*                   Today in Black History - July 11                   *

1836 - Antônio Carlos Gomes is born in Campinas, Brazil. He will become
        the most distinguished nineteenth-century Brazilian opera composer, 
        who will also achieve considerable success in Europe. Gomes will be
        the second son of Fabiana Maria J. Cardoso and Manuel José Gomes, a 
        composer and bandleader born to a black freedwoman and an unknown 
        father. Manuel José also taught piano and violin in Campinas and 
        will introduce his two young sons to the rudiments of music. Antônio

        Carlos will debut publicly at the age of 11, playing the triangle in

        his father's orchestra in a ceremony honoring Emperor Pedro II. He 
        will study clarinet, violin, and piano, for which he will compose 
        his first pieces. His brother José Pedro de Santana Gomes will study
        violin and viola and later became Brazil's most important late-
        nineteenth-century violinist. In 1859 Antônio Carlos Gomes will 
        enroll in the Rio de Janeiro Conservatory of Music. He had already 
        composed his first mass (1854) and will soon be commissioned to 
        write a cantata by the conservatory's director, Francisco Manuel da 
        Silva.The reigning master of Brazilian opera, Antônio Carlos Gomes 
        will achieve world renown in 1870 when his opera Il Guarany premiers

        at La Scala in Milan, Italy. Although he will adhere to the
        conventions of mid-nineteenth-century Italian opera, he will look to

        Afro-Brazilian themes for some of his operas and instrumental works.

        Following the premiere of his cantata The Last Hour at Calvary
(1859), 
        Gomes will be appointed conductor at the Imperial Academy of Music
and 
        National Opera. Gomes will write two operas Il Guarany (1870) and Lo

        Schiavo (1889) which drew on Brazilian subjects. In 1893 Gomes will
        tour the United States, where he will conduct some of his works at 
        Chicago's Columbia Universal Exhibition. Appointed to head the 
        Conservatory of Music in Belém, he will return to Brazil in 1895,
but 
        will succumb to cancer three months after assuming the directorship 
        on September 16, 1896 in Belém, Brazil.

1905 - Niagara Movement meetings begin in Buffalo, New York.  Started by 
        29 intellectuals including W.E.B. Du Bois, the Niagara Movement will
        renounce Booker T. Washington's accommodation policies set forth in 
        his famed "Atlanta Compromise" speech ten years earlier.  The
Niagara 
        Movement's manifesto is, in the words of Du Bois, "We want full 
        manhood suffrage and we want it now....We are men!  We want to be 
        treated as men. And we shall win."  The movement will be a
forerunner 
        of the NAACP.

1915 - Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a multitalented lawyer, politician, and 
        entrepreneur, joins the ancestors in Little Rock, Arkansas.  Active
in 
        the Underground Railroad, he worked with Frederick Douglass and
after 
        success as a clothing retailer, became the publisher and editor of 
        "Mirror of the Times," the first African American newspaper in 
        California.  The first African American elected a municipal judge, 
        Gibbs was also active in Republican politics, serving as a delegate 
        to national conventions and as U.S. consul to Madagascar.

1925 - Mattiwilda Dobbs is born in Atlanta, Georgia.  She will become a 
        coloratura (a soprano specializing in florid ornamental trills &
runs) 
        in the 1950's, making her operatic debut at La Scala in Milan in
1953 
        and her U.S. debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1955. She will
        become the first African American to sing at La Scala and the second

        African American woman to sing at the Metropolitan Opera House in
        New York.

1931 - Thurston Theodore Harris is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He will 
        become a rhythm and blues vocalist.  He will be best known for his 
        recordings of "Little Bitty Pretty One," and "Over and Over." He
will 
        join the ancestors in Pomona, California after succumbing to a heart

        attack on April 14, 1990.

1948 - Ernie Holmes is born.  He will become a professional football player
        and will be a defensive tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was 
        part of the "Steel Curtain" front four and helped Pittsburgh in 
        winning Super Bowls IX and X.

1951 - Bonnie Pointer is born in Oakland, California.  She will become a 
        singer and member of the vocal group, The Pointer Sisters.  The four

        sisters will begin their career singing gospel music and will 
        eventually debut in 1973 as a secular group recording for ABC/Blue 
        Thumb Records. In 1974, the Pointer Sisters will perform at the
Grand 
        Ole Opry, becoming the first African American female group to do so.

        They also will become the first African American female group to be 
        number one on Billboard's country and western chart. They will
change 
        to a trio in 1977 when sister Bonnie signs as a solo act with Motown

        Records. The group will be best known for their hits "Slow Hand" 
        (1981), "What a Surprise" (1981), "Excited" (1982), "I Need You" 
        (1983), and the Grammy Award-winning "Jump" (1983) and "Automatic" 
        (1984).

1953 - Leon Spinks is born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He will win the Olympic 
        Light Heavyweight Gold Medal in 1976 and go on to become a 
        professional boxer. He will win his first nine professional bouts, 
        becoming the World Heavyweight Champion, defeating Muhammad Ali.  
        After losing to Ali in rematch, his career will decline and he will 
        not be able to duplicate his earlier successes. 

1954 - The first White Citizens Council organizes in Indianola, Mississippi.

        Reminiscent of the end of Reconstruction, the Klan, the White 
        Citizens' Council, and other White supremacist groups will try to 
        prevent any further progress in the civil rights movement.

1958 - Daisy Bates and the Little Rock Nine, African-American youths who 
        desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, receive
the 
        Spingarn Medal for their "heroism and pioneering roles in upholding 
        the basic ideals of American democracy in the face of continuing 
        harassment and constant threats of bodily injury."

1960 - Ivory Coast, Dahomey, Upper Volta & Niger declare independence from 
        their European colonial rulers.

1977 - The Medal of Freedom is awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin Luther 
        King, Jr. in a White House ceremony.

1987 - Bo Jackson signs a $7.4 million contract to play football for the Los

        Angeles Raiders for five years.  Jackson becomes a two-sport player
as 
        he continues to play baseball with the Kansas City Royals. 

1992 - Undeclared presidential hopeful Ross Perot, addressing the NAACP 
        convention in Nashville, Tennessee, startled and offended his 
        listeners by referring to the predominantly African American
audience 
        as "you people."

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