*                   Today in Black History - July 11                   *

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, dies 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.

1931 - Thurston Harris is born in Indianapolis, Indiana.  He will become
        a rhythm and blues vocalist.  He will be best known for his recording
        of "Little Bitty Pretty One."

1948 - Ernie Holmes, Pittsburgh Steelers defensive tackle in Super Bowl IX and
        X, is born.

1951 - Bonnie Pointer, member of the vocal group, The Pointer Sisters is born.

1953 - Leon Spinks, boxer (Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medal - 1976, World
        Heavyweight Champion in 1981 and 1983), is born.

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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