*                    Today in Black History - May 25                    *

1878 - Tapdancing legend Bill "Bojangles" (Luther) Robinson is born in
        Richmond, Virginia.  He will star in vaudeville and in many movies
        such as "The Littliest Rebel," "In Old Kentucky," "Rebecca of
        Sunnybrook Farm," and "The Little Colonel".

1905 - Dorothy Burnett (later Wesley) is born in Warrenton, Virginia.  She
        will become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the first African American
        woman to receive a Masters of Library Science degree from Columbia
        University, and will author several African American historical
        works. She will be a long-time librarian at the Howard University
        Moorland-Spingarn Research Center and will be responsible for
        developing it into one of the world's largest collections of
        material authored by and about people of African descent.

1919 - Millionaire Madame C.J. Walker joins the ancestors at the age of 52
        at Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York.  She was the founder of the
        Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, the largest African
        American haircare company of its time.  After her death, a
        substantial portion of her business's proceeds will be donated to
        African American organizations and scholarships.

1932 - K.C. Jones is born in San Francisco, California. He will become a
        member of the Olympic basketball team and help win the 1956 Olympic
        Gold Medal. He will then become a professional basketball player
        with the Boston Celtics, where he will help win eight NBA titles.
        He will then win two championships as the coach of the Celtics. He
        will also be the head coach of the Washington Bullets and the
        Seattle Supersonics. He will have 522 wins as a NBA coach and in
        1997 will become the coach of American Basketball League women's
        team, the New England Blizzard.  After the league disbands, he will
        join the coaching staff of the women's basketball team at the
        University of Rhode Island, at the age of 67.

1935 - This is "the greatest day in the history of track," according
        to "The New York Times."  Jesse Owens of Ohio State University
        breaks two world sprint records, ties a third, and breaks a long
        jump world record in a meet at the University of Michigan in Ann
        Arbor, all in one hour.

1936 - David Levering Lewis is born in Little Rock, Arkansas.  He will
        become a historian and biographer. Professor Lewis will receive his
        Ph.D. in modern European history from the London School of
        Economics and Political Science in 1962.  His research and
        publications will focus on African American history, conceptions of
        race and racism, and the dynamics of European colonialism,
        especially in Africa. He will author a biography of Du Bois
        entitled "W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race," which will win a
        Pulitzer prize in 1994. His other works include "King: A Biography"
        (1970), "Prisoners of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair" (1975), "When
        Harlem Was in Vogue" (1982), "The Race to Fashoda: European
        colonialism and the African Resistance to the Scramble for Africa"
        (1987), and "W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader" (1995).

1943 - Leslie Uggams is born in Washington Heights, New York.  She will
        make her acting debut on television's "Beulah" and be a regular on
        The Mitch Miller Show before achieving acclaim in Broadway's
        "Hallelujah Baby" and TV's "Roots."

1943 - A riot, started by white workers, occurs in a Mobile, Alabama
        shipyard over the job upgrading of twelve African American workers.

1959 - The U.S. Supreme Court declares a Louisiana law enforcing a ban on
        bouts between African American and white boxers to be
        unconstitutional.

1963 - The first observance of African Liberation Day occurs.  It begins at
        the founding conference of the Organization of African Unity in
        Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

1964 - The closing of schools to avoid desegregation is ruled
        unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.  Prince Edward County,
        Virginia will have to reopen and desegregate its schools.

1965 - A very short heavyweight title fight occurs in Lewiston, Maine.
        Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) knocks out challenger, Sonny
        Liston, in one minute and 56 seconds of the first round.  Liston
        never sees the punch coming.  Neither did an unbelieving crowd at
        ringside, nor those in theatres all over the world watching the
        fight on closed-circuit TV.

1971 - A young African American woman, Jo Etha Collier, joins the ancestors
        after being killed in Drew, Mississippi by a bullet fired from a
        passing car. Three whites are arrested on May 26 and charged with
        the unprovoked attack.

1994 - The United Nations Security Council lifts a 10-year-old ban on
        weapons exports from South Africa, ending the last of its apartheid-
        era embargos.

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