* Today in Black History - June 7 *
1863 - Three African American regiments and small detachment
of white troops repulse a division of Texans in a
hand-to-hand battle at Milliken's Bend, Louisiana.
1917 - Gwendolyn Brooks is born in Topeka, Kansas. She will
become the first African American to win the Pulitzer
Prize (1950). She will win this award for "Annie
Allen," which is about the coming of age of a young
African American and her feelings of loneliness, loss,
death and poverty. In 1963-1969 she will teach poetry
and fiction workshops and also freshman English and
20th century literature. In 1967, she will organize a
poetry writing workshop for a gang, and her home soon
became a meeting place for young people interested in
arts and politics. In 1985, she will become the first
African American woman to take the position of Poetry
Consultant to the Library of Congress. Her job will
be to give a lecture in autumn and a poetry reading in
the spring. She will be the 29th and last Poetry
Consultant. In 1988, she will become the second Poet
Laureate of Illinois. She also will be inducted into
the National Women's Hall of Fame.
1931 - David C. Driskell is born in Eatonton, Georgia. An
artist and professor of art at several universities,
Driskell will be acclaimed as one of the foremost art
historians and curators of African American art
exhibits.
1943 - Yolande Cornelia Giovanni, Jr. is born in Knoxville,
Tennessee. She will become a poet and author that will
be known for her books "Black Feeling", "Black Talk",
and "Black Judgment," and the name "Nikki." In 1973,
she will establish NikTom, Ltd., a communications
company that will edit and publish "Night Comes Softly,"
an anthology of poetry by black women, "Re: Creation,"
"Poem of Angela Yvonne Davis," and her other prominent
works. In the mid 1980's, her opposition to the boycott
of South Africa will lead to her being blacklisted by
TransAfrica and subsequently to bomb and death threats.
She will receive at least six honorary doctorate degrees
and a myriad of literary awards.
1946 - U.S. Supreme Court bans discrimination in interstate
travel.
1950 - U.S. Supreme Court avoids a general ruling on "separate
but equal" doctrine.
1958 - Prince Rogers Nelson is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He will become a singer and prolific songwriter and
producer known to the public as "Prince." An incurable
movie fan, he will have a passion for drama (and comedy).
His own films will include "Purple Rain," "Under the
Cherry Moon," and "Grafitti Bridge." "Purple Rain" (
1984) will be hailed by some critics as the best rock
movie ever made and earn Prince an Oscar for best
original song score and soundtrack album. Because of his
desire to have complete artistic control over his music,
he will endure several years of a contract dispute with
his label, Warner Brothers, which results in him appearing
in public with the word SLAVE written on his face. In 1993,
he will change his name to "The Artist Formerly Known As
Prince" (TAFKAP or The Artist). He will come out of the
Warner Brothers conflict happily. He will establish a new
relationship with EMI Records that will allow him to record
and produce whatever he wants to release.
1966 - The voter registration march from Memphis, Tennessee to
Jackson, Mississippi is continued by Martin Luther King, Jr.
and other civil rights groups and will register almost 4,000
African Americans. The march had been interrupted the
previous day by the shooting of James Meredith, by a white
sniper.
1987 - Mae Jemison, becomes the first African American woman
astronaut. Jemison entered Stanford University as a
16-year-old National Achievement Scholarship student. She
majored in Chemical Engineering and Afro-American Studies,
graduating in 1977. She then went on to Cornell University
to get a M.D. in 1981. She worked as a medical intern in Los
Angeles, California in 1981. Later, she served as a staff
doctor with Peace Corps in West Africa 1983-1985. Then she
worked as a general practitioner for CIGNA Health Plans of
California in Los Angeles from 1985 to 1987. After her
internship, she joined the Peace Corps for two years in West
Africa giving medical attention to Peace Corps volunteers
and State Department employees in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Finally, she became an astronaut for the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in Houston,
Texas in 1987.
1987 - Lloyd Richards wins a Tony as best director for the August
Wilson play "Fences". The play wins three other Tony awards,
for best play, best performance by an actor (James Earl
Jones), and best performance by a featured actress (Mary
Alice).
1998 - In a crime that shocks the nation, James Byrd Jr., a
49-year-old African American man, joins the ancestors after
being chained to a pickup truck and dragged to his death in
Jasper, Texas. Three men, white supremacists, are arrested
in the case. The atrocity will prompt President Clinton to
issue a press release condemning the act. Two of the
killers will be sentenced to death for the crime, a third
to life in prison.
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