* Today in Black History - January 4 *
1787 - Prince Hall, founder of the first African American Masonic lodge,
and others petition the Massachusetts legislative for funds to
return to Africa. The plan is the first recorded effort by
African Americans to return to their homeland.
1832 - A major insurrection of slaves on Trinidad occurs.
1901 - Cyril Lionel Richard James is born in Tunapuna, Trinidad. He will
become a writer, historian, Marxist social critic, and activist
who deeply influenced the intellectual underpinnings of West
Indian and African movements for independence. He was born into
an educated family in colonial Trinidad. At the age of nine He
earned a scholarship to Queen's Royal College, in Port of Spain,
Trinidad, and graduated in 1918. In 1932 James left Trinidad for
England. He will become involved in socialist politics,
gravitating toward a faction of anti-Stalinist Marxists. He
applied Leon Trotsky's views about a worldwide workers'
revolution to his colonial home. The result, in part, was "The
Life of Captain Cipriani: An Account of British Government in
the West Indies" (1932), in which he called for Caribbean
independence. For a time in the 1970s he taught at Federal City
College in Washington, D.C. He lived the last years of his life
in London. Three volumes of his collected works appeared as "The
Future in the Present" (1977), "Spheres of Existence" (1980),
and "At the Rendezvous of Victory" (1984). He will join the
ancestors on May 31, 1989 in London, England.
1920 - Andrew "Rube" Foster organizes the Negro National Baseball
League.
1935 - Floyd Patterson is born in Waco, North Carolina. He will become
a boxer, winning a gold medal in the 1952 Summer Olympic Games
in the middleweight class. He will become the first gold
medallist to win a world professional title.
1937 - Grace Ann Bumbry is born in St. Louis, Missouri. She will grow up
at 1703 Goode Avenue in the city. She will join the Union
Memorial Methodist Church's choir at eleven, and sing at Sumner
High School. She will be a 1954 winner on the "Arthur Godfrey
Talent Scouts" show. After her concert debut in London in 1959,
Bumbry debuts with the Paris Opera the next year. In 1961,
Richard Wagner's grandson features her in Bayreuth, Germany's
Wagner Festival. The first person of African descent to sing
there, Bumbry will be an international sensation and win the
Wagner Medal. A mezzo-soprano who also successfully sang the
soprano repertoire, Grace Bumbry will record on four labels and
sing in concerts world wide. Her honors will include induction
into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, the UNESCO Award, the
Distinguished Alumna Award from the Academy of Music of the
West, Italy's Premio Giuseppe Verdi, and being named Commandeur
des Arts et Lettres by the French government.
1944 - Dr. Ralph J. Bunche is appointed the first African American
official in the U.S. State Department.
1971 - Dr. Melvin H. Evans is inaugurated as the first elected governor
of the U.S. Virgin Islands.
1985 - Congressman William H. Gray is elected chairman of the House
Budget Committee, the highest congressional post, to date, held
by an African American.
1986 - David Robinson blocks a N.C.A.A. record 14 shots while playing
for the U.S. Naval Academy.
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