* Today in Black History - May 25 *
1878 - Tapdancing legend Bill "Bojangles" (Luther) Robinson is
born in Richmond, Virginia. He will star in vaudeville
and in many movies such as "The Littliest Rebel," "In Old
Kentucky," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm," and "The Little
Colonel". He will join the ancestors on November 25,
1949 after succumbing to a chronic heart condition. His
body will lay in state at an armory in Harlem; schools
will be closed, thousands will line the streets waiting
for a glimpse of his bier, and he will be eulogized by
politicians, black and white--perhaps more lavishly than
any other African American of his time.
1905 - Dorothy Burnett (later Wesley) is born in Warrenton,
Virginia. She will become a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the
first African American woman to receive a Masters of
Library Science degree from Columbia University, and will
author several African American historical works. She will
be a long-time librarian at the Howard University Moorland-
Spingarn Research Center and will be responsible for
developing it into one of the world's largest collections
of material authored by and about people of African descent.
1919 - Millionaire Madame C.J. Walker joins the ancestors at the
age of 52 at Irvington-on-the-Hudson, New York. She was the
founder of the Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, the
largest African American haircare company of its time. After
her death, a substantial portion of her business's proceeds
will be donated to African American organizations and
scholarships.
1932 - K.C. Jones is born in San Francisco, California. He will
become a member of the Olympic basketball team and help win
the 1956 Olympic Gold Medal. He will then become a
professional basketball player with the Boston Celtics, where
he will help win eight NBA titles. He will then win two
championships as the coach of the Celtics. He will also be
the head coach of the Washington Bullets and the Seattle
Supersonics. He will have 522 wins as a NBA coach and in 1997
will become the coach of American Basketball League women's
team, the New England Blizzard. After the league disbands,
he will join the coaching staff of the women's basketball
team at the University of Rhode Island, at the age of 67.
1935 - This is "the greatest day in the history of track,"
according to "The New York Times." Jesse Owens of Ohio State
University breaks two world sprint records, ties a third, and
breaks a long jump world record in a meet at the University
of Michigan in Ann Arbor, all in one hour.
1936 - David Levering Lewis is born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He
will become a historian and biographer. Professor Lewis will
receive his Ph.D. in modern European history from the London
School of Economics and Political Science in 1962. His
research and publications will focus on African American
history, conceptions of race and racism, and the dynamics of
European colonialism, especially in Africa. He will author
a biography of Du Bois entitled "W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography
of a Race," which will win a Pulitzer prize in 1994. His
other works include "King: A Biography" (1970), "Prisoners
of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair" (1975), "When Harlem Was in
Vogue" (1982), "The Race to Fashoda: European Colonialism and
the African Resistance to the Scramble for Africa" (1987),
and "W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader" (1995).
1943 - Leslie Uggams is born in Washington Heights, New York. She
will make her acting debut on television's "Beulah" and be a
regular on The Mitch Miller Show before achieving acclaim in
Broadway's "Hallelujah Baby" and TV's "Roots."
1943 - A riot, started by white workers, occurs in a Mobile,
Alabama shipyard over the job upgrading of twelve African
American workers.
1959 - The U.S. Supreme Court declares a Louisiana law enforcing a
ban on bouts between African American and white boxers to be
unconstitutional.
1963 - The first observance of African Liberation Day occurs. It
begins at the founding conference of the Organization of
African Unity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
1964 - The closing of schools to avoid desegregation is ruled
unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prince Edward
County, Virginia will have to reopen and desegregate its
schools.
1965 - A very short heavyweight title fight occurs in Lewiston,
Maine. Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) knocks out
challenger, Sonny Liston, in one minute and 56 seconds of
the first round. Liston never sees the punch coming.
Neither did an unbelieving crowd at ringside, nor those in
theatres all over the world watching the fight on closed-
circuit TV.
1971 - A young African American woman, Jo Etha Collier, joins the
ancestors after being killed in Drew, Mississippi by a
bullet fired from a passing car. Three whites are arrested
on May 26 and charged with the unprovoked attack.
1994 - The United Nations Security Council lifts a 10-year-old ban
on weapons exports from South Africa, ending the last of its
apartheid-era embargos.
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