* Today in Black History - August 21 *
1831 - Responding to a vision commanding him to lead his people to
freedom, Nat Turner and a group of seven freedom-fighting slaves
kill five members of the Travis family in Southampton County,
Virginia. Turner's revolt will last two days, involve 60 to 80
freedom-fighting slaves and result in the deaths of at least 57
whites before they go into hiding. Nat Turner manages to escape
capture for over six weeks. After his capture, he confesses to
his actions, is tried, and executed. This revolt is significant
because it will make the problem of slavery visible to the
Northerners, who within the next 30 years will fight and die to
end America's "peculiar institution."
1906 - William "Count" Basie is born in Redbank, New Jersey. One of the
most influential forces in jazz, he will amass numerous awards,
including three Grammys and Kennedy Center Honors in 1981 . He will
join the ancestors in 1984. NOTE: Many sources will have 1904 for
Count Basie's birth year. Our source for his birth and death is
the Kennedy Center Archives documenting "The Honors" bestowed on
him in 1981.
1927 - The Fourth Pan-African Congress meets in New York City.
1932 - Melvin Van Pebbles is born in Chicago, Illinois. A writer
and dramatist, he will produce some of the more important
African American feature films of the 1960's and 1970's,
including "Story of a Three Day Pass," "Watermelon Man,"
"Sweet Sweetback's Baadass Song" and the classic, "Putney
Swope."
1936 - Wilt Chamberlain is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Achieving a height of 6'11" in high school, he will be
recruited to play basketball for Kansas University.
Chamberlain will leave Kansas University in his third year
to play with the Harlem Globetrotters and join the Philadelphia
Warriors (later 76ers) in 1959. He will join the Los Angeles
Lakers in 1969 and become a player-coach in 1968 for the San
Diego Conquistadors of the American Basketball Association.
He will lead the NBA in scoring seven times, accumulate a
4,029 season point record and become a seven-time all-NBA
first teamer. He will join the ancestors in 1999.
1938 - The classic recording, "Ain't Misbehavin" is made by Fats
Waller.
1939 - Clarence Williams III is born in New York City. He will become
an actor best known for his starring role in the television
series, "The Mod Squad" as Lincoln.
1943 - Harriet M. West becomes the first African American woman major
in the Women's Army Corps (WAC). She becomes chief of planning
in the Bureau Control Division at the WAC headquarters in
Washington, DC.
1945 - Willie Lanier (Pro Football Hall of Famer and Kansas City Chiefs
linebacker: Super Bowl IV), is born.
1954 - Archie Griffin (Heisman Trophy winner: Ohio State [1974 & 1975];
Cincinnati Bengals running back: Super Bowl XVI), is born.
1968 - Marine James Anderson Jr. becomes the first African American to
be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in
the Vietnam War.
1972 - The Republican National Convention convenes in Miami Beach,
Florida, with fifty-six African American delegates, 4.2 per cent
of the total.
1986 - More than 1,700 people die when toxic gas erupts from a volcanic
lake in the West African nation of Cameroon.
1998 - Juanita Kidd Stout, the first African American woman to serve on
the supreme court in any state (January, 1988), joins the ancestors
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Stout loses a battle against
leukemia at Thomas Jefferson Hospital.
2000 - Julian Richardson, the owner of a San Francisco book store that
served as a meeting place for black artists and activists in the
city, joins the ancestors after succumbing to heart failure at the
age of 84. He established the Marcus Bookstore in 1960, naming it
after Black nationalist writer and activist Marcus Garvey. The
store was a staple of black culture and was a gathering place for
Black Panthers supporters during the civil rights era. Through the
years, writers such as Alice Walker, Ishmael Reed, Terry MacMillan
and Cornel West came to the bookstore. He studied lithography in
college and opened his own printing business. He used his skills to
print books, pamphlets and manuscripts on black culture that
otherwise would have to have been ordered from the East Coast.
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