citizens, who will formulate plans for a permanent organization
devoted to fighting all forms of racial discrimination. That
organization will be the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP will be the oldest and largest
civil rights organization in the U.S. With more than 2,200
branches across the country, it will be in the forefront of the
struggle for voting rights, and an end to discrimination in
housing, employment, and education.
1934 - William Felton "Bill" Russell is born in Monroe, Louisiana. He
will become a star basketball player and high jumper at the
University of San Francisco. After college, he will win a gold
medal in the 1956 Olympics, as a member of the United States
basketball team. He will then play professional basketball for
the Boston Celtics for thirteen seasons, winning eight straight
NBA titles and eleven championships. At the end of the 1965-66
season, he will become the coach of the Boston Celtics.
1983 - Eubie Blake joins the ancestors at the age of 100 in Brooklyn,
New York. Blake was one of the last ragtime pianists and
composers whose most famous songs included "I'm Just Wild About
Harry." With Noble Sissle, Blake was the composer of the first
all-African American Broadway musical, "Shuffle Along," which
opened on Broadway in 1921.
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