* Today in Black History - July 15 *
1822 - The city of Philadelphia opens its public schools for African
Americans.
1864 - General A. J. Smith, with fourteen thousand men, including a
brigade of African American troops, defeats Nathan B.
Forrest at Harrisburg, near Tupelo, Mississippi.
1869 - A.J. Hayne, an African-American captain of the Arkansas
militia, is assassinated.
1929 - Francis Bebey is born in Douala, Cameroon. He will become a
self-taught master guitarist, composer, and sanza player.
During his childhood, his family and teachers will attempt to
alienate him from the roots culture around him. As he will
relate to the press in France in 1984, "I was schooled to
ignore, and even to detest, traditional African styles." His
musical family will surround him with a variety of Western
instruments, accordion, violin, piano, mandolin, and--the
instrument he will settle on at age nine--guitar. Despite the
efforts of his colonial-era instructors, he will 'discover'
Africa. A traditional doctor and musician, Eya Mouéssé, will
lead him to his first African music love affair: the local
harp and mouth-bow, which he will seek out at all night
celebrations in order to hear. As a teenager in Douala, the
capital, he will play guitar and drums in an ashiko--
Cameroonean highlife--band. The experience will lead
inevitably to his discovery of international dance styles of
the era, especially Afro-Cuban music and American swing jazz.
He will go to Paris to study at the Sorbonne in the mid '50s,
and there his musical path will be altered yet again when he
discovers the classical guitar of Andre Segovia and will
begin to study the instrument. Upon graduation, he will lead
a jazz band in the city, and will have the distinction of
giving future Afropop superstar and saxophonist Manu Dibangu
his first professional gig. He will come to the United States
in 1958 to continue his studies at New York University. As he
travels in Africa and learns more about its traditions, he
will begin to create original works, including socially aware
and sometimes satirical poems set to the music of traditional
instruments like the West African kora. In 1967, he will win
the Grand Literary Prize of Black Africa for his novel "Le
Fils d'Agatha Moudio." In the 1980s, when he will be widely
renowned as a novelist, poet, composer and performer, he will
begin to play traditional African instruments himself. He will
record "African Sanza" in 1982, a set of original compositions
for the central African lamellophone (sometimes called hand
piano or thumb piano). His forays into sanza and also ndewhoo
(Pygmee flute) paralleled dramatic changes in his approach to
guitar. Inspired by his explorations in African music, he will
develop distinctive new techniques: tapping the guitar to
produce the sound of a talking drum, and wrapping one bass
string around the next to produce a percussive snare drum
effect. During the years when Afropop will rise to
international attention, he will be often cited as a guiding
force, a kind of father figure in the global spread of African
music. He will continue to tour, as much as six months a year,
with sons Patrick Jr. (Toops) and Patrick, and also to record
new works right to the end. He will join the ancestors on May
28, 2001 after succumbing to a sudden heart attack. He is
sometimes referred to as the father of world music.
1951 - Mary White Ovington, one of the white founders of the NAACP and
author of "The Walls Come Tumbling Down," a history of the
NAACP, dies at the age of 86.
1961 - Forest Whitaker is born in Longview, Texas. He will attend the
Music Conservatory at the University of Southern California
in Los Angeles, as well as the Drama Studio London. He will
debut as a screen actor in 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont
High." He will follow with notable roles in "Platoon," "Good
Morning, Vietnam," and "The Color of Money." In 1988, he will
play the role of musician Charlie Parker in the film, "Bird,"
for which he will win Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival.
He will also appear in the films "The Crying Game,"
"Bloodsport," "Phenomenon" and direct "Waiting to Exhale." He
will be originally called upon to write and direct a live-
action movie adaptation of Bill Cosby's cartoon, "Fat Albert,"
but differences between the two will lead to him leaving
production. He will be considered for the role of Dr. Jonathon
Crane (The Scarecrow) in "Batman Triumphant." The film will
progress as far as pre-production when Warner Brothers decides
to pull the plug. In 2002, he will be the host and narrator of
"The Twilight Zone," which will last one season. In 2006, he
will join the cast of FX's cop serial "The Shield," as
Lieutenant John Kavanaugh. His performance as the tormented
internal affairs cop will help continue the show's popularity
among viewers.
1968 - Ellen Holly integrates daytime television when she appears on
ABC's "One Life To Live" as Carla, an African American
"passing" for white. The role is a marked departure for the
New York City-born African American, whose first professional
role was with Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival as
the white Desdemona to William Marshall's Othello in 1958.
Holly had been a featured player in Papp's company and had
played several Shakespearean roles, including Lady Macbeth
opposite James Earl Jones in "Macbeth" and Princess Katherine
opposite Robert Hooks in "Henry V," before being signed to the
soap opera.
1969 - Rod Carew ties the major league record with his 7th steal of
home in a season.
1970 - James McGhee is sworn in as the first African American mayor of
Dayton, Ohio.
1973 - Willie McCovey becomes 15th major league player to hit 400 Home
Runs.
1980 - Benjamin Hooks addresses the GOP convention after a lobbying
effort and threatens a walkout by 121 African American
delegates. Hooks speaks before the convention despite leading
candidate Ronald Reagan's refusal to appear at the NAACP
convention earlier in the month.
1980 - New violence erupts in the riot-torn Liberty City section of
Miami, Florida. Two months after riots that killed 18 and
resulted in $ 100 million in property damage, the violence
will leave 40 injured and result in 40 arrests.
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