*                  Today in Black History - April 19              *

1775 - With the assistance of African American soldiers, Minutemen
	defeat the British at Concord Bridge in the initial battle 
	of the Revolutionary War.

1837 - Cheyney University is founded as the first historically 
	Black institution of higher learning in America.  It is 
	also the first college in the United States to receive 
	official state certification as an institution of higher 
	academic education for African Americans.  Cheyney will 
	begin its existence in Philadelphia as the Institute for 
	Colored Youth. The Institute for Colored Youth successfully
	will provide a free classical education for qualified young 
	people. In 1902, the school will be moved to George 
	Cheyney's farm, 24 miles west of Philadelphia. In 1913 the 
	name will be changed to Cheyney Training School for 
	Teachers; in 1921 to the Normal School at Cheyney; in 1951 
	Cheyney State Teachers College; and in 1959, Cheyney State 
	College.  In 1983, Cheyney joined the State System of 
	Higher Education (SSHE) as Cheyney University of 
	Pennsylvania.

1866 - The African American citizens of Washington DC celebrate the
	abolition of slavery. 4,000 to 5,000 people assemble at the 
	White House and are addressed by President Andrew Johnson.  
	Led by two African American regiments, the spectators and 
	the procession proceed up the Pennsylvania Avenue to 
	Franklin Square for religious services and speeches by 
	prominent politicians. The sign on top of the platform 
	reads: "We have received our civil rights.  Give us the 
	right of suffrage and the work is done."

1942 - Atlanta University's first exhibition of African American 
	art is held.  Organized by Hale Woodruff, artist and former
	professor at the university, it will be popularly known as 
	the Atlanta Annual.  Winners in the first show will be 
	Charles Alston and Lois Mailou Jones.

1960 - Maj. General Frederic E. Davidson assumes command of the 
	Eighth Infantry Division in Germany and becomes the first 
	African American to lead an army division.

1960 - A National Education Association study reveals that African 
	Americans had lost thirty thousand teaching jobs since 1954 
	in seventeen Southern and Border states because of 
	discrimination and desegregation.

1960 - The home of Z. Alexander Looby, counsel for 153 students 
	arrested in sit-in demonstrations, is destroyed by a 
	dynamite bomb.  More than two thousand students march on 
	the Nashville City Hall in protest.

1971 - Walter Fauntroy takes office as the first elected 
	Congressional representative from the District of Columbia 
	since Reconstruction.

1975 - James B. Parsons becomes the first African American chief 
	judge of a federal court, the U.S. District Court in 
	Chicago. In 1961, Parsons became the first African American 
	district court judge.

1982 - Astronaut Guion S. Bluford Jr. becomes the first African 
	American to be selected for U.S. space missions.  He will 
	not, however be the first person of African descent in 
	space.  That honor belongs to Cuban cosmonaut, Arnaldo 
	Tamayo-Mendez, who went into space on a Russian mission 
	September 18, 1980 (Soyuz 38).

1994 - A Los Angeles jury awards $3.8 million to African American 
	motorist Rodney King in compensation/damages for the 
	beating he received at the hands of four Los Angeles 
	policemen.

1999 - Joseph Chebet of Kenya wins the Boston Marathon, in 2:9:52;
	Fatuma Roba of Ethiopia wins the women's race in 2:23:25. 
	
2003 - Cholly Atkins, Tony Award-winning choreographer, joins the 
	ancestors after succumbing to pancreatic cancer at the age 
	of 89.  He was choreographer for Marvin Gaye, The 
	Temptations and others.

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