* Today in Black History - July 17 *
1794 - Richard Allen organizes Philadelphia's Bethel African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
1794 - Absalom Jones and his followers dedicate The African Church
of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. On August 12, 1794, the St.
Thomas parishioners will affiliate with the Protestant
Episcopal Church.
1862 - Congress approves the rights of African Americans to bear
arms to fight in the Civil War and enlist in the Union Army
by passing two laws, the Confiscation and Militia acts.
Over 208,000 African Americans and their white officers
will serve in the Union Army, with 38,000 losing their
lives.
1863 - Unions troops, with First Kansas volunteers playing a
leading role, route rebels at Honey Springs, Indian
Territory. African American troops capture the colors of a
Texas regiment.
1911 - Frank Snowden is born in York County, Virginia. He will
become the foremost scholar on blacks in ancient history,
notably for his books "Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in
the Greco-Roman Experience" and "Before Color Prejudice:
The Ancient View of Blacks".
1935 - Carol Diann Johnson (Diahann Carroll) is born in the Bronx,
New York. She will be better known as Diahann Carroll, star
of Broadway ("House of Flowers"), television ("Julia"), and
films including "Carmen Jones" and "Claudine", the latter
earning her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress.
Beginning her music career at an early age, she will be the
recipient of a Metropolitan Opera scholarship for studies at
New York's High School of Music and Art at a mere ten years
of age. While still a teenager, she will begin working part-
time as a model, a TV actress, and as a nightclub singer,
leading to her Broadway debut (the Harold Arlen/Truman Capote
production "House of Flowers") and her film debut (the modern
version of Bizet's opera "Carmen" with an all-black cast
"Carmen Jones") both in 1954. More movie work will come her
way (including the 1959 film version of "Porgy & Bess"), as
well as a Tony Award in 1962 for her work on the Broadway
production "No Strings." Beginning in the late '50s, she will
launch a successful recording career, issuing albums on a
regular basis throughout the next two decades (including such
titles as 1957's "Diahann Carroll Sings Harold Arlen," 1960's
"Diahann Carroll and Andre Previn," and 1962's "The Fabulous
"Diahann Carroll," among many others). In the late '60s, she
will star in the TV sitcom "Julia," for which she will be
nominated for an Emmy Award and the recipient of a Golden
Globe Award for Best Actress. The '70s will see her give
arguably the finest acting performance of her career in 1974's
"Claudine," for which she was nominated for an Academy Award.
She will return to TV work in the mid-'80s with her portrayal
of businesswoman Dominique Devereaux on the hit nighttime soap
opera "Dynasty," while she earns her second Emmy nomination
for a guest appearance on the comedy series "A Different World"
(also during the same decade, she will publish an autobiography,
1986's "Diahann"). In the '90s, she will star in a production
of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Sunset Boulevard" and tour the U.S.
performing classic Broadway standards in "Almost Like Being in
Love: The Lerner and Loewe Songbook." 2001 will see the release
of the 16-track compilation "Nobody Sees Me Cry: The Best of
the Columbia Years."
1944 - An ammunitions depot at Port Chicago, California explodes
killing 320 men including 202 African Americans assigned by the
Navy to handle explosives. The resulting refusal of 258 African
Americans to return to the dangerous work formed the basis of
the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what will become
known as the Port Chicago Mutiny.
1959 - Billie Holiday, blues singer, joins the ancestors after
succumbing to liver failure at the age of 44 in Metropolitan
Hospital, New York City.
1967 - A racially motivated disturbance occurs in Cairo, Illinois
(within 100 miles of the Mississippi border. The Illinois
National Guard is mobilized during the three day civil
disturbance.
1967 - Innovative and famed jazz musician, John Coltrane joins the
ancestors after succumbing to cirrhosis of the liver at the age
of 40 in Huntington Hospital, Long Island, New York.
1981 - The Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicts Wayne B.
Williams, a twenty-three-year-old photographer, for the murder
of two of the twenty-eight Black youths killed in a series of
slayings and disappearances in Atlanta. William denies the
charges but will be convicted in February, 1982.
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