*                   Today in Black History - October 17             *

1711 - Jupiter Hammon, the first African American to publish poetry
        (Complete Works), is born.

1787 - Boston African Americans, led by Prince Hall, submit to the
        State Legislature in Boston, Massachusetts, a petition asking
        for equal educational rights and facilities.  The petition is
        not granted.

1806 - Jean Jacques Dessalines, revolutionist and Emperor of Haiti, joins
        the ancestors as a result of an assassination.

1817 - Samuel Ringgold Ward is born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He
        will be considered one of the finest abolitionist orators.

1871 - President Grant suspends the writ of habeas corpus and declares
        martial law in nine South Carolina counties affected by Ku
        Klux Klan disturbances.

1888 - The first African American bank, Capital Savings Bank of Washington,
        DC, opens for business.

1894 - Ohio National Guard kills 3 members of a lynch mob while rescuing
        an African American man.

1909 - William R. Cole is born in East Orange, New Jersey.  He will
        become a jazz drummer best known as "Cozy Cole."  He will begin
        to play professionally as a teenager and will make his first
        recording at age 20 with Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers.
        Cozy Cole will join Cab Calloway's band in 1939 and will join
        CBS radio in 1943 to play in Raymond Scott's Orchestra, becoming
        one of the first African American musicians on a network musical
        staff.  In 1958, Cole will make a solo hit record, "Topsy," that
        sells more than a million copies.  He will join the ancestors in
        1981.

1928 - James "Junior" Gilliam is born.  He will become a professional
        baseball player for the Brooklyn Dodgers and will be the National
        League Rookie of the Year in 1953.

1956 - Dr. Mae C. Jemison is born in Decatur, Alabama. She will grow
        up in Chicago, become a physician, serve in the Peace Corps in
        Africa, and practice medicine in Los Angeles, before being
        selected for the astronaut training program in 1987.

1969 - Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr., is elected president of Michigan State
        University and becomes the first African American to head a major,
        predominantly white university in the twentieth century.

1985 - Legendary jazz and blues singer Alberta Hunter joins the ancestors
        in New York City.  She achieved fame in Chicago jazz clubs in the
        1920's, toured Europe in the 1930's and, after over 20 years of
        anonymity as a nurse, returned to performing in 1977.

1990 - Dr. Ralph Abernathy, civil rights leader, joins the ancestors.

1991 - The 100th episode of "A Different World" airs on NBC.  The
        acclaimed show, a spin-off of "The Cosby Show" that stars Jasmine
        Guy, Kadeem Hardison, and an ensemble of young African American
        actors, is directed by Debbie Allen.

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