*                   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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